THE TENSION that mounted in the centre of Southampton when hundreds of chanting anti-racists marched from Asylum Green to Hoglands Park showed on the faces of the escorting police.
At 1pm on August 12, 1978, less than 100 demonstrators set off, armed with flags and banners, in orderly fashion from the green. But within minutes, and as if from nowhere, the long, long marching crocodile grew.
Carrying a wealth of “Never again” posters on sticks, a strong contingent of Anto-Nazi League members kept up an organised verbal attack on the National Front.
“The National Front’s a Nazi Front! Out! Out! Out!” shouted a young man with a megaphone.
“We might well have had a nasty confrontation situation but, fortunately, we did not,” said Supt John Chilcott, the man who led the marchers to the park.
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