Talking about the SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) Students' Union (in https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2026/03/british-understatement-letter-to-school.html) has brought back the memory of another letter I'd typed up for them.
Bank X (which I shall leave unnamed) had dealings with South Africa at the time (1978 when I first went into SOAS). Apartheid was in place in South Africa then, so the SOAS Students' Union launched an appeal to its members to try and make life a bit difficult for Bank X, as a protest.
Members were asked to collect all their loose change, in the lower denominations preferably, take them to the Russell Square branch of Bank X, and get the staff to convert them to notes. I think there wasn't a machine for weighing up coins like they do nowadays, so it'd take the staff time to count up the small coins for conversion to notes. This would mean queues building up and other customers getting disgruntled. I was very touched by this show of solidarity for the people affected by the apartheid policy in South Africa, which is another country.
On the same note (oops, word play -- not intentional!), I also witnessed a small parade near the old Arsenal Football Stadium in Gillespie Road one afternoon. There were only about a dozen people, 20 at a stretch. It was a quiet residential area away from the main roads. No football game was taking place that day. I'm therefore not sure why the group decided to hold their protest march along that side street, but I was still moved by the show of solidarity, even more so when I saw that they were mostly white people.
(London, 1978 / second half of 1980s)
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