Leeds Pan Central play NUT Strike, Leeds

As a member of the NUT I voted to strike against the government's mistreatment of school students and teachers, and thus of society in general. This not being a political blog is all you get here. Back to the steelbands.

Leeds Pan Central is whoever we can get from Foxwood, Sparrows and East Steel. We were me [Victoria] [NUT], Georgia [maternity leave], Charlotte [NUT], Wanda [NUT], Katie[took a day off], Chloe [student], Georgia G2 [students], Lynn [PT], YiBai [shift worker], Holly [shift worker], Emma [shift worker], Pippa [NUT], Fehmina [on her way to work!] - not too bad a turn out really.

We also had three of Wanda's colleagues/friends as percussionists plus various people we pulled out the crowd, including Fred, last worked with at Quarry Mount, Diane, and Patrick [who, being 6 months old was more visual than aural. But you gotta start somewhere].

We made it onto the tele on three different News programmes, three different clips. Now that's an improvement on our usual 9 seconds, blink and we are gone. We played You'll Never Walk Alone as our last song, and the crowd sang along. Then Rick came down for the van and the loading while I failed miserably to make the march; got to City Varieties though for the speeches.

Leeds Pan Central play NUT Strike

Well, there's two good reasons for teachers and education workers to have one union.

1. The education system of the UK is in very very dire straits. It is ruining the present and future lives of a whole generation of UK school students who are losing this one chance, their only chance to explore themselves through the protection and informed support of our educationalists.

It started with an idea on the back of an envelope from Andrew Adonis and Tony Blair; it was warmly received and endorsed by Ed Balls, and then by Gove and Morgan. I accuse these five people of extreme abuse of power, in complete disproportion to their educational knowledge. And this generation of schoolkids has been asked to learn only the chosen and partial facts that uninformed ministers choose for them. If all teachers and other education workers went on strike at the same time, we would make the point much more forcibly, and achieve our aims without prolonged disruption.

2. Leeds Pan Central would be a bigger band on these very important occasions.

Anyway, as it turned out, we had a good turn out. From Foxwood Steel there were me, Charlotte, Katie, YiBai, Holly, Georgia G1, and later, Fehmina [blissfully unaware we had a gig, and on her way to work]; from East Steel we had Pippa, Wanda, Lynn,  Emma, Chloe; from Sparrows Georgia G2.

Wanda brought the Oultonettes percussionists, and other old friends [eg Fred] appeared and shook a tambourine or two. We got more than our usual 3 seconds on the tele. Yay.


A good way to deliver a serious message.

Activist by day, immersed in Foxwood Nostalgia by Night

So Debs

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next Foxwood gig is for the NUT strike on Wednesday. And Saturday lunchtime found me very very uncomfortably standing in Briggate trying to offer passers-by leaflets re said strike.

 

Eventually I begged to get the teas and coffees, which led me to stand in a queue in a cafe. Can't decide which is less favourite activity: pushing leaflets onto passers-by or queueing in a shop.

 

 

Anyway Debs,

 

Christine, Patrick, Richard, Nerinder, Kathleen and others were coping with lesser or greater degrees of enthusiasm for this task. Colleague, Cathy and son bobbed by and signed the petition.

 

 

 

As I left a group of Morris dancers was attracting a bigger audience in Dortmund Square.

I retired to the sofa for rubbish detectives on tele, and braced myself for that Foxwood School reunion at the Orchard in Dib Lane. Organised by ex-student Sammi H [nee B].

 

 

Well, it was ace. Lots of them there were ex-Foxwood Steel players; Julie had kept a Def Leppard memento that I had given her in mid-80s; I guessed loads of names, some with initials help.

 

 

Above all I met a set of amusing, lovable, kindly and well-rounded human beings, who, I felt were a credit to those of us who spent a large part of our working lives at this most wonderful of schools. Wonderful, and of course under-rated.

 

I was transported back to those "good old days".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was' as well, Nicola, Hazel, Sammi C, Mark, Darren and more. I collected lots of email addresses. I had three pints and something clear and interesting in a small glass which Mark L bought. And I felt fine. Bit floppy the next day.

Foxwod Steel, 2 Sparrows and 1 East Steel rock the Teachers' Strike

So, Debs,
Michael, the Bear of Immensely Small Brain has achieved this one thing: getting the NUT and the NAS/UWT out on strike together.

Getting a band together on a Tuesday proved more difficult. The drummers were either at work, or one-handed, but, at last, one thousand drummers later, Bart is our knight in shining armour.

Not only that, he had his own drum-kit and a car. Well, Debs, surely that's beyond the call of duty! [Perhaps he has heard that we forget drum stools, bass pedals, or, as in Harrogate on Saturday, cymbals!]

















Anyway, not that you really see us behind the massive crowd of teachers and fellow-workers, but in the end we were me, Bex, Natalie, Katie, Austin [who had only nipped out from work when he saw us, and who needs to playing again with us], Vicky, Georgia 1, Georgia 2, Chloe , Bart and a very surprised Wanda, who had come down with her tambourine and found herself on bass. Also Harvey was there in his Foxwood t shirt  and tambourine at the ready. [And also thanks to Rosie, the surprise[d] photographer]

As we are packing up after the march set off, Bart is doing wheelies on wheelchair, and while carrying half a ton of drum-kit. Rock n Roll, eh?



And at the 1, 6 and 56 bus stop going home I see the sign up - "Delays possible owing to demonstration" Excellent. The screen kept moving so this is all I managed to get of the sign.