Three runners, David, Charlie and Simon, completed the first leg of the Counter Olympics Torch Relay on Saturday 21st. The torch had been handed over to London by Vancouver Counter Olympic protesters after they completed a very successful protest relay around British Columbia. After a short speech on the steps at Stratford…
…the relay circled Stratford Town Centre…
…had an unexpected encounter with the IOC in Leytonstone High Road…
…received some help with carrying the torch further along the route…
…passed the Fred Wigg Tower…
…now occupied by a anti-aircraft missile battery against the wishes of the residents…
…and ended near the police barracks on Wanstead Flats, also occupied against the wishes of local people and in defiance of the Epping Forest Act, which has been overturned to enable this to happen.
We are indebted to Rikki at London Indy Media for the pictures. He kindly turned up along with a number of foreign journalists and a local Newham radio reporter. No mainstream British local, city or national media thought to appear!
It was fun, local people enjoyed the spectacle and there were no logos, buses or celebrities present!