The fabulous Nickel In the Machine site currently carries an amazing story of the 1972 London school kids uprising. I recommend everyone to check it out. “We ain’t gonna take it. Never did and never will.” (Nickel In The Machine recently changed it’s URL. It’s been updated in our permalinks on the right.)
“The pupil power demonstration was called by the rebel Schools’ Action Union, of which self-confessed Marxist Ginger Finch was a member, who were mainly against caning, detention, uniforms and ‘headmaster dictatorships’. Eventually 800 pupils had joined the demonstration and Finch was arrested, charged with using insulting behaviour and obstruction. Prime Minister Edward Heath decided to take no risks, remember this was only four years after students in Paris had brought down the French Government, and ordered MI5 and Special Branch to monitor the schoolchildren revolutionaries. Mr Heath asked Margaret Thatcher, then the Education Secretary to compile a report which warned: “Some boys and girls are already beginning to develop political attitudes in an immature way…” A march of 10,000 pupils was organised by the Schools’ Action Union and the National Union of School Students for the 17th May. The Government wanted to take no chances but were struggling to find out the exact nature and route of the march. A Conservative MP called David Lane forwarded a report based on the accounts of a group of girl ’spies’ who had infiltrated a meeting.”
The secret word is Wall
The secret message is 537461792074756e65642e
In 1968 or so, Horace Mann, the prep school I attended in New York, got a new headmaster with more "liberal" views. He was a nice guy and very popular with the students. After he abolished requirements for ties and jackets and the ban on long hair, the board of trustees fired him. We, the students, walked out of classes and shut down the school. The story made the New York Times. He was reinstated until the next Summer break when the board fired him again while we were away and unable to protest. They could not, however, bring back the dress regulations.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if 21st Century people know how the simplest of freedoms were the result of struggle. Hippie hair length may not have the seriousness of, say, civil rights, but it was nonetheless a choice enabled by those willing to stand up to authority.
In '64, the principal of my high-school ordered me out, not to return until I'd cut my hair.
ReplyDeleteIn '66 I sent him a thank-you note.