I am a 64 year old part time Complaints Manager for Social Services in North Somerset and also a Public Rights of Way officer for Bristol City Council.
From 1995 to 2006 I was Labour Cllr for Windmill Hill ward and for some of the time chaired Social Services Scrutiny Committee and the Public Rights of Way and Town Greens Committee.
I have three grown up children all in work.
I started the march at Nine Elms, crossed Westminster Bridge, and I arrived in Hyde Park at about 2.00pm and listened to speeches for forty five minutes before going to meet my daughter Rose aged 26 at the Park Lane Hilton Hotel. We then walked with her bike across Hyde Park Corner and walked parallel, in a contrary direction to the marchers on Piccadilly, through Green Park.
We came out on to Piccadilly just before the Ritz Hotel and noticed that one of the windows was broken but that people seemed to be going in and out as normal.
I suggested that we go to Fortnum and Mason for a cup of tea as I remembered going there once as a child with my mother, though I have since worked out that this never happened.
We arrived there at about 3.30pm and were shown how to get to tea room on the first floor which overlooked Piccadilly. Service was a bit slow and I guess we got our tea and cake at about 3.45pm. While we were consuming this and watching the marches a lot of people entered the store, probably at 3.55pm and came up to our floor and stood around the circular balustrade looking down to the ground floor.
We just kept on eating and drinking as did every one else. Waiters did not seem at all perturbed. When we finished at about 4.05pm, we wandered over. A man was playing bag pipes. Crowd seemed happy and peaceful. We went down to ground floor where there were more people. Someone made a speech.
We noticed three policemen. I think that shoppers were still coming into the store but not demonstrators. We then went to top two floors where there were no demonstrators and then down to basement to buy some interesting items to take home. I did notice that there were on the floor little packets of sweets, but nothing broken. We bought sausages and went back up to ground floor which was still peaceful. I did not see the woman police person who was on You Tube. We then left the store. There were policemen guarding it and scuffling with a man trying to get in, but nothing else going on and the march was still marching past from right to left in front of us.
Rose retrieved her bike which had been locked to the railings and was being stood on by a photographer and then we carried on down Piccadilly to Piccadilly Circus noticing that there had been paint bombs at Santander.
I saw no violence in Fortnum and Mason and no looting.
Boris Johnson is quoted in the Grauniad, April 2nd , as saying uncut activists ‘stormed the building, terrified staff, upset the customers and caused tens of thousands pounds worth of damage.’
I can only speak for the time we were there but during that time there, roughly 35 minutes, my impression was totally contrary to that.
Staff were not in the slightest bit terrified. Customers were not all upset and carried on customing for items such as `The Belgravia Hamper’ - £500, the F and M Teddy Bear - £90.00 and in our case six sausages (£6.15) which were very good and had no fat in them at all.
I actually think everyone, staff and customers rather enjoyed being in the middle of it all. I know I did.
I did not see any damage, only a few packets of small things chucked on the floor. I retrieved one which was four marzipan petit fours. (Not very nice unfortunately, so we gave them to some of Rose’s Woodcraft Friends who we encountered just outside on the March doing parachute games with children.)
This is my honest recollection. I cannot see why it would have ‘kicked off’ or got more violent after we left at 4.15pm because the lot inside were not there to cause trouble and no one else was allowed in.
-- Christopher Orlik
No comments:
Post a Comment