In December 1961 Laurens Otter and I were two of the marshals for an anti-nuclear demonstration by Oxford members of the Committee of 100. But we failed to reach our objective, the RAF base at Brize Norton, to the west of the city, because we were arrested – in a pre-emptive strike by the police – then sent to prison for 20 days for refusing to be “bound over”.
Laurens fasted for the full stretch in Gandhian style, but still managed to deliver a daily tutorial on left politics in the exercise yard. He emphasised that his anarchist principles, far from being in conflict with his Christian faith, were based on it. Since we were all sinners, he said, no one was fit to govern others.
