Yesterday as the crowd assembled cruise missiles were being loaded primed to join the thousand or more

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Yesterday, as the crowd assembled, cruise missiles were being loaded, primed to join the thousand or more which have already been used in the war against Iraq.The base is no more than minutes away from the village square. But it seemed, in the brilliant sunshine, to be part of another world It is not, of course. Despite the picturesque beauty surrounding us as we prepared to protest, this rallying point was nevertheless just as grimly appropriate as the spot the crowds intended to head for.The gravestones in the churchyard told better than any military strategist's speech what happens in war. Yesterday's protests were being staged against a backdrop which has already seen another generation's troops lose their lives, and this has had an effect on the mood of the protests. Isabel Swift, the Worcester organiser for the Stop the War Coalition, believes this tragic, awful, fact has dampened the public's urge to march. She had not brought with her the numbers she had managed to mobilise on previous occasions. Many of them had cited their reason not as changing opinion, but a desire not to show disrespect for those who are fighting.But still an estimated crowd of 5,000 to 10,000 people mustered here yesterday, determined to march through English lanes to a corner of Gloucestershire that is, and has been for many years, US territory.Fairford air base has been the focus of growing protest for some time now, since a bunch of satirical peaceniks calling themselves the Gloucestershire Weapons Inspectors, made their first visit last October.

A group of 20 of them arrived in a van, and performed some protest theatre, demanding to be allowed in through the gates to inspect the weapons of mass destruction they had reason to believe were there.They have been back regularly, under the indefatigable stewardship of Dave Cockcroft, ever since, demanding inspections and attracting the attention and support of some Greenham Common veterans, including the stalwart organiser Anne Pettitt. A small peace camp has been set up here, attracting the attention of nervous local police and even more nervous national politicians.Until now, every weapons inspection has involved a degree of civil disobedience, with fences breached and arrests made, usually for aggravated trespass. On the weekend of 23 February, the main gates to the base collapsed under the force of a crowd numbering around 800. With such a heated recent history, the police presence around the base has been growing too, the mood becoming uglier.Yesterday, the police presence was phenomenal, with officers in their thousands drafted in from all over England.

They tightly orchestrated the march itself, and had guarded all roads leading close to the perimeter fence since dawn The vast majority carried out their duties with grace. A few, though, behaved like fools, shooing away children as they tried to place flowers around the fences, as if this was a threat in itself.As we listened to the speakers – including Mark Thomas, George Monbiot and Pat Arrowsmith – outside the base on this heavenly afternoon, it was impossible to believe that such a massive police operation could possibly be necessary or justified. The vast majority of people on this march were as peaceful as the cause they espoused, the event as good natured and calm as a village fete.Among the broad church of protesters, though, it was, as ever, the veterans who lent most solemn dignity to the event. The Rev Sidney Hinkes, who served with the 6th Airborne Division, has been marching now for 47 years "This is an unnecessary war This is a cruel war This is an illegal war This is an imperial war," he said. "The US is a rogue state, and we must stop them from taking military command of the world." Hundreds of thousands marching across Britain yesterday were with him all the way.. They said the mood would be bitter this time round and that there would be more "anger", since last month's monster anti-war protest in London had so visibly failed to stop the military juggernaut in its tracks.But amid the forest of righteous placards wending their way down the Embankment yesterday there were ample signs that a distinctive British sense of humour was still bubbling away amid the gloom "Vive la France" read one placard "I wish I was French!" read another.

"Support our troops," one woman called out, echoing the words of her own homemade placard, "bring them home!" "We all live in a terrorist regime," one group sang to the tune of "Yellow Submarine". The alarmist talk about "Saddam's friends", the phalanx of more than 3,000 police, the buzzing of helicopters in the skies above London all seemed curiously inappropriate to this rallying of alienated and disappointed Blair- istas. Outside Temple station an elderly woman – navy skirt, bouffant blonde hair, pink scarf and a cascade of pearls – struggled with her oversized placard. "Oh my God, am I too late?" she called out, kneeling on the pavement as she tried to tape her collapsing board (slogan: "Bush is an assassin") back together One of the Underground staff knelt down to help her. "No dear, you've got ages," she said, looking up to wink broadly at the crowd.There have been many attempts to paint the protesters at the Stop the War march as an unlovely alliance of the militant and the merely naive. They are "Saddam's friends" and either enemies or traitors, to "our boys".