Campaigners Jeanne and Nick B.

I have been busy today.  I started photographing the first portrait of the day at 9-30am when Mike G arrived early for me to film him in his bookshop in Stroud.  At 10am I was fifty yards away at Stroud Valleys Project's shop where I'd arranged to meet its director, Clare, as well as Geoffrey, who is one of their trustees, to record their images as well.  All of this work is for the book project, which I've mentioned in the last few days, where we are recording and celebrating the significant contributions by local people to the development of Stroud through their 'activism' during the last thirty years.

I also photographed Kevin W. at the Museum, Patrick M. at his home and then much later I met Tom at his home in a village outside Stroud.  All of them have been interviewed for the book which will be telling their stories.  At lunchtime I drove up the Slad Valley for another portrait session with the original founders of the Slad Valley Action Group which was set up about twenty years ago to  stop rampant and inappropriate housing development in the unique pastures of the Slad Valley, renowned because of Laurie Lee's famous book 'Cider with Rosie', which extolled the beauty and culture of one of the five valleys of Stroud.

Jeanne and Nick B. who lived on the higher slopes of the valley on the edge of Stroud, became energised to start a community action group to counter the developers, and were wholly successful with enormous local support.  That story will become a chapter of the book, and is why I needed to get their photographs to include in the gallery of contributors.

I hadn't met them before, but they had recently attended a town council meeting where they asked for, and received, the backing of the council for their campaign to halt the badger cull which is now happening here in Gloucestershire, although only to the west of the river Severn at present, which is one of the Government's two test sites.  Jeanne and Nick have badgers living in the woodlands behind their house two miles up the Slad valley from Stroud, and their concern for the welfare of the badgers prompted them to start a new pressure group locally to make sure they were protected locally.  But their campaigning skills learnt from the original Slad Valley Action were soon brought to bear on the countywide campaign 'Gloucester against Badger Shooting', or GABS,  which was launched as soon as the culling was announced by the government.

Today they apologised for being so exhausted as they are the coordinating group for the campaigners who are out every night trying to monitor the cull.  This is composed of a very wide ranging group of people from all over who have all offered to help the campaign by staying out at night in all weathers.  One particular group is called the 'Wounded Badger Patrol' who walk miles and miles of footpaths every night looking for badgers who have been shot.  If you see one of these wounded animals, they ask that you email 'wbpglos@gmail.com'.

There are bus drivers, psychiatrists, teachers, students and many other dedicated people out there tonight, I gather.  Apparently the test cull is a farce; it was announced that their target was to kill 2900 badgers in 6 weeks and they have only managed to kill 700.  So the cull will be extended

You ought to read this horrifying local news report from two days ago, where Jeanne was quoted:
ALLOWING an illegal van driver to transport dead badgers away from the cull zone is the latest example of a "free-for-all" developing in the countryside, anti-cull campaigners claim.