For many years I have told the story about going up a dock
\nyard crane.<\/p>\n
This is the first time that I have ever written about just what
\nwent wrong upon the action, and just how it effected me.<\/p>\n
Of necessity this is very much a personal account.<\/p>\n
To my knowledge there has never been any academic account
\nof the action.<\/p>\n
Summary.<\/strong><\/p>\n July 4th 1979.<\/p>\n This was a direct action that took place in a dock yard where It was one of those actions upon where every part of the Some of us on the action had never meet before, and there was Most of us on the action were stopped and held by the police It also involved going up a dock yard crane, Needless to say, Various people who had never intended to climb up the cranes <\/strong><\/p>\n What Went Wrong.<\/strong><\/p>\n The action was part of a campaign by the Seven Side Alliance The Seven Side alliance was made up of Anti-nukiller groups. A small demonstration had taken place at docks during the I had meet some of the people who were going to take place on Of necessity the group in Stroud undertook a coordinating Thus we had to rely very heavily upon the local knowledge of There was no Nonviolent training for the action, As an aside: It was the people who were supposed to be doing some of the None of us from outside of the area were provided with a maps We only ever managed to get something like an hour & half Being stopped by the police and held for 1hour & 40 minutes Neither had we ever dreamed that we would have to push a Once released and overlooking the docks we expected the It had also been decided that a press release would be put out Thus one of the group had to make a phone call to make sure It was at that stage that things seemed to take on their own No one had though about checking out if anyone who planned When we entered the docks it was still early dawn, At that stage I just froze.<\/p>\n It must of been some sort of self preservation instinct that No one had any hard hats, slip proof footwear, life jackets, or These were the days before anyone ever really gave much Later on others arrived everyone at the docks and went up on Thus when the docks was cleared by the police: – The dockyard train turning up hauling the drums of nukiller No one had given any thought as to what might be done if this After this happened those on the sit down were carried on by At this stage there was one on the action who had any list We had all left our bags in a house in Stroud, as a just in case, This being in the era before mobile phones, it was only the There was also no local contacts that we could call upon for When the police cleared the docks and carried away those When the guy from Stroud went off to chase the police car It might also be noted that no real thought had been given Within the next couple of hours a lot of local supporters While the docks were closed to us outsiders, As vehicle went in or out of the dock gates people were sitting It happened so many times that those of us who were by the Yet again this was an unplanned for action.<\/p>\n Something else which had not been planned for, As luck would have it no one was arrested that day, Getting back from the action.<\/strong><\/p>\n How we might all get back from the action to pick up our bags To this day I have no idea just how one would make the Journey In the evening I went back on the bus with the group who were I was staying at Bristol at the time.<\/p>\n You can imagine just how tired we all were by that stage.<\/p>\n What happened on the Friday.<\/strong><\/p>\n The demonstration on the Friday involved just a small number While one group of people held a symbolic protest at one side The intention was that the group who got in to the docks If the idea of people chaining them selves to the dockyard lock Yet again no one who had volunteer to undertake this action I didn’t volunteer to take part in this action as I’m not a After that week there was no follow up meetings for those of With just 3 exceptions, When I got back to London on the weekend there was no real What I did find that helped me was to write a long account of 1980<\/strong><\/p>\n The next year there was another action just outside of A scaffolding tower was placed upon the small railway line In 1981 the dumping of nukiller waste was suspended, My own take upon being involved within any NVDA as a result While this account might be a good one to show just was might It is not just the need for proper planning, It is the follow up, For many years I have told the story about going up a dock yard crane. This is the first time that I have ever written about just what went wrong upon the action, and just how it effected me. Of necessity this is very much a personal account. To my knowledge there has never been … Continue reading The Sharpness Action – July 1979.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,16,24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theproject.me.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nlow level nukiller waste was being loaded on to a ship to be
\ndumped at sea.<\/p>\n
\nplanning went wrong.<\/p>\n
\nno attempt to do any NVDA training before we set out for the
\naction.<\/p>\n
\non the way to the docks.
\n& thus no one landed up in the place they were supposed to be.<\/p>\n
\nand the unplanned action of various people sitting in front of
\na dock side train.<\/p>\n
\n& whatever the intention ,
\nthe whole concept of support people and affinity groups did
\nnot come in to play.<\/p>\n
\nwere on them when the police started to carry away everyone
\nelse who was in the area,
\nand then the real fun bit kicked in to place….<\/p>\n
\nto stop drums of low Level nukiller waste being loaded upon a
\nship at Sharpness Docks and then dumped at sea.<\/p>\n
\nThe largest of which were from Stroud & Bristol.<\/p>\n
\nloading of the boat during 1978,
\nbut only by people from Stroud and the immediate area.<\/p>\n
\nthe action before, but many of us on the action had only meet
\nfor the first time the night before.<\/p>\n
\nroll on the action,
\nand so most of the planning for the meeting was as much of a
\nbriefing about what had been done so far in preparation for
\nthe action as anything else.<\/p>\n
\nthose who lived within the Stroud area.<\/p>\n
\nand no thoughts were given about any contingency planning.<\/p>\n
\nIt might also noted that such NVDA (Nonviolent Direct Action)
\ntraining which had taken place in the UK during the 1970s,
\nwas aimed towards running demonstrations,
\nrather than this kind of more dramatic action.<\/p>\n
\nsupport rolls that could not get away from Stroud:
\nbecause the vehicle they were in started to malfunction.<\/p>\n
\nof the area,
\nthough I do recall been shown a sketch map of the docks.<\/p>\n
\nsleep upon the floor before setting out for the action.<\/p>\n
\non the way to the docks was something that had never built in
\nto the planning scenario.<\/p>\n
\npolice vehicle along the road after we were released.
\nThis was due to the police vehicle having run down its
\nbatteries while we being held in the middle of a very narrow
\ncountry lane.<\/p>\n
\nplace to be full of the police,
\nbut the first of them only turned up some 20 minutes after we
\nentered the docks.<\/p>\n
\nat the time we were scheduled to arrive at the docks, but no
\none had thought about what would happen if this action was
\ndelayed.<\/p>\n
\nthat this call was not made until we had entered the docks.<\/p>\n
\nmomentum.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nto go on the action might just happen to suffer from vertigo.<\/p>\n
\nand everyone who was with me just wanted to go run for a
\ncrane and climb up it.<\/p>\n
\nkicked in. Though in retrospect that seems like it being very
\nsensible indeed.<\/p>\n
\nany kind of safety harnesses with them.<\/p>\n
\nconsideration to health and safety issues.<\/p>\n
\nto the cranes, and then down to the dockside again:
\n– Myself included.<\/p>\n
\nNo one was in the position that they had planned to at.<\/p>\n
\nwaste was an unexpected occurrence.<\/p>\n
\nmight happen, and thus the sit down in front of the dockside
\nrailway train was a totally spontaneous action.<\/p>\n
\nthe police & dumped down the road.<\/p>\n
\nnames of who was were still in the docks,
\nor any contact addresses for them if things went wrong.<\/p>\n
\nand the only really useful phone number I had was that of a
\nlawyer.<\/p>\n
\npublic phone near to the docks that was available for us to
\nuse.<\/p>\n
\nhelp within the Sharpness village.<\/p>\n
\nwho did the sit down there was only one guy from Stroud and
\nmyself to do any contact work with others.<\/p>\n
\nthat had driven off with those who had sat in front of the
\ndockyard train, it left me as the only person to observe what
\nwas going on at the dock yard gate.<\/p>\n
\nabout how we might record the action. I had the only camera
\non the dockside, and thus I took the only photos which exist of
\nthis event.
\n( The photos are now with my archive at the IISH in Amsterdam. )<\/p>\n
\nturned up, as did some of the press.<\/p>\n
\nand people were on the cranes,
\nthere was a lot of people milling in front of the dock gates.<\/p>\n
\ndown in the road,
\nbut the police would just pick them up and dump them on to the
\ngrass verge.<\/p>\n
\ngate became very blase about the whole thing.<\/p>\n
\nwas a small boat which got in docks and was apprehended.<\/p>\n
\nbut those on the cranes were held by the police before being
\nreleased.<\/p>\n
\nwas something else which had been overlooked,
\nThus it was just a matter of luck who was around and able to
\ngive us a lift back to Stroud.<\/p>\n
\nfrom Sharpness to Stroud by bus.<\/p>\n
\nfrom Bristol.<\/p>\n
\nof people.<\/p>\n
\nof the docks,
\nanother small group went in to the docks from the other end.<\/p>\n
\nwould chain themselves on to the lock gate which gave the
\nships access to the River Seven.<\/p>\n
\ngate had taken place, then we may of had some of the same kind
\nof logistical problems to face as a few days earlier.<\/p>\n
\nwas wearing a hard hat, life jacket, life jacket, or safety
\nharness.<\/p>\n
\nswimmer.<\/p>\n
\nus who were upon the action,
\n&
\nNo follow on support too .<\/p>\n
\nI never meet any one else who was on the action from that
\nweek on.<\/p>\n
\nimmediate emotional support awaiting me,
\nand no one who was near me with whom I should share this as a
\ncommon experience with.<\/p>\n
\nthe action which appeared in the Anarchist Periodical
\nFreedom – July 28th 1979 .<\/p>\n
\nSharpness.<\/p>\n
\njust outside of the docks. This held up the transportation of
\nthe nukiller waste drums to the ship.<\/p>\n
\nand has never been resumed.<\/p>\n
\nof being on the Sharpness Action.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\ngo wrong on an action,
\nand thus show the need for some proper contingency
\nplanning:
\nthere is also something else which needs to be said.<\/p>\n
\nand NVDA training for an action which needs to be considered.<\/p>\n
\nand follow up support for those who take part in actions
\nwhich really needs to be worked upon by those who engage
\nupon NVDA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"