Although I knew the London peace march would be large, I was certainly not prepared for the 1.5 million people who descended on the nation’s capital. The fact that three coaches packed full of people travelled to the demo from my sleepy Oxfordshire hometown, Banbury, which isn’t exactly well known for its radical politics, was a sure sign that contempt for the government is high.

Armed with various placards which had been casually strewn across the streets for use, my friends and I began at Gower Street. And the vibe was fantastic, climaxing a few hours later on arrival at Hyde Park. Despite the looming threat of war and obvious bitterness towards Bush and Blair, my fellow protesters were happy and lively, keen to show their enthusiasm for peace. Individuals milled through the crowds distributing literature, adorning us in badges and stickers. Loudspeakers rang out over the crowd, rallying support for the cause and incessant drummers and samba bands provided a welcome beat to dance against the cold. But it was the actual people who surprised me most. Perhaps narrow-mindedly, I envisaged thousands of dreadlock-encrusted twenty year olds, the odd spattering of middle aged CND campaigners and plenty of students, like myself, walking the streets. However, babies through to the elderly and, indeed, very frail had arrived in London to make their views known, of every race, faith, social and political class. From one man discussing the inefficiency of his shooting stick to the apparently very angry local Labour MP, I realised a very wide range of people were represented. Alongside an English Druid Order, I noticed a group of singing Muslim girls. The extreme left wing were present, in the form of communist and anarchist parties, but also, people of the right – an Asian militant waving his flag from the top of a bus shelter was a sight to behold. And it was this multitude of people from every different background imaginable which made the atmosphere unique and the effect of the protest more relevant. War would touch every part of society.

Due to the record number of people in London, it took my friends and myself approximately four hours to reach Hyde Park, meaning, unfortunately, I had missed the line-up of speakers, from Charles Kennedy to Tony Benn. The scene at Hyde Park was not unfamiliar – people languishing on the grass amid dope haze was easily comparable to that of a free festival, fitting the nature of the march perfectly. The Daily Mirror, we had learnt, had sponsored a large stage in the park where the speakers, Damon Albarn and the apparently now political Ms Dynamite were expected to ‘perform’ to the masses. It was certainly good of the tabloid to support such an important cause, but how much of it was for their own gain was anybody’s guess. And this seemed to be the thought of many, as we noticed those carrying Daily Mirror placards had torn off the bold logos and slogans advertising the newspaper. But, perhaps reluctantly, we felt we ought to be pleased at the amount of publicity the newspaper gave to the march, which must have brought more people to London.

At four thirty, my group decided to head back to the coach. Having found out our coach was not in either of the allocated roads due to the extreme number of coaches in the capital, the police had enjoyed the job of moving coaches to various places in the area. As our coach was a far distance away, we chose to find it and guarantee transport home, rather than wait for the music to begin and risk losing a lift home.

Five hours later we arrived home. The coach had been found relatively quickly and easily, but due to severe traffic and the other passengers not boarding until later, it took us much longer to complete the usually maximum journey time of two hours. And as it later became known, another coach from our party had watched all the performances in the park and returned home before eight, it seemed that we had missed out. But it didn’t feel like that. OK, so we tired, cold and ravenous, but the fact that we had united with over a million other people with similar thoughts was enough. In fact, people belonging to group I’d never heard of, people with names I’d be unable to pronounce and people from countries I’ll never see demonstrated across the world at the same time as me, all with the same views on an attack on Iraq. It was an amazing experience, a real insight into the strength of human nature, which I really, truly hope the leaders of the world will take into account, striving instead towards compromise, negotiation and above all, peace.