by Mark Thomas
In the making of this show I went and talked to friends and comrades from eleven years ago, people who knew Martin and I. Our community.
Let me introduce you.
WALKS SL TO CABINET PULLS OPEN TOP DRAWER TO REVEAL A TELEVISION MONITOR INSIDE. IMAGE OF A HEADSHOT IS RUNNING ON IT
This is my friend Nick Hildyard.
PHOTO OF MT AND NH AT GLASTONBURY APPEARS BACK PROJECTOR
Nick works at the Cornerhouse, which is an environmental and human rights NGO. He is known for being one of the most intelligent and ethical activists in the country. But for all his brilliance he is somewhat unworldly. I was once telling him about watching TV with my son and my son said,
‘Dad, you are so like Homer.’
Nick said,
‘Well in many ways he is right the episodic storytelling structure of you work …’
No, we’re talking about the yellow cartoon man, not the Greek fella.
IMAGE CUTS
WALKS SR TO FILING CABINET PULLS OPEN TOP DRAWER TO REVEAL ANOTHER TELEVISION MONITOR INSIDE. IMAGE OF A HEADSHOT IS RUNNING ON IT
This is Laura Nicol. She is a peace activist and Taekwondo instructor.
PHOTO OF LN AND MT IN DRESSES LEANING ON A POLICE CAR APPEARS ON BACK PROJECTOR
Here we are demonstrating at the US listening base in Yorkshire, Menwith Hill.7 Laura is in red, I am wearing a kimono and we are sitting on a police car.
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This is Emily Apple.8
PHOTO OF EA WITH POLICE APPEARS ON BACK PROJECTOR
She was a direct action queen as this photo attests.
ADDRESSES SL MONITOR
Emily, I always had you as being close with Martin
EMILY: LISTENS Yeah we were. He was a really, really, really good friend.
To the extent that your son, well, Martin was his godfather.
EMILY: Secular godfather, yeah.
That’s Emily.
MAN’S FACE APPEARS ON SR MONITOR
This is Gid Burrows9 and in a previous incarnation protesting the arms trade.
PHOTO OF GB COVERED IN BLOOD ON DEMO APPEARS ON BACK PROJECTOR
Gid was in his early twenties when he met Martin, who was something of a father figure to him, though not necessarily a traditional one.
GID: I was dancing on the table with that bloke in a club in Wolverhampton totally pissed out of our heads.
Gid like Emily, Laura and I were close to him, we hung out together. He stayed with us, we stayed with him. I shared a bed with him.
GID: INTERRUPTS I saw him naked over thirty times.
Gid has a tendency to over-share.
These people are going to help tell the story.
The police arresting suite is a long high desk, dotted with computers and police officers.
‘Name? address? Keys, phone. Occupation?’
‘Comedian.’
Cop at the end says,
‘On a fucking good night he is.’
I have just been heckled by a cop and my comeback is cutting and vicious and I think of it on the way home.
In the cell it is cooler than outside, it is tiled, bed of wood and it is dull. Whenever activists tell me they are doing something that may end in their arrest I always say, ‘take a book’.
After a long time a police officer enters the cell.
‘Mr Thomas, we have a solicitor on the phone for you.’
‘I have spoken to one already.’
‘Well there is another sir, wants to check we have not abused your human rights. This way, sir. Use the phone on the wall.’
‘Hello …’
A voice the other end says,
‘Ahhh, you wanker.’ It’s Martin. He has blagged his way through the switchboard pretending to be a lawyer.
‘Got anything to read?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll see if I can get them to take a copy of Razzle at the front desk.’
‘No, don’t!’
‘I’ll tell them if you don’t have a wank every two hours you get violent.’
I reckon they knew he was not a lawyer as I giggled all the way back to the cell.
Later that evening I am charged with criminal damage, later still there is a two-day trial where I am acquitted on the grounds that they could not find any criminal damage and it is still entirely possible to be found innocent in the British courts if they can find no evidence of a crime having occurred.10
I go to leave the station. I am not a hero. I am an everyman, like you, an ordinary person. I do not expect a mob, banners with my name and cheering, I do not expect my face merged with the iconic Che Guevara image on a t-shirt, I do not expect children to be named after me, to be showered in flowers and songs written in my name. But a small group and a pat on the back would be nice.
No one.
There is no one. Except Martin.
Deck shoes, chinos, golf shirt, wire glasses, ruddy face, his hair swept back.
‘Come on, mate – let’s get a drink!’
SCENE 2
Ours was a friendship born in protest.
I ask Emily, ‘What demos did you go on with Martin?’
EA APPEARS ON SL MONITOR
EMILY: We went on a lot of the May Day protests together, we went to Genoa together, the G8 protests there, we got teargassed together there, we went to New York together.
Do you think when you get teargassed with someone, this sounds weird, but when you get teargassed with someone, do you think that is a binding experience?
EMILY: I think a lot of activism is, whenever you do those sort of things where you are in a highly charged, adrenalin-fuelled situation and you are quite often doing something quite dangerous the bonds you get with people are immense.
Eleven years later and we are quick to find fondness in our memories of him.
LN APPEARS SR MONITOR
Laura, describe Martin for these people.
LAURA: Describe him? Cockney builder.
EMILY: One of the things I always loved about him was that he was so different and he didn’t give a shit about being different.
Gid, what was Martin like with other activists?
GB APPEARS SR MONITOR
GID: Totally inappropriate and brutally honest.
EA APPEARS SL MONITOR
Emily, describe to the audience Martin’s sense of humour?
EMILY: LISTENS Dry, dirty and sarcastic and that’s what I love …
CAAT was founded by Quakers in the 1970s and they have never been able to shake that image. In truth they are mainly Guardian reading atheists, either way neither Quakers nor the Guardian reading atheists are noted for their Monday mornings stories of weekend excess. Quaker stories go:
‘How was your weekend?’
‘I went on a retreat.’
‘How was it?’
‘Quiet.’
Martin walks in Monday,
‘Bloody hell. My missus found the Viagra in my coat pocket. “Who you fucking, you seeing someone else?” “No, no it’s for you, I’m getting on a bit and I wanted to look after you.” “Alright I believe you and you’re on for tonight.” So that night she goes upstairs, I pop a Viagra and wait ten minutes, I go upstairs and she is asleep. I wake her up. “I thought we were on?” “Sorry love I’m tired, we’ll do it tomorrow.” So I had to go and watch the fucking football, sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea and a raging hard on for three hours.’
The Quakers couldn’t really relate to that.
As someone who stood outside of our immediate group, Nick, how would you assess him?
NH APPEARS SL MONITOR
NICK: LISTENS There was everything in Martin that was totally dedicated to the cause, an anti arms trade campaigner, but not only anti arms trade but a campaigner who was interested in other issues, who saw the value in being able to link campaigns, I mean he wasn’t only a foot soldier.
I ran a campaign with Nick about dam building in the Kurdish region of Turkey – fairly esoteric e
ven by our standards but Martin was all over it. He was interested in pro-democracy, internationalist and anti-capitalist campaigns. I called him one morning, I forget what for.
‘I can’t talk, I’m chained to a petrol pump.’
‘What?’
‘Friends of the Earth, climate change, funding Bush, blood for oil.’
‘Are there cops there?’
‘The cops came over and said how long are you going to be here? I said I don’t know. They said well let us know when you have finished.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘I know, they could have had me for trespass but if they weren’t going to say anything, I wasn’t. They did get a bit narky when I had a fag.’
One time, we were at a Green Party auction and there was a room with all the things you could bid for laid out – gift certificates for Reiki healing, driftwood that looks like Gandhi and a biodegradable bamboo death pod.11 There was a big picture up for auction, of the Iraq anti-war march in London, taken from way back and high up. You can see thousands and thousands of people wandering the streets, tiny dots and Martin says,
‘Fuck me, that’s me!’
And it was.
His character was so much larger than life that he stood out in a march of millions.
These were my friends. Authentic, genuine activists.
And Martin he ticked every box I had, working class, rough as shit, prone to kindness, easy to shed a tear, he used to work for the arms industry12 and had now redeemed himself and now worked against.13 He ticked every box in every Johnny Cash song I have ever loved.
Three weeks later Martin is accused of being a spy for Britain’s biggest arms company. BAE Systems.
He has always publicly denied it.
At the time I was working in television, not an industry noted for its authenticity, and the programmes I made did involve an element of deception. It would be unfair to suggest I liked the deception, it would not be correct to say I liked deceiving people. I loved it.
In one particular show I set up a PR company, Mackintosh Morley and hired a stall at an arms fair in Greece, offering PR advice on how to handle allegations of human rights abuse.14
The company was the first stall people saw on the official tour. So ministers and generals would walk past and see a massive poster with the words,
‘ARE YOU READY WHEN AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL COME KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR?’
Lots of military people stopped and said,
‘You are Amnesty International?’
‘No we’re not. But we could be. We are the people who will help you when they do come for you, we are the people who will teach you how to handle yourself against human rights allegations. We’re running free media training courses; takes five minutes, come on in.’
Day two. We stand sipping coffee first thing as a man in a jacket and tie arrives.
‘My name is Major General Widjojo, I am from the Indonesian armed forces, I wish to try your media training session.’
‘Come on in.’
MT MOVES CHAIR DSL FACING TABLE AND TWISTS ANGLEPOISE LAMP TO SHINE ON CHAIR
‘This is Chris, he’ll be interviewing you. Simon is going to film it so we can do an in-depth assessment of your media skills and as Chris interviews you, I’m going to offer you advice and tactics. Now to take the sting out of the criticism I am going to give you some toys – soldiers, animals and superheroes. If you answer well I shall give you more, if you answer badly I shall take them away. OK? Off we go.’
Chris opens a large file containing Amnesty reports and begins.
‘Major General Widjojo you are accused of genocide in East Timor …’
Major General Widjojo interrupts,
‘Amnesty International do not understand the situation. They are a Western organisation. They simply do not understand cultural differences …’
‘Uh oh oh that’s quite an aggressive answer, I am going to have to take away an octopus and Spiderman … We work on a policy of partial admission. Can you admit to any of the accusations? Only do it if it is true, only do it if you feel you can, but can you admit to some of them?’
‘Yes. I can admit to torture.’
‘Torture?’
‘Just a little bit of torture.’
‘Just a little bit. Yes let’s start with a little bit and see if you can win Spiderman back.’
Major General Widjojo looks at the camera and looks at me and says,
‘This isn’t going anywhere is it?’
‘No I promise, this is just between you and me.’
CLIP FROM MAJOR GENERAL INTERVIEW PLAYS ON BACK PROJECTOR
It transpires that Martin and I shared a talent for deception and fair play to him he did it for seven years. But deception is a heady drug and you have to control the usage.
Before I went to the arms fair I spoke to the Channel 4 lawyers, a chap called Neil Pepin.15
‘Right so you want to film undercover, well there are regulations.’
‘Yes.’
‘You have to catch them do something illegal, lying or something that is against the public interest. Those are the rules – illegal, lying, against the public interest. Do you think anyone at the arms fair might fall into those categories?’
‘We might get lucky.’
‘And you have to reveal the deception as soon as possible, put the allegations you are going to make about the arms dealers to them and broadcast their right of reply.’
I liked the deception, I liked the regulations, I liked that you reveal the deception afterwards, because I am a show off and it is pointless doing this if I can’t brag about it.
SCENE 3
WOMAN APPEARS SL MONITOR
Let me introduce you to one more person. This is Ann Feltham.
PHOTO OF ANN ON BACK PROJECTOR
She is Parliamentary Co-ordinator for Campaign Against Arms Trade.16 I say she runs CAAT – no one on the left runs anything. If you say who’s in charge they say, ‘We have a horizontal consensual decision making process.’
It’s the 26th September 2003.
ANN: It was a Friday afternoon.
FRAME FREEZES
Ann is in the office when there’s a knock on the door
ANN: It was a Sunday Times’ journalist and he had one sheet of paper with a kind of report he said had gone to BAE that was describing activities that were going on in our office …
FRAME FREEZES
If I may, Ann has just met a journalist from the Sunday Times’ Insight team, their investigative team, and they are about to run one of their biggest scoops of the year. Anne goes with him to the Sunday Times office.
ANN: … where they showed us this heap of papers which were kind of X went to a meeting and Y went to a meeting and all sorts of details about what had been going on in our office.
LIGHT COMES UP ON REPORT ON DESK
It revealed that a man called Alan Fossey had been spying on CAAT in Hull.
ANN: It was quite apparent that some other people had been spying on us as well.
Did they say or suggest who it might be?
ANN: They didn’t suggest who it might be.
Ann goes back to the office, runs an audit of the office computers and produces a file of evidence.
NH APPEARS ON SL MONITOR
NICK: Ann gave me the file and I sat down in the top room at CAAT in their old offices and I read it and it was extremely forensic and having read it there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was Martin.
MT ON PHONE
Get Ann out of the meeting, I want to speak to Ann, get Ann on the phone. I’d love to leave a message. What are you doing attacking the most productive and active member of CAAT? You have just vilified the one person in CAAT who actually does anything. He campaigns, he gets out there. If BAE are paying him, they should give him a pay rise, cos he does more work than anyone else. What is it you actually do? Other than look smug. Gone on a vigil. Did you light a candle for peace, did you and the nuns sing a song ag
ainst the arms industry? It is amazing the arms industry still functions after you have given them one of your sincere looks. Why don’t you just fuck off, fuck off with your smug arrogant middle-class Guardian Quaker twattery AND YOUR PORRDIGE IS SHIT TOO.
I must have been quite a handful that day.
ANN APPEARS SL MONITOR
Ann, that couldn’t have been very nice for whoever picked up the phone.
ANN: Yeah.
I’m sorry about that.
ANN LOOKS ON IN SILENCE
Ann doesn’t accept my apology. It was just that all of this was incomprehensible to us.
LN APPEARS SR MONITOR
Laura, when Martin was accused of spying on CAAT what was your reaction?
LAURA: LISTENING I didn’t believe it.
Why didn’t you?
LAURA: The things he’d been involved in it didn’t seem possible and also I don’t think it was helped by the fact the people accusing him didn’t like him.
What do you mean, the things he’d done?
LAURA: The things he’d been involved in. I mean he’d pied Dick Evans, hadn’t he?
Dick Evans?
LAURA: He’d pied Dick Evans.
Dick Evans was the Chairman of BAE Systems! Martin stuck a custard pie in his face.
GB APPEARS SR MONITOR
Gid, do you remember when Martin pied Dick Evans?
GID: LISTENS I was sitting next to him.
He was making a speech to some students at some London business school …
GID: And we just decided we’d get in there and custard pie him, use spray cream or shaving cream, because you can get them into anywhere, and straight into the face.
Naïvely, stupidly, inanely we thought he can’t be a spy – he put a custard pie in Dick Evans’ face.
But more than this, this is our friend.
To even look at the file would be an act of betrayal.
What did I do when I found out my friend had been accused of spying? I took him on tour.
SCENE 4
SFX: LOUD DUB MUSIC PLAYING. MT V.O. AND MUSIC DIPS JUST BELOW HIS SHOUTED VOICE
Four of us in the car, Bobster is tour manager.
He did the shortest tour manager’s job interview ever. I said,
‘Who else have you worked with?’
He said,
‘The first job I had was doing lights for the Clash.’