AFP: Fracking fury hits idyllic British village
Louisa Delpy had never protested before, but when she heard that shale gas extraction might begin in her leafy part of the English countryside, she was so furious that she took to the streets.
The 36-year-old mother went with two friends and a home-made sign to the lonely site where test drilling for oil and gas has begun, close to her upmarket village of Balcombe in West Sussex, a fifty-minute train ride from central London.
Three weeks later, the gaggle of demonstrators has mushroomed into a protest camp of hundreds, becoming the focus of a national campaign against the controversial extraction technique known as "fracking".
Protesters from around Britain have set up dozens of tents, loudspeakers and banners, while crowds surge forward with yells of fury to try to block each truck that drives towards the drilling site.