GERALD Conyngham and I were outside London’s Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) at ExCel Centre, London, with Exeter Quakers tabards, our banner reading “STOP ENABLING GENOCIDE and our 35 year old grief.

Our four-year-old son Harry died of leukaemia on 9.9.90 after being given all possible treatment in Bristol Children’s Hospital.

In Gaza thousands of children have been killed, or have died from lack of medical care and malnutrition.

The UK government had banned the Israeli government from attending this year, but allowed the following Israeli firms to exhibit: Elbit Systems, the supplier of the Hermes killer drones which Israel has deployed on civilian Palestinian populations, Rafael, IAI, and Uvision.

Different Quakers protest in different ways.

I chose to hold up my banner, silently eyeballing those in line, while in my heart holding our son and other grieving parents in the Light.

Most of the “trade visitors” / “merchants of death” tried not to look at the protestors. It can’t have been comfortable for them.

There was chanting, drumming and scuffling as some protestors tried to block the way in.

The police rushed to ensure that they did get in. This is big business.

I find it shocking that London hosts DSEI every two years and that between 45,000 and 60,000 suited business people, mostly men, attend, to deal in surveillance, weapons and war.

Laura Conyngham

Crediton