Springtime carries you forward – and promises a glorious summer

The Spring of 1973 was a glorious time.

As far as I was concerned the sun shone every day; I was raking in the stories for the Standard Recorder; my circle of socialist-minded friends was widening; my social circle was a round of fun, parties and theatre; and I was getting to spend more and more time with my Muse.

On the work front I was not just covering courts and the emergency services, I was also forging strong links with members of the Basildon Town Council, both sides of the political divide, and with the right people working for the corporation.

On top of this Tony Blandford, the editor, had given me a fairly free rein to find off-diary features as well as letting me have experience of sub-editing.

This last was to set me on the path which would take me to the top of the game in provincial journalism, not just in the UK but in Australia and the Middle East as well.

My early subbing was for a page called People in close-up and would have four or five different stories which had some form of common theme. One week, for instance, it was Armed Forces. Two local RAF lads who had been given their commissions, both as pilot officer but one was now an actual pilot while the other was a plotter.

A gunner with the Royal Artillery, stationed in Singapore, had just been on a training exercise in the Malaysian jungle where the Brits and Aussies had faced their Kiwi “foes”; a driver in the Royal Corps of Transport had just spent two weeks on exercise in the Rockies in Canada, which included driving a two and a half ton Army truck on a narrow twisty mountain trail at 7,000 feet; and a leading seaman on a frigate had just rejoined the Fleet after the frigate he was on had been refitted at Chatham and then had sea trials off Portland.

Although I had not allied myself to any political party I had befriended local councillors, most of whom were Labour members. After council meetings there was often an adjournment to the nearby Arts Centre bar where “any other business” was conducted over a pint or so.

There were also NUK chapel and branch meetings where talk was building up about the annual pay talks the union would be holding with Newspaper Society bosses later in the year.

There was also a mix of work and social with press tickets to see Joe Brown and his new band Home Brew, as well as Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen offering some foot-stomping trad jazz.

The core of that time for me, however, was The Thalians.

Rehearsals were going well for the Wilde which meant at least one evening a week in the company of my Muse; at least once month, sometimes more, there would be a party at someone’s house or flat. We even had a group trip out to Epping Forest for an open air production of Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle which, as there was limited parking, the 10 of us travelled in just two cars. Hubby did not join the trip (he really wasn’t theatre-minded) and there and back I sat in the back of a car between my Muse and one of the other women from the group.

To be so close and yet not being close enough.

Other than that there were Friday or Saturday mornings meeting at the bookstall in the market, choosing our treasures of the week and then going for a coffee in a nearby cafe to discuss our choices.

In the last few weeks of June, as spring prepared to give way to summer, I noticed a change in my Muse. I was aware, as we all were, that hubby was working away a lot but there seemed to be more than that, not just at rehearsals but also when we met for coffee.

As the month drew to a close, and my feelings grew stronger and stronger, we met as usual one Saturday morning and while browsing the books she said she was looking for historical novels with a Scottish base but there was nothing to be had.

That was when I remembered a couple of books I had picked up while still in North Wales, They were part of a series by Dorothy Dunnett called The Lymond Chronicles and fitted the bill perfectly.

I mentioned them and suggested we could go back to the flat for coffee (I had no ulterior motive as I didn’t intend ruining it all with a rash action) and she could see the books and if interested borrow them.

It was not long before noon and when we got up toi the flat I made the coffee first and then, while it was cooling, we went into the hall and knelt down by the bookcase, just three shelves but a lot of books.

I found the first of the Lymond books, Game of Kings, and handed it to her. As she opened it and bent her head to study the information on the back cover her hair fell forward, curtaining her face, and I could not resist saying: “I love you.”

She looked up in surprise and I leaned forward and kissed her.

Rather than pull back she seemed to lean into the kiss.

When she did pull away it was to say: “At last. I love you too.”

We kissed again, still kneeling, and then – the doorbell rang.

We both pulled back and she shot into the lounge before I had even had the time to open the door.

It was the postman.

Then again I can’t think why I should have expected anyone else.

He handed me a thick package which wouldn’t have gone through the letterbox, along with a couple of letters, one of which was possibly a bill.

Before he left my beloved’s voice came from behind me, saying: “I should be leaving now, thank you for the book> I look forward to reading it.”

With that she was gone, following the postman down the corridor to the lift, and I was left wondering if it had all been just a dream.

I couldn’t risk going to her house, it was a Saturday and hubby might be home. The same applied to Sunday and on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I had courts and councils with only evenings free and |I did not dare call at that time without a solid excuse in case anyone was there.

By Thursday I was cursing her lack of a telephone.

We were busy all morning tying up the final pieces for that week’s edition. The afternoon would be quieter, unless a major story cropped up, but it was 2pm before I could get away.

I could see from the end of the road that hubby’s distinctive old Humber was not parked in its usual place so, provided she was at home the only other person there would be her mother or a neighbour and I could always fudge up a good reason to be there, possibly to do with play.

I parked a few doors down and then walked to her front door and knocked.

She opened the door, saw me there and immediately reached out, grabbed my hand and pulled me inside, quickly shutting the door.

She still held my hand as we went into the living room and only let it go as she turned to face me, flung her arms around my neck and sent an electric pulse through my body as she kissed me.

My arms went around her, pulling her close, and we kissed again and again and . . . .

I got back to the office at 4pm.

The Dream Called Life

by Edward Fitzgerald

From the Spanish of Pedro Calvadon de la Barca
A dream it was in which I found myself.
And you that hail me now, then hailed me king,
In a brave palace that was all my own,
Within, and all without it, mine, until,
Drunk with excess of majesty and pride,
Methought I towered so big and swelled so wide
That of myself I burst the glittering bubble
Which my ambition had about me blown,
And all again was darkness. Such a dream
As this, in which I may be walking now,
Dispensing solemn justice to you shadows,
Who make believe to listen; but anon
Kings, princes, captains, warriors, plume and steel,
Aye, even with all your airy theatre,
May fit into the air you seem to rend
With acclamations, leaving me to wake
In the dark tower; or dreaming that I wake
From this that waking is, or this and that,
Both waking and both dreaming such a doubt
Confounds and clouds our moral life about.
But whether wake or dreaming this I know,
How dreamwise human glories come and go;
Whose momentary tenure not to break,
Walking as one who knows he soon may wake,
So fairly carry the full cup, so well
Disordered insolence and passion quell,
That there be nothing after to upbraid
Dreamer or doer in the part he played;
Whether tomorrow's dawn shall break the spell,
Or the last trumpet of the Eternal Day,
When dreaming, with the night, shall pass away.

Still seeking socialism amid the rebellions

The workers of the world have been given many names over the centuries.

Nowadays we do actually talk of workers or employees, but in the past it has been working class as opposed to middle class even when the middle class worked; even further back we talk of peasants or serfs which, considering the conditions they faced along with their lack of rights, was tantamount to slavery.

Nowadays if we want to protest we tend to get together, make banners and write out placards and march to confront whoever they wanted to protest against (although if the current government gets its way this peaceful means of protest could be lost to us).

Even earlier in the 20th century we had the right to withdraw our labour.

This was not always the way and going back to the early part of the 19th century often the only means of protest involved violence, not necessarily to those opposing the workers as much as their property (bearing in mind that in the 19th century destruction of property could even be considered a more heinous offence than violence against the person).

Much of this form of protest was considered to be against industrialisation in both rural and urban areas as well as the imposition of tolls and similar taxes. As rioting could lead to hanging or at the very least transportation, the rioters, of necessity, would disguise themselves and would have a mythological leader such as Rebecca giving us the Rebecca Riots; Captain Swing and the agricultural Swing Riots and Captain or Genera Ludd leader of the Luddites.

These, however, did not even scrape in at the bottom of a list of peasant revolts and we have to go back to England in the 14th and 15th centuries to see serious revolts in England.

The peasants’ revolt of 1381, sometimes called Wat Tyler’s Revolt, came in the wake of the Black Death which had killed off over a third of the population of Europe and creating a serious shortage of people to work the land. The last straw for these peasants was the imposition of a poll tax (which didn’t work out too well 600 years later for Thatcher.

Groups of peasants from all over the south east of England banded together and headed for London. Some natural leaders emerged as the groups joined together, eventually reaching 60,000, but one man stood out as an overall leader, Walter (or Wat) Tyler.

Despite Tyler being seen as leader it was another group leader who gave us one of the outstanding quotes that is often still used by socialists today, highlighting the fact that there had not always been masters and peasants.

John Ball was classed as a rebel priest, often referred to as a hedge priest, and, although he had only led one small group to the final gathering outside London, but his speeches urging the crowds on had been avidly received.

In calling out for a change in the class system he came out with the slogan: “When Adam delved and Eve span who was then the gentleman”

Whether or not you believe in the Creation as opposed to the Big Bang this simple slogan highlights the fact that in the beginning there was no difference between man and woman when it came to status.

Although the young King Richard II had made many promises to the rebels, thus persuading them to go back to their homes, none of these were kept and once dispersed it was difficult for the peasants to reorganise and return as greater armed control had been put into force.

There was little unrest amongst the peasants over the next 70 years and in fact for a good part of this the shortage of workers because of the Black Death had put them in a better bargaining position when it came to being paid a better rate by the landowners who did not fancy doing the dirty work.

The next peasant rising was in 1450 and was again in the south eastern region with tens of thousands of peasants advancing on London in protest to King Henry VI about maladministration and corruption in local areas by representatives of the government.

They were led by a man called Jack Cade and might have got a lot further with their protest if Cade had shown greater control. As it was many of the peasants saw a chance for looting in London, not just from shops but also from private houses. This roused the ire of the citizens of London who drove the rebels out of the city.

The rebels eventually dispersed after being given promises of improvements in local administration and by Jack Cade and other leaders being granted individual pardons for their actions by King Henry.

Weeks after the rebellion, when all the peasants had returned to their own areas, the pardons were withdrawn and many of the leading lights of the revolt were rounded up and executed.

The third and final peasants uprising (the riots of the 19th century were not classed as rebellions or uprisings) was in 1549 and was called Ketts rebellion even though Robert Kett was one of the first victims of the uprising in Norfolk.

The cause of complaint was the Act of Enclosure which meant landowners could enclose common land for their own use.

Rebels in Wymondham were going to tear down fences belonging to Sir Robert Flowerdew, but he bribed them to go elsewhere and they moved on to destroy the fences of landowner Edward Kett.

Rather than oppose them or bribe them he offered to lead the rebels and ended up with a gathering of 16,000 rebels. They headed for Norwich, after destroying Flowerdew’s fences anyway, and actually took control of the city. A royal army sent against them was defeated but soon after another royal army was sent in and defeated the rebels.

Kett was executed at Norwich castle and other rebel leaders were hanged at an oak tree outside the city which had been used as a central gathering point for rebels.

Socialism seems to have failed these rebels.

Maybe we need to go further back to find out whether socialism was actually part of our Creation story or our actual evolution.

NEXT TIME: were Adam and Eve our first socialists or does that claim belong to Lucy and her family?

Count That Day Lost

by George Eliot

If you sit down at set of sun
And count the acts that you have done,
And, counting, find
One self-denying deed, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard,
One glance most kind
That fell like sunshine where it went -
Then you may count that day well spent.

But if, through all the livelong day,
You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay -
If, through it all
You've nothing done that you can trace
That brought the sunshine to one face -
No act most small
That helped some soul and nothing cost -
Then count that day as worse than lost.

Death Be Not Proud

by John Donne

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost, with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swells't thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death thou shalt die.

A neverending journey in search of socialism

The search for socialism has no real beginning and no real end.

Even if you concentrate on socialism in the UK you have to figure out where it has come from, including when did it begin, and is it still evolving.

More than anything a socialist needs to find a home.

There are many choices in the UK but most see the Labour Party as the natural place to go and believe it to be the founder of the labour movement in this country.

In fact the British labour movement began long before the UK Labour Party was founded and had been around even before the previous incarnation as the Independent Labour Party.

In fact the first political party to espouse the cause of the working man (this came before women’s right to vote) and to represent the worker in Parliament was the Liberal Party, and although it it often referred to as a Lib-Lab pact there was no real party for the Liberals to form a pact with.

To find the real roots of socialism I had to go further back than this late 19th century political move on behalf of the workers.

One of the most important things is to define socialism and see how it compares to or differs from that other major political player in the late 19th century well into the 20th – communism.

If you go back to basics then socialism could be viewed as a political AND economic system with property and the means of production owned in common but usually controlled by the government representing the people. This is considered to be the best way to achieve equality for all.

Opposed to this is capitalism which is based on private ownership of property and the means of production with a free market setting the values of both labour and produce. Socialists see this as creating inequality in wealth and therefore inequality of power.

Communism believes in common ownership of property and the means of production in a society without class or government under the mantra: “From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.”

As it happens socialism and communism were being considered by the working people of Britain in the 1840s but the discussion was not being led by British workers but by two German philosophers – Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, both of whom lived in England for some time (Engels’ father owned textile mills in Salford as well as in Germany) and worked on their individual and joint philosophies.

The two of them had a great influence on those looking for change in the way working people were accepted in the class system of England.

What appeared to be a simple search for the origins of socialism in the UK has already taken us back 200 years to a period before the Industrial Revolution and we are nowhere near to our source.

NEXT TIME: When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman.

Comments on this search for socialism are welcome. Please be courteous and preferably brief.

Forgetfulness

by Billy Collins

former US Poet Laureate
The name of the author is first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to return to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted,
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Seaside resort – not the best place when you seek political answers

Growing up in a middle class household during the 1950s and 60s in a seaside resort in NE Wales is not totally conducive to getting an insight into national politics in general and local politics in particular.

For a start nobody really talked about politics to children and when I first started to take a real interest I was still years away from getting the vote – for those of us born in 1950 the lowering of the voting age to 18 didn’t make much difference because there was no general election until we were 20 and rapidly approaching 21.

I learned more about modern politics in a year at college than I had in five at the grammar school – and even that came from talking to fellow students.

From the age of 15 I did my best to find out about the various political beliefs, not just in the UK but also worldwide. Living in Wales did mean the Welsh nationalist movement was very much to the fore and I did know people in both the main political movements, Plaid Cymru, and the Free Wales Army.

Neither of them really appealed to me as one was too insular and the other seemed to be run by people who were throwbacks to school playground when “secret societies” used to be organised along the lines of Just William and his Outlaws, created by Richmal Crompton, or Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven.

In fact in 2005 The Welsh newspaper the Wersten Mail ran a story based on documents from the National Archives in which it was claimed the FWA leader had a mental aged of 12. Having met him once I think they had got him to a T.

When I was 15, that was 1965, I read about a man who had been with Fidel Castro when he ousted the Cuban President, Batiste, and formed socialist/communist government. This man, an Argentiniabn doctor called Ernesto Guevara but known as Che, had suddenly disappeared after resigning his senior role in Castro’s government. He was supposed to have gone to South America.

I found out everything I could about him, discovering erven more when I was at college, and found that I admired his principles even if I didn’t approve his means of getting there. It was similar to my ambivalent attitude to another revolutionary, turned statesman, Michael Collins, the first leader of the Irish Free State.

My interest in politics took real root there but I still had to find where my real interests lay.

Rhyl was not the best place to find answers to your political beliefs. The town was in a Conservativ*e constituency, held by Nigel Birch and later by Anthony Meyer (that’s right, the man who stood for party leadership as a stalking horse when the Tories wanted to get rid of Thatcher.

The town itself was a mix of politics with the urban council consisting of Conservatives, Labour members, Residents Association councillors and independents, including businessmen (yes I said men because not a lot of women ran businesses at that time).

At the end of the day the most important thing was to have Rhyl stay as a fun holiday venue during the season as most people in town relied on it one way or another.

I knew about the Russian revolution but was still uncertain as to the main differences between communism and socialism and wondered if they were just two sides of the same coin – each seeking power for the people but finding the need to take different routes to get there.

This is why in Basildon I was still seeking answers and it was in that new town that I actually found some of the answers.

Next time: searching through history for the roots of socialism.

My Heart and I

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

l.
ENOUGH! We're tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason's knife,
As heaven's sweet life renews earth's life
With which we're tired, my heart and I.

ll.
You see we're tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colours could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune's end,
We loved too true to keep a friend;
At last we're tired, my heart and I.

lll.
How tired we feel, my heart and I!
We seem of no use in the world;
Our fancies hang grey and uncurled
About men's eyes indifferently;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet:
What do we here, my heart and I.

lV.
So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
It was not thus in that old time
When Ralph sat with me 'neath the lime
To watch the sunset from the sky.
'Dear love, you're looking tired,' he said;
I, smiling at him, shook my head:
'Tis now we're tired, my heart and I.

V.
So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
Though now none takes me on his arm
To fold me close and kiss me warm
Till each quick breath end in sigh
Of happy langour. Now alone,
We lean upon this graveyard stone,
Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.

Vl.
Tired out we are, my heart and I.
Suppose the world bought diadems
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems
Of powers and pleasures? Let it try.
We scarcely care to look at even
A pretty child, or God's blue heaven,
We feel so tired, my heart and I.

Vll.
Yet who complains? My heart and I?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out:
Disdain them, break them, throw them by
And if before the days grew rough
We once were loved, used, - well enough,
I think, we've fared, my heart and I.

The Old Gods

by Dannie Abse

The gods, old as night, don't trouble us.
Poor weeping Venus! Her pubic hairs are grey,
and her magic love girdle has lost its spring.
Neptune wonders where he put his trident.
Mars is gaga - illusory vultures on the wing.

Pluto exhumed, blinks. My kind of world, he thinks.
Kidnapping and rape, like my Front Page exploits
adroitly brutal - but he looks out of sorts when
other unmanned gods shake their heads tut tut,
responds boastingly, boringly anecdotal.

Diana has done a bunk, fearing astronauts.
Saturn, Time on his hands, stares at nothing
nothing stares back. Glum Bacchus talks ad nauseum
of cirrhosis, and small bald Cupid, fiddling
with arrows, can't recall which side the heart is.

All the old gods have become enfeebled,
mere playthings for poets. Few, doze or daft,
frolic on Parnassian clover. True, sometimes,
summer light dies in a room - but only a bearded profile in a cloud floats over.