A good result for a day that started out as a bit of a disaster. Illness, train problems, and all kind of other stuff meant that originally only myself, Jens and the Big Fella had turned up at the meeting point. We sat in the sun, had a few drinks and tried to decide whether we should go out to Saint Hill or wait for reinforcements. Eventually it turned out that other people had been at Saint Hill looking for us. Bonnie Woods dropped by and Roland turned up and at about 3:00 we started picketing outside the Scientologists' bookshop and 'Information Centre' in the town. We were at least doing better than the bookshop, where we had only seen one person go in all afternoon.

The reaction of the one member of staff there was to lock the door and make the first of a long series of phone calls. So much for 'Think For Yourself'. No attempt at confrontation, though she looked as if it would have done her good to get out in the sunshine occasionally.

We had the boom box playing Hubbard's 'man on the cross, there was no man on the cross' and similar rantings. We were waiting for a horde of enthusiastic Operating Thetans to appear from Saint Hill itself and try to combat our 'entheta' but it was not to be. Two women were let into the shop, then another two, who had walked past us earlier, and finally a man appeared. They tried the "Death Stare" but the only effect was laughter. Perhaps the stare does not work through glass?

Maybes the lack of response (apart from the "Death Stare") was because of the presence of Bonnie. After her court victory, the Scientologists do not want to be seen as doing anything that could be construed as harassing her. And Scientology standard counter-demonstration tactics seem to have only two states - 'Hide and hope they go away tech' and what anybody (and the police CCTV conveniently covering the street outside the bookshop) would construe as harassment. So this time they went into victim mode.

The police turned up in response to a complaint from the Scientologists, and made it clear to the Scientologists that we had a perfect right to picket. They had objected to us standing in front of their window, to which the police response was "If people can't stand in front of shop windows, how are the shops ever going to sell anything?". The shopkeeper had also complained about our boom box giving out a 'distorted noise'. Hardly a career-friendly way of describing 'Source'.

We handed out leaflets and had interesting chats with local people. The nervous 'we don't want to annoy Scientology' reaction that we had seen on our first visit seems to have gone completely by now.

So it all turned out pretty well in the end.