Aberdeen Day 1 (continued)

It was unthinkable to have journeyed all the way up to Aberdeen and to be now foregathered only a few metres away from where Prisoner No. 125799 might be eating his dinner or writing one of his endless letters to supporters (located in by now going on 40 countries world-wide!) without at least making an attempt to signal our presence to him.

So after a supporter wielding a long flag-shaft had managed to scrabble with the end of his pole at two small windows high up in the north-facing wall of the prison yet had failed to secure contact with whoever might be inside, possibly even Robert himself?! I led the troops round to the quiet car-park at the back of the prison where the perimeter wall was marginally lower and from where I had successfully delivered a birthday ovation to the famous inmate some two weeks earlier.

On that occasion I’d had my loud-hailer but this time had deliberately left it at home – with the police possibly on the look-out for others of us to arrest on Breach-of-the-Peace charges I wasn’t going to give them any excuse for doing so! Nevertheless hopefully the combined lung-power of some 30 other supporters would surely get us over that wall and into the ears of those behind it.

It gives me great pleasure therefore to relay confirmation from Robert that yes, WE WERE HEARD INSIDE THE PRISON ON SATURDAY!! Well done everybody!

After a chilly day on various streets and shopping centres, then hanging around Craiginches for a further hour in the continued unremitting cold wind it was good to hit the warm fug of an eatery off Union Street.

This was ostensibly an opportunity to hear Roger Hayes outline his scheme for a ‘Lawful Bank’ as an alternative to the present skewed financial system which certainly needs to join war and child-abuse in the dustbin of history. Although Roger gave an as usual very eloquent and persuasive presentation, heads were soon nodding all around the room…..

Aberdeen Day 2

Sunday dawned once again bright and clear but the wind which had been chilly yesterday had by now a distinctly icy bite to it. Ian who had spent his second night in a pop-up tent in a camp-site 13 miles outside the city confirmed that snow had fallen during the night!

By now the number of leafleteers had shrunk to half that of Saturday, nevertheless we put in second good day’s work and managed to part with a further 7-8000? leaflets, distributed once again up and down Union Street and in the residential area around Queen’s Street, also in Duthie Park. Several at the latter location reported having already received a leaflet the previous day, thank you, showing that our coverage of the Ferry Hill area had been effective.

Once again there was very little negativity from the public and quite a few positive comments, such as “you’re doing a good job, keep it up!”. A couple of local Councillors, both Lib Dems, said they were going to look into the matter and gave us their contact details.

There were no further unpleasant encounters with members of the alleged ring nor with the police, so by the time we reassembled at 4.30 in order to say our goodbyes all felt a sense of achievement that the operation had gone smoothly and appeared to have been effective.

Robert to whom I was able to report on the weekend’s events yesterday evening was delighted to hear all had gone well and asked me to thank everyone involved in both in the planning and in the execution of what must have been quite a complex operation, not to mention the huge distances many had travelled in order to participate.

It was wonderfully generous of a certain supporter to have funded the printing of the leaflet which he thought very effective, his only criticism being that it omitted to mention that Hollie had received £13,500 from the state in respect of her abuse. Whether any local people would follow the instructions to write to the Chief Constable to demand Grampian investigate Hollie’s claims and the death of Roy Greig, or to Sir Stephen Young Bt QC to complain about the biased trial remained to be seen, but at least there was now much more widespread awareness of Hollie’s issues in Aberdeen itself and the authorities must know they are under a huge spotlight.

As an indication of the level of discomfiture in high places, he said he had had a visit from the Governor of the prison while he was in the exercise yard the previous day. The Governor had wanted to know if there were going to be more public actions similar to this weekend’s? To which he had replied that he wasn’t in a position to know what the supporters might be planning but yes, he was sure that there would be further actions and in all likelihood they would intensify!

“In other words, if the authorities want a quiet life the best thing would be to get rid of me as quickly as possible. They probably realise by now they’ve made a big mistake in locking me up because rather than closing the campaign down they’ve only drawn even more public attention to it”. 

I agreed with him and told him that as we had been processing along the street from Duthie Park to the prison on Saturday with the Free Robert Green banner spread along the line, once again we’d had a lot of hoots and ‘thumbs up’s from passing motorists.

“Yes, I know from the other prisoners via their wives that interest in this case is really growing. That’s not at all what they wanted, is it!”

Half an hour after our chat about the weekend Robert rang me up again in great jubilation to announce that he has reached the quarter-final in the prison table-tennis contest!

“Considering most of the other competitors are 45 years younger than me that’s not bad going, is it?!”