I REMEMBER the Jarrow march, undertaken to highlight the 80 per cent unemployment and extreme poverty that the town was suffering. The 300 mile journey was done in stages of 15-20 miles each day, peaceful and organised by their own stewards.

On arrival at their destination in London, almost one month later, a petition of 12,000 signatures was handed into Parliament by Ellen Wilkinson the Labour MP for Jarrow. The then Tory Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, refused even to see any of the marchers' representatives; they returned home with no reward other than sympathy.

The fuel protesters plan to start their campaign from Jarrow as some kind of symbolic memory of that march. The organisers include Nigel Kime, spokesperson for the British Hauliers Unite and owner of a £2 million haulage firm, Derek Mead, protest co-ordinator in Somerset who owns a 1,600 acre dairy farm, Derek Lynch, who also has a haulage business, and Richard Haddock, who owns an 800 acre farm.

These 'leaders' plan to assemble on November 10 and, with their BMWs Mercedes, Volvos and four-wheel-drives, to arrive in London on November 14 (a little faster than the old marchers) and there declare that the high cost of fuel has driven them into abject poverty. And that if the government, if it is even prepared to meet them, does not give them a substantial cut in fuel tax, then our country will suffer an upheaval similar to the last fiasco.

I await November 14 with great interest.

John S.L. Evans

Howard Avenue,

Deane, Bolton.