I got to Scotland on Wednesday 15th November, met up with some friends who were already in Scotland and then headed to the church hall where I stayed the two nights I wasn't in cells. With less than 12 hours to go before we would attempt to mount our blockade, we sat down to discuss recent days activity at the base and to decide what would be the best tactic for us to use.

We agreed to head of before sunrise, get to the base at around 7am and blockade at about 7:45, having given the police a chance to mistake us for an advance party. Unfortunately, the police figured where and how some of us were carrying our lock-on devices and started arresting people almost immediately. Realising we'd be depleted too soon if we didn't, the signal was given and we all shot forwards. Unfortunately, my group weren't close enough together to connect ourselves together. Also, I'd been struggling to keep the ends of my chains inside my sleeves, and now they wouldn't come out fast enough!

At this point, the group with our wonderful CND symbol managed to push there way into the road and get locked on. They didn't quite manage to block the line of cars trying to get into the base, but it did take the police some time to get the people out from it; not least because they wanted to photograph every possible angle of it to see exactly how it had been made.

Having failed to get my padlocks attached, I was lifted (several attempts) onto the pavement, and then lifted/thrown into the waiting minibus. The police have yet to use real police vans for transferring people to police stations on Faslane 365, but our blockade was met with something else altogether excessive: hand-cuffs. Of the 250 people arrested before us, no one had been cuffed, yet the group of police we encountered seemed in two minds whether or not to cuff people. The 4 officers with me debated at some length whether or not to cuff me and at least one person was cuffed because another officer told their officers he thought it was silly not to. Three people had marks the following evening, 36 hours after it had happened.

At this point we were driven the short distance to the holding area, and then "cautioned and charged" before finally being driven to the police stations where we'd be kept (it took nearly 2.5 hours to get from the gates of Faslane to the cell). Men to Dumbarton, women to Clydebank. Curiously, men were put into cells of 3 while women were kept in solitary confinement. The police tried to the usual tricks like asking people for their place of birth, occupation, etc. (don't give them this). I suddenly panicked when they removed my belt, but thankfully my trousers stayed up!

Anyhow, the food wasn't desperately bad, we were allowed to use the loo in a spare cell instead of our own, and our guard the following morning was a very nice chap who chatted with us and even gave us a choice of lunch options! I'd slept most of the previous afternoon, but apparently the guard at the time was not so nice. I chatted with my cell mates, read my book (seems you can often take one in with you) and slept for most of the time.

Anyhow, we were kept until about 3pm the following day (time is an odd concept when they've taken your watch!) and then released with a letter from the procurator fiscal's office (Scots equiv of CPS). When we met up in the foyer of the police station we had hugs, chocolate and photos. I, like most of the people to go to Faslane so far, now have my letter on my wall like a certificate!

The letter basically says "You've been reported to me for Breach of the Peace and there's enough evidence to bring a case, but on this occasion, we're letting you go free. Next time you might not be so lucky." This would be slightly more worrying if it wasn't for a friend who's now got two copies of this letter, or the report that someone else has earned a grand total of 3 so far!!!

A big thanks to the legal support and media teams who backed us up all of the way. It might not have been the most traumatic arrest experience in history, but being my first it was good to have people around who could handle things for me.

I'd thoroughly recommend the experience to anyone. If you can't face getting put in a cell, then go as a legal observer, other people will appreciate your effort so much! York F365 will be taking a group in February sometime (dates TBC) and the blockade will go on till next September. Blair will be trying to push through a hasty decision over the next few weeks or months, trying to commit us to another 3 decades of nuclear tyranny; we must stop him!