Wednesday 11 March 2009

Brian Haw - The Parliament Protester

I've got to hand it to hand it to Brian Haw.

This morning (Wednesday), I walked passed his peace camp outside Parliament where he has been sleeping out in the wind and rain for the past eight years. Hobbling along on crutches, he stopped in front of his latest protest banner and straigtened out a fold in the canvus with the bottom of his right crutch. Satisfied, he stood back and read the banner for what I imagine must have been the thousandth time. Then he hobbled on.

When I walked passed the camp again in the afternoon, a posse had gathered. I crossed over to speak to Brian just as he got up from his deckchair to wander over the road. I reached him by the traffic lights. I couldn't believe how much his face had changed. He has grown a big, grey beard, but it doesn't hide his gaunt cheeks, razor sharp bones and all-round emanciated look.

"What have you done to you legs?" I asked him.
"What makes you think I did anything to them?" he said. His voice was quieter than when I last spoke to him over the phone a couple of years ago for a series of stories run in the Ilford Recorder (his early years were spent in Clayhall), but it hadn't lost any of the fire.
"You are using crutches," I pointed out.
"It was the police," he said. "They beat me up last May." He told me a bit of the story and his trouble with the hospital.
"You look hungry," I blurted out. "Are you going to get something to eat?"
"I'm ok," he said and smiled. His eyes looked like he meant it.
"Ok," I said, winked, and went away.

I remember what he told me when I first ever spoke to him for a story that made the splash in the Ilford Recorder back in 2006. He said he would die protesting in front of Parliament. Now I think I believe him.

1 comment:

Paul Taberham said...

I don't know of this guy, but it sounds like there is something kind-of Christian about him. Like he flagellates himself for the sins of others
(think St Francis, or Jesus...)