Day 275 - 08 Jul 96 - Page 29
1 notes, the meeting on 25th January 1990 was never called a
2 McDonald's campaign meeting. It was always a meeting about
3 the future of the group. Page 58, the 11th January 1990,
4 Mr. Pocklington. In the fourth paragraph Mr. Pocklington
5 describes that "the meeting continued until 10.40 p.m.
6 continuing so long because much time was taken up talking
7 with the new four people explaining the group."
8
9 Just to say that this would be typical of the way that
10 the meetings were conducted. If somebody new attended,
11 there was always an effort made to explain to them the
12 origins of the group, and who was involved, and if any
13 campaign any particular campaign was discussed, then
14 background information would be given about the campaign,
15 the history of the campaign, so that -- and acronyms would
16 be explained. The purpose of that was so that new people
17 could get involved if they wanted to. People there did not
18 want the group to be, like, really cliquey, where only
19 people who had been going for ages and ages knew, you know,
20 could understand, what was being discussed and what was
21 going on. You know, that was a particular point the group
22 made in the way it operated. If people charged headlong
23 into talking about some campaign without giving any
24 background information, then it would in my experience it
25 was quite usual for someone to butt in and say, look, hang
26 on there, so and so is here, they have not been before, you
27 had better tell them, you know, a bit of the background, or
28 let me explain a bit of the background so that, you know,
29 they can understand what we are talking about.
30
31 The other thing -- well, I do not know whether it
32 matters, but just that no one knew about the whereabouts of
33 the group archives. The group had moved office several
34 times within the building and also, I think, from outside
35 the building. I cannot remember when that was, though.
36 And things as far as record keeping went, things were
37 pretty haphazard.
38
39 Page 60 of the notes, Mr. Claire.
40
41 MR. MORRIS: Sorry, what date are we on?
42 A. Sorry, 18th January 1990. Firstly, with respect to
43 Paul, I have never heard Paul say that he was the author of
44 all anti-McDonald's leaflets. I know he prepared the short
45 A5 leaflet and I know that he has prepared press releases,
46 but I have certainly never heard him say that he wrote all
47 of them, nor anything to suggest that he had written the
48 fact sheet and, as I say, every time that was ever brought
49 up it was always said that the person was no longer
50 involved with the group.
51
52 Going on to what it says about me. Firstly, I would
53 not have taken control of the meeting. He says I wrote the
54 minutes and the agenda. I may well have been the person
55 who, on that date, took a piece of paper and started the
56 agenda off. I would not have written out the entire
57 agenda, and I would not have any form of control over
58 anybody there. It may be that on that occasion, you know,
59 if a discussion appeared to have come to an end I said 'the
60 next thing on the agenda is such and such', but I was not
