Bain's alternative action started after seeing the film Gandhi in Madrid at the age of 18. He had a Basque companion, and befriended the Basque cause. In the early eighties he took part in the Aberri Eguna nationalist demonstrations, in despite of serious deterrence by the Spanish Guardia Civil. His basque friends used to call him la naranja (because of his orange hair), from which his nickname emerged. He subsequently went to Kreuzberg, Berlin, the heart of alternative Germany. This is where he got a first sight of the Wall, and a first taste for the underground exchanges between the East and the West.