As hundreds of students take to the streets of London today (9 November 2011) to protest at government changes to education, we thought it apt to go back 30 years to take a look at an infamous protest that took place on campus. 

On 10 November 1981, self-proclaimed anarchists through eggs and tomatoes at Dr David Owen - then one of the leaders of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) - who was speaking on campus. 

The incident, which resulted in Dr Owen chasing a student, landed Sussex on the front page the next day of nearly every national newspaper. 

Here is an extract from the original article in the Bulletin published Tuesday 17 November 1981:

The price of eggs

On November 10, the newly-formed student Social Democratic society held its first open meeting in Mandela Hall at which Dr. David Owen, one of the national leaders of the SDP, spoke for an hour to 500 people. 

At the end of that hour and while the chairman was closing the meeting, eggs and tomatoes were thrown at Dr. Owen from the direction of a tiny group of self-proclaimed anarchists whose attempts at heckling during the meeting had been shouted down by the rest of the audience. 

Dr. Owen chose to chase one of his assailants and the morning of November 11 saw the University the subject of banner headlines on the front page of nearly every national newspaper as the result of an incident lasting no more than one minute. 

The publicity, the letters and telephone calls of complaints have been greater in volume than on any previous occasion including the red-paint incident of a decade ago... 

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