SCOTLAND SAYS MAKE POVERTY HISTORY:

From Lesley Roberts On Make Poverty History March

SCOTLAND has never seen the like. A 200,000-strong white band of humanity threaded through Edinburgh demanding an end to poverty yesterday.

The streets of the capital might be used to hosting enormous Hogmanay parties and the biggest arts festival in the world.

But even accommodating Edinburgh was staggered by the numbers who turned out to cry: 'Make Poverty History.'

It's already being called Scotland's largest-ever public demonstration.

And, walking within the thick of it, it was easy to believe.

It seemed like the whole of Britain had emptied on to Edinburgh's streets.

At Edinburgh Castle - proudly bedecked in a Make Poverty History banner - the famous cannon sounded at 3pm and flares went up in Princes Street gardens.

The marchers came to a halt. The moment the organisers had been waiting for had been achieved.

A super-sized living, breathing version of the white wristband had encircled the city as a poignant message to the G8 leaders.

The demonstrators bowed their heads for a minute's silence - 60 seconds during which 20 African children died of poverty. One every three seconds.

Then bells pealed out and the marchers carried on.

Earlier, an endless stream of people spilled out from the Meadows and poured out through the Old Town. They were of all shapes, ages and backgrounds, all of them waving banners, blowing whistles and chanting slogans.

Old and young, babies in pushchairs, pensioners with walking sticks and some even in wheelchairs, were next to schoolchildren, families, smartly dressed professional sorts and hairy hippie types.

And the anti-capitalists were there too, in all their red-clad revolutionary glory.

They were noisy and confrontational - which scared some of the kiddies walking nearby - but they were more of a nuisance than a threat. The police eyed them cautiously as they went past and muttered quietly into radios to warn their colleagues further along the route But, in the end, the radicals were swamped by the ordinary folk. The majority of these protesters had never been on a demonstration before.

Many looked like they'd usually spend Saturdays in a garden centre or washing the car. Yet here they were, armed with 'Drop the Debt' placards and wearing plastic whistles round their necks.

It would be hard to imagine a group less prone to anarchy.

People like pensioners Chris and Alan Jones, both 61, who left Grange-over-Sands, in Cumbria, on a coach at 5.30am with sandwiches packed in tinfoil.

Alan said: 'We've never done anything like this in our lives before. But it was so important that we came. We're going tobe shouting, 'Be Fair - Share,' as we walk.'

Most who turned up heeded the request of the organisers to wear something white to mimic the Make Poverty History wristbands that have become the campaign symbol.

From the trendy young girls in cut-off vests with slogans scribbled across them to middle-age couples with white sashes tied around their heads, they found ways to show their support.

Stuart Cunningham, 36, and wife Lynn, 35, from Cumbernauld, near Glkasgow, had brought daughters Rhianon, 10 and Laura, eight along. Lynn said: 'Stuart and I were teenagers during the first Live Aid. Now we're married with kids and the same things are still happening in Africa.

'We feel really strongly that we've really got to do something this time for the next generation.'

Edinburgh had been getting decidedly jittery in the run up to the big day. Police and residents feared a repeat of the G8 riots of 2001 that tore through the heart of the Italian city of Genoa.

But as we marched along Princes Street, the barricades kept demonstrators well away from shops and businesses.

Thousands of police - including officers from the Met - had been drafted in to line the entire route.

In the end, McDonalds still sold burgers. And Marks & Spencer kept on selling clothes. But there was a real sense that this was the start of something huge.

Bob Geldof has urged a million people to travel to Edinburgh for Wednesday's 'Final Push'.

What will happen then is anyone's guess