VIOLENCE which marred last weekend's anti-spending cuts protest bore no resemblance to the carnival atmosphere enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators, a Newton Abbot union rep has claimed.

Janette Parker, Newton Abbot branch secretary for USDAW, who attended the TUC march, said she could not square TV coverage with her own experience of the day.

'I'd never been on a protest march before. I just felt it was time to show how I felt about the government-planned cuts. It was a fantastic day, there were hundreds of thousands of people. I'd never seen so many, I only come from a small village.

'The whole day was so good-natured. I was marching alongside a family pushing a newborn baby.

'It was a real carnival and peaceful atmosphere. I didn't see any of the trouble. Somebody said there had been trouble somewhere, but it wasn't anything to do with the march so I didn't take much notice.'

Up to 500,000 marched through the capital, billed as the biggest protest staged there for a decade.

Some 4,500 police officers were on duty during the day. The force made a total of 201 arrests after a small breakaway group rampaged through the capital's streets, attacking officers, smashing shop windows and daubing graffiti on banks.

Mrs Parker, of Chudleigh Knighton, who works at at Tesco, said she hopes it does not get remembered for all the wrong reasons.

'I suppose you had to be there to understand the mass passion that the people felt about this.

'The government's four-year timetable of cuts is too savage and does not give economic growth the opportunity to raise the nation's tax intake.

'Raising four pounds in cuts for every pound raised through tax – and doing most of this through a rise in VAT, that hits the poor and those on middle incomes, is deeply unfair.

'The recession was made in the finance sector yet the banks are now enjoying gigantic bonuses once again and are not being asked to make a fair contribution.

'Retail workers are some of the lowest paid in the country and these are all concerns that are raised by Usdaw members in the workplace on a daily basis.

'The government needs to listen. It keeps talking about the Big Society, well the Big Society marched on Saturday.'