An Phoblacht (1981)

The picket pictured here, was held last Sunday, March 1st, in Downing Street, London, to greet Brit premier Margaret Thatcher on her return from her US trip. The picket was in solidarity with the Armagh women and the H-Block blanket men, on the first day of Bobby Sands’ hunger-strike for political status.

Tom Pickard was born in Newcastle in 1946. His father was a railwayman. As the bulge babies grew up through what pass for schools in the North East Tom was moved to the lowest stream of a secondary modern school. Since he received so little encouragement in school it was not surprising that he left with his friends at the age of fourteen. ‘Work was very scarce, but I enjoyed the dole, it gave me time to read and learn to see things to understand people better than if I had been doped by work.’

Black Dwarf (1969)