Camping It Up

I've been spending rather more time over the weekend over at the Climate Camp than I had intended to - I only went over for a gawp and a few photos, but somehow I got talking to people and ended up going back for workshops and discussions.

I was initially surprised at the size of it - much smaller-looking than I'd imagined - about 400 people actually camping, I guess, but welcoming (and I do mean welcoming) thousands - of both locals and fellow activists each day.

As we arrived (there's only one entrance - the Blackheath Village side) and came through a corral of straw bales, there were people there specifically to welcome visitors - and no on-the ground police at all, though a camera on a cherry-picker at the TA centre was fixed very firmly on proceedings. The police are being very very ginger at the moment, after the G20 chaos; I'll be surprised if there's trouble this time.

As we went to the whats-on tent, a guy asked if we wanted an impromptu tour, and took us round, explaining whatever we asked about - from their position on violence (strictly non-violent direct action here...) to how the loos work.

There are various tents - from the legal guys, who are there to advise people on their rights over things like Stop & Search, through the "Tranquility Tent" (where people go to get a bit of peace and quiet and a cup of tea) to a small 'cinema'.

Everything's ecologically powered. Wind turbines and solar panels are racked up on one side, and they cook on colourful, if mildly alarming (though apparently very efficient) home made rocket stoves created out of cooking oil drums, fuelled by found firewood.

A few weeks before the camp, volunteers went around the streets reclaiming dumped furniture and other wooden items. Any furniture that's still usable is being used in the tents, the really dead stuff is broken up for firewood.

I know some people have been a bit worried about 'holes' in the heath, but the climate campers have promised to leave it 'better than they find it' and I believe them. Every day, teams go out to clear up the litter on the whole of the heath, not just the bit they're using (quite a task with the fair going on across the other side). They have dug a small shallow pit for the fire, but the sods are carefully stacked up to be replaced and there are no holes for the loos.

Talking of the loos, I guess I can't really put off explaining them any more. They're specially ecologically sound compost-bogs, (read "extremely basic") and involve peeing on straw bales (the girls get a little more privacy doing this than the guys...) which get regularly changed. They'll be composted for a year or so, then used in agriculture. The Number Twos are collected in giant wheelie bins and will be used by farmers in the great old tradition of 'night soil' (we're assured that it's only used on non-food crops - a relief, really...) One thing I'll say for them is that they smell a LOT better than most festival bogs.

It all seems to work rather well - which mildly surprises me - my experiences of co-operative living/working in the past have generally revealed that it just doesn't work - a few people do all the work and everyone else slacks around, but good luck to them if they can make it happen. They certainly seem organised - even with their own TV Station:



The workshops are really varied - everything from making your own compost loo (ick) wind turbine or rocket stove, through to how to deal with a Stop & Search situation.

The discussions, which involve some rather odd hand movements - they're explained in the programme, but are intended to allow everyone to speak with a minimum of interruptions - are worth going to even if you don't agree with everything that's being said. Actually, they're worth going to especially if you don't agree with everything that's being said.

I caught the tail-end of a particularly large one in the main tent, that had a panel of anarchists being given a particularly robust time by most of the crowd. It could have been chaos, but it was both civilised and utterly fascinating. Part of the nature of things like this is that it attracts people with views from moderate to militant, and finding a way not to inadvertently divide and be conquered is important.

I don't buy everything that's being said at Climte Camp - but I do feel I understand the movement more now, and to anyone who's reading this who's actually there just now - thank you for the welcome you've given to local people like me who didn't know much about it, but understand a little more now.

If I can squeeze the time out tomorrow I'll come and help with the clean-up - they've scheduled an entire day to putting the place back to better-than-before. There are few events that do that...

Bella Vista

Montpelier Vale, Blackheath

I hadn't been to Bella Vista since the refurb, but, being a cheapskate, thought I'd go for the early evening cheapo deal. Once I got inside, of course, there were things on the a la carte I couldn't resist so I was back to spending cash again...

The refurb has worked well. I'm pleased to say that they've avoided anything so ultra modern that it's going to date within seconds of the place reopening, but, now it's done, I guess it was a little tired before, though I can't say I'd noticed.

Things are always going to be snug in a restaurant that size, so they haven't even tried to make it look spacious, instead emphasising the cosiness. I like the mirrors, the high cupboards with the nicknacks and the colour scheme, though the cushions, whilst looking sumptuous, get in the way.

The menu is part new, part old. Francesco said that if he tries to change anything his regulars moan, so he has to quietly slide things on and off the menu and hope no one notices. If you see BVC after anything on the menu, it means "Bella Vista Classic" and it's a dish he doesn't dare remove.

I had the Apulian ‘burrata’ cheese with smoked aubergine, partially because I can't resist aubergine and partly because I'd never had Apulian burrata cheese before. It was fab. My companion had the cold cuts. I was so busy chomping my smoked aubergine I forgot to note down what the cold cuts were actually like (I'll never make a proper restaurant critic...) but the plate was cleared so I'm guessing it was good.

There are some times when only lasagne will do, and for my sturdy companion, this was one of those times. It was perfectly acceptable, but not an exciting dish, only going half-way to satisfying the lasagne-urge. Probably not a recipe that will make it to BVC menu-stardom...

I resisted the urge to have aubergine in a second dish in the same meal and instead tried the cod in ‘guazzetto Livornese’ which is, according to the handy menu translator, a Tuscan fish and tomato sauce - tangy and pungent, and really rather tasty, even if it is a wise idea to brush your teeth immediately afterwards, if you're going to be within 10 feet of anyone else...
I can't remember what the hell the wine was - only that I enjoyed it and its label had a comedy picture involving a donkey on it, which we each guessed the story behind, then asked the waiter if he knew what it was about. He didn't but was happy to supply an alternative unlikely, shaggy-dog-alike yarn. He got his mate over who told a fourth, equally nonsense, tale behind the picture.

Actually, it might not have been our first bottle.

Bella Vista's been around for over 20 years now. Deservedly.

Keskerdh Kernow!

Q: Where did people meet for rallies before Trafalgar Square was invented?

A: Blackheath.

Yes, long before it seemed like a good idea to mill about the West End listening to bands and devising amusing placards, people with grievances to put, with victories to celebrate, with points to make, all assembled at the top of the hill up the road. Some didn't have that far to go - Wat Tyler and Jack Cade were at least only from Kent. But when starving Cornish peasants wanted to kick up a fuss, they had a bit further to trudge.

It was 1497 and Henry VII was a troubled man. One Perkin Warbeck had his beady eye on Henry's Crown and the Scottish King James was on his way south to give him a drubbing too. He needed cash and he needed it fast. Who was least likely to moan if he put the taxes up, he wondered?

Ping! What about Cornwall? A nasty, heathernly, grim, storm-swept county, good for nothing much save what could be dug out of the ground. What had those wild, dirty Celts ever done for him? More trouble than they were worth, he figured. In fact - when he came to think of it, they owed him. Besides. They were miles away. Out of sight, out of mind.

What Henry hadn't counted on, however, was one or two of the Cornish people not being particularly happy about this. They were quite cross, actually. They were already poor - and these new taxes just about did it for them. Henry had also failed to notice that if nothing else, this nation of miners were tough. Very tough.

Thomas Flamank, a Bodmin lawyer, and Michael Joseph, a farrier from St Keverne (also known as An Gof) were particularly upset, and this unlikely pair of buddies also discovered that between them they were exceptionally good at whipping up a frenzy of discontent among the burly peasants.

Reverend L'Estrange, writing in 1886, makes no secret of his own opinion on the matter. He is completely shocked that anyone would rise up against their sovereign king. "Ambitious agitators have never been wanted to fan popular discontent," he says dismissively, telling us that Flamank and An Gof "harangued and excited the people" to form a rebellion.

Whether desperate men with a genuine grievance or merely L'Estrange's "rabble," the march gained in size and strength as it moved through the county and then through Devon and Somerset. They killed a particularly assiduous tax collector at Taunton, and even gained themselves a leader from the gentry - Lord Audley, who openly joined them at Wells.

I get myself a bit confused here. I mean - these people were on their way to London. Surely Blackheath is overshooting the mark a bit? If I'd trudged all the way from Cornwall (which still takes several hours by car) I wouldn't want to skirt around the edge. But that's what they did.

They certainly hoped to get some more support from the traditionally militant men of Kent, though in that they were disappointed - they didn't gain a single extra body. At this point, quite a few got fed up and sloped off home. But no matter. The rebellion still had six thousand angry rustics and they weren't going anywhere. They set up camp on Blackheath. For many years afterwards, L'Estrange tells us, there was a mound just south of Greenwich Park where An Gof set up his tent, which, his being a blacksmith, everyone called "The Forge."

All of London was a-tizz. This mob meant business. They were starving and angry and they were staring straight at the city.

Henry gathered together his army - 8,000-strong and led by proper generals instead of blacksmiths. He surrounded them - The Earl of Essex at the City, The Earl of Oxford behind Blackheath hill so the rebels couldn't run away, Lord Daubeney to lead the attack, and the King himself 'in reserve.' Meanwhile in the City, panic was everywhere. The royal family and all the bishops locked themselves in the Tower. Everyone else locked themselves wherever they could.

The Battle of Deptford Bridge on the banks of the river Ravensbourne, June 17th, 1497, wasn't clear-cut at first. Daubeney was so sure he was better than the rebels that he rushed straight in and got himself captured. Even L'Estrange admits that "the Cornish men showed a considerable amount of native courage" - but they were starving, ill-armed and had no cavalry.

It was, frankly, a rout. Between two and three thousand men were killed on the battlefield; the rest were surrounded and given to the rank and file soldiers, told they could have them to use for ransom - but the Cornish were so poor, they didn't raise more than a couple of shillings each.

And the leaders? A characteristically grisly end for each. Lord Audley was dragged through the streets from Newgate to Tower Hill wearing nothing but a ripped paper coat, on which his family coat of arms was painted backwards. Being a toff, he was allowed to be beheaded.

Flamank and An Gof received the full hanged-drawn-and-quartered treatment at Tyburn. Henry had wanted to hang up the various pieces of their bodies in sundry venues in Cornwall as a warning to all "in the old fashion," but perhaps wisely decided that this might not be the best way of preventing further discontent.

At their execution, An Gof announced they would become figures of history - "a name perpetual and a fame permanent and immortal"- and let's face it - he was right. We're still talking about them on a sunny Friday morning more than 500 years later. In 1997 (sorry Dazza), exactly 500 years since the rebellion, a memorial march - Keskerdh Kernow 500("Cornwall Marches 500) - took place and a plaque* was placed on the wall of Greenwich Park. Find it just to the right of the Blackheath Gate...

*Stevie moaned that my photo of the plaque was rubbish - and it was a bit pale - so here is his version.