Today as we were marching along the road a car pulled up, and the driver handed us £100 towards the march! Cars have been honking at us to show their support all the way. Tea, cakes and biscuits have been handed to us in most of the villages we have gone through.
Everyone has blisters on their feet and feeling more and more tired but a PCS member has been great patching everyone's feet up. For the past few days we've been marching through fields, with nothing to look at but sheep, its a real test of endurance!
We've been doing a lot of publicity shoots, today we were interviewed by the BBC, and Danish TV marched with us today.
In Darlington we spoke at the local anti-cuts meeting. We discussed whether Youth Fight for Jobs is too narrow in focussing on youth unemployment instead of all ages. For me it just underlines the importance of linking the march with the wider anti-cuts and workers movement.
The Jarrow to London march can become an important beginning in building a mass movement of students and workers against cuts and unemployment.
In Durham we marched past the Jobcentre. Unemployment is a massive issue in the North-East, as it is for people around the country. Throughout the 80's and 90's areas like the towns we marched through lost thousands of jobs from the closures of coal mines, steel works and factories.
These jobs have been replaced by unskilled, poorly paid jobs in call centres and warehouses. Where once jobs, training and apprenticeships were available for school leavers, now even the temporary minimum wage jobs are difficult to come by.
So far I've met a lot of new people and we're all getting on really well. If new people want to join us on the march they are more than welcome, the more people we have on the more impact we'll have.
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