The small group of middle-aged women waiting patiently outside Tonbridge train station in rural south-east England looked unlikely extremists. As a white minibus pulled up and the group, exchanging jolly remarks about the weather, climbed on board, few of the early morning shoppers gave them a second glance.
But these women are all frontline activists in the animal rights battle, where Dutch anarchists who boast about breaking into police stations and stealing official records work alongside elderly English women who "only care about the animals" and run weekly stalls taking "little interest in politics."
This weekend, more than 300 leading anti-vivisection campaigners from Europe and the US gathered in Kent for what was dubbed an "activists' training camp."
The three-day event at a private animal sanctuary 16km from Tonbridge, which offered workshops on strategy and tactics, "hunt sabbing," self-defense and personal security, was shrouded in secrecy. Activists were instructed to call a mobile phone number advertised on the Internet when they arrived at the train station and wait for further instructions.
Personal mobile phones had to be left at the entrance to the site and campaigners were warned to be on the look out for undercover police and journalists -- who were banned from the site apart from a two-hour press briefing on Sunday morning. The warnings were clearly justified: a Guardian reporter attended the event by posing as an activist to find out exactly what strategy and tactics were being discussed in the closed sessions.
"OK, who's the infiltrator?" asked the driver as the minibus pulled away.
"It's not me," joked one of the women. "I've come along to find out how to make bombs, or at least how to kick a copper properly, I always end up hurting my foot!"
Security and secrecy were recurrent themes over the weekend. In the main tent a lecturer on personal security warned his audience that the police were probably bugging their homes and advised anyone wanting to discuss "private plans" to do so away from the conference site.
"I've seen people off in little groups whispering -- it's obvious what is being discussed ... it's just not secure," he said.
The audience listened attentively as he told them to avoid meeting in pubs, which could be bugged, and advised them to burn rather than shred their mail.
For all the organizers' reassurances that the training camp was solely about legal protest, the more extreme elements of the movement were also there -- and clearly had the support of many of the activists.
A member of the militant Animal Liberation Front, dressed in shorts and T-shirt, drew the largest round of applause when he said: "What we need is more people who are prepared to put on balaclavas and go out in the middle of the night and take real action because this is what has raised our profile, that is why we are getting the media attention.
"There are 20 or so people who carry the direct action movement in this country and most of them are here now. But the police know who we are and watch us -- this isn't a problem, I've been to prison, I've still got the bottle but it limits what I can get away with. But there are people here who I don't know and who I'm sure the police don't know who could do what they want -- get away with murder."
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