The history of the world's longest strike in Burston, Norfolk

Nurses, ambulance staff, teachers, postal workers, train drivers and many more as the distance between employer and employee seems to grow longer and longer.

I suspect many of you reading this will remember the three-day week in the 70s imposed during industrial action by the coal miners and railway workers.

The people of Norwich and Norfolk have a long tradition of standing up for themselves and supporting the underpaid, overworked and those treated unfairly.

Every year there is a big rally in Burston to remember the time of the Strike School which is now a museum.

This, the longest strike in our history, lasted from 1914 to 1939, and is now world famous.

It started when socialist teachers Annie (known as Kitty) and Tom Higdon were sacked after falling out with the school management committee.

They fought for better conditions for the children and it resulted in them being dismissed. But when those in authority tried to take over, they were met by the sound of children on the march.

Most of the 72 pupils were singing their way round Burston, waving flags, and ended up having lessons on the village green.

Little Burston was to become big Burston.

By 1917 trade unionists had raised £1,250 to build a new school, described as a “school of freedom” by pupil Violet Potter, leader of the 1914 demonstrations.

Burston Strike School operated until 1939. Kitty and Tom are buried alongside each other in the village churchyard.

The rally, held on the first Sunday of September each year, now attracts hundreds of people including many trade union leaders.

And while this strike was on, in May of 1926, the TUC organised a walk out across the country to stop cuts in pay and improve conditions for more than a million miners.

This was the General Strike, and in Norwich on May Day thousands of people gathered in the Market Place with bands and banners to show how they supported the action.

At the time we described the event as one of the most memorable in the history of the city.

Trams stopped running and workers walked out in Norwich and across the county. Our papers were reduced to sheets which were hung in windows so people could get the latest news. The strike ended on May 12.

Then there was the bus strike in Norwich of 1937 which caused outrage and protests -  when most of the city backed the busmen.

It was just over 90 years ago when the people were given the opportunity to vote on the type of public transport they wanted – trams or buses.

Buses won. They started running from a new bus station which catered for more than 170 buses.

But within a year almost 400 workers walked out on strike which lasted for a total of six weeks. They received a good deal of support from the public.

I remember talking to one of the strikers, Fred Elsegood, in the 80s who said he worked a 54-hour, six-day week. “It was a terrible time. We were so hard up we were forced to live off the parish and from collections in the city.”

Some things never change.