For once the weather was kind to London, there was neither fog nor rain and the thin cloud was allowing short periods of sunshine. Oxford Street was crowded with Christmas shoppers. The name of the holiday, Christmas, had made a reappearance after many years of just being referred to as 'holiday', and Christmas carols were again heard from mu-sac machines. The general mood was one of relaxed excitement. The notable thing was that the majority of people were moving westward, Park Lane was much busier than usual and there was a traffic jam along Bayswater Road. Visitors to Hyde Park were slightly elevated and all four park cafés were crowded with diners and coffee drinkers,but all of this went unnoticed.
The Reverend Kenneth Woods sat in a fast food burger restaurant, almost opposite Park Lane, he was still being watched by Special Branch, and Ken had become quite expert in spotting his minders. The watchers reported back where he was, and that they thought he was on a recon'. Woods finished his fried chicken and drank the last mouth-full of de-caff tea and at exactly eleven fifty he left the restaurant, followed by his watchers behind their newspapers, and crossed the road to Park Lane, then turned right to cross Park Lane towards Speakers Corner. On the stroke of twelve, and as the chimes of Big Ben sounded in the distance, the reverend Woods entered Hyde Park. It happened as if by magic, suddenly there were hundreds of people in the north-east corner of the Park, and the two Special Branch officers were right in the middle of it. Officer Little realised what was happening and immediately activated his radio, but by that time it was too late, this prayer event could no longer be prevented, as was hoped.
Within five minutes, there were no longer hundreds in that part of the park, but thousands. The two officers looked around them in amazement, their 'mark' was still in sight and made for a hot bagel vendor who had a small 'barrow'. The bagel man opened the lower part of his barrow and withdrew a portable public address system, which previously had been playing Christmas carols. A microphone was offered and Ken Woods took it and addressed the crowd.
“Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are here today to pray for our country, to pray for our government and the times that are to come. Please, do not respond to any authorities that approach you with violence, do not resist. Ask yourselves, 'What would Jesus do?' and respond in the way He would. Jesus offered no resistance when He was arrested, even though He knew what His ultimate fate would be. I ask you, do the same, God will be with you. Now let us pray.”
After the Reverend Woods had said His prayer, other church leaders and prominent Christians appeared at the microphone to add their prayers to those who had gone before. It was close to an hour before the police arrived, their progress from the barracks was impeded somewhat by the extraordinary heavy surface and air traffic, mainly due to the London cabbies who had organised themselves through their dedicated radio network. Continuous traffic over the the police headquarters at Hendon had delayed the police LIMOs from lifting off and surface taxies had clogged every available route to Marble Arch. By the time the police eventually arrived there were well in excess of forty- thousand people in the public park, and the police commander took one look and withdrew the three hundred officers that were assigned to the group. The two Special Branch officers who had been shadowing, had attempted to arrest Ken Woods, but decided that they had little chance of extracting him from the centre of the crowd.
By three o'clock the crowd had almost dispersed, and the Home Secretary, Henry Harden, stood in the window of the commandeered hotel room overlooking the park, watching it slowly empty. Harden's face was flushed with anger at what he considered, a personal defeat. Not one arrest had been made and the news media had arrived before the police, the whole country now knew, and possibly the whole of Europe knew that he had failed. These Christians would not get away with this humiliation, he decided, he would make it his objective in life to crush the Christian church, no matter what.