There was no dispute with the St Johns Ambulance Service in the 1980's or at any other time. There may have been rather silly concerns by some ,rather stupid LAS ambulance persons during the Great Ambulance dispute and this has led to an urban myth that St Johns undermined our fight for better wages. This of course was not s. At the conclusion of the dispute Stewart Barber Unison was able to claim that his union had "driven a coach and horses through the then Conservative government’s public service wages policy. In reality he had done no such thing! The same offer had been made months before; whilst we were freezing our balls and fannies off out on the streets, collecting money! I was relief at the time of the dispute and had previously worked as a part-timer on the PTS at Newham Amb Stn. Being an older person I was not much impressed by the extreme left wing rubbish which was being advocated by Newham’s stewards at the time, (SWP member or supporters) and I was told that I was not welcome. West ham station happily took me in and we had a good and profitable dispute, only going back to work as a result of growing boredom and a slow but steady reduction in the flow of support funds. The people of London who had supported us through the previous six months as a protest against the Poll Tax! Without that support we (with our mortgages to pay) would have lasted no more than a month. At the start of the dispute the light hearts amongst us had taken the cowardly way out by going sick days before, in the hope of safe guarding their wages. The remainder of us were all suspended; no one ever went on strike! As soon as Joe public started to show there support financially and word got out that we were doing rather better than we would have done on LAS wages the light-hearts began to slink back to join us in the struggle. Within days only the genuinely ill were not at the station ready to do their duty both to the colleges and desperate members of the public who called direct to West Ham, or through the police. There was always at least one operational crew on station at West ham and they responded whenever necessary. In was proud to have co0ntributed to the development of this strategy and was one of the crew staff who went to address other workers to explain why we had taken industrial action. Contrast this approach against that taken by ambulance station such as Newham. We had good relations with St Johns and the Red Cross and Army ambulance personnel. Someone had to deal with ill patients, but when situations became critical we as professionals, responded and took over control and treatment of the sometimes critical patients. Personnel who are hypercritical of the St John Ambulance Service should go to the nearest mirror and carefully examine the badge on their chest. We are the profession heirs to the old Knights of St John of Jerusalem, a chivalric order of hospitalers and para-medics, who used to pick up sick and injured pilgrims and transport them to hospitals (abbey) along the route to the holy places. This is one of the things which I noticed through-out my service with the LAS. Little sense of honour, chivalry or respect to far too many people who we were charged ton serve. This applies to all ranks of the service and what is missing is a sense of our history and espree de corps.