20,000 March on Manchester

On November 30th, a reported (this is the BBC talking here folks) 20, 000 people got involved in the protests over public sector pensions. No doubt inspired by the on-going ‘occupy’ efforts around the globe, this, for Manchester was quite an impressive turn out. I decided to head down to Oxford Road to catch the masses as they made their way past the city’s two central Universities before coming to a stop in Platt Fields park. Sadly, the delay in me presenting a selection of these images to you was not caused by my insistence in using film over digital but by my insistence to shake the austerity blues by nobly embarking a somewhat raucous weekend. Finally recovered from said revelry and with the ‘Good Ship Kollektivnye’ back on course, here is a handful of the images taken from that day presented along with a few words from yours truly offered as a means of  providing you with a slightly alternative view on the day’s events.

The protests, it must be said were perfectly peaceful with a hefty proportion of the masses made up of young children who were marching with their families. As I found my spot and started to try and remove my camera from my back-pack, the sound of the procession moving towards me was one riddled with the momentarily comedic but swiftly-returning-to-irritating sound of the noble vuvuzela. Whether these were primarily deployed as a means of keeping the aforementioned posse of under-twelves amused at the delight of their parents but surely at the plight of their peers, it was hard to tell, but one thing was unmistakable, there were a lot of people heading towards me.

I must admit that I haven’t witnessed a cavalcade as impressive in numbers as this since my attending of the Veteran’s Day Parade

in Austin last year, at least fifteen minutes passed while the admittedly steadily moving crowd went past the spot I had set up in, underneath the Mancunian Way bridge. In that respect, I was a little taken aback by the scale of the demonstration as it was something that I had never personally witnessed here in good ‘ol Blighty, with previous Manchester based rallies seemingly bantam in comparison. Impressive as it was and as much as the point was no doubt made, since reading the Government’s dismissive response in the national press and witnessing an unaltered, bustling town centre just hours later, I can’t help but think that these protests will require another hearty increase in momentum in order for the intended pension revisions to be thrown out.