laxmiben patel remembering the grunwick strike.part of london and a similar time, a young black woman is making history by becoming the first female black head teacher in the uk but, despite the positive spin from the media at the time, yvonne connolly suffered racist abuse when her of appointment was announced. mrs yvonne connolly has to be thanked by that. there is an awful lot of love, mostly for her. she is london's first west indian head teacher and what a love for her. i was one of the first black teachers in london in 1969. i had done three years of teacher training injamaica sol had done three years of teacher training injamaica so i thought i would come to britain. i came in august, 1963, at the raid, grey day. i wondered what i had done. i had planned to be here for three years but three years led to four years. i was very aware that there were racial tensions in quite a number of schools. i would turn up and somebody would just... suppose without meaning to, say but you are black. of course, my reply was, yes, lam also b

in the grunwick factory there was a big classroom where the manager used to sit.d observe us all, from that room. he would keep an eye on us. if you were going to the toilet and it took too long, then he would ask why? what were you up to? there is no doubt... the unlikely leader of the grunwick strike, jayaben desai, would challenge the stereotype of the submissive asian woman. i was on the picket line from the first day. we ladies came out with mrs desai. reporter: how long will you stay here ? unless, when we finish this dispute. a year? any time. five years? ten years. unions from across england supported us. all the unions were there with big banners. there were a lot of policemen, you could see them all over the street, and in the middle of them was jayaben. in spite of mass support, the strike committee found its power to act evermore circumscribed. two years after it had begun, the strike was called off. jayaben desai was not upset with the defeat at all. we felt that asian women in england had fought for two years for the union. and we were proud of that