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Quick thread: went to Diss yesterday to sort something out and had time to kill between things, so I nipped to Burston to have a look at Burston Strike School, fascinating place and a remarkable story. Which I won’t relate in full here.
It’s long. The longest strike in British history, and yet another marker of Norfolk and East Anglian radicalism in our agricultural communities for centuries. The strike ran from 1914 to 1939.
The village sign is a Maypole and a wheat-sheaf. A lot of the discord here was over the teaching of working class children who the land-owning class wanted working the fields, not learning.
Annie and Tom Higdon had ended up in Burston after leaving a similar situation in Wood Dalling where the school board was run by the farmers. And here they were again in the same situation, talking to the agricultural workers, and teaching their children.
It’s too complex to do this in tweets at this point, but basically Tom stood and was elected to the council which really upset the hay cart. Ultimately the Higdons were dismissed and the strike began ; 66 of the 72 pupils with support by parents.
Word spread and the school became a centre of interest for school reformers, unions and co-ops. Moving from a tent, into workshops, then eventually into a school paid for by union and association subscriptions and donations from across the country.
It stayed that way until 1939 when Tom fell ill, ‘Kitty’ Higdon was too old to manage on her own, so the school closed. The Higdons are well remembered. Road names, benches dedicated by the Potter family, Violet Potter being a vocal striking pupil.
And Tom and Kitty are still here, a few metres from the school they championed, for all to be educated. If you get a chance go and have a look. It’s a testament to how organised communities can beat their foes by cooperative organisation.
That’s how you do it comrades, educate, agitate, organise.
Which is also a That Petrol Emotion lyric if anyone is remotely interested in such things.
