NOSTALGIA: Battery hen protest partly foiled

About 30 supporters of animal liberation scaled barbed wire fences in an effort to occupy the roofs of buildings at the Badby Road monastery on April 12, 1984.

But they were stopped short by police who were waiting for them – and had to be content with a banner-waving demonstration in the grounds instead.

Raiders who said they were from the Eastern Animal Liberation League were part of a two-pronged protest on the day.

Outside the gates of Our Lady of the Passion monastery about 15 people, including members of the Daventry Animal Rights Group, staged a two-hour vigil.

They had plastic chickens nailed to crosses and chanted “Ladies of Passion have no compassion”.

Eventually the activists were led from the grounds by police, and they came out of the gates carrying ‘Stop the Torture’ banners.

The activists were united in the belief that the battery system operated by the nuns, with whom they sought confrontation, was cruel and unnecessary.