I’ve always meant to start writing something on this site.. Now ive got a little more time i thought i would! Time to start this whole blogging thing… (Ill also try and write up the missing pages above!)

Wednesday 10th November – Demolition

Part one of my busy few days began in London (I never did get around to writing up the following few days…) for the NUS National Demo. Three coach loads of us from Southampton Solent University headed up to Westminster for the protest against the rise in tuition fees. It was an incredibly long and boring journey but we got there in the end!

We all gathered outside ‘some building’ (unfortunately i have no idea what the name of the building was or the name of the road!) ready for speeches by the NUS before we set of. The motivational speeches really got the crowd raring and in the mood for the protest! Shortly after we set off. They said it would be at a slow marching pace.. Infact it was incredibly slow! It took about an hour and a half to get from out starting point to big ben! Normally it would be no more than a five minute walk!

After waiting a few hundred metres back from big ben for more than an hour we decided to weave through the crows and head on with the protest.. Turns out there was a group of protestors sitting in the road holding everyone up! Was an entertaining 15 minutes weaving through the crowds. Numerous students chanting at the police and egging them on whilst they all stood there laughing!

We headed towards the rally point at the end of the march but were quickly distracted by a large crowd outside 30 Millibank, the converservatives headquarters. Shortly after arriving, there were fires being started and loud chanting towards those inside. It didn’t take long for this to grow into violence. Within 30 minutes of arriving, there were (suspected) students rioting and vandalising the building. The ground floor windows were all smashed in and the lobby was vandalised and full of students. Riot police were around but unfortunately had to hold back as there wernt nearly enough of them compared to the number of students there. I was in this crowd, probably only a row or two back from the violence taking place. I was in no way joining in nor was i inclined to join in, but it was a scary experience being so close to it all. We decided to leave shortly after this when the riot police decided to up there numbers!

We didn’t manage to make our way to the rally as it was finished by the time we decided to leave millibank so we headed back through westiminster for our coaches! Most of the students returned back to Solent on the coach for what seemed an extremely long and painful journey! Myself and a few others stayed around as we were staying in London for the night! After a lovely breakfast/lunch/dinner of McDonalds with the others i headed to the tube station on my was to Wimbledon.. Had to wait for about 5 or 6 tubes as they were so packed and i had all my bags with me! (Im rambling on now arnt i…)

I was being put up in Wimbledon for the night by the lovely Matt Hurst & Sarah Ghost so a big thank you to them! After a fantastic dinner in a ‘fusion’ restaurant of Chinese, indian, thai and a few others we headed back for a kip before the kaos of the Student Radio Awards the following day! I could probably write lots more about the day.. But as this is my first blog post i should probably stop about here!