…later in the year, with multiple protests against proposed hydraulic fracking on greenbelt sites across the UK. These actions saw the raising of the first banner bearing the emblem of what would become the Green Man movement: the now familiar face with wide-open eyes, flared nostrils and gaping mouth from which a mass of oak leaves radiate (see Appendix 3 for examples). Little noticed at the time, this would prove to be one of the most significant events in 2016, at least for the future of the UK.

Overshadowed as it was by larger political events (the vote to leave the EU, the assassination of President Elect Trump, the continuing success of the Kurdish revolution in the Middle East, etc.) few if any commentators, or even those involved in the protests themselves, realised its importance. Of those who did, and of whom are publicly recorded as noting it, the most important is Robert Moss, then a journalist for the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian, a local newspaper with a small circulation. Moss would, of course, go on to become a key figure in the group in the lead up to the disturbances of ‘22, and one of the so-called ‘moderates’ who negotiated the ill-fated ceasefire of ‘25…