1 post tagged “brianhaw”
On a sunny Sunday morning on November 19th, the occasion of my 41st birthday, I rose at 7:30 am, still weary from my PodcastConUK conference exertions the day before. I packed my bags in preparation for a long journey north to Huddersfield later in the day and tried to shake the tiredness from my bones, it was the start of a long exhilarating day and I was functioning on three hours sleep, a small dose of optimism and a whole lot of adrenalin.
An hour or so later, I boarded a tube at Angel, Islington, and travelled for about 30 minute's to the heart of Britain's political power in Parliament Square. My mission was simple, to meet with, talk to, and interview, the one man in Britain still currently allowed the right of permanent protest outside of the House's of Parliament. That man's name, for any of you who might happen not to know it is Mr Brian Haw.
I'd heard, read, and thought a lot about Brian, I thought I knew what he'd look like and how he'd sound from the pictures and recordings I'd seen and heard on the web. In retrospect I had no real idea. People are different in the flesh, deeper, fleshier, a whole lot more three-dimensional and human.
Some people had told me that he was a nutter, driven mad by his long years on the streets outside Parliament, that he was prone to mood swings and might launch a verbal tirade at me, I was naturally a little nervous, but I knew, I had to meet him. I had to see for myself what this man who'd managed to get right into the teeth of the British political establishment was really like.
I told myself whatever kind of man he was, he represented something important, something valuable in a supposedly free-society, the right to protest and to freedom of speech, in an era of almost unprecedented fear, this was surely worth more than whether or not he was playing with a full deck of cards.
At around 9:30 I crossed over the road and headed in the direction of Brian's small encampment directly opposite the main Parliament building. I had no idea what I was going to say as I approached the row of placards covered by pictures of dead and mutilated babies.
Brian and one of his supporters, a lady I later found out was called Maria were busy cleaning the tarpaulin cover they sleep under with a wooden brush, but as soon as Brian noticed me he ambled over wearing a somewhat serious expression. Within a few moments we struck up a conversation, with me commenting that it was my birthday, that I'd come to London to interview him and that I thought his struggle was both fascinating and extremely important. He nodded slowly, squinting into the morning sun and said he would give me an interview but he needed to wake up properly first.
At that moment my phone went off. It was my wife calling to see how and where I was. We had barely spoken for two days and she was anxious to wish me a happy birthday. She promptly started singing down the phone and something in my expression caught Brian's attention. I gestured and said "it's my wife, she's singing happy birthday to me!" Brian and Maria both smiled and Brian seemed to visibly relax.
After the phone call I mentioned to Brian that my last podcast had been about the murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. He immediately began rummaging around beneath one of the plastic covers behind which he stored a variety of placards and possessions and produced a large image of Anna. It was dramatically enhanced with a fake red blood effect. Brian proceeded to lay it out carefully using the bag I had been carrying to prop it up.
At this point Maria who had been listening carefully to our conversation approached and offered me a cup of coffee, followed moments later by a biscuit. I was deeply touched by this gesture. As I stood outside the nations Parliament building munching and drinking on the morning of my birthday, I somehow felt humbled by them. Here were two people, with little in the way of resources who nevertheless were willing to share that small amount with a total stranger.
We chatted for a good hour or so, during which time one of Brian's Sunday supporters turned up. A thin 20 something guy by the name of Paul, who told me he visited every weekend, occasionally staying the night. He worked as an IT consultant during he week and said he'd been coming down for over two years. We stood there all four of us on the faded green lawn outside the House's of Parliament drinking coffee and chatting amiably whilst Brian smoked copious amounts of roll-ups and Maria bustled around tidying and cleaning their encampment.
Tourists wandered around on the other side of the street, staring up at the parliament building constantly photographing it, taking time to stage their group poses. Strangely few of them paid much attention to us, with only the odd person crossing over to examine the display.
Eventually I removed the recording equipment and microphone from my black shoulder bag and hung the the shoulder strap attached too my new solid state digital recorder over Brian. I had decided by this point that Brian didn't need me to interview him. It was obvious he would be happier simply telling his story and saying what was on his mind. I handed him the microphone, checking the levels on the recorder, carefully placed the headphones over his badge festooned and extremely battered hat and stepped back. He began a microphone check, during which he sang a chorus of happy birthday with a slightly amended lyric to me.
"It's the 19th of November 2006... and it's John's birthday Brian said, before launching into a hearty chorus of happy birthday with the amended lyric. "Happy Birthday to you, Squashed tomatoes and stew, bread and butter in the gutter, Happy birthday to you" he sang, merrily grinning like a small child with a new toy. I laughed, feeling somewhat delighted by the fact he was adding such a nice personal touch to my podcast. It was obvious that where interviews and media attention were concerned Brian Haw was an old hand. It was easier to simply let him do his thing.
I watched as he wandered off a few paces and began speaking softly into the microphone, pacing slowly backwards and forwards as he spoke. Over the next forty minutes he continued in this manner, whilst I chatted to Maria and Paul and consumed several more biscuits and another cup of coffee. Eventually he ambled back over handing me the recorder and the microphone and saying "I can't think of anything else to say right now, I hope that will be alright for you."
A few moments later as I had just finished putting the equipment away a white van passed close by and someone leaned out of the passenger window screaming a torrent of abuse at Brian. This was jarring, as up until that point, there had been a succession of tourist buses going past, all cheering and waving and the odd motorist beeping horns in support. Brian appeared unsettled also and proceeded to walk up the street in the direction of the retreating van waving his arms and shouting at the car "why don't you look at the placards, you're not disrespecting me you idiot, you're disrespecting the murdered children!"
This evidently incensed the occupants of the car because seconds later a bulldog of a man wearing a Scotland football top came hammering out of the car towards Brian. As he approached, I was amazed by how angry he appeared to be, it didn't seem to have any real context, Brian had only responded to the torrent of four-letter abuse that had been hurled at him as they drove past. He hadn't even done so in aggressive way, yet here was this guy literally running towards us, his face absolutely contorted with rage.
Brian backed away down the street shouting, "don't you attack me, don't you hit me, look at the placards, look at the children" and when that didn't work he shouted "do you have a child, why won't you look at the children?" The guy seemed to get angrier with every word Brian spoke and kept shouting "I'm going to fucking kill you, you fucking nutter, shut up or I'm going to break your fucking neck!" The rest of us followed alongside, shadowing the pair as Brian continued backing away up the street.
At this point, the guy noticed what was happening and turned towards us. He turned sharply from his pursuit of Brian and leered threateningly over Maria shouting "get out of my way bitch!" He looked at me as if noticing me for the first time. I held his gaze, though I was pretty uncomfortable doing so. He came quickly towards me placing his face an inch or two from my own. "What you listening to this fucking guy for!?" he screamed. For a few seconds I thought he was going to head-butt me but as I had no other choice, I simply stared back at him without moving and in the calmest and most confident voice I could muster replied "Well I'm not going to listen to you am I!" He looked for a second as if he was literally going to burst and then turned away and began heading back up the street shouting "he's a fucking nutter, he's a fucking idiot, you're all fucking mad!" A few seconds later he was back in the car and whoever was driving the vehicle pulled off.
We all breathed a huge collective sigh of relief. Maria immediately set about calming everybody by preparing yet another round of tea and coffee and although the car re-appeared about ten minutes later, this time the occupants simply drove past, whist we deliberately and self-consciously ignored them. Brian commented "you notice we didn't see any coppers anywhere when that was going on?"
At this point I produced my second smaller recording rig and conducted a brief interview with Brian to capture some of the reaction to what had just happened. We did a short conversational interview during which Brian commented that this had happened many times before and that he wasn't sure if they were all random members of the public.
I spent about another hour in the company of Brian, Maria and Paul. At this point it was getting up towards mid-day and I was beginning to worry that I would miss my train back home. As I left, both Brian and Maria gave me a hug. I told them I'd be back up if I could afford it for the court dates in January and wished them all the very best. As I crossed back over the road, heading away from their encampment they all stood there waving and smiling. I was struck once again by the sheer kindness and bravery they displayed whilst conducting this protest.
Whatever I had expected that morning they had somehow managed to surpass it. With simple acts of kindness, open displays of friendliness and courage in the face of a hostility few people face on any kind of regular basis. I found myself full of admiration for the way they are fighting their corner.
Brian Haw and his small band of supporters are facing down the collective might of the British political establishment. They protest against the genocidal effects of war on innocent people and upon children in particular and show solidarity with those whom the state disregards. Brian Haw is now the only man in Britain who has the right of legal protest outside our nations parliament. In that respect and in many others he is unique. I sincerely hope, for all our sakes, and for the future of freedom in our country that he does not remain so.
The podcast is here
Briian Haw's website is here
