TRADE unions officials boarded a coach for London in April 1977, calling for a return to free collective bargaining.

A 30-strong delegation, mainly of car workers, went to London by coach, paid for by their Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers.

Along with other workers drawn across the UK, they marched from Speakers’ Corner to Temple underground station calling for action.

Evan Luard, then MP for Oxford, then met the AUEW delegation in the House of Commons.

The union said its action was to demonstrate its ‘determination [not to] tolerate incomes policy in any shape or form’.

The action followed a conference held by British Leyland earlier that month.

Leyland’s parts depot at Horspath was the only Leyland plant in the Oxford area which called a mass meeting to sound out workers’ views.