By Elena Grice

We were blessed with the weather. Planning an action for October in London, and especially by the Thames was a potential disaster, but the sun was shining and the breeze light.

The gathering together is my favourite part of an action, as the energy rises, and people arrive, bringing children, dogs, music and colour with them, The atmosphere was buoyant, with the XR Drummers beating out samba rhythms and the Christian Climate Action / London Climate Choir collaboration singing ecological hymns. 

It all gets a bit chaotic as we try to get things together and get moving. Chris Packham arrived with Emma Smart his campaign manager, and a former core member of Wild Card. With good humour he got into his rewilded Easter bonnet and mediaeval tabard in the Wild Card colours of pick and green.

At this point, we found out that St Paul’s Cathedral had barriered off their steps ahead of the action. We had at this point spent weeks trying to get hold of St Paul’s – numerous emails to different email addresses, and almost daily phone calls. We had sincerely hoped that they may have welcomed us as a joyful, positive group that is suggesting solutions to collective policies. But alas, no.

After some scrambling from both us and Christian Climate Action, we came up with a plan B, and started off the speeches. We heard from Rev Hilary Bond from CCA and our very own Imogen MacBeath bringing us together, before some more beautiful singing.

We then set off over the Millennium Bridge, trailing butterflies from Mothers Rise Up, nature tapestries from Sophie Hughes and a giant beaver, salmon and eagle from The Lost Giants, headed up by Chris and Emma at the front.

We stopped in the passageway leading up St Paul’s for the photo op, with a Monty-Pythonesque unrolling of our 95 Wild Theses Scroll, designed by Not Here To Be Liked. We kept pulling, and the press kept moving backwards and backwards and backwards…

After all the photos, we headed off down the road to the West Steps. Here we heard from Guy Shrubsole, Dr Rev Clara Rushbrook and Paul Powlesland on the church’s secrecy, its duty and responsibility towards the earth, before a final prayer from Rev Hilary Bond. We handed out tea, coffee and biscuits, allowing everyone to chat and mingle to the rolling rhythms of the drummers still enjoying themselves.