andTheir supporters. After the early
rabble-rousing, there was an almost
total lack of official action to show
for it. A hundred people sat down in
the road in 1969-four were even
arrested for the cause. But despite
the goading and the posturing,
nothing positive resulted. '
Lewis admits that even the vil-
lagers were prepared to give up on
him at this time. “Many people
thought we were crying for the moon
when they saw nothing was happen-
ing.” It was this limbo period which
the protesters feel they could, with
hindsight, have reduced; they were
learning about diplomacy and finding
their way around the corridors of
power in the Kent County Council
offices and at Westminster. Most
important, they had won their new
M.P. round to their demands. But
they needed a fresh stimulus to dnun
up support and enthusiasm. In May
1972 they got it. On the night of May
26 a Swiss-bound meat truck careered
through the front of a general store in
Bridge High Street, killing the
driver. The shop owner’s daughter,
Angela, was sleeping in the front bed-
room over the shop and woke up
sandwiched hard between the wrecked
truck and the wall, with what was
the local paper calling on support for
another demonstration - another sit-
down to block the traflic. The demo
was peaceful but purposeful. “We
told the police we were going to
block the road,” Lewis says. “We’ve
had very good support from our
police, even when we’ve been break-
ing the law. Many of them are local
lads—and it’s they who’ve had to
come and clear up the mess when
there was an accident.”
To ram their point home, the A2
Group called another sit-down in
October 1972. This time over 1000
villagers sat down and blocked the
A2 for an hour. Village old timers
like Harry Hawkins joined in: “I was
fighting for my home, my life, my
everything,” he says. Five-year—old
Nicholas Millyard sat down holding
a placard. Nice, middle—class parents,
whose protesting voice normally ex-
tended no further than a pained bleat
about increased school fees, sat down
too; Bridge had made its point.
“The demos and the sit-downs were
necessary,” Lewis claims; “they
were necessary to apply the pressure.
Some of us have criminal records as a
result - I was charged with conspir-
ing to incite members of the commu-
nity, with obstruction and »—)-