The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Yorkshire Student Grants Demo in Sheffield
A perfect film for anyone wishing to be transported back to the days when student protests were commonplace, with the comic placards, political paper sellers and flared jeans.
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Overview
Continuing from where the ‘60s left off, the 1970s became famous as a decade of demos, and here we have a great example of students from across Yorkshire in typical protest mode: in Sheffield demonstrating against the low level of grants. As was usual, the ultra-serious is mixed in with having a good time; as speakers address the rally, the sellers of Workers Press move among the trench coats and long hair, along with the then omnipresent Hare Krishna group chanting on the side.
In preceding years most student demos were either overtly political in nature – over Vietnam, Ireland, Greece et al – or concerned university and student union issues, whereas now the failure of student grants to keep up with the high level of inflation was the major concern. We can date this demonstration precisely to 21st February, 1973. The previous week, with the Strawbs riding high in the charts with their slightly mocking song, Part of the Union, there was a national civil service strike against the pay freeze. The previous February saw a national miners’ strike and the famous Battle of Saltley Gate, and on the same day two years before 200,000 demonstrated in London against the Industrial Relations Act.
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