Thinking of others

The NUT rally at the Forum today was not fantastically well attended but they did mention a celebration of a strike which happened in 1914 at Burston. A celebration of this strike is taking place at Burston in Septemeber 2008. I decided to find out a little more about this action and found that this is the longest strike in history and ended in 1939. It highlights the actions of Tom and Kitty Higden and their desire to better the lives of the children in their community - just the reason many of us were on strike today - its not about the money its about upholding the professionalism and integrity of the teachers in this country and their desire to do a good job.

Burston School Strike
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When pupils in a Norfolk village decided to go on strike in support of their sacked teachers in 1914, they could not have realised that they were starting what would become the longest strike in history.

Teachers Tom and Kitty Higdon had been thrown out after repeatedly coming into conflict with the land-owning authorities who valued a child’s labour more than a child’s education.

The Higdons wanted to improve the squalid buildings that passed for a school at Burston, and to educate the pupils so that they had higher expectations, clearer judgement and broader horizons – and much as the authorities hated them for it, the children loved them.

So when the Higdons were ousted, the Burston children marched through their village in a rally that ended up on the green. And it was here, under a makeshift marquee, that the Higdons began to teach 66 of their former pupils, while the remaining six children continued at the Council School. The school on the green was a hit with pupils and their families, but it infuriated the authorities who took it out on the parents.

Eighteen were fined for failing to send their children to school, local labourers were sacked and families evicted from their homes. But a year on, with the strike still standing firm, the school had won the support of trade unions and a national appeal raised £1,250 to pay for a new school building. That building still stands today, as a museum of the strike which continued until Tom’s death in 1939.