NORTH WEST PROVES C.N.D. IS NOT DEAD from “lan Rooney
North West CND had 2 big rally in the Free Trade Hall last Friday (lay 29) - 2bout 1,200 attended. The meeting was preceded by a youth march on Granada TV to protest against misrepresentation of CND. “The Granada staff were given a special 'focus' leaflet (see below) earlier in the week. One of the shop stewards there has joined OND. The meeting was quite lively with Michael Foot, Donald Soper, Judith Cook and Olive Gibbs speaking - the emphasis was on moral arguments and youth. Folk music was provided by the Ian Campbell group. Olive Gibbs emphasised the need to extend the campaign against NATO. The collection raised £243.
A special note of interest was the fact that the following day about 400 young people bought over 500 CND badges at the Manchester office of CND. They also sold 100 Sanity. So much for the 'mods' and 'rockers! stuff.
Focus is issued by the North West CND at Party conferences, at the TUC and at by-elections, A special one was issued for the staff at Grane TVs it said:
"On Thursday, 26th March..on "Scene at 6430" Mike Scott said "CND is dead, at last". On Monday, 30th March..CND held its Easter March on London. Across the full width of Whitehall 20,000 marchers streamed into Trafalgar Square in one of the most colourful demonstrations ever seen in the capitaleeececee
"Every year, just before Easter, some of the '‘intellectuals' make their annual speculation about the future of CND. Always (they say) we are about to fold, Always (they say) we are on our last legs. Always ( they say) we are split and divided. 'Scene at 6.30' made the mistake of believing and following the fashionable trend. If the New Statesman and The Observer said that we were dying at the weekend, then it was a fair assumption that by Thursday we were dead.
"Or was it? A four-penny, or a four minute walk to the other side of Deansgate, to the CND Regional Office, would have secured the facts about CND. We could have told 'Scene! that we had over 700 people going to London for the Easter March, more than in previous years. That we had 90 adult, youth and student groups of the Campaign in the North West. That we sell every month 4,000 copies of the OND paper Sanity. That young people are joining our Youth Campaign, with over 400 written spplications for enrolment into the Regional Office this year. But no enquiry was madececsee
"We wrote to Mike Scott, no reply. We telephoned Mike Murphy and David Plowright. One stuck to it that we were dead. He even wrote to some of the corpses, in answer to their protests. The other ssid that "CND is dead, at last" did not mean "CND is dead, at last." We wrote to Mr, Bernstein and he referred us back to Mr, Plowrighteccece
The leaflet ended by offering free tickets to the big rally to any member of the Granada steff who was interested.