Make Poverty History March In Edinburgh By Sarah Golightley

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There is nothing I loathe more than the sound of one of those wretched free ring tones on my mobile twanging away at 5 o'clock in the morning; especially when 5 o' clock is only three hours after I went to sleep following a night of clubbing at Fuel and accidentally locking my friends out of their own house. And then trying to let them in through the closet before realising I was in fact inviting some duvets and brooms to come in.

Perhaps I had one too many drinks.

After several minutes staring into the darkness, the sound echoing into my ears finally forced me to roll over and turn it off. Thank fuck for that. Then it was time to wake up my friends, who are sternly sound sleepers. Then the whole getting up and changing thing, along with some tea for that much needed dose of caffeine and a long walk through the soft drizzle and dim sunlight of a warm summer's morning in Hull.

We wait at the pick up point for the specially scheduled bus to Edinburgh run by our local Green Party. We're the first people there, remarkably enough. Slowly we see the numbers multiply into around 150 people of a diverse Hull crew, which considering this was only one of the many different forms of transportation offered to the Hull protesters, was quite a good showing. The mood is impressively upbeat, although admittedly with a hint of an early morning zombie to us all.

We load on the buses and we all instantly snooze, gobs open, conked out. The ride would take us around 6 hours so there was plenty of time to get a stiff neck from sleeping in a variety of awkward positions as well as taking part in a political trivia quiz and even a game of pass the parcel.

Finally, at around 12 we arrive at our destination and we find our way to thousands of protestors gathering in The Meadows of Edinburgh City Centre. We pass smiling faces, people of all ages, ethnicities and some people who have come up with let's say, creative wardrobes, including some anarchists dressed as clowns, dancing around with pink umbrellas. However, instantly I'm drawn to the crowd of hippies beneath the dance tent enthusiastically swaying to the Cuban reggae band.

After chilling out to the music we headed off towards the march. There were people in their thousands gathered underneath the shade of Scotland's greenery as the sun beamed through the leaves.

Announcements were made saying that due to the unexpectedly large scale of the protest, the demonstrations had been stalled. Luckily, the nice thing about most protests is that the people are generally good natured and although we were all eager to get moving, there was enough patience within us all to stand around and talk to like-minded people from all over the world.

Continued...... Next Page

Photographs courtesy and Copyright © Sarah Golightley 2005

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