Living in the past.

There is something I’ve observed many a time, and which I engage upon once in a while.

The old comrades getting together, and talking about our previous campaigns:

– What went wrong with them

– What went right with them

– Who was involved in them

and

– All the funny things which happened while they were going on.

These discussions can be very enjoyable to participant in, but only once in a while.

There are just too many new projects / new campaigns which I want to spend my life engaged upon.

& yet

An exercise in secrecy.

As many of you will know I am a Core Participant [ CP ] in the Undercover Policing Inquiry. At the end of January the following piece about the Undercover Policing Inquiry was published on the Campaign Against Police Surveillance website.

UCPI FAQ: The Spycops Public Inquiry

What really gets me is that so much information is being withheld on what the spycops did to me and many other activists.

The inquiry is withholding as much information about the various spycops as it can get away with.

At the same time the inquiry has put a legal restriction order on revealing both the cover and real names of most of these spycops.

Then eventually when we will get our individual SDS files, a very high percentage of what is in them will be redacted.

Many more years.

A lot of my old friends & comrades are now dead.

Thus it is going to be very difficult to know the extent they were spied upon.

Then there are all those individuals who I worked with in various groups or organisations over the years, and which I’ve now lost contact with.

That’s something which happens to us all.

While I am still in regular contact with others who live a long way from me,

but am unable to see on a regular basis.

Shock.

Discovering about the activities of the SDS goes way beyond shocking.

This is no surprise when you consider the feelings of surprise, anger, betrayal, and emotional distress which comes with the discovery of becoming a spycop victim.

Thus in many ways the whole process leaves me feeling very isolated,

and with little energy spare for more high stress activities.

Come the year 2026

I’ll be around 76 by the time the inquiry report is published.

Is it any wonder the whole thing leaves me with a great feeling of sadness?

Though I also feel it to be a process of mourning without mourning.

Other Complications.

There is another aspect to this which also complicates this for me.

Working to stop the nukiller power issue does take a lot of my time,

and involves a lot of effort.

If I were to disengage from this work for a while it might give me a rest,

but with so few activists, and so much which needs to be done, this is not the time to ease off for a while.

Thus I am going to keep working on this issue.

What ever else, most of the inquiry hearings dealing with the aspects of the time frame which concerns me the most will be completed by some time next year,

and I should of received the redacted SDS files about my activities.

Until that is over I’m going to be very over-stretched indeed.

Living in the past.

I knew Bob Robinson as a supposed friend and comrade in the mid 1980s.

This summer it will be nine years since I learnt he was a spycop with the real name of Dr Robert Lambert.

That is why I am a CP in the spycops public inquiry.

I Don’t want to spend my twilight years trying to discover just what political and emotional damage Bob and the rest of the SDS did while undercover.

& Yet

It is important to know just what the various spycops got up to. Not knowing is emotionally distressing to everyone who is a spycop victim.

For me it is very important to state all of the above, and keep working away on these various issues.

& Yet

It does come with a high emotional cost.