Fairmile Eviction - At Long Last!
“Before I go, I’d like to talk to the guy that controls those incredible men in the tunnels!"
Last words of Lieutenant Colonel George Eyster, praising the bravery and determination of the Vietnamese tunnel fighters, Chuchi district, S. Vietnam 1966.
At 9.30 p.m. on Thursday 23rd January the long awaited eviction of the Fairmile camp, the longest running road protest site in the country, began with a cordon being put around the site, and climbers going up to cut the access walkways.
The Under Sheriff of Devon, Trevor Coleman, had hoped to find the camp virtually empty, but despite the surprise of the timing of the attack, there were 20-25 people in the trees and five people in the tunnels. This was not going to be a one day eviction! No work was done overnight, merely a serious cordon, including razor wire coils, placed around the site and police dogs being used. Despite this at least 15 people breached the police lines and joined their colleagues up the trees. Due to Richard Turner’s bunch worrying at the prospect of no more expensive climbing holidays funded by tree evictions, and also the fact that those in the trees kept their cool, the first people were not removed from the trees for quite a while.
During this time, five masked up pot holers and two ‘safety officers’ began to shore up the first ten feet of the Big Mama tunnel network. Following the request published in the last Action Update about tracking down the cavers that have been used in recent tunnel evictions, a tip off has been received that they are hired from Peter Faulding at Specialist Rescue International, 128 Station Road, Redhill, RH1 1ET. Apparently it trades from PO Box 266, Redhill, tel: 01737 244652. Check out the accuracy of this information before acting on it. It took until 1pm on Sunday 26th before climbers had removed the last of the tree defenders, (that must have funded a climbing trip to the Andes) who just happened to be someone who had been previously employed as a Newbury security guard! At this stage the underground bailiffs had failed to breach even the first door in the Labyrinth. The tunnelers decided to issue demands which, if met, would mean that they would leave of their own accord. Unfortunately early morning radio news alerted the Sheriff to a sneak preview of these demands and he responded by evicting the communications rig at 7am. Despite this the demands were issued on behalf of the tunnelers at 9am, and the media circus, that we are sure everyone witnessed, began in earnest. The demands did to some extent force the press to look at the issues relating to the building of this road and so all was not lost. Unsurprisingly Trevor Coleman the Under Sheriff turned them down.
In London, around this time, work was stopped for the day on a Balfour Beatty site when five people from London Reclaim The Streets climbed a crane and hung a banner reading ‘Privatised Vandalism - stop building DBFO’s. We love you Fairmile’. (Balfour Beatty are involved in the construction of the A30).
Back in Fairmile, through a mixture of trickery on behalf of the ‘safety officers’ and frantic digging, the bailiffs slowly removed the residents. As each one came out they entered into the clutches of an increasingly more rabid and sensationalised media machine. They finally removed Swampy after six days and twenty-three hours, making this the longest and most closely watched eviction ever. The frightening extent of the media’s monopoly on the public’s consciousness has been demonstrated in their ability to put public opinion on our side! This has happened to such an extent that recuperation, as the specialist jargon goes, has become a real threat! Although all of the people that were down the tunnels have got their heads screwed on, the intense pressure from the media for ‘human interest’ stories has resulted in articles like the one in The Express, (3rd February), in which they dressed Swampy up in a variety of expensive suits and then reassured their readers that underneath the scruffy exterior and veneer of anti-state ideas, there beats a respectable suburban middle-class heart! In all fairness to Swampy, he did do it with his tongue firmly in his cheek and the money went straight to paying off his £500 fine for damaging surveying equipment at Newbury last year. To further illustrate the point, Animal, on emerging from her stint in the tunnels, has been offered a column in The Mirror, entitled (you’ll like this) ‘Animal Writes’! Very funny... not. She has yet to make a decision, but has said that if she does do it, she will use the column to expose multinationals and to galvanise people into taking action! We have yet to see whether or not any radical ideas she may try to get across will be censored out of existence! We will not even go into the offer from a very large record company to record a song!
P.S Wasn’t the Fairmile eviction just so fluffy? Don’t you think that all those climbers and tunnelers were so nice and friendly? Seems like something might have changed in the past five years or so... or perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the media were allowed to witness an eviction? For an alternative viewpoint on the A30 evictions, ask people involved in the Trollheim eviction where the media were kept out. Amor Y Rabia, A30 Action!
A30 Action! has a huge phone bill after the last few months of sustained resistance to the road and the recent evictions. Any donations towards paying this off would help otherwise they may have to send Swampy out to do some more modelling. Make cheques payable to Quercus Tribe and send to: A30 Action!, PO Box 6, Ottery St. Mary, Devon, EX11 1YL. For any more information on any aspect of the construction of the road and the resistance to it contact the A30 Action! group on: 01404 815729.