'Jubilation? The crowds in Baghdad looked thin'

Medically retired, Ms Kilroy was suffering from severe depression when her fervent belief that war was not the right response to September 11 dragged her out of her home in London for the first time in two years.

"I was driven to go on the first anti-war demo that happened soon after New York as I knew there would be an attack on Afghanistan," she says. "I wanted my face to be counted as one against this all-out hunt for Bin Laden which I knew would entail the killing of a lot of innocent civilians. I wanted Bush to know that people objected to all this chucking about of ordnance. It was extremely difficult to cope with a demonstration in my condition, but since then my anti-war passion has given me a sense of purpose and helped my depression."

By last year Ms Kilroy, 52, was able to get seriously involved in the movement, and took over the day-to-day running of the Stop the War coalition funds. "Now I work five full days a week, although I'm paid a minimal amount for just two of those and work for nothing the rest of the time. Actually, it has taken over my life, I think about it constantly."

The participation of more than a million people in the February march took the organisers by surprise. "I felt so emotional, it was so much bigger than any of us had expected. I was stationed at the gates to Hyde Park and was there for 15 hours in the freezing cold. It felt so extraordinary to have been involved in something as large as this, something that meant so much to so many people."

She was not surprised when the Government took no notice. "They were going to go to war no matter what people said, or how many people said it. But at least I tried my best to stop it. I couldn't have done any more."

Once the fighting began, Ms Kilroy felt sympathy for the troops. "They are doing their job – they had no choice as they are doing what they signed up for. I don't have any anger or annoyance with them." She remains suspicious of the coalition's leaders, however. "I don't accept what Washington and our Government say – it's all the smoke and lies of war. The crowd looked very thin in Baghdad. There's been nothing like the crowd jubilation we saw at the toppling of Ceausescu or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Those regime changes were brought about by the people themselves. And where are those weapons of mass destruction?"

Ms Kilroy intends to go on working with Stop the War even though some say the war has stopped. "The job is not done. Clearly Iran and Syria are now under threat. We have to keep on working."