Right-to-Work diary. Day five: Tremendous T&GWU hospitality

Workers Press no. 686, 11 February 1972 · scan page 4

Title, by-line and extent checked against the scan: page 4 (printed page 3), top band, 'Right-to-Work diary by Stephen Johns, day five - Thornhill'; by-line misread 'By Stephen lohns' and joined to the headline; un-welded from 'The Renton boys'; re-sorted 17 Oct 2026 after reading the scan. The text is still machine-read, in the order the machine read the columns; for anything you quote, read the scan.

Right-to-Work WE MARCHED into Tory territory today along the Nith valley, but the reception at the end of the day was equal to that of Kilmarnock.

The hospitality this time came from the Transport and General Workers' Union branch at Dumfries.

They put us up in the Kirkpatrick sausage factory. We have an excellent warm hall and the use of the works canteen—so we've just sat down to the best meal of the march. Tomorrow —wait for it—we get a whole roasted sheep.

As usual the open-handed from the working class-surrounded as they are by acres of reactionary Dumfriesshire.

"There're no thanks necessary,' said the local T&GWU oficial Mr Tremble. 'You'll need that sheep to get you past all the Tories between here and Carlisle.' Even in this area, far away from the main jobless blackspots in Scotland, unemployment is at record levels.

In the town of Dumfries 3,000 out of a total population of 30,000, are unemployed-that's a rate of about 10 per cent.

They tried to get a union going, but the management stamped on the idea. The firm pays good money by the low WE DEMAND FIGHT MORK another Tory , stronghold) the lole queues are even longer.

John Flannigan, an ex-minevorkers' union official, and an independent socialist councillor, told some of the marchers that the jobless totals had rocketed.

'Four years ago they closed the Fallhead pit. That was 1,200 down the road and in 1964 the Gateshead mine was shut down —another 300. The victims of these purges stood around on the 'quaint' streets of the town and watched the march pass through.

After that it was open country-and some of the best I have ever seen—all the way to Thornhill.

We followed the river Nith. The two young miners we recruited at Cumnock told me it was a good stream for fishing (salmon and trout) but not, of can the keep-off notices were for the working-class YOURL RIGHT ALL TRADES UNIONS ALLIANCE MEETINGS Make Return a Labour government pledged to restore full employment and repeal all laws against the unions!

LIVERPOOL, 8 p.m. Tuesday February given by (SLL Central ASTLE spaced at regular intervals along the way-the land, the river and valley belong to the Duke of Hamilton.

The selling team has just come into the canteen where I am writing. It seems many of the inhabitants of Tory Thornhill are not keen on the Workers Press. That doesn't bother the marchers, there're ten socialists in Scotland to every Tory now. The results from New Cumnock, where we were welcomed into the working men's club, prove it. The miners there have ordered 50 copies of the paper each day.

Tomorrow we are in Dumfries -three days away from our 12 hours' rest at Carlisle.