26th March 2011
On 26th March, Over 90 Nottingham NUT members and their families assembled at 7:15 am at the Forest Park and Ride to travel to London in two coaches. Spirits were high in anticipation of a successful protest, but no one knew how big it would be.
Arriving in central London the coach passed many groups of protesters making their way to the Thames embankment. We were dropped just south of the river and crossed Blackfriars Bridge to the assembly point just before 11 am. There were already tens of thousands gathered and more flooded in by the minute.
Banners, placards, T-
As the march moved off along the embankment towards Parliament Square there was a cacophony of cheering and noise. The sheer weight of numbers made progress very slow but it didn’t matter, such was the camaraderie amongst marchers.
As we moved past Big Ben and into Whitehall the march moved more quickly. Everybody seemed to enjoy booing and shouting abuse at the end of Downing Street, heavily guarded by a rank of police, shoulder to shoulder. (Remember the days when the public could walk down the street?)
News, via Twitter, was that the front of the march had reached Hyde Park, where Brendan Barber and Ed Miliband had already spoken. Reports were also coming in of violent protests in central London.
As we approached Trafalgar Square, the march slowed to a snail’s pace. Perhaps this was due to police restricting the march due to events in Picadilly, of which we discovered more later.
Once through Trafalgar Square, the march speeded up again. On Picadilly banks and other premises had clearly been targeted by a few. Windows and doors were smashed, with paint and slogans smeared across the fronts. The Ritz hotel had received similar treatment and notable premises, like the Burlington Arcade, had been closed with ‘bouncers’ guarding them. At that stage the ‘occupation’ of Fortnum & Mason’s, had yet to begin.
By the time we reached Hyde Park it was well after 4 pm and most of the Rally speeches were over. We moved off to meet our coaches at the Albert Hall where, after a wait for the buses to arrive, we started the jounrney for home.
The march was a stunning success, in spite of the small elements involved in targeting property. Most of our members seemed to think it was well worth the effort involved. On marches as large as this it is very difficult to assess the numbers present, but the end of the march didn’t reach Hyde Park until we were well up the M1 on the way home! Everybody accepts that there were at least 250,000 present, with most estimates suggesting 450,000 or more.
This march was an excellent step in a long campaign to resist the decimation of public services. Much more will have to be done before we succeed.
