Comments on: School’s Out in London and Steve ‘Ginger’ Finch

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:16:12 +0000

I was at Rutherford School at the time and remember the school strike well
The slipper sucked, the uniform was shit and uncomfortable and the teachers tried their best, but the kids in those days were kept in control for all the wrong reasons. I was once there when an entire house was slippered. Yeah, good idea. The few teachers who gave a shit were worth turning up for.

By: Olwen Mprgan

Olwen Mprgan — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:44:02 +0000

Good to see the photographs but the public side of the SAU was always on a loser. The clandestine side, though smaller in scale, was *much* more effective.

The SAU cell at St. Dunstan’s College (SDC) in Catford ran a 2-year covert operation of espionage and sabotage against the school establishment in general and R. R. Pedley, the HM, in particular. Actions by cell members – notably the 1970 Speech Day operation – destroyed Pedley’s standing within his own profession, which added much to the stress that brought his death in 1973 – two years after the cell members left.

There is also some circumstantial evidence consistent with the view that Philip Cooper, Head of Music at SDC, (d. 29/10/71) was poisoned by an unknown pupil who had access to the technical assets that the SDC SAU cell had collected (among them keys to every door and cupboard in the school).

If the SDC SAU cell had focussed on public demos, we would soon have been crushed. Acting covertly was much more successful – so much so that our security was never broken throughout our operations.

Pedley was one of the most vicious of all public school heads. Helping him to an early death by destroying his professional reputation was one of the SAUs greatest but least-known achievements. As for Cooper, since he was a predatory sado-masochistic paedophile, if it was an SDC SAU cell member who took him out, that trumps anything else that the SAU ever did.

As it was the security of the cell was never broken

By: Linda O

Linda O — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:35:13 +0000

I started at Holland Park in 1972 and my brother was at Quinton Kynnaston. I was part of this protest and I remember having no idea what it was about! Holland Park was quite the school. There was at least one class where the teacher left the room for the whole period and left us to do whatever we wanted. I mean there wasn’t even any pretense of giving us something to do. There was a lot of dope smoking and alot of Chelsea moneyed folks kids.

Thanks so much for the wonderful pics and the memories.

By: marty g

marty g — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:56:37 +0000

My school Dyson Perrins in Malvern Worcs had a mini riot in 1975/6 protesting against the teachers locking us out of the school at lunch time.
The teachers were locking us out as they were also on some kind of strike.
Most of the school (probably 1000 pupils) charged out and ran around the roads near to the school and then went home.
I remenber the teacher going crazy to find the organisers.
Every body who joined in got detention. I didn’t as I never joined the riot due to being in detention at the time.

By: nickelinthemachine

nickelinthemachine — Thu, 28 May 2009 08:56:52 +0000

I’ve got a film researcher friend who looked for the relevant TOTP at the BBC and the one with Rod and Alice appearing on the same programme has been wiped. They’ve got a best of the year episode but that’s it.

By: wikipedia

wikipedia — Thu, 28 May 2009 04:34:54 +0000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Union_of_School_Students

By: mh

mh — Wed, 27 May 2009 23:23:43 +0000

Steve Wilson, is this the Top of the Pops ep? Can’t see any fists, wish I could!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWx9eyqf7Sk&feature=related

By: LondonLee

LondonLee — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:06:53 +0000

Holland Park Comprehensive was where the real hippy subversives were. I did a summer school in English there once and was shocked that they called their teachers by their first names! I’m sure they were all on drugs too.

By: LondonLee

LondonLee — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:03:45 +0000

Lord, I remember writing a story at school about England being taken over by schoolchildren which involved them storming 10 Downing Street and persuading Ted Heath to hand over power (in a nice, non-violent way) . It must have been inspired by this but I’d forgotten all about it.

By: Steve Wilson

Steve Wilson — Thu, 07 May 2009 19:59:22 +0000

This is a welcome reminder of a wonderful moment in British social history – but is woefully inaccurate. Like Steve Finch, I was a member of the national committee of the Schools Action Union. Several different demonstrations of the time have been mixed up together. Steve Finch was arrested at an earlier demo than the London one, which was highly successful, never mind the “national” one, which was a bit of a failure. The SAU was indeed infiltrated at the time, but by a sole Daily Mail bloke. The National Union of School Students had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with this, they were (as Time Out noted) the Middle Class equivalent of the SAU.
The most important social result of this was that at the last demo before the London-wide one, several kids had tickets for Top of the Pops. They went along after the demo, and gave Alice Cooper the clenched fist “power” salute as he sang “Schools Out”. I helped pay for their tube tickets to get there! Rod Stewart noted this and started giving clenched fist dalutes to the kids later in the show. Within weeks every rock singer was giving this salute (now adapted into the devil salute, with two fingers extended).
Steve French was a good mate but was never the power behind SAU, there wasn’t one. A girl called Loulla Ephimou and a number of other members of North London’s Greek community, people like me, idealistic teachers and so on were members long before Steve was approached by younger kids at his own school to organise a strike. But he was ace, where are we all now? I started a “Schools Action Union” facebook group to try to bring us back together in our middle age – but no-one else has joined.