Brightlingsea live animal export protests 30 years on

“There was only one main street that the lorries could go down. I remember people sitting in the road, people had placards, and you could get really close to the lorries.

“You probably could have reached out and touched the calves. That’s a fairly heart-rending thing because you know where they’re going.

“The thing that really struck me, and probably a lot of people, is that I imagined very militant protesters… but what was so interesting about the Brightlingsea protests was this was normal, local people.

“A lot of the protesters were women and there were a lot of older people. It made for a really interesting dynamic in terms of the policing because they weren’t ‘troublemakers’. Some of these people were the epitome of law-abiding people.

“It all ended very quickly. I think there was a very quick decision and I seem to recall it all fizzling out fairly fast.

“I think it came down to the fact the exporters decided it was too much aggravation and costing them too much money.”