National Unemployed Workers Movement (N.U.W.M.)

The National Government representing the capitalist class has carried through a continuous and terrible economy offensive against the working class. At the same time it has steadily increased its powers of oppression (Police re-organisation, the use of Edward III Act, etc.) and the advance towards open dictatorship.

A new drastic step is now being taken in the launching of the new Unemployment Bill.

This is the most far-reaching attack that has yet seen been made on the workers of this country-an attack not only aimed at new heavy economies but especially directed towards the destruction of working-class organisations and the enslavement of the working class.

The unemployed are to be divided one section against the other-those who are insurable and those who are what Macdonald called "scrap". The employed are to be separated from the unemployed through new regulations affecting strike activity.

Dictatorial powers are placed in the hands of such reactionary bodies as the Unemployment Assistance Board, the Insurance Fund Statutory Commission and the Ministry of Labour.

The Bill aims at removing hundreds of thousands of claimants from the Unemployment Insurance Funds, casting the main responsibility for the maintenance of the unemployed upon the localities, tightening up the Means Test and thereby increasing the burden upon the families and relatives of the unemployed.

It seeks to turn the unemployed into an army of conscript labour to work without wages under slave conditions in Labour Camps - similar to those established by Hitler under the German Fascist Dictatorship-in industrial training centres, on re-conditioning and public work schemes, etc., which formerly have been carried out under Trade Union conditions. It aims a most deadly blow at Trade Unionism and the principles and standards which for generations have been fought for and established by the working-class movement. It is a strike breaking Bill, framed to penalise workers and their families who become associated with strikes and lock-outs for the protection or advance of their living standards.

ALL SECTIONS HAVE BEEN ATTACKED

For over two years the attack has gone on and the National Government has ridden rough-shod over the interests of the working class. It has smashed down the wage standards of teachers, civil servants, post office workers, the men in the armed forms, and the police. It has given every conceivable encouragement and assistance to the employers to still forther reduce the living standards of the workers in every industry. It has slashed the miserable benefit and relief standards of the unemployed. It has driven millions of our class into the most terrible conditions of poverty and destitution. It carried through vicious attacks under the false name of Economy Measures in 1931, and gave definite pledges that the cuts to wages and benefit levels were only temporary and would be quickly restored. It has flagrantly broken that pledge and instead of using the huge financial surplus of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer now boasts to restore the living standards of the workers, it spends millions of pounds more on armaments and the preparation for new wars, involving the slaughter of millions of workers in the interests of capitalism.

INDUSTRIAL EXPLOITATION

For example, in cotton , the application of the More Looms System, the downward revision of piece-rates through the abolition of the Colne coloured list, the non-payment of even the agreed rates of the Midland agreement, paying six loom rates for four looms etc.

In mining the increased exploitation of the miners is seen from the fact that since 1920 wages have been about halved whi1st output per man shift has risen from 17.3 cwts to 22.07 cwts at June 30th, 1933.

On the Railways there has been a steady reduction of staff for the past ten years, so that by March. 1933, there were 115,478 less workers than in March 1923.

Degrading is taking place on a wide-spread scale. Thousands. of workers have been reduced in status and pay, thousands have been transferred from their homes and during the past twelve months - more than 36,000 have been dismissed from the service entirely. In road transport the spreadover system, speed-up of time schedules. and extended hours on long journeys cause excessive strain and dismissals.

On the ships , the policy of deliberate undermanning has been steadily pursued by the ship-owners, a policy pursued at the expense of both the unemployed and working seamen. Interference with load line and free board has cost many seamen's lives and endangers many more.

Amongst the dockers , speed-up has been increased and mechanical devices introduced so that dockers now handle 45 per cent. more than they did in 1925, together with a reduction in the gang.'

In the engineering and clothing industries the stop-watch and Bedaux conveyor system and similar devices of speed-up are being applied to many factories to the point of physical exhaustion of workers; cases of workers fainting on their jobs being more frequently reported.

Accidents in all industries are greatly increasing and the question of safety, especially in the mines, has become a burning issue.

The benefits of social insurance are being whittled away especially from the workers, many of whose families no longer receive any maternity or sick pay or medical benefits.

The conditions of both workers and workless are being seriously affected by the concerted efforts to increase the cost of living of which the Meat Restriction Order, the Milk Marketing Scheme, the duty on potatoes, are recent examples, whi1st the 92 percent vote of the cotton employers to enforce price regulation cannot but affect the price of clothing. Many of the recent measures bring nearer the Ministry of Agricultore'sdictatorship over all food production and distribution.

BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION REPORT.

The terrible deterioration in the physical standard of the working class is revealed in the report of the County Medical Officers of Health and in the recent start1ing report made by the Commission of nine famous doctors. Appointed by the British Medical Association to enquire into the health conditions of the workers. This report declared emphatically that after nine months careful research work on this question they found that the average unemployed family in Great Britain is not getting enough food to keep it in healthy condition. They stated - admittedly basing their estimate on prices in an exceptionally cheap area in the provinces - that the irreducible minimum cost of food per week for an adult is 5/10½d. They also asserted that it took 2/6½ to keep a young child in food, 3/6½ for a child between six and eight, 4/2½ for a child between eight and ten, whole a child of twelve to fourteen years requires as much as its parent to keep. The British Medical Association found from its own investigations that the great mass of the unemployed after paying rents were left with even less than this ridiculously inadequate amount for food, to say nothing of other necessaries, such as clothing, clubs and medical requisites.

MINISTRY OF HEALTD CALLOUSNESS.

The Ministry of Health has displayed the whole callousness an brutality of this National Government towards the workers by a circular to all local authorities declaring that the B.M.A. scale is too high and stating that it is possible for an adult to live on 5/1½ per week. The Minister of Health who has the impudence to issue such a circular himself receives a salary of £4,000 per year, i.e. £80 per week. Nothing could more clearly reveal the callous indifference of this government to the needs of our class. The starvation of the workers and their families means nothing to these parasites. There is no limit to the degradation and poverty to which this brutal capitalist Government will drive us if we do not make an organised working class resistance.

PHYSICAL DETERIORATION.

The County Medical Officers report from almost every industrial area reveal an alarming state of physical deterioration through under-nourishment especially amongst the school children and mothers. So bad is the physique of the working class youth as a result of poverty in their homes that more than half of those who were driven to offer themselves for the Army last year were rejected on medical grounds. In Lancashire the rejection on medical grounds reached the alarming figure of four out of every five. Such a terrible state of affairs unquestionably proves that this government is slowly starving millions of our class to death.

GOVERNMENT BOASTS OF ECONOMY.

Yet in spite of this terrible impoverishment this National Government boasts of having saved in a period of two years - October, 1931 to October, 1933 - by reductions in the unemployment benefit scales, £26,750,000 - and a further £27,750,000 by the operation of the Means Test, making a total of £54,500,000 taken out of the meagre existence of the unemployed in this short period. It is this brutal policy of the National Government which is directly responsible for the appalling poverty conditions which millions of our class find themselves in today. The Government no longer even pretends to be considerate to the needs of the workers and their families. In the interests of capitalism it drives forward with its murderous policy, ruthlessly grinding down the workers and their families to depths of misery and poverty beyond description. Despair creeps ever deeper into the homes of our class. Mothers are reduced to nervous wrecks through anxiety and worry. Children are being broken in health and robbed of the chance of growing up healthy men and women. Crime, disease and suicides increase through the increasing poverty and destitution of our class.

UNITY FOR ACTION IN CONGRESS AND MARCH.

Such are the conditions against which the working class, employed and unemployed, are continuously and heroically fighting. Mass demonstrations in all part of the country, with such outstanding events as Birkenhead, Bristol, Durham, the Scottish, Welsh and other County marches have all shown the resolute spirit of the unemployed workers. In the factories and the mines strike after strike, often to the teeth of official opposition, against speed-up, against wage-cuts and worsened conditions, have demonstrated the fighting qualities of the employed workers (London busmen, Fords, Firestone). During all of these struggles the question of unity of the employed and unemployed workers has always been to the fore as an essential need for a positive advance against the National Government and the capitalist class it represents. Now the time has come when the unity must be established as an actoal fact-unity in action of the employed and unemployed workers, this is the order of the day. It is to achieve this unity and to break through the capitalist offensive that the March and the Congress are taking place.

Mass demonstrations of the unemployed in support of all actions of the employed workers. Resolutions from the factories to support of the unemployed actions leading up to participation in these actions and strike actions.

AGAINST THE OFFENSIVE OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.

The basis for this unity is to be found in the fight against the New Unemployment Bill for the abolition of the Means Test and Anomalies Act for work schemes at T. U. rates; for the 40-hour week without wage reductions; for the restoration of the economy cuts; for increased wages for all workers.

WORK SCHEMES

We declare emphatically that our class will not tolerate the scheme of conscript labour which the Government is attempting to impose

The unemployed want work, but not under conditions where they toil for the starvation benefit and relief scales. They want the right to work for wages and to live decently. There is plenty of work that could be done. It is an established fact that over a million new houses are needed to give proper housing to the working class. New roads, schemes for the extension of electrification, building and improvement of bridges, land drainage and reclamation, afforestation, improvement of canals and waterways, are among the many schemes of work waiting to be done. Some of these schemes have had plans 1aying in the Government pigeon hole s for years. We demand that they be brought out and put into operation There are great areas of this country particularly in Yorkshire and Monmouthshire, where in recent years terrible floods have been recurrent because of the inadequate drainage systems and imperfect waterways. In these floods hundreds of Working class families have been driven from their homes, have had their furniture destroyed and have had no redress by compensation. For weeks at a time they have been compelled to sleep rough in schoolrooms, corn exchanges and town halls. Such a terrible situation cannot be allowed to continue. The Government must be compelled to face up to this issue.

One only needs to glance at the disgraceful insanitary conditions which prevail in nearly every working class locality to realise that here is a big job in itself which if tackled would lead to employment for tens of thousands of workers.

THE FORTY HOUR WEEK

The demand for the estab1ishment of a 40 hour working week without wage reductions is based on the right of the worker to shorter hours because of the high pressure of production under which he works today through rationalisation and speed up. Through science and machinery in industry production per worker has enormously increased in the last 20 years but there has been no proportionate reduction in the hours of labour, in fact since 1920 many workers have been forced to work longer hours, leading to the displacement of masses of workers from industry. No reduction in wages for a shorter working week is a demand we make with every justification. The worker, through modern methods of production has to work harder, suffers more exploitation and creates greater wealth in a much shorter space of time than ever before. The shorter working week is therefore not merely a demand which is advanced as a means of absorbing masses of the unemployed back into industry, but is a demand that the working class is fully justified in making even without such a consideration. The continual existence of unemployment sirmply gives greater strength to the demand.

A NON-CONTRIBUTORY SCHEME.

The workers are not responsible for unemplovment, they should not have to pay for it by stoppage out of their meagre wages. The full maintenance of the unemployed should be a direct State responsibility. chargeable to the National Exchequer. The Government spends £300 million every year in the payment of interest to the bondholders in the National Debt. It spends £120 million on the the maintainance of the armed forces, and is now increasing this enormous sum in the preparations for new wars, vet when it economises it does so at the expense of the miserable benefit scales and wages of the workers. It spends £420 million pounds out of a total revenue of £750 million in the payment for past wars and the preparation for new wars, yet it clairns to be unable to save the workers from starvation. The workers must smash through such a policy. The rich must be compelled to disgorge their ill-gotten gains and provision made for the unemployment which their system creates.

RAISE THE LIVING STANDARDS.

The living standards of both unemployed and employed must be raised. wages and benefit scales must be increased to protect still forther deterioration in the physical standards of our class. The appalling poverty and misery which is rampant throughout this country must be put an end to. Every trade union branch, every co-operative guild, every' ex-service men's club, every working-class organisation, every active worker shou1d join in the campaign, every branch and every section of the working class must have its delegates at this great Congress of Action for the realisation of this

Unity of the workers is the greatest need of the moment. Fascist dictatorship is advancing day by day through the legislation and administration of the National Government. There is not a moment to be lost. The March and the Great Congress must be used to arouse the whole working class by united action as the sure means of advancing the working-class to victory .

The Call to Action

The Men and Women Marchers have all received endorsement as Marchers from various working-class organisations, including trade union branches with which they are associated and from mass meetings. The Marchers come therefore, as representatives of the working-class movement and not merely as individual recruits. All contingents of Marchers arrive on the outskirts of London on Friday, February 23rd. On Saturday they send their representatives to the opening of the Great Unity Congress, whi1st the main body of marchers campaign in readiness for the big March into the centre of London on Sunday February 25th.

1934 NATIONAL MARCH

Routes and Time Tables

TYNESIDE CONTINGENT. Mobilsation Centre.-Newcastle-on-Tyne. LEAVE NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE February 1st. Arrive-Durham Feb 1st; Bishop Auckland 2rn; Darlington 3rd; Northallerton 4th; Thirsk 5th Harrogate 6th; Leeds 7th; (rest here 8th); Wakefield 9th; Doncaster 11th; Gainsborough 11th;Lincoln 12th; Grantham 13th; Stamford 14th; Peterborough 15th; , Huntingdon 16th; Cambridge 17th ( rest here 18th); Saffron Walden 19th; Bishops Stortford 20th; Chelmsford 21st; Romford 22nd; Poplar 23rd (rest here 24th) LONDON (Hyde Park), Sunday, February 25th.

CORNWALL AND DEVON CONTINGENT. Mobilisation Centre.-Plymouth. LEAVE PLYMOUTH-February 7th. Arrive-Ivybridge 7th; Totnes 8th; Newton Abbott 9th; Exeter 10th (rest here 11th); Honiton 12th; Chard 13th; Yeovil 14th; Shaftesbury 15th; Salisbury 16th; Andover 17th; Basingstoke 18th; Aldershot 19th (rest here 20th) Guildford 21st; Staines 22nd; Chiswick 23rd (rest here 24th). LONDON (Hyde Park), Siiflday, February 25th.

LANCASHIRE CONTINGENT. Mobilisation Centre.-Manchester. LEAVE MANCHESTER-February 9th. Arrive-Stockport 9th ; Macclesfield 10th; Congleton 11th; Hanley 12th Stafford 13th; West Bromwich 14th; Birmingham 15th; Warwick 16th; Banbury 17th; Bicester 18th; Oxford 19th (rest here 20th); High Wycornbe 21st; Uxbridge 22nd; Acton 23rd (rest here 24th). LONDON (Hyde Park), Sunday, February 25th.

YORKSHIRE CONTINGENT. Mobilisation Centre.-Sheffield. LEAVE SHEFFIELD-February 1Oth. Arrive-Chesterfield 10th; Mansfield 11th; Nottingham 12th; Loughborough 13th; Leicester 14th (rest here 15th); Market Harborough 16th; Kettering 17th; Bedford 18th; (rest here 19th); Dunstable 20th; Berkhampstead 21st; Watford 22nd; Willesden 23rd (rest here 24th). LONDON (Hyde Park), Sunday, February 25th.

SOUTD WALES CONTINGENT. Mobilisation Centre.-Cardiff. LEAVE CARDIFF-February 1Oth. Arrive-Cardiff 10th; Newport 11th; Bristol 12th; (rest here 13th); Bath 14th; Chippenham 15th; Swindon 16th (rest here 17th); Newbury 18th; Reading 19th; (rest here 20th) Maidenhead 21st; Stough 22nd; Chiswick 23rd. (rest here 24th). LONDON (Hyde Park), Sunday, February 25th.

LEAVE DERBY-February 12th. Arrive-Burton-on-Trent 12th; Tamworth 13th; Nuneaton 14th; Coventry 15th; Rugby 16th; Northampton 16th; Northampton 17th; (rest here 18th); Bedford 19th; Hitchin 2Oth; Hatfield 21st; Barnet 22nd; Islington 23rd; (rest here 24th). LONDON (HYDE PARK), Sunday, February 25tn.

NORFOLK CONTINGENT. Mobilisation Centre.-Great Yarmouth. LEAVE GREAT YARMOUTH-February 13th. Arrive-Towestoft 13th; Beccles 14th; Farnham 15th; Woodbridge 16th; Ipswich 17th; Colchester 18th; (rest here 19th); Braintree 20th; Chelmsford 21st; Romford 22nd; West Ham 23rd; (rest here 24th).
LONDON (Hyde Park), Sunday, February 25th.

SOUTD COAST CONTINGENT. Mobilisation Centre.-Brighton. LEAVE BRIGHTON-February 2Oth. Arrive-Crawley 2Oth; Redhill 21st; Crovdon 22nd; Wirnbledon 23rd (rest here 24th).
LONDON (Hyde Park), Sunday, February 25th.

KENT CONTINGENT. Mobilisation Centre.-Chatham. LEAVE CHATHAM-February 21st. Arrive-Gravesend 21st; Erith 22nd; Deptford 23rd; rest here 24th).
LONDON (Hyde Park), Sunday, February 25th.

MERSEYSIDE CONTINGENT. Mobilisation Centre.-Liverpool. LEAVE LIVERPOOL-February 9th. Arrive-Birkenhead 9th; Chester 10th; Crewe 11th; Hanley 12th Join Lancashire Contingent.

NOTTS and DERBY CONTINGENT. Mobilise at MANSFIELD and JOIN YORKSHIRE CONTINGENT on February 11th.

Mobilise at STOCKTON-ON-TEES on February 2nd-JOIN TYNESIDE CONTINGENT at DARLINGTON on Fehruary 3rd

HANTS CONTINGENT. Mobilise at SOUTHAMPTON on February 16th. Arrive-Winchester Feb. 17th Basingstoke Feb. 18th, here JOIN CORNWALL AND DEVON CONTINGENT.

When, in 1931, the National Government led by Ramsay MacDonald fired its opening salvoes against the living standards of the Brtish working class, the most hard-hit were, naturally, the unemployed. Naturally? Of course.
From he that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
And who has less than the unemployed?
Who is more accustomed to suffering the pangs of hunger than the hungry?
So now unemployment benefit has been pared down even further and a means test introduced, a humiliating inquisition calculated to squeeze out the last drop of human dignity from every unemployed family in the land. No, it wasn't calculated - our rulers are not like that. They are not conscious of the fact that working people possess human dignity or indeed that they have feelings of any kind. We are engaged in a war, dammit! One attacks the enemy at his weakest point and that point is the three-million unemployed and their families. So let's have no more of this human dignity claptrap. And let us hear no more about equality of sacrifice or grinning and bearing it, or how we British can take it. Don't bother trying to conceal your contempt for us and we won't try to conceal our hatred of you.

Our branch of the National Unemployed Workers Movement is calling for a mass demonstration against the new measures on 2 October. For the ten days before that we were out every night advertising the demo. Our publicity methods are cheap and effective. All you need is a good supply of blue mould, the porous, chalk-like substance which housewives use to brighten up their window silis and doorsteps. It's useful stuff for chalking slogans and announcements on walls. In addition, a rota of public speakers has been drawn up. Their job is to address queues outside labour exchanges at various points throughout the day. My stint covers the fine and ten o'clock queues. I'm a poor public speaker and my harangues rarely attract more than a handful of listeners. On the morning of the demo, however, I change my tactics and decide to make my pitch inside the exchange. Almost before I can begin speaking I am seized by a dozen pair of hands, pushed to the counter and lifted on to it. No speech is needed this morning, just the announcement:

Within seconds the labour exchange has emptied and the street outside is filled with the unemployed. We begin moving immediately. A crowd of several hundred is already assembled on the croft and droves of newcomers are arriving every few minutes or so. I feel uplifted, triumphant. At last we are getting somewhere! I am proud of my Albion Street contingent and try to keep them together, but they are moving away and joining friends and acquaintances in the crowd. Stewards wearing improvised armbands are attempting to marshal the surprisingly quiet crowd into four ranks. Others are handing out placards and unfurling banners.

I run into Dick France hobbling along on his misshapen legs. He points to a black banner which has just been unfurled and which dates from some forgotten struggle of the twenties. 'There'll be trouble before the day's out,' he says. 'There's trouble every time that bugger comes out.' There's Old George's head above the crowd; I make a bee-line for him, anxious to discover whether he has seen any members of the agitprop group. He points vaguely with his thumb in the direction of the head of the rapidly forming column of unemployed. He scarcely seems aware of the furious activity all around him; his face still wears its customary look of benign abstractedness. Let's hope he sees the cops before they see him. Still searching, I encounter Hughie Graeme, an indomitable Galloway Scot whom I have known since I was a small child and whose early years could match anything in brutality that Dickens ever wrote. His wife is helping him to get into the big-drum harness.

The crowd has grown enormous and stragglers are still arriving. I hurry back down the line of restless demonstrators and see two members of the agitprop group. I join them just as an empty coal cart is pushed on to the croft. Two members of the local NUWM clamber on to it and one of them begins to address the crowd. The half-formed column breaks up and the crowd surges towards the can. We stand at the back of the crowd and listen to the speaker read out the list of demands to be presented to the town council which is, at this moment, meeting at the Town Hall in Bexley Square. The crowd roars its approval and a sea of hands is raised in support of the resolution. The second speaker isn't allowed to say more than a few words when he is interrupted by Hughie's drum. The crowd is restless; they want to be on the move. In no time at all the column is formed; the first marchers wheel off the croft and proceed up Liverpool Street and along Regent Road.

At first there isn't a great deal of noise, just the regular beat of the drum and the occasional shout. The mood is one of quiet desperation. Along Oldfield Road there are small groups of mounted police and squads of foot policewaiting in all the side streets. Dick France is not the only one who thinks there is going to be trouble. As soon as we reach the main road, the chanting begins: 'Down with the means test!' Right down the lime the slogan is taken up and repeated. 'Down with the National Starvation Government!' It's extraordinary the way voices travel. A slogan begins way back and a few seconds later a closer group begin chanting the same slogan, and then another group closer still so that the effect is like a blurred action-photo.

'We need a song,' says someone. I hear my name being called and see Ben Durden, the newest member of our YCL group, waving at me from the sidewalk. I sup out of the column for a moment and join him.

I look back. The line of marchers goes back as far as I can see. 'Jesus! Just look at it. It goes on for ever.'

We start hurrying towards the head of the procession. I see my father and Jock Smiley and wave to them. A little further on, the marchers ahead of us shuffle to a halt, while those immediately behind are pushed into us. For a few moments our part of the column becomes a confused and struggling mass of bodies. In those few moments wild rumours are born and hard on their heels comes advice from the head of the column. 'Keep calm! Don't allow yourselves to be provoked.'

We re-form and slowly move off again. 'Down with the means test! Down with the National Starvation Government!' Now I can see the black banner, Dick France's trouble-banner. It's about a hundred yards ahead. . . must be the head of the demo. At the same moment I catch sight of Jimmy Rigby, the fourth member of the Red Megaphones, and hurry towards him. This time there are no rumours, no time for advice about keeping calm. Without warning, mounted police, wielding riot sticks, attack us from side streets on both sides of the road. They are followed by foot police, who come at us slashing with their truncheons.

'It's a fucking ambush!' Way back down the column, the marchers are still chanting slogans, not yet aware of what is happening ahead. Here the rhythmic protests have swelled to an angry roar, punctuated by yells, curses, screams and the clatter of galloping horses. in the midst of the mêlée it is difficult to get a dear picture of what is happening. All around us there is a crush of shouting, bellowing, screaming, angry and bewildered men and women. They are pushing, pulling, trying to avoid the swinging batons of the police and the terrifying hooves of the horses. Some are trying desperately to shove their way out of the ambush, others push forward, intent on reaching the barricades which the police have erected around Bexley Square.

A police horse looms over us, gigantic, eyes rolling, nostrils flared. The smell of horse sweat mingles with the smell of our fear. Panic-stricken, we try to escape as its rider leans out of the saddle to give extra impetus to the swing of his club. The blow lands with a dull thud across the shoulders of a skinny man in an old raincoat. I am standing so close to him that the pores in the flesh of his nose look like huge craters, and I surprise myself by thinking of Lemuel Gulliver's sojourn among the Brobdingnagians and remembering the distaste expressed in the description of the enlarged features of the maids of honour. The skinny man crumples and sinks to the ground. 'Man down!' A dozen pairs of hands reach for the mounted policeman, but the horse rears up and we cower away.

There's a sudden increase in the noise and then there are voices taking up the cry: 'The deputation! They've arrested the deputation!' There is a great surge of activity as we move forward, carrying the battle to the edge of the barricaded square. Squads of police are dragging arrested marchers across the square towards the waiting not wagons. The marchers fight back and the police are busy with boots and truncheons. A great roar of fury goes up from the crowd: 'Down with the Cossacks!' A dozen men leap over the barricades and race towards the battling groups. Two of them are struck down by the mounted police and the rest surrounded and brought to the ground by squads of foot police. One of the marchers is bleeding badly from the head and appears to be unconscious. A young cop grabs his arm and starts dragging him along the ground.

Until now the marchers have been concerned only to defend themselves, but now the mood changes: a note of fierce hatred, deep and vengeful, is beard as the marchers break en masse through the barricades. The square has become a battlefield.

At one point there is a lull in the fighting and, as if by mutual agreement, police and marchers draw away from each other. A riderless horse is picking its way among the crowd and an injured police-sergeant is being helped from the scene by his colleagues. We have suffered more grievously. Several marchers lie bleeding on the road and an injured woman is sitting on the kerb bolding her bead and weeping. Close by, in the gutter, sits Dick France. I go over to him and help him to his feet. He is bleeding from a gash along his cheekbone. 'Didn't I tell you? Every time that banner's brought out there's a barney like this.'

Alec Armstrong comes by, a wide grin on his face. He is holding a large brass handbell, the kind used to summon children back to the schoolroom. He rings it above his bead like a town crier. 'Second set in a few minutes!' be declaims, and then goes off crying, 'Anyone for tennis? Anyone for tennis?'

Myer Parkinson approaches, a small boy perched on his shoulders, his wife following behind, pushing a pram with her youngest in it. Two small girls hold on to her skirt. 'Jesus Christ!' says Dick. 'You're off your bloody rocker, Myer.'

'They'll be awreet. They're just babbies, too young to be arrested. Tha's got to be ten years old before they start beating you up.' From anyone else, such irony would sound somewhat heavy-handed, but Myer tempers it with Lanky - Lancashire dialect. He talks Lanky and makes the most outrageous remarks sound ingenuous. He is what my father calls a 'rum bugger'. His confrontations with labour-exchange officials have become legendary and it is said that inspectors at the Board of Guardians go into hiding when they see him approaching with his brood. He catches sight of Hughie Graeme and his wife and begins waving furiously. They come over to us. 'What's happened to the drum?'

'It's broken/ his wife adds. 'He brought it down on the head of a big fat dick.'

The lull is over. From behind the town hall, dozens of mounted police suddenly appear and charge at us, followed by foot police brandishing their dubs. The first engagement was fierce but the police have tasted blood and are now lashing out at anyone in their path. But we are fighting back and the horses no longer terrify us. Here a mounted cop is pulled from his horse, and there a constable deprived of his baton. But we lack training for this kind of fight - we have no strategy. We fight as individuals, unarmed individuals against a disciplined armed force trained to fight as a squad. Furthermore, we are conscious of the fact that the law of the land is on the side of the police. They can bash us around as much as they like and get away with it. But let one of us be caught bashing one of them and we will land in the nick as surely as night follows day. We don't need training classes to learn about the police. We have understood their role in society since we were children running about the streets.

How long does this second assault last? Five minutes, fifteen minutes? Half an hour? We are no match for these uniformed bully-boys. We came here to protest against what we consider to be gross injustice. Our intention was to present a petition to our elected representatives. Instead, we are being forced to defend ourselves against an armed and well-fed enemy. The result is a foregone conclusion, but leaves many questions unanswered.

'Stand by, we're on in a minute!' In a theatre, those words would have a special significance. That moment when you stand in the wings awaiting your cue is a magical one: the process of stepping out of your skin and assuming a different persona is completed in that moment though you still have to take one or two steps to enter a new world. Here, on the Liverpool Street gasworks' croft, it isn't like that at all. There is only one world, the world of the grey October sky, the gasometers, the long brick wall and the wan-faced men and women who make up this huge crowd. What other persona is possible - or desirable - in the face of this kind of reality? In any case, there are no wings here, no dark comers where you can make your final preparations, no quiet spot where you can commune with yourself.

'We'll do the "Billy Boy" thing first and then straight into the Maggie Bondfield sketch.' God! Do we really have to do that awful bloody 'Billy Boy' parody? It seemed funny when I wrote it but now. . . it's terrible. Ridiculous. We really need something absolutely different, rousing. 'Right, Blondie.' We jump on to the can and begin singing the opening of our anti-means-test duet. Oh God, we've pitched it too high. Bloody hell! I just made it that time. Got to relax or I'll sound hike a bloody screeching parrot. Blondie looks quite calm. Smiling away. The crowd like her, you can tell. That was better that time. Four more verses. Christ! More mounted coppers, must be a couple of dozen of 'em. Take no notice. Some of the people at the back have seen 'em. Carry on. Punch line coming up. It gets a roar of applause. Great! Alf and the others are climbing on to the cart. The applause dies away and we begin the Maggie Bondfield sketch. It's funny in parts but full of holes. Needs tightening up. It's going well though, plenty of laughs from the crowd. If only we had a sketch that was really suitable for the occasion.

'Trouble,' says Blondie, and the next moment Jimmy Rigby stops in mid-sentence and points. For an endless moment, we stare in disbelief. The horse police are charging towards us, their riot sticks held aloft like lances. The panic of the crowd is terrible to behold. They scatter in utter confusion the way ants do when their nest is disturbed. There is some resistance but the terrain is not in our favour. There is no cover, no place to hide. In disarray, we retreat into the side streets, where a small group, mostly young unemployed, reassemble and decide to march to the houses of the councillors who are members of the unemployment tribunal. We start off, a silent group of fifteen or twenty youths. In a surprisingly short time our numbers have increased by more than 200. As we walk we hatch elaborate schemes of revenge and wonder if things will ever be the same again.

See also Ruth and Eddie Frows' The Battle of Bexley Square published by the WCML .
Eddie Frow was one of the leaders of the Salford demonstration.

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