Would applying duck tape to my sash windows actually stop any ‘dirtiness’from a dirty bomb entering my drafty house – or would marching against thewar be more effective? No contest! Off I went along with millions across theworld in what was a scream of indignation at being propelled into warwithout the case having been truly made.

My older daughter came with me: she who rarely moves unless strictlynecessary wanted to come. And I was thrilled. I hate the meekness ofnon-expression and indeed I was first politicised by marching against MaggieThatcher and strumming a guitar singing the anti-war songs of the Vietnamyears in folk music venues that, if named, would probably stir old memories.Rites of passage. For so many on the march, it was the first time they hadever done such a thing. Thus is politicisation.

On the crowded tube from Highgate up to Waterloo, where Liberal Democratswere congregating at the Royal Festival Hall to meet Charles Kennedy andthen join the main march, there were a great fusion of different protesters.All sorts from ageing hippies to well dressed middle class ladies, babiesagainst the war, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, politicalactivists, Muslims and Jews and left-wing extremists. All humanity wasthere.

It would have made it even better would have been alongside the ‘Stop theWar’ banners’, the ‘Not In My Name’ banners, the ‘Make Tea not War’ banners(one wonders what Donald Rumsfeld would make of those!) – would have been ifthe ‘Free Palestine’ banners had also included a ‘Safe Israel’ slogan aswell.

It seemed incongruous that, on a march against war, some people were callingfor only part of a solution to the issue that underpins so much violence andtrouble in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Although we moved briskly at the start of the march, within half an hour wehad ground to a virtual halt. It became clear that our contingent, includingCharles Kennedy, was never going to reach Hyde Park – let alone in time forthe speeches. Charles was whipped off of the march and spirited away tospeak in Hyde Park. Myself, Andy Kershaw, my daughter and several otherssiphoned off into the tube to try and make it in time.

Three of us made to Bond Street and then whipped along Oxford Street amongstpeople who had braved the West End against all advice and were trying tohave a normal afternoon shopping. We made it to the rally, unlike hundredsof thousands of others. But we had missed the main speakers. After six hourswe made it home to see the TV coverage and to see what message would beplayed out around the world. How very bizarre, even when you are at an eventyourself, to have to go home and watch it on TV to see what happened!

Ken Livingstone blasted George Bush in the most uncompromising way I haveever heard a politician so do – and rightly so. Charles Kennedy spoke out, Ifelt, for a large swathe of us who feel uncomfortable with the Government’scase, who don’t believe we should go to war without the sanction of theUnited Nations and who feel damaged by the Labour Government’s treatment ofus with fake ‘evidence’ and a ‘I’m Tony, trust me’ approach to headlong war.

There were many different reasons for people to march. There were manydifferent messages that people wanted to send. But the message I hopesurfaces above all others is that on a single day in February 2003, sixmillion people around the world got angry enough to stand up and shout – notin my name!