Rebecca Frayn takes her children on picnic to protest at Heathrow expansion guardian.co.uk

It's always quite interesting, heading to a flash mob like this. On the train to the specified destination some passengers are just slumped as usual, staring into space, but others are checking everyone out from the corner of their eyes, looking away quickly when anyone glance in their direction.



We all reach Heathrow with no idea what sort of security will be waiting: in the end despite BAA's hints of machine guns there are just yellow-jacketed police equipped with huge cameras, stationed at intervals along the travelator. Up, up into the airport, and still nothing shockingly unusual until you reach the departure hall itself. There, the atmosphere is absolutely electric, prickling with darting eyes and secret acknowledgements. Edges of costumes and banners protrude from beneath winter coats. Too many people are carrying musical instrument cases, instead of suitcases. Everyone is watching everyone else, while the police, lining the long white hall in bristling yellow lines, are trying to watch every single person at the same time.

And then, mysteriously, at 7pm precisely someone gives a signal. Like an army going into battle, with a united rustle the coats come off, the blankets are pulled from rucksacks and unfurled on the marble floor. Out come tupperware, scotch eggs, Carr's water biscuits, plastic cups and Appletize. I see a wild-rice salad, a broccoli and brown pasta dish, couscous, cupcakes and beautifully made cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The giant picnic is the length of a tennis court: around it the police stand as blank faced as possible. It is the most British of all possible protest armies.

Heathrow's Climate Rush has been organised by the Climate Rush, a group of mainly female anti-aviation campaigners who like to organise in memory of the suffragettes (that's why the period costume that adds such charm to this whole affair. You can't have too many men in top hats on a protest). The idea came into being last December, the realisation took just a couple of weeks. The people here (I'd guess, very roughly, about somewhere between 400 - 600) come from Sipson village, through Facebook, from the Climate Rush mailing list, from the Youth Climate Coalition. There are older people (often with the best picnics) but there are also a lot of teenagers, a lot of 20-year-olds, even a handful of children. Sue Morgan is here because "we're digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole"; Casper ter Huile is here because "we're nearly past the tipping point, we need hundreds of thousands of people on the street if we're going to take action now"; and Hannah is here because "I really like trains and I think we should be concentrating on that now". None of them want to see a third runway. None of them are optimistic that the government is going to say no.

After a while the weird mysterious picnic calm disintegrates a little into the occasional chant and then some odd attempts at performance art (women in green catsuits flying mini planes around? Tossing blow-up globes in parachute clothes?). At the last minute it looks as if the protestors are considering a Rush on the police by the departure gates but it turns into a spirited dance-off instead (only the protestors are dancing obviously. They win by default). It has been as fluffy as fluffy can be, and by the end even the police are beginning to look a little mellow. By 9pm it's all over (apart from one doughty group who start defiantly opening up a tent). I overhear one policeman making a crack about 'Sipson refugee camp'.

It won't all be so peaceful, however, if the government makes what these people believes is the wrong decision next week. As Sue Morgan (not someone who would usually put me in mind of the Godfather) puts it: "If the third runway goes ahead there will be a lot of a protest. And it won't all be sitting down like this. With cups of tea." You heard her.