Couldn't decide about going on the march, thought about it for days. Knew it would do no good and all my life had never (like many) protested about anything, just had a moan and got on with it.

However on the day I was there hunting was only a part of the reason. The government (especially DEFRA = Department for the Elimination of Farming and other Rural Activities) were doing such a good job I felt the need to make my point. Cattle and sheep were being taken hundreds of miles for slaughter, the handling of the foot and mouth, closure of country post offices, transportation to France of live horses, the list went on.

So there I stood at the start, on that Sunday morning. The walking was easy if you were used to the fell, views poor but weather good. It wouldn't have mattered anyway I still would have gone. When I was a lad, my father went every Tuesday to the union meeting to pay his subscription, in that smoke filled room they sat and talked of better times, staunch Labour to a man, but where had it gone wrong? These memories flooded back as I shuffled along in the crowd.

We passed 10 Downing St. "Take my pic," I said thrusting my camera to a friend, I stood in front of the railings and raised two fingers. A policewoman clad in body armour with a machine gun smiled at me. "No", she said, so the pic shows a rapidly withdrawing arm! Then the finish and under the banner, cannot recall what the number was, I wasn't interested anyway, I'd made my point.

We had some banter with a policeman on Westminster Bridge, persuaded him to take our picture, although I knew I'd been didn't need to prove it to anyone. His final words were prophetic. "It will be banned" he said, "but unenforcable."And so with the help of the Parliament Act came the end of hunting. Blair didn't need anything to take us to war though and when the opportunity came to bolt him from number 10 he was voted in again.