Sixteen Catholic Parents Threaten A School Strike

By ANDREW BOYLE Sixteen Wembley Catholic parents have hit out at the Middlesex education authorities, whose action, under the 1944 Education Act, threatens to deprive their children of places in the two local Catholic senior schools when the new term opens next month.
AU the parents have sent off strongly-worded letters to the Ministry of Education and the Middlesex County Council stressing their determination not to let their sons and daughters go to nonCatholic schools.
" Sixteen children may not seem many, but they have been made hostages of religious discrimination. U we can release them, we will.
" The fantastic part of the story Is that though the Catholics of Middlesex have just provided an extra school, less children than before are stow being permitted to receive a Catholic education."
And Fr. Davey went on to explain how formerly, children of 11 and over from this parish used to attend St. James', Burnt Oak.
"When g grew overcrowded," he said, " we were able to take over St Thomas'. Stanmore. as a modern technical senior school. This had been a private school, capable of aceommodatine 600 pupils, in the hands of the Dominican nuns. " We were hoping• that St. Thomas' would solve our educational worries for a long time to come. Now the Middlesex people have put down a firm bureaucratic foot and decided In effect that St. Thomas' will admit only 400 children. " What's to happen to the other 200 1 don't know. But 16 children from this parish are immediately affected. and we are refusing to take this absurd edict lying down."
SYMPATHY
Widespread sympathy for the itand Fr. Davey and his parishioners Ire taking has been mustered by a clear statement of the problem in the local Press. Said Fr. Davey: "I thinkmany people here see the principle at slake. The 16 parents arc refusing to give way and submit their children to a tyyle of education which is alien to their faith. As taxpayers and citizens, they are simply demanding what is their due."
When I asked him whether the Middlesex authorities were hostile or merely indifferent to the Wembley parents' case, Fr. Davey replied: "Individually, the officials 1 have 'been dealing with are not unhelpful. They are just carrying out orders. " If we are to secure justice, the baffle must be carried beyond the local Education Committee into Parliament. And it must be started without hesitation. Otherwise, the Catholic children in this country will be forced into non-Catholic schools a few at a time."
The impossible financial burdens that have still to fall on the shoulders of Wembley's Catholic parents when the all-clear is given for the building of new schools were touched on only in passing.
" The primary school in this parish has been declared a ' transferred school' under the Act. That means the authorities will find the site and erect the building. while I have to find 50 per cent of the money.
" The iniquitous side of the business is that in return for the £45,000 we have to contribute. we shall not be allowed to educate any more children than are educated in the primary school now standing."