THERE was no doubt about the strength of feeling in this demonstration.

Nearly 1,000 teachers, parents and pupils, carrying banners galore, were on the march through Oxford to protest at cuts in education spending.

The parade was the culmination of an eight-day strike by members of the National Union of Teachers in 1977.

Oxfordshire County Council, which had taken over responsibility for city schools in 1974, had proposed a raft of economies, including ending the contracts of 160 temporary teachers.

A petition signed by more than 21,000 people, calling for the cuts to be revoked, had already been presented to Brigadier Roger Streatfeild, chairman of the county education committee.

After the march, which brought traffic in the city centre to a standstill, the protesters held a rally in Bonn Square and then made their way to County Hall in New Road to press home their point to councillors and council officers.

Addressing the crowd in Bonn Square, Fred Jarvis, the NUT general secretary, praised the Oxford organisers of the protest campaign.

He urged supporters to put “irresistible pressure” on the council to reach a satisfactory settlement.

He said the council had made a “false claim” that the latest round of cuts would not make staffing levels worse.

Critics claimed that by ending the strike after eight days, teachers had “thrown in the towel”.

But Mr Jarvis said the strike was coming to an end “because that was when it was planned to end, not because there had been any wavering on the part of any member involved in it”.

Two days after the march, Education Secretary Shirley Williams intervened and called the two sides together to settle the dispute.

Peace eventually returned to our schools but it wasn’t the first or last time that strikes and disagreements would hit the classroom.