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Road Protest Recall

Emma, a road protestor based at the Birmingham North Relief Road site, writes about the struggle

270 years ago, when the "authorities" were beginning to take common land, George Green, Wanstead was fenced round. Many trees were growing there then - among them one Sweet Chestnut, little more than a sapling at the time. Anyway, local people weren't having any of it. They tore down the fence and grabbed back their common.

The Sweet Chestnut tree on George Green was around 300 years old by the time I came into contact with it. I'd arrived there to join the M11 Link Road protest. Once again it was fenced off ready for felling. And again local people - a lollipop lady called Jeanie and a group of schoolchildren - ripped down the fence. As a result of this Jeanie lost her job. She'd been wearing her uniform at the time (sacrilege?). Jeanie, a small but loud Welsh woman put up a fight, of course. She won and managed to reclaim her lollipop, white coat and regular income.

It was a tree at the M11 site, which was first recognised by the High Court as a legal dwelling. This decision meant it couldn't just be chopped down. Fellers would have to go through legal channels to get an eviction order. The court ruled that if the tree had a post box it must be recognised in law as a dwelling place. Well, the tree (I think it might have been the Sweet Chestnut, but can't remember for sure) received hundreds of letters from all over the world. A small book has since been compiled called "Dear Tree", a wonderful 3-level title, for the tree was dear: in that it was the cause of great expense to the authorities; dear: as in well loved by the people who lived near it; and "dear": as in the recipient of letters. The book contains some of the letters the tree received.

To my knowledge the M11 protest was one of the first. Certainly the first where bunkers and tunnels were dug - though tiny compared to the tunnels constructed at protest sites since. This site was different to later ones too in that the site was mainly houses: Grove Green Road, which was to be demolished to make way for the M11; and, of course, Claremont Road, where a whole street, which looked out on to the tube line from one side, was to be flattened.

There was no traffic in this street - it was blocked and not an access road anyway. A few travellers' vans were parked, that's all. The tube line, running the length of the street, gave residents something different to look out at.

Because the protest included a whole street, it gave rise to some unique forms of defence. One house was filled from top to bottom with old tyres to hold up the bulldozing. Each tyre would have to be removed by hand first. Rubber makes the arms of a JCB bounce back off the roof. Not bad as tactics go. We created further delays by putting nets between houses and trees.

I was living at 58 Claremont Road. Number 58 was situated more or less at the centre of the row. We knew that once the eviction started we would have a bit of time to play with. Expecting those who were evicting us to start from each end and work their way in, we'd prepared a trap door in our place, which was to be closed over the top of the stairs when the bailiffs arrived. We intended to be nailed into place. Already we'd barricaded the windows with tin sheeting and wood. A huge tower of scaffolding was erected on one roof and was, in fact, the last stand to be evicted.

Most of the houses still had electricity, so on the first night of the eviction (it began at 2pm) we were able to watch what was happening on our black and white telly. It felt weird, surreal even, seeing it all on the small screen and simultaneously hearing whirring machinery and crashing noises on the outside. Halfway through the 9 o' clock news our electricity was cut off.

The eviction took four days. Not long when you compare it with the 19-day evictions since, but at the time it was impressive.

Since then I've taken part in other road protests and am now living on the Birmingham Northern Relief Road site.

Recently a posse of police officers arrived on the site. Because they're inexperienced in the art of evicting eco-warriors they'd hit on the idea of asking us how they should do it! Err, how about:"Be gentle with me officer"?