Anti-lockdown friends

Suspicion and trust

In the early days of lockdown a friend of mine from the 9/11 Truth Movement contacted me to say that he had found an online opponent of the lockdowns who lived near me with whom he thought I should connect. I did so and we arranged to meet. In response to lockdown I had started making videos outdoors in which I spoke into my phone so I interviewed her but we were hampered by rain and sound issues.

She then got in touch with another woman and the three of us arranged to meet in Oxford. The second woman was Debbie Hicks. Debbie lived in Stroud and had been working with people in London. It wasn’t clear why she was involved in Oxford but she arrived with a large megaphone and some scraggly banners that were slogans handwritten on sheets. After a brief walk in the town centre Debbie urged us to set up in Bonn Square.

Debbie took up the megaphone and began haranguing the few people there. Both the megaphone and her tone were overpowering for the small square and audience. She spoke like an irritated school teacher to misbehaving children and then handed the megaphone to me.

I vented my frustrations from beneath a cloud of overgrown hair, having needed a haircut since before the lockdown had closed the barbers along with many other businesses. I was conscious that we looked a little ridiculous. With the good sense that marked her stewardship of the anti-lockdown efforts that followed, our other friend sat on a bench and engaged with any interested passers-by. Most of the few people dotted about drinking coffee ignored us.

We began to meet regularly in Bonn Square on Saturday afternoons, using a stand that opened out like a series of interconnected letter X's to display information. We clipped A4 sheets in plastic sleeves to string, as washing from a line, and gave out flyers and conversed with people. The stand provided a physical presence and focal point.

Over time our continued presence in the square and the absence of all other social events led to people joining us. Some people helped with speaking to the public and others just turned out for like-minded company and conversation. Due to lockdown restrictions everyone was aware that they had to melt away at the first sign of the police. We received some hostility but other passers-by would thank us, grateful that there were people publicly sharing their concerns. The stand became a hub of dissent in the city.

Debbie was keen to do more. In school mistress mode she berated us for our lack of activity and suggested events such as a march or a live music night.

As Saturday became the day we met in Oxford, we went to Abingdon on a weekday. It was very quiet. At this time we barely had the numbers to man the stall, let alone march without exposing the lack of support for our views. It would have looked pathetic. There was also no money, no band, no venue and no appetite for a live music event in the early days of lockdown in Oxford. Some of those ingredients could be conjured up but without decent support it would have been pointless. Debbie asked my opinion so I told her quietly that I thought we needed to drum up more supporters first.

By the weekend I was hearing that Debbie was upset with me about this, which was strange as I had only said one inoffensive sentence when invited by her to voice my opinion. So on the Saturday in the square I said to Debbie, "I hear you were unhappy that I didn't think we should do a march or a gig yet. I just want you to know that I was only offering my opinion, I didn't mean it to be the final word or to stop you doing anything you wanted to do."

She seemed to recoil with a fleeting expression of fear or disgust like she was worried I was about to vomit on her and she said, "That's ok, we can talk about it later." It was true we could talk about it later, but we were both there in the square at that moment and could have talked about it then.

A few days later Debbie organised a video call with me and three others who comprised a kind of leadership group. By this time I had learned that she was telling others that I had sexually harassed her. This was a surprise to me firstly because I hadn't and secondly because I had only ever interacted with her publicly in the square. As the only man in our little committee I was worried that might be enough to condemn me but Debbie had misread the room.

Not wanting to provide further ammunition for accusations I stayed quiet on the call while Debbie berated us for not doing enough. It was not clear what she had done to assume a superiority of rank or performance. When this and the fact that she was talking to us as though we were naughty schoolchildren was pointed out to her, she hung up. She messaged the others complaining that they had not supported her, as she had assumed they would, in kicking me out of the group.

A few days later she texted me asking to meet up, just the two of us. I refused saying that I had nothing personal to discuss with her, and that group business could be discussed with the others. I did not want to meet her without witnesses. It seemed strange that she wanted to be alone with a man she had accused of harassing her.

The rest of us continued with our illegal gatherings in the square on Saturdays. The stand was Debbie's but as she lived in Stroud, a different town in a different county, and hadn't always been able to attend, we still had it. Repeated offers were made to return it to her at her house but she put them off. Then one Saturday, she turned up to take it whilst we were using it thus provoking an angry reaction from the women. Not wanting to provide any reason for further accusations, I busied myself taking down our information sheets and boards. Debbie had driven her car up the bus lane into the square and I put the stand in the open boot of her car and watched as the argument flared up. I was struck by the strength of feeling and betrayal that was conveyed as voices were raised. "Who are you, Debbie? Who are you?" one woman asked. Debbie had no answer and looked shocked as she got into her car.

Debbie was later arrested for breaking lockdown regulations in Stroud in November 2020 and it was reported that she was fined £10,000 though she was found not guilty in December 2021.

Debbie was also arrested for her actions when filming in Gloucestershire Royal hospital in December 2020. Her arrests were widely reported and effectively served as a deterrent to others. In footage of her arrest at home she intimated that the arresting officer was sexually harassing her. In January 2022 she was found guilty and fined £929.

We replaced Debbie's stand with a gazebo and from then on, our outreach efforts and the growing group was known as 'the gazebo.' It became something of a symbol of hope for the local anti-lockdown movement.

Peter Hitchens

In its early weeks Peter Hitchens wrote articles that were critical of lockdown. When I first argued about lockdown publicly, it was with a man who felt I had passed too close to him in the street, and it was Peter Hitchens' name that I called upon as a reference that might spark interest in a media consumer, in the possibility of a credible alternative point of view. In left-leaning Oxford this had the opposite effect.

Nevertheless Hitchens was a prominent media voice. After writing his column for the Mail on Sunday, he would return from London to Oxford railway station and then cycle home. Sometimes he would take a slight detour through the city centre and past our information stall in Bonn Square. There were constant conversations and activity around our stand but one day I recognised his distinctive voice on the other side of the gazebo speaking to one of our group. He agreed to provide a short interview which I filmed on my phone, in which I asked soft ball questions so that he could articulate the anti-lockdown position. I stood opposite him and found that whilst filming with my phone in the noisy city centre the combination of audio and visual considerations meant that I had to hold my camera uncomfortably close to his face. As I hesitated holding it so intrusively close to him the camera would automatically adjust its focus zooming in and out leading one commenter to remark when it was uploaded to youtube that they never expected to see Peter Hitchens interviewed in the manner of a skateboard video.

People told us that Hitchens had mentioned our group in a Talk Radio interview. This validation and publicity was celebrated by our group but in retrospect where people thought association with him gave us credibility we were also lending him our authenticity.

Hitchens’ wife Eve began to frequent the gazebo, stopping to speak with the regulars and sheltering underneath it from the rain.

When the vaccines came for his age group, in a depressing week, Hitchens joined anti-lockdown MPs Desmond Swayne and Charles Walker and former Supreme court justice Jonathan Sumption in taking the shots. Hitchens explained to his readers that he had no choice if he wanted to travel and effectively declared that resistance was futile. His wife stopped coming to the gazebo.

Geza Tarjanyi

On October 10th, 2020 a man joined us who was presented to me as an expert in political demonstrations and outreach and someone to whom I should pay attention. Geza Tarjanyi was an apparent veteran of protests against fracking. After watching me speak with the public he advised me not to debate with people but to always answer with a question so as to make them explain and justify their views. It might be thought that such an artificial tactic might seem evasive and erect an unnecessary barrier to open discourse and trust, but apparently this was how to go about things.

Even without such prescriptive conversational strategies people would often be angered by our views and presence in the square and occasionally tempers would flare. That day a tall, balding young man in a mask confronted us describing his concerns for his dad. Geza put his techniques to use producing an angry shouting match. We regulars at the gazebo managed to intervene and begin a calm discussion with the man which was making headway until Geza returned to demonstrate his questioning technique. Once again he enraged the man to the point that it seemed that Geza’s intention was to have his head knocked off and at one point he looked quite likely to achieve it. Thankfully the man left before he succumbed to temptation.

I would later see the man about Oxford. He would always say hello to me and never again did I see him wearing a mask.

A few weeks before joining us at the gazebo, Geza had rather fortuitously come across both Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty in separate incidents within the space of ten minutes as he waited around Victoria Street in London whilst conducting a livestream.

In 2021 he confronted both Chris Whitty and Jonathan Van Tam. In August 2023 Geza was found guilty of harassment after following Matt Hancock into the London Underground.

Kevin Corbett

At the gazebo we were routinely asked for our occupations and our credentials by the public - particularly as to whether we were epidemiologists, virologists, or doctors. We were also often met with declarations meant to invalidate our views, either of innate superiority such as, "well I work for the NHS," or of greater expertise such as, "I'm a nurse." These pronouncements usually ended with words to the effect of, "and I can tell you what you're saying is rubbish."

On two or three occasions we were joined by Kevin Corbett, a PHD qualified nurse with 30 years of clinical experience who along with the regular presence of a NHS data analyst, provided us at the gazebo with the credentials we required to rebuff the challenges that were routinely made by the public. The exalting of the NHS which included the Thursday night public applause, had gone to people's heads. The NHS is the largest employer in the UK and the fifth largest in the world and it exerted considerable influence in preventing its staff from understanding that which their salaries depended on. It seems unlikely that NHS employment made experts of all its staff, or even provided a situation where all employees agreed on all things, however much that sometimes appeared to be the case. Who would people trust when two NHS employees disagreed -as they did at the gazebo when our NHS data analyst discussed the evidence with passing NHS employees who supported the lockdown?

When passing nurses called rank we matched them with a retired nurse in our ranks and with Kevin. When Kevin joined us we had several weeks of experience interacting with the public and he seemed impressed with our conversational style. Although he initially feared hostility he was encouraged by our example to take part. A few weeks later he spoke publicly at a rally in Trafalgar Square.

We listened to his speech from the back of the crowd and when the crowd was invited to walk down Whitehall to Downing Street, we passed him descending from the stage at the base of Nelson's column, arm in arm with Dolores Cahill before seeing Geza shouting at the crowd from a platform opposite Downing Street. Debbie was also there telling people she wasn’t with our Oxford group because she had problems with a man in it. At that time I was the only man regularly and actively involved.

Although Kevin spoke well we were not particularly impressed by the rally, the turnout, or with its effectiveness in waking people up so we opted to concentrate our efforts working in our local community in Oxford.

I didn't see Kevin again after that until I attended an exhibition of anti-lockdown art in London in 2023 but he was pre-occupied with invigilating the exhibition and didn’t seem to remember me.

A freemason

One man who joined us at the gazebo was different from others. He seemed of a wealthier class, and did not particularly subscribe to the notion that lockdown was part of a conspiracy. Where our usual number consisted of troubled and rebellious conspiracy theorists, he was opposed to lockdown merely because it prevented him from travelling and taking holidays when and where he wished. He caused consternation in the group by openly declaring himself a freemason and later by saying he had taken the vaccines which the rest of us had spent a year or more opposing. When in 2021 we were contacted by the Freedom Alliance who sought volunteers to stand in elections for the city council, some people in our group suggested to him that he had the aspect of a politician and that he should stand but he deferred saying that as a freemason he could not engage with politics. I sent him a picture of a monument to George Washington that is engraved Freemason and President. Later I was told that his engagement with us was not entirely innocent and nor was his association with Oxford University.

David Adelman

One of our group would regularly come down from Manchester in order to visit his Oxfordshire based girlfriend and was keen that I meet David Adelman. He gave Adelman a glowing reference, praising his ability to address the public and the police. Adelman advocated common law and a noncompliant attitude towards the police and parliamentary statutes. Now self-titled as the ‘people’s lawyer,’ he advised people to refuse to engage with the police to the point of not revealing their names when arrested. As he had been arrested up north I asked how he had dealt with the situation and whether he had given his name.

He had, but in his opinion he hadn't as he had said, "I go by David Adelman," which was a formulation that was apparently not the same as saying his name. I later heard complaints from those who had been arrested and fined after they had followed his approach who then felt that he hadn't even followed it himself.

When I met him he also told me that -as many of us suspected- viruses were not causative agents of disease. I asked him how he explained the smallpox epidemic in north America and he hadn't heard of it. A couple of years later I saw him at ‘rebels on roundabouts,’ at Portwood in Stockport where he divided opinion. Some of the regulars resented his presence, as everyone else was freely giving their time and energy to the cause of freedom whilst he charged for his advice.

Danny Shine

One Sunday morning I received a facebook message saying the London-based youtuber the Social Experimentalist was in Oxford. His real name is Danny Shine and he had become well known for his lockdown videos in which he dressed as a covid martial and using deadpan humour and a loudhailer, he pushed the limits of compliance among the unsuspecting public. That day he was looking for someone to film for him which I ended up doing as I was interested to see how he went about things. I went to meet him and found a group of people associated with the gazebo waiting in Bonn Square. It happened that an initiative organised by Debbie Hicks was occurring there. I tried to slip past into the shopping centre so as not to attract another round of accusations from Hicks but our mutual friends saw me and asked what I was doing. As the Social Experimentalist was known to be entertaining some of the group joined me to watch as he addressed shoppers in the Westgate shopping centre before being turfed out by security.

I didn't invite people to follow me but this was viewed by Hicks as me sabotaging her efforts. Again it wasn't clear why Hicks who lives in Stroud had returned to Oxford. Again the loyalties of our group were divided.

The Social Experimentalist quizzed me on the point of our anti-lockdown, anti-vaccination campaign, asking why I cared about people who were not interested or were openly hostile. As I was aware that he often advocated veganism for the sake of ignorant animals I asked why he wouldn't extend his compassion to what he considered to be ignorant people. Although he made entertaining videos that mocked the prevailing ignorance of the covid era, Danny Shine also seemed to advocate much that was in agreement with the secret agenda that was behind lockdown. He promoted the idea of anti-natalism -that people should not breed -arguing that to do so was to inflict suffering, despite having children of his own whom he was in Oxford to visit.

Paloma Shemirani

In July 2021 a young woman approached the gazebo. She was delicately made and well dressed. She looked and spoke like a student from the university, most of whom did not approach the gazebo and generally rejected our stance. She told me quietly that she agreed with us. As we spoke I asked her name but unusually, when she answered she gave me her surname as well. I caught her first name Paloma, and noticed her give me a meaningful look as though watching my response to the surname which I didn't hear. As the conversation continued she mentioned her Mum as though it was understood who she was, speaking of her Mum's involvement in initiatives and demonstrations. I asked who her mum was. "Kate Shemirani,"she said.

"Oh is that why you looked at me funny when you said your name? I didn't quite hear what you said," I replied.

Paloma told me that she was from Brighton but studying in Cambridge and that she was in Oxford visiting friends.

I then asked her how she and her mum felt about her brother's interview on the BBC, the purpose of which had been to portray Kate as a crazy conspiracy theorist. It was clear Paloma sided with her mum. As I had come across a number of students at Oxford who felt isolated and were withholding their views from their friends I was also interested in the reaction of Paloma's friends to her views. She said she kept quiet about them and that although her friends knew of her Mum's opinions none of them ever mentioned the subject to her. I remember thinking that was unusually tactful of them. Paloma's mother had appeared in the national news after being maligned by her brother and none of her friends had asked her about it? I suppose it's possible.

Although at the gazebo we had doubts about Kate Shemirani, meeting Paloma apparently by chance and hearing her account caused me to reconsider without completely relieving me of scepticism.

Given the prominence now given by the media to Kate Shemirani, and the reported death of Paloma, is it possible that Paloma visited the gazebo and came over specifically to talk to me to seed the story? Information was being disseminated through our group into the wider dissident network. Was her visit innocent or was it a way of validating Kate Shemirani?

During lockdown, for those who opposed the restrictions, like-minded friends were in short supply. It was felt we couldn't be choosy. We were delighted to meet anyone who shared our views and we often accepted people without knowing anything about them. We forgave them their oddities and eccentricities even when these may have been warnings for us to heed. It was possible to be both too trusting and too suspicious. The problem we faced was that if we waited for everything and everyone to be perfect, nothing would get done. It was necessary to play with the hand we were dealt, but it would also have been useful to check the identity of the dealer and whether the deck was loaded.

Thank you for reading and many thanks to my subscribers.
You can help me to write more frequently by

1. Subscribing monthly here on substack

2. Making a one-off contribution via BuyMeaCoffee

3. Contributing in either way via bank transfer to Santander, account number 00758982, sort code 09-01-36, account name F X ONeill (please use your email address as a reference if you’d like me to acknowledge receipt).

Your support enables me to write these articles and is very much appreciated. Thank you.