As the news spread on the evening of January 1st that Jill had been killed, people around the country immediately swung into action ... ringing friends and fellow activists and organising transport to the airport for the following day.

So on the day after Jill's death there was a major turnout of people at the airport determined not to let any transports through ... whatever the cost. Fortunately for all, the transports never came that day.

Instead, after some general speeches and assurances that there would be no flights that day, many activists left the airport and went to Barret-Jolley's house where overcome with raw grief they completely trashed it.

What followed was totally unexpected ... people just didn't go home and started setting up a makeshift camp at the airport gates ... at first it was pretty rudimentary, but as local people and activists from around the UK donated or brought more stuff ... it soon became well established.

"As a local activist, what amazed me was to see people coming from all over Britain to help us ... I remember some lads who'd hitched down from the Faslane Peace camp ... I was also amazed by the support of local residents, who brought us vegan food, sleeping bags ... all sorts of stuff, it was amazing really and in retrospect one of the most positive things I have ever experienced"

This camp (which came to be known as the "top camp" or "gate camp" ) continued on until we eventually forced the the flights to end ... despite being evicted once and being constantly under Police harrassment.

The camp became a real thorn in the Police's side, with activists on site 24 hours a day the Police had to be there to and all sorts of things were going on from the camp ... which drove the Police crazy ... which is why they tried to evict it.

At first after the top camp was evicted, people initially set up another camp on land adjacent to the entry road to the airport ... this became known as the "bottom camp" and again existed until the end of the campaign several months later.

"I remember the Police moving into the top camp, I don't know who did it, but several settees were pulled into the road and set alight ... it was a crazy scene with billowing smoke clouds, police and activists running around ... fortunately Jill's Partner Justin had a large Yurt which he was intending to use at festivals in the summer ... as the top camp was destroyed, he set up his yurt in the new bottom camp ... which is just as well because the snow came heavy that night"

"Despite the Police pressure, shortly after we managed to re-establish the top camp using living vehicles and sab vans ... so for most of the time there were 2 camps at Coventry airport".

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