May, 1968. May Day Marches in the Cities

Well attended May Day meetings and marches took place over the week-end in Britain's principal cities. With their red flags fluttering and the band playing the Internationale, some 3,000 May Day marchers strode into London's Hyde Park yesterday. Behind the banner of the London District Committee of the Communist Party, with its timeless slogan "Peace, Unity, Socialism", the traditional parade was one of the gayest for year.

Hundreds of families, with children in pushchairs and around fathers' necks, walked together in the sunlight from the Thames Embankment. With them were hundreds of trade unionists. There were postal workers with their slogan: "Public Servants, Not Public Slaves" and branches and districts of the engineers, railwaymen, electricians and vehicle builders. And for the first time this May Day, a banner of the new Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs - the biggest scientific and technical union in the world.

At Hyde Park, where hundreds more people greeted the marchers, Mr Frank Stanley, secretary of the London District of the Communist Party, recalled that this year's May Day march was being held on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. Mr John Gollan, general secretary of the Communist Party, in his speech thanked all those trade unionists and Labour Party members who were helping to keep the fighting tradition of May Day alive. Other speakers referred to the burning issues of the day.

Nottingham parade was headed by the banner of Nottingham Trades Council and its officials. Among the marchers were an 80-strong contingent of the Woodcraft Folk C.N.D. with banners on Polaris and a very colourful 70-strong contingent of the Communist Party and the Young Communist League.

Bristol: Over 60 members of the Bristol Communist Party and Young Communist League marched with banners through Bristol to the Downs.^* Headed by a loudspeaker playing marches, they arrived for an open-air meeting to the strains of the Internationale.

^* (the Downs - a hill district in southern England.)

The Aberdare Communist Party held a May Day meeting on Saturday at which hundreds of shoppers heard Communist Party policy. Posters said: "May Day - '68; No Racial Discrimination; Tax Wealth - End Wage Freeze".

Leeds: Trades Council May Day was the biggest and most colourful for many years.

Belfast: Despite a downpour of rain, some 5,000 trade unionists took part in Belfast's May Day march on Sunday.

(Morning Star)