Well, headed out in good time for my train, only to realise that I'd forgotten to get cash from the hole in the wall to pay for m'ticket. Legged it round the corner, got said cash, arrived back in time to see lovely shiny new Virgin shwooosh out of the station.

Nipped back to main st, got some sarnies and juice, and headed up the M74 in my car. LOADS of coaches with peace logos, aged hippies and assorted smiley folks.

Stopped at Hamilton Services for p.break and a friend from Uni, who was travelling up with the Dumfries contingent, so kidnapped her and headed for Glasgow again.

Arrived at Cambridge Street, parked up and headed down to meet up with friends in George Street. Much stooging around at lions till I remembered what the mobie and MTMCC was for.

Last time I demo'd in George Sq was the Poll Tax and, I dunno, maybe it was the huge fuckoff ferris wheel with candy pink heart, maybe it was the sunshine, or the colourful peeps, but this felt a LOT happier. Much family friendlyness evidenced with pushchairs and whole families going "Wow, this is huge..."

Started handing out postcards, but quickly realised there was little or no point being either up or downstream of Mr Death, as his scythe and coat was attracting FAR too much attention and folks were ignoring my feeble attempts to stuff cards in their mits. "Hey, the guy in the fancy dress might be doing something weird...you, well, you just look weird". Headed to the far side of the road with a friend and had much fun distributing till we'd all but run out.

By then reports were coming in that the 'end' of the procession was STILL in Glasgow Green but the front end had disappeared over the hill (St Vincent Street). So the march was at least 2 miles long. And still folks were arriving!

Gods, even the polis were happy smiley sorts. And there weren't that many of them. Stunning.

OK, off from George Square we went, in front of the FBU campaign fire engine and, allegedly, a Police Fed rep in a squad car. (Closely followed by three trojans full of spare coppers)

Much good natured walking up the big hill, gorgeous sunshine, terrific variety of architecture. Old preVictorian townhouses and pseudo NY skyscrapers in miniature shoulder to shoulder. 'kin gorgeous city.

Great tip, btw, Mr Death pretty easy to spot in a crowd, maybe it was the scythe.. But it meant I could walk ahead, rest my leg, fall behind, catch up. All the while watching our landmark listers progress.

Just about Finnieston we were stopped, prolly to allow traffic to pass, and to allow the front end of the procession to be packed into the SECC carp park. We fell back a little and joind the MAB marchers, complete with truck mounted missile...tho that didn't seem to make it as far as the SECC? And headed along the Clydeside, and int the carpark. The noise was terrific, and, coming over the ridge of the banking above the carpark, it just looked like a sea of bodies. The grass on the sunny side of the park looked dry enough to sit on, hell, I'd of sat in mud by that stage, and everyone lonked themselves down and went sortof "phew...."

Periodically there were announcements on the PA, much cheering, whistling drumming, and eventually a HUGE eruption of noise for about five minutes. I've no idea if it was timed to coincide with someone leaving (who?) or they just decided, fuckit, we came here to do this so lets do it!

Faces kept appearing out of the crowd. Well, one face appeared out of the sky, but tat was just a wee drunk gadgy falling off the top of the banking into Gina and I. Nice lad. Good humoured drunkenly chatted and went on his way. Some of our group had toddled off to phogrottyfy people, and when they came back said that there was a clear space in front of the SECC where you could get thru to. So I headed off to get some pix too.

Finally found the plod colony. They were arranged along the front of the SECC, about thirty yards behind barriers, well away from the crowds who were, by and large, ignoring them and looking the other way. Apparently some folk were speaking from the top of a double decker bus, but, as they weren't allowed a proper stage or sound system it did sound a bit like megaphone shouting comeptition.

Walked back thru crowd, singing We Shall Overcome, chatted to a few folk who looked even friendier than the rest of the friendly, and eventually got back to my group . Decided to head off ahead of the crowds and go get something to eat before trains and carpark deadlines bit.

Arrived back at chez Almagill, oh, 7ish, and have been sat trying to stay awake long enough to post pix and type this!

All in all, a GREAT day. No idea of actual figures but the police estimated 27-30,000. News tonight, IF they managed to mention it, suggested 'tens of thoussands'. Hey, it looked a LOT more!! 6 to 8 abreast for 2 and a bit miles, that's a LOT of folk.

No trouble, as far as I could see. Even as we left Glasgow there were folk going around grinning and saying "Oh, yeah, that was great..."

Now trying to stop feet, and wrists(??) from hurting like hell. And heading for bed I think, unless I get distracted by pretty lights.

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There's this huge sea of humanity.

All shapes and sizes, colours and creeds. All streaming along the road and up over the hill.

Men, women, boys and girls. Poofs, dykes and some in between. Billys, Dans and Old Tin Cans. There were pensioners and babies in pushchairs. Whole clusters of maws, paws and the weans. Honkeys, niggers, spics, chinks, pakis, coons and aliens, illegal or otherwise. Skinny cunts, fat bastards, spacs, flids, and the mentally compromised. God was there too. Well, in as far as we had ministers, priests, rabbis and assorted representatives of his other progressive branches.

You name it, they were there.

But not as individual protest groups, whinging, bleating or pleading about their own parochial little causes, but as PEOPLE. As part of humanity. TOGETHER.

I don't now if, in years to come, folks will talk about 1502 as the start of the new hippy peace era, or if Tony and co will spark off Armageddon tomorrow just to get their point across, but I'm glad that I was there and that I saw, heard, felt it all.

– Ken Harvey

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