Breaking strikes

Shortly before Michael Gove organised a strike for journalists in Dundee, I crossed a school picket line with my mum, a teacher at my local school (Nairn Academy). She was a member of a teaching union, the PAT, that didn’t believe in strikes, so when the school closed the two of us went in. It was a perfectly friendly affair: my teachers (and her colleagues) were at the gate, with no one else around. One of her colleagues handed her a leaflet and we went on inside. We never discussed politics at home, and I still have no idea what my mum thought about Thatcher (it was 1985). But then, she and thousands of teachers like her took the basic view that kids should not be dragged into disputes between adults. I didn’t think much of it then, but looking back now, understanding the pressures teachers must have been under, it was quite something.