Union Work

Over the years in Essex I became increasingly involved with my union, the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers - NAS/UWT. At a local level I became County Secretary, which involved time at County Hall negotiating with Education Department officials on behalf of our members. For example, during my time as secretary, all the secondary schools in Harlow, which were 11-18 comprehensives, were closed so the County could reorganise them into 11-16 schools with a tertiary college, which meant that all the teachers were technically redundant, though very few ended up without a job.

Alan Bilby, the head at The Plume School, was very good about the 'time off' I was allocated by the County for union work - effectively two days of the working week. I also had weekend meetings. For example, the body to which I was responsible, the Essex Federation of the NAS/UWT, met on a Saturday morning once a month. I also met regularly with the little committee which ran the Federation - Cliff was one of its members.

Through the Federation I was appointed to various bodies. I was on Essex Education Committee as a teacher representative for some time, and on the governing body of Writtle Agricultural College, but my biggest involvement was with examination boards - the only photo I have of my years of work with the union is this one, at an exam board meeting in London. There was no remuneration for this work but my fares were paid and the London GCSE board always gave us an excellent lunch. I thoroughly enjoyed this work: my favourite meeting was the Disciplinary Committee, where we decided what should be done when schools or teachers were caught breaking the rules - like opening the exam papers a couple of days early and coaching their students ready for the exam.

As well as being time-consuming, the union work was very stressful so, after three years as secretary, I gave up Federation work, though I continued with the exam board until I left teaching.