By mid-day, there were people gathered all around the Clock Tower, all the way up the Pavement and halfway back up Lion Street. Most of them had placards, most of them were wearing masks. There was a wide variety of slogans - "Black Lives Matter" and "I can't breathe" being the most common, with black clenched fists. Some were printed out, but most were hand written on pieces of cardboard.
There were families with small children, and people with dogs.
A couple of police officers stood at the back of the crowd in Lion Street, and I saw them later walking along Broad Street.
This sign, and poem, was in the Poetry Bookshop window.
I saw a couple of ladies from the Stitch and Bitch group, one of whom was handing out her home-sewn masks in a variety of gorgeous fabrics, and there were lots of familiar faces of friends and neighbours in the crowd. Emanation Smith took the photo of me that is now at the top of the blog.
As the Clock chimed noon, everyone went down on one knee and stayed there, in silence, for eight minutes and 46 seconds - the time it took George Floyd to die with the officer's knee on his neck.
Then everyone stood, still in silence, and did the clenched fist salute - and at the end, there was a round of applause.
A few people were moving through the crowd taking pictures, including one young man with a Press lanyard from Falmouth University.
There's something quite powerful about so many people standing and kneeling in silence for so long, and it was impressive to see so many people turn out for the protest in a small place like Hay.
This picture is by Kesri Smolas, which she shared to the event page on Facebook - because the picture I took was rubbish.
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