The Wave

Central London will certainly have known there was a degree of concern being felt about climate change yesterday! The noise level - at least where I was marching - was deafening. Things are rather different from when I last took part in this sort of thing: not only are participants more vociferous: everyone now seems to need to carry a placard, which makes for a great pile of rubbish at the end of the day.

An extraordinary variety of interests combined for the event, Young LibDems walking alongside Socialist Workers; Carmelites rubbing shoulders with the RSPB. The general mood seemed one of festival, though with a deeply serious overtone.

It was more than an hour from the start before the back markers left Grosvenor Square, by which time the early marchers had reached Parliament. The organisers estimated more than 50,000 taking part: BBC News at 10 said 20,000. Who is to say what significance this has?

Our coach driver thought it was all a waste of time, as his and 499 other coaches had been driving round all day, burning up diesel - the coach parking bays having apparently been suspended throughout the capital.

In Westminster Central Hall at 11 a.m. Archbishop Williams and his Westminster counterpart led an ecumenical service attended by 3,500 or so: neither impressed me so much as Michael Holman SJ writing in this week's Tablet: "Ours is a project of hope for a better future: that God’s Creation will be treated with reverence, that the poor will be better off and that we will be living more true to ourselves and to what God has created us to be – one family, living in solidarity with one another and with the many generations yet to come."

There are more of my photographs of The Wave day here, in case you are interested.