We were there in body and soul!

"Baby, we're going to the protest!" I tell my son as I pick him up from school.
"Nooo mummy," he replies.
"Your old friends are going!"
"No, no, noooo, pleeeease."
"I've bought some flapjacks..."
"Oh ok then!" he beams, doesn't dither about getting home to change into warmer clothes.

Met Mary and her three at Kentish Town tube. My boy and her eldest rebonding with the same ease that they bonded in the first place back in 2003.

At Lincolns Inn the crowd had formed and the memory of the Big Issue's charity walk came back - here was the spot we'd been given sparklers marking the nth mile that night!

I saw Local Labour councillor and Dad in the Playground who leads the council. I wanted to go over, tap him on the shoulder, tell him my eviction was imminent. Do something. I held back, there was no room for my frustration with a man who was at this moment on my side.

As we marched, banners in hand, chanting, Mary and I having met the others and constantly accounting for our eight children, people returning from work stopped and stared at us from the other side of the road. People on the top deck of buses took photos, others on the bottom waved and smiled.

We positioned ourselves next to the Downing Street entrance and fed the children. The police double backed pushing the crowd. It looked as though they were inciting violence as they cocooned the protesters but as Jab pointed out, they were moving them along to let the traffic pass on our side of the road.

Someone threw a flare towards No 10 but no-one charged the barricades, as one man had warned us, slow close our kids were to the police lining the Gates of Treachery.

Speeches to the empowerment of the people, our working rights. The protection of our National Health Service, slowly being infiltrated by Private competitors. Housing and the thousands that will be made homeless. Cheers and claps for these voices that articulate our fears and desires.

Many, many thanks goes to Caroline Lucas MP. The Green Party leader was the only front bench MP to come out of the commons and vocally empathise with us.

We took the bus home, the children still waving their NUT flags.

For you children, we want change for you, to safeguard you from the cradle to the grave.

I'd been listening to Kaiser Chiefs earlier. They predict a riot. I do predict one too, but this protest was pregnant with hope.

It's not too late for positive change.

Believe