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Pensioners on International Women's Day, London 2002 Ideas came too late for adequate preparation for the day this year. Perhaps I was not in a position to know what the possibilities were or might be. But about two weeks before 8 March I got the idea of building on the Ian McCartney story. (I had had two installments of it in the Greater London Pensioners Association Newsletter in preceding months.) And when I heard about the Maudsley women attacking the Trust (near the Shell Centre) I decided that pensioners could go for Ian McCartney's department of Work and Pensions (wherever that department was) and query him about the promises he made at the October meeting in Brighton, sponsored by the National Pensioners Convention. At the time I thought of it as a parallel to the Maudsley action. The pensioners could make a slight detour, I thought, from the main "whistlestop tour" and rejoin the main body after its stop at the Ministry of Defence. But things were not that simple. For one thing, it took longer to reach the Ministry of Work and Pensions than we had thought it would. There were many steps to climb from ground level to the South Bank arts level and from there to the Hungerford Bridge. And after that came the bridge itself, the steps down to the street, and the walk to the Department on John Adam Street. It was too much for old people (we should have taken the train to Charing Cross, quite accessible at Waterloo, and made use of our pensioners' passes). Because there were few of us we thought Hungerford Bridge would be more convenient. But it meant that we couldn't act like a demo, with shouts and slogans, lots of placards, etc. - the pedestrian bridge is too narrow. And I had been told that the police would prevent our going if we were too active and noisy. So we went quietly, discretely -- and unnoticed. I had made no arrangements for us to see Ian McCartney; we were simply to deliver a letter to him, criticising his failure to live up to October's promises. More experienced campaigners (like Christina Connors, Sara Spain, and a woman from Lambeth - whom I had met at meetings in the week before) thought that this was a lost opportunity, that we should have been facing him, etc. I could only apologize and cite my lack of experience in such arrangements. Nor had I informed the media about our purposes. Not that they would have paid any attention anyway. But I realize now that this is usually part of the procedure. And a reporter or two would have made the pensioners happy. After delivering the letter, our numbers declined (from 7 at start to 4) and we were not only tired, but in need of a cuppa. So we went to the Crypt of the church on Trafalgar Square and refreshed ourselves. In a more hopeful mood we left there to go to meet the main march, which we thought might now have reached the World Bank. As we approached Haymarket we could see the police cars and lights and knew we had arrived at the right place. We joined in the demo there, holding placards and banners, enjoying the little dramas and speeches. During the succeeding hour the remaining pensioners of our little jaunt went home, but all first came to express how glad they were that they had come and the hope of meeting again. Prisca |