FEBRUARY 15 1971 was United Kingdom Decimalisation Day: no longer were there 12 pennies to a shilling, half-crowns or 240 pennies to the pound.
That day, 50 years ago, was also just over halfway through the greatest strike this country had seen since the General Strike of 1926: the 44-day national strike of 200,000 Post Office workers.
Telegraphists, telephonists, Post Office counter clerks, cleaners, postmen (170,000 of them!) and PHGs (postmen higher grade), members of the Union of Post Office Workers (UPW), struck for their claim of 15 per cent, or £3 a week for lower-paid grades such as cleaners.
They picketed, they lobbied, they marched, but after six-and-a-half weeks they went back to work defeated: why was that?
Brigadier Jack Thomas, oversaw the Royal Military Police in Northern Ireland during the Troubles – obituary
Thomas served in Palestine, Korea and Kenya and was a tough leader with the knack of resolving problems and ruthless determination
Thomas with the Queen at the RMP Training Centre, Chichester, in 1982
Brigadier Jack Thomas, who has died aged 94, was the first Assistant Provost Marshal to be appointed in Northern Ireland.
In early 1970, on promotion to lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Military Police, Thomas oversaw the RMP in a new civil role, protecting life and property, preventing and detecting offences, and preserving public order.
After the introduction of internment without trial, there was an increase in violence and in attacks – often involving shooting or bombing – against the security forces and the RMP.
The stories from Swindon when Margaret Thatcher became the Conservative leader
Margaret Thatcher became the leader of the Conservative Party in 1975. Also pictured: Barbara Castle and Clive Jenkins THIS month in 1975 Margaret Thatcher celebrated becoming leader of the Conservative Party. Two major political figures appeared in local news, but came from the other end of the ideological spectrum. One was perhaps the only female politician of the time more famous than the future first female Prime Minister.
Swindon Labour Party was delighted to announce that the guest of honour at the party’s Wiltshire County Rally that summer would be Barbara Castle.
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Leif Mills, alumnus of Balliol and the Royal Military Police who became a union leader – obituary
At TUC meetings he had a habit of using Latin and Greek phrases, and he advised Margaret Thatcher on how to manage the hard Left
Leif Mills, keen pipe smoker
Credit: family
Leif Mills, who has died aged 84, was General Secretary of the white collar Banking, Insurance and Finance Union (BIFU, formerly the National Union of Bank Employees, NUBE) from 1972 to 1996.
Mills had an unusual CV for a trade union leader. He was a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, and when he became president of the TUC General Council in 1994-95 he declared himself proud to have made it to the top of “the last unclimbed peak of British life for the college”.