The story of Stepney Words

Abstract

In 1971 a young teacher was sacked from a London East End school after publishing a book of poetry written by its working-class pupils who acutely observed the sights and people’s struggles around them. In an unprecedented move, the school children and those from neighbouring schools went on strike to demand the reinstatement of their teacher. That teacher, Chris Searle, who went on to be one of the most radical and internationalist educationalists, has begun to write his memoirs in terms of the way poetry influenced him and he, in turn, used poetry as part of his educational practice. This is an excerpt from the memoirs which gives his account of life at Sir John Cass and Redcoat School, the publishing of Stepney Words and the way in which the public reacted to it. It reflects the history and changing nature of working-class London and the influence, in practice, of cultural tensions thrown up by ‘the 1960s’.