Three of the demonstrators from the Courtaulds George Street Mill. From the left, Elizabeth Scott, Pat Parkinson and Audrey Terrell.

From an article by Tony Tweedie, Cameraman in London: Stuart Mason:
Mill workers from Burnley travelled to London this week to plead for their livelihoods. But they returned with nothing. They and 8,000 other Lancashire textile workers were hoping to be told that textile imports would be cut by 20 per cent, thereby securing their jobs and halting the current plague of short-time working. Instead they were told that negotiations with some of the exporting countries were still taking place, but imports from Portugal and America were continuing to rise at an alarming rate.

Tuesday's demonstration on the 25th March 1975, involving people from all branches of the textile trade, was the first such show of mass solidarity in Lancashire's traditionally non-militant premier industry. Many of the 300 people I travelled with on a special train to London are on short time. And some of them are at present on an enforced two weeks' "holiday" because of the slump in demand for British textiles. They now face the prospect of returning after the Easter lay-off to an even worse situation. Mr Albert Shaw, secretary of the Burnley and Nelson Textile Workers' Union said: "During the past three years 25 per cent of the 900,000 people employed in the textile industry have been on short time working, an average of two weeks in four. Six thousand have been made redundant in the same period. In Lancashire alone 50,000 of the 80,000 textile workers are on short time, and the British Textile Confederation estimates that this number may reach the quarter of a million mark."

The packed Central Hall, Westminster, heard Mr Shaw pledge: "We will not let this industry die. This country cannot allow King Cotton to die." Mr James Lamond, chairman of the all-party group of MPs from textile constituencies, told the meeting that the textile industry was facing its worst crisis since the war. Mr Michael Meacher, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Industry, was given a rowdy reception when he said that import restrictions had already been placed on textiles from Greece and Turkey. Mr Bill Whittaker, of the Burnley and Nelson Textile Workers' Union, strongly criticised Mr Meacher for "wearing two hats," and he called on him to make up his mind which side he was on - the textile workers' or the Government's. "We have to make a stand to stop the mill closures as we did at the Empress Mill in Burnley. No one district can do this alone. We must all support each other," he said.

The general feeling on the return journey to Burnley was one of anticipation mixed with anxiety. Before the rally at Westminster, the 3,000 mill workers formed a mile-long procession for the five-mile march from Speakers' Corner to Westminster. Led by a brass band from Rossendale and a group of North-West MP's, including Burnley's Mr Dan Jones, the procession halted traffic and stirred up interest from onlookers.