Not entirely sure how long the NUSS lasted for. Think I’m right in saying it was a Socialist Workers Party inspired organisation but I might be wrong. Amusing to see the reference to caning and school uniforms. It didn’t have a great deal of traction at my school.
Interestingly, in 1985 there was a major school students walk out in Liverpool with a rally addressed by Terry Fields MP at the pier head.
I think the NUSS in the late 1970s was run by the YCL. In 1978 we in West Nottingham LPYS ran a campaign of agitation to get school kids into the branch. Which worked for a time. We were sending off for a thousand leaflets off NUSS a time. Eventually, they came up to Nottingham and asked me, ‘What are you doing, stirring up trouble?’ Then they saw I was carrying a copy of Militant and turned well snooty and buggered off. Never got any more leaflets from them. The campaign got a bit of national publicity and Rhodes Boyson got on my case and denounced me as some kind of Trot. I wasn’t at the time but I was pleased I’d got up his nose, as well as the YCL. I think one of the Young Commies who came to Nottingham was Sue Slipman, who later defected to the SDP and became something of a Quango Queen.
Sue Slipman – Quango Queen – love that description. Yeah, I think the YCL were involved in NUSS because people I knew pushing it at school were YCL connected including one guy who went on to become a Tory councillor in Waltham Forest. The political trajectories of some people!