Diana — the pensioner who protests.
Sheffield 2017–18
“I am 67, a retired teacher who has worked hard all my life and always been, in my mind, a model citizen. If you had told me what I’d be doing now, a few years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. I have been driven to it. Every underhand, destructive and violent action by SCC and Amey security and arboreal subcontractors makes me more cross, determined, more convinced, and I won’t be put off.
“I am a law-abiding citizen, a good citizen. I’ve never protested in my life before. Now I have balanced on a wall with new friends, and have been sprayed with sawdust and twigs by a chainsaw-wielding arborist just above our heads, who told us he ‘didn’t give a shit’.”
There was a time when Sheffield, famous for its leafy streets, was known as the city of trees. Mention Sheffield to a stranger now and they are likely to say “Ah, yes, the council that wants to cut the trees down.”
A spell on the streets quickly reveals the extent of the change. Travel along the tree-lined avenues and the natural rhythm and flow of the mature trees is broken with irregular gaps and the occasional, incongruous spindly sapling, some already snapped by vandals. Barriers, in various colours, many apparently discarded or fallen, some lopsidedly marking potholes, stumps or trip hazards, are left with an air of abandonment and a job done half-heartedly. Yellow notices of parking restrictions, the dates constantly amended and overwritten. An air of disruption, or perhaps the indicators of a company attacking jobs piecemeal and not managing to complete them properly or with consideration.
Most strange of all, people — lots of them, on corners, in cars, against walls. Some texting furiously, others slowly cycling along, clearly on the lookout for something. There are old people, young people, men, women, teenagers, singly or in groups. People standing under trees; sometimes, very strangely, even sitting up in trees. You can be surprised by pairs of sensible-looking women, salt-of-the-earth types, quietly walking around in the early hours, in the dark or as dawn breaks.
Reassuring as this would be if it were a particularly keen citywide branch of Neighbourhood Watch, that is not the reason for all those watchful eyes. The purposeful air of the people of Sheffield, united in their common mission, is not a protection from common thieves and vandals but from a more subtle form of theft and enviro-vandalism.
Diana’s life changed last November when she and her husband left home one morning to walk their dogs. A hullabaloo could be heard coming from one of the usually peaceful neighbouring streets: the sounds of men shouting at each other, just about drowning out what sounded like singing and whistling. Further down the road, the couple were astonished to see what looked like a small army of big men clad in hi-vis, shouting out instructions whilst a number of ordinary people, the singers and whistlers, were standing near barriers that were being wrenched around them.
Diana* admits she had no idea what had been happening on those streets until that point and watched with curious interest as events unfolded. What then took place has transformed, in her own words, “an innocent, law-abiding citizen” into a peaceful protester.
Without warning, Diana was suddenly picked up from behind by what she describes as a burly six-footer. No warning, no request to move. Diana is still shocked by this, and she was to witness far worse that morning. Once the outrageous behaviour of the security, or “bouncers” as Diana prefers to call them, was clear, she decided to stay on and support the other protesters. Her worst moment came when several bouncers knocked a man to the ground and then, as he struggled to get up, tried to push him backwards over a garden wall. “If they had succeeded, he could have broken his back, or smashed his head on the ground. I was desperate to stop them and all I could do was to shout loudly at them.” Diana had heard that reasonable force was allowed, so she shouted “That is not reasonable force!” Nothing stopped these men; the manhandling was “awful, horrible”.
Now a seasoned tree-protector, Diana is a familiar face on her quiet residential road. People hoot their horns and wave as they go past. All the locals now know her and stop for a chat. She says the actions have brought the community together in a way that would not have been possible before. Well wrapped against whatever the weather might bring, in several fleeces, a waterproof and a warm hat, Diana now spends each day sitting under a tree in a fold-up chair, or in her car if the snow or rain falls heavily. This pleasant and characterful pensioner has learned she can sit in the cold all day long, though I suspect anyone who knows her will not be surprised at her determination in acting on what she knows is right. The biggest triumph for her — aside from the fact that her much-loved trees are still standing, at least for the moment — is seeing the Amey vans spotting her and driving away in defeat.
One winter’s day, just after Diana took up her cause, letters were passed to everyone on one of the busier local streets: to parents walking their children to school, to local inhabitants in their gardens.** They were phrased to cause alarm to anyone near a tree felling, including Diana until she realised the misrepresentations. Readers of the letters were falsely told that they might lose their homes if they broke the injunction: “Some of my elderly neighbours are terrified to be in their own gardens now, in case they accidentally break the injunction and are prosecuted.” Diana blames her own council for permitting this wrongful scare tactic. She calls Sheffield City Council and Amey “environmental vandals”, who “LDV” (Look, Duck and Vanish) when challenged about safety standards and quality of work.
Diana tells me it is not just the beauty of the trees but the loss of a pathway of shelter for birds, bats and insects, especially the bees, that worries her. “Trees take out pollution from traffic, they are our lungs; we need large trees to make any difference. Those small saplings that are used as replacements, they won’t do much; they don’t support wildlife like a mature tree. How can a bird roost in a tiny sapling? Or build a nest?
“When SCC told us they were replacing diseased trees, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me. It never occurred to me that mature street trees that were not diseased would be taken out. Now I realise that this city council is one of the worst for civil liberties, denying us the right to peacefully protest by using paid bouncers to move us. This gradual erosion of people’s rights is really worrying me. I don’t think the general public know what is going on. We are vilified in local press. Stories, false stories, come out about us being aggressive, and it is all a pack of lies, it is the bouncers who are aggressive. It still shocks and upsets me, some of the things I have seen hired security do. One day, the hired security men were so rough and dangerous we called out to the police but they ignored us, they turned their backs. It was almost as though they were part of Amey. Amey’s private army.
Diana sits back in her chair, pours herself a hot drink from her flask, and continues with what she knows, with every fibre of her being, is the right and correct thing to do — for herself, for her neighbours, for wildlife, for us all. Protecting her trees.
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Diana’s real name has been changed to protect her identity.
With thanks to Rebecca Hammond and Dr Sheldon Hall for their help.
*For the misleading wording of this ‘injunction’ warning letter please click.
To sign the petition to rescind the PFI contract with Amey Hallam Highways Ltd, please click here
For more info see: Sheffield Tree Action Group (STAG)
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