Saturday morning dawned grey and drizzly, because of course it did. London in autumn has the emotional range of a teenager who just discovered existentialism. But by ten o’clock, the drizzle had turned into a gentle mist—like the city was sweating with anticipation.
I grabbed my oldest pair of boots, the ones that have seen more protests than most politicians have seen policy changes. Every good protest march requires footwear that says, “I’m ready to stand for peace, but also for a pub lunch afterwards.”
By the time I hit the tube, the carriage was already a cozy sweater of humanity. A woman next to me was knitting a banner that said “Make Tea, Not War.” I nodded at her, and she nodded back. That was the whole conversation. In London, that’s basically a soul-bond.
Arriving at the Gathering Point
Emerging from the station at Hyde Park Corner felt like walking into a very earnest, slightly damp festival. There were dads with babies in carriers who looked like they’d rather be at IKEA, and grandmas with signs that had sarcastic poetry on them. One sign read, “My other car is a tank, and I hate it.” I borrowed a marker from a stranger and added a tiny smiley face next to it. That’s the energy: passive-aggressive optimism.
The crowd wasn’t angry—it was determined. You could feel it in the air, that weird, fizzy sensation when thousands of people agree on one thing: war is basically a very expensive, very bloody argument that nobody wins. It’s like the worst game of Monopoly ever, except nobody gets a get-out-of-jail-free card.
