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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 28, No. 5. 1965.

Diverse Reactions

Diverse Reactions

Students themselves are those with the least idea of just what public reaction their protest march aroused. To find out. Salient reporters conducted impromptu curbside interviews as the marchers passed.

It was obvious that the size, the orderliness, and the intent of the march impressed the public. "It's fantastic, just fantastic" exclaimed one university staff member as a seemingly endless stream of students entered Kelburn Parade and turned into Salamanca Road.

The first indication of public interest was the platoon of press photographers drawn up along the route. TV cameramen scurried back and forth, and one or two reporters wandered along.

Student landladies stood along the Terrace to watch, and further down construction workers called for pamphlets, office workers left their offices for them, and drivers brought briefly to a halt seemed uniformly good-natured.

"This should get you somewhere" a construction worker on one Terrace building site commented. "To keep up standards you've got to get together and stay together."

Two charladies seemed less impressed. "They should get up early in the morning and scrub floors like we do" one of them suggested.

A lone woman stood outside Technical Books, holding aloft a sign wishing students good luck. Further along, at Massey House, a wet welcome awaited those students who were caught by water bombs. Here a middle-aged passer-by commented "If my son was in that (march) I would take him home and beat him... "

Individual members of the public, interviewed in this area by one reporter, seemed fairly well aware of student claims, and uniformly approved of a march as a method of making them.

In Lambton Quay, too, part-time students stepped from the pavement into the ranks of the march. One part-timer lent a hand in supporting the heavy lead banner. More than 200 students joined the march during its passage through the streets, and many of these were part-time students.