A SMALL pre-fabricated hut, cost £1,000, two tables covered with newspapers, three chairs, no room for any more, perched on an exposed hill in a farmyard a few miles out of Consett. It's an unlikely nerve centre for the biggest and most disruptive protest movement Tony Blair's Government has seen.

Andrew Spence, a 33-year-old bankrupt farmer, who now works on his mother's 200-acre sheep and beef farm and runs a one-man haulage business. Wearing his trademark blue boiler suit and boots, large round glasses, collar and tie.

An unlikely leader for hard-bitten hauliers and farmers and the inspiration behind plans for a massive four-day convoy from Jarrow to London.

But since the blockaders set their 60-day deadline for Government action when they called off their protest in September, Andrew has emerged as one of the key figures in the campaign against high fuel taxes. And unless Gordon Brown unveils a substantial reduction in fuel duty, Friday was to see him at the head of a cavalcade of tractors, lorries, coaches and taxis.

While his role in subsequent events may help to explain how he reached the status of hero to the protestors, the reason Andrew became involved in the protest is not hard to discover.

Ten years ago he was working in a slaughterhouse but, disillusioned by what he saw, he set up in haulage, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who had one of the largest haulage businesses in the area. Within five years he had 18 employees and a turnover of £1m but one morning he woke up to find it had gone.

His business was transporting cattle and as the BSE epidemic devastated the British beef industry so the knock-on effect saw haulage firms left with nothing to haul. Andrew went bankrupt and the experience left a deep and lasting impression.

He later set up another haulage business, but whereas last year he employed two people, this year it is just him. And he is once again facing the prospect of his business failing.

He said: "I tried to make a living for my family and I failed. Last year it cost £100 in diesel to fill a truck, now it is £280 and my business can't afford that and my industry can't afford that.

"I used to take my children to the seaside on a Sunday afternoon but I can't afford to do that now. It reached a point where I said to hell with this."

Along with other hauliers, Andrew helped to bring discontented farmers on board to stage a protest in Newcastle in March, when a seven-mile convoy brought the city to a halt.

This led to an invitation to a meeting in Worcester, which saw the formation of the Farmers for Action group, led by Monmouthshire farmer David Handley. Blockades of dairies and supermarket depots followed, before Andrew and Gateshead haulier Craig Eley organised a protest on Newcastle's Western Bypass in September and then the blockade of the Jarrow refinery.

His straightforward and passionate speeches, as well as his willingness to organise a scattered group of vested interests joined only by their common gripe against fuel taxes, may have propelled him to the front of the campaign.

But it was his arrest, and subsequent court case when he was bound over to keep the peace for six months, which have turned him into a folk hero to many protestors.

After the blockades were called off, he went to a meeting in Stafford, arriving as David Handley was mid-way through his speech.

"David Handley said: 'There is a man who just walked in who has been through more torment than anyone I know, with death threats against his family'. I thought 'Who is this?' and David Handley said: 'I have the honour to present to you Andrew Spence.' The room just got up and there was a five-minute standing ovation."

But still he was not convinced he should carry on, until a meeting at Altrincham, which saw the formation of the People's Fuel Lobby, persuaded him otherwise.

"There were 56 representatives from all over the country and I was proposed for the committee and 55 people voted for me. I was the only one who didn't because I couldn't vote for myself. I couldn't say no.

"I had just about had enough and at that time I was prepared to take a step backward, but when people put faith in you..."

Andrew recounts numerous other occasions when he has been close to quitting but when friends and people he has never met ring him up to urge him to keep going.

He insists he doesn't want to bring the Government down, merely to get them to listen and to reduce fuel tax, with the PFL's demand of a 26p reduction a starting point for negotiations.

The strength he has gained from people putting their faith in him, in giving him standing ovations and lifting him onto their shoulders, has sent him on an endless tour of TV and radio studios, wearing his only suit, green and fraying at the elbows.

But he claims there is nothing he would rather do than leave the studios behind and get back to his pre-fab in a farmyard near Consett.

"If the Chancellor gives us a sensible reduction in fuel duty, I will be quite happy, I will pack up and go home," he says.

"All I want to do is sit on my farm. I'm a working lad, I have no political aspirations, I don't want to be a celebrity. I want to be Andrew Spence, on his farm, making a living.