Jackson – Page 2 – Radical Stroud

Stroud and WW2

“AREA EIGHT”
IN THE WAR AGAINST HITLERISM
BEING AN ACCOUNT
OF THE CIVIL DEFENCE SEVICES AND A.R.P.
IN STROUD AND NAILSWORTH
By
P.R. SYMONDS
With a Preface by General Sir Hugh Elles, K.C.B., K.C.M.G.’
K.C.V.O.’ D.S.O.,
A Foreword by Bramwell Hudson, Esq., J.P.
And 34 Illustrations

“Your path of duty has been the way to glory
and amidst the glorious records of the war
the story of Civil Defense will take a high
place.”
H.M. THE KING
PUBLISHED BY
THE STROUD (Urban and Rural) AND NAILSWORTH (Urban)
DEFENCE COMMITTEE
R.D.C. Chambers, John Street, Stroud
1945

WAR

The first week of the war saw the arrival of 1,200 evacuees from Birmingham, the opening of public air raid shelters, the sandbagging of selected public buildings, the closure of cinemas, and the black-out, while ‘most people carried respirators, and there was a general air of expectancy.’

‘On Friday, November 10th, the first Preliminary Air Raid Warning, known as the “Yellow Warning,” was received at 11.20 a.m. Yellow Warnings were confidential warnings for A.R.P. Control, and were not for issue to the public, so that no sirens were sounded. On this occasion the warning message was passed up to a meeting of the R.D.C. Committee, that happened to be sitting, as several of the members were engaged in A.R.P. A year later, when the number of “Yellows” received amounted to an average of three a day, nobody would have even troubled to inform the Committee, but on this occasion (the first for this Area) the members picked up their respirators and left. (It is reported that the staff spent the rest of the morning gazing through windows at the sky watching for the approach of a German armada!)’

WAR

1940

‘On May 14th the Local Defence Volunteers (afterwards the Home Guard) were formed; and many Civil Defence members, who had some knowledge of firearms, were enrolled on the understanding that they would be sent back to the Civil Defence job for which they had been trained, with the additional advantage that, as enlistment in the L.D.V. gave them Military status, they would be issued with arms and ammunition with which to defend their posts in the event of a landing by parachutists, or any other emergency calling for the use of lethal weapons. The difficulties of belonging to more than one service were many. In some sectors Civil Defence members were not accepted…’

ENEMY ACTION

‘It was on June 26th, 1940, that for the first time A.R.P. Control log referred to “planes (presumably enemy) passing over…” Within a very few months the sound of “planes passing over” was to become an almost nightly experience…

A certain nervousness was abroad during these early days of bombing as may be judged from the following extract from a letter to the A.R.P. County Organiser written by the Sub-Controller:- “Bisley church steeple appears to be a landmark for German aeroplanes. It is reported from the Wardens and other inhabitants, that they notice the German aeroplanes invariably make for the steeple, and then alter course for other places.” A comforting thought was that the Germans were unlikely to bomb their own landmarks. (Is this the first record of an advantage of living in Bisley?)…

On July 25th a German bomber was brought down at Oakridge as the result of Anti-Aircraft fire and collision with a Hurricane Fighter which, unfortunately, crashed in flames killing the pilot… The German crew of four baled out and caused quite a manhunt in the district. A large number of Home Guards turned out to help in the search, including the Miserden Company by the ringing of church bells, and three of the crew were captured. The body of the fourth, whose parachute had failed to open, was found by the Home Guard in Oldhills Wood.’

‘On August 28th Area 8 had its first bomb. One fell in a field near Cranham Mill, Painswick, and caused no damage. Another, a 250 kilo incendiary bomb, fell 500 yards from Harescombe Post Office, but was not found for three days when Captain Smart dug it out.

Other bombs continued to fall in the country around Area 8, but the only casualties reported to Division 3 Control were two rabbits and an owl at Tetbury and a pony and a rabbit at Cirencester…

During the few Red Warnings the people of Stroud were still being directed to take shelter, but traffic was no longer being stopped.’

In Stroud, notices in the press were at this time urging people to carry their respirators, but not on their faces – although on Fridays the policeman on duty at Town Time was to be seen wearing his…

Painswick has three or four H.E. and oil incendiary bombs in the surrounding country on September 5th. The only damage was twelve days later when the Royal Engineers exploded a delayed action bomb – the ceiling in two houses collapsed and windows in four other houses were broken.

There were eighty-five Preliminary Warnings and six Red Warnings during September…

On the night of October 21st an unexploded Anti-Aircraft shell penetrated a house at Painswick. After passing through a roof, the shell pierced a marble-topped dressing table, a gas stove and a bag of onions and finally came to rest in the concrete floor of the passage. At the time it was thought that it was an unexploded bomb and the house was evacuated accordingly. The following day P.C. Handley, a Painswick policeman, without reporting his intentions to anyone, borrowed a spade and dug out the shell which he then carried to the Police Station, and with a broad grin on his face, placed it on the Guard Room table. The Police Station is still there.

During the night of October 27th approximately twenty-five 1-kilo incendiary bombs fell in the Forest Green Sector. One large incendiary bomb fell in the Forest Green Sector. One large incendiary bomb fell through a galvanized roof of Messrs. Harry Grist and Co’s. flock mill, causing no casualties, but damaging one machine and some flock by fire. All the other bombs dropped in fields and gardens over a fairly wide area and did no damage.

There were seventy-seven Preliminary Warnings, but only one Red Warning in Area 8 during October.

On November 14th, 1940, Coventry received its historically heavy raid. Enemy planes passed over Stroud on their way to Coventry continuously for several hours…

Towards the end of the month and in early December Bristol was raided several times. The only enemy action in Area 8 was seven or eight incendiary bombs dropped in a field at Stonehouse and one in a paddock at France Lynch.

During November there were eighty-eight Preliminary Warnings, the record for the war, and seven Red Warnings.

Throughout December Germ an planes were overhead nearly every night and there were several small incidents in the area.

On December 6th two H.E. bombs (one delayed action) dropped at Selsley and about £100 worth of damage was done to windows, greenhouses and ceilings.

On December 11th fifteen incendiary bombs fell on Overtown Farm, Cranham, when slight damage was done to the roof of an outbuilding. The following night about twenty incendiary bombs fell in Cowcombe Woods, Chalford.

During December the number of Preliminary Warnings fell to forty-seven, but thee was an increase in Red Warnings to the number of ten.

LOCAL ACTION

With the New Year there was considerable action in the Stroud and Nailsworth Districts, but it was by no means all enemy action. It is true that the number of Air Raid Warnings was high during the first half of the year. Indeed, March, April and May were record months for Red Warnings and the Sirens were sounded no less that forty-five times. The length of the warnings was too long; in one case seven hours, and in several cases from five to six hours, and almost entirely at night…

The reason for the number of warnings received was, of course, the passing over of the enemy bombers, from their bases in Germany and France to South Wales, the Midlands, Bristol and Plymouth, all of which were heavily bombed during the year.

In response to the Minister of Home Security’s broadcast appeal for fire watchers, nearly 2,000 volunteers had enrolled in this Area by early in the year.

At the end of 1940 it had been decided to form a Defence Committee, consisting of two members of each of the three Councils, for the purpose of co-ordinating all the after-raid duties of Local Authorities…

Efforts were being made to make the population incendiary bomb-minded, and on January 6th, at a public meeting called by the Stroud and District Chamber of Trade, Mr. J. Gough, the Fire Chief, presented a scheme for fire watching in the town.

This Scheme, which was adopted by the traders present, hoped to recruit a hundred volunteer fire watchers, who would be trained by the Fire Brigade, and who would take turns of duty about every fourth night.

Stirrup pumps were also on sale by the Local Authorities and nearly a thousand were purchased by rate-payers… Later…a large number of pumps were issued free on loan.

On January 17th a large H.E. bomb exploded at Gypsy Lane, Minchinhampton, causing a crater 30 ft. across and 20 ft. deep. There were no casualties and only minor damage to bungalows and farm buildings.

At the end of the month it was decided that fire-watchers and fighters be enrolled in the A.R.P. Organisation…

During January, 1941, there were thirty-four Preliminary Air Raid Warnings and eight Red Warnings.

The number of Preliminary Air Raid Warnings for February, 1941, was thirty-five, and there were six Red Warnings.

March… Preliminary Air Raid Warnings rose to sixty-two and Red Warnings to thirteen.

At 12.30 a.m. on the morning of April 11th four H.E. bombs were dropped on Tunley Farm and the adjoining King’s House Farm. The latter house was damaged, but nothing approaching the extent that might have been expected… The farmer, who at the time was asleep in an armchair, stated that he did not hear the bomb, but was awakened by the china falling off the mantelpiece. (It was understood that the beer was homebrewed)… There were no casualties except for a few poultry. A pond was enlarged by another bomb and the fourth damaged an orchard.

During April the Preliminary Warnings fell to thirty-eight, but there was a slight increase of Red Warnings, the number being fourteen…

On May 8th a Home Security Circular was published on the duties of the Local Authority under invasion conditions.

The number of Preliminary Warnings went up to fifty and the eighteen Red Warnings received was the highest figure for the war.

With the beginning of June, 1941, the first enemy action in Division 3 since April took place – two H.E. bombs were dropped at Wotton-under-Edge and a thousand incendiary bombs in fields between Standish Church and Little Haresfield. There were, during the month, other incidents in Division 3 of which the most serious was in Painswick.

About ten minutes after the 99th Red Warning had been received at Stroud, in the early morning of Sunday, June 15th, eight H.E. bombs dropped at ten minutes past one o’clock in and around Painswick. Poultry Court, a house in Friday Street and a house in Tibbiwell Lane received direct hits. Two persons, both evacuees, were killed. Ten persons were injured and of these three were taken to Stroud Hospital. Twenty-nine persons were rendered homeless. Four houses were completely demolished and seven others seriously damaged and partly demolished. Thirty-five houses were slightly damaged.

The telephone service was badly affected from the start so that considerable difficulty was experienced in getting messages through to A.R.P. Control. It was an extremely dark night which made the finding of the demolished buildings unbelievably difficult…

The homeless were billeted by mid-day. The Stroud Gas Company arrived quickly on the scene and had their mains mended in time for the cooking of Sunday dinners. Most of the first-aid repair to houses was completed before night. Furniture was salvaged from the damaged buildings and even from those houses that received direct hits. From the Friday Street crater some £60 in cash – much of it in single notes and coin – was recovered.

Assistance was given in the general clearing up by the Military, the Gloucester County Council and the Stroud Urban Council, as well as by the A.R.P. Rescue Service and the Stroud Rural District Council.

Painswick’s Communal Feeding Centre did invaluable work in feeding the homeless and the many workers who had been drafted into the village…

Both the Painswick Company and the Stroud Company of the Home Guard helped the Police and Special Constables in controlling the traffic and sight-seers.

In the evening Mr. Robert Perkins, M.P., visited Painswick and inspected the damage and talked with the homeless and those who had been helping all day – many from fifteen to twenty hours.

During June there was a sharp drop in the number of Air Raid Warnings. Preliminary Warnings were down to seventeen and Red Warnings to nine.

July was a quiet month and no incidents occurred in Division 3. There was a further drop in Warnings to eleven Preliminary and six Red. Indeed, July 1941, almost saw the end of enemy action in this part of England… Apart from April, July and August of 1942, the sirens were to sound only twenty-two more times up to the end of the war against Hitlerism.

Enemy action or no enemy action, there was no let-up on precautionary measures…it was not until August that Local Authorities were urged to take elaborate precautions against invasion, and ordered to set up Invasion Committees. The Ministry of Home Security issued a pamphlet entitled “Advising the Public in the event of Invasion.”

Early in August, 1941, it was expected the enemy would try to burn our growing crops by the use of incendiary “leaves.” A warning was sent to 250 farmers… The farmers enrolled 662 persons for crop fire-fighting and watching, and he Defence Committee sold them 45 and a half dozen fire-fighting besoms. Unfortunately, harvest-time proved to be one of the wettest for many years and the Committee was blamed for spoiling the weather.

On August 25th was held the first meeting of the District Invasion Committee…

On the night of December 23rd, the new A.R.P. Control Room, which had been specially constructed in the Stroud Rural District Council’s garage, was manned for the first time.

THREE YEARS OF EXPECTANCY

1942 This period of three years, of which 1942 was the first year, was a period of waiting. Waiting for what? First, for the blitz and invasion which never came. Secondly, for the Second Front which seemed as if it would never come. But if this was a period of waiting, the waiting was not done with folded arms. Indeed, three services had yet to be formed – the Fire Guard, the House-wives’ Service abd the Civil Defence Messenger Service. If it were possible to take a reading of the maximum amount of human effort expended outside working hours by the population of this country, any one of these three years would, in all probability, far outstrip the first two and a half years of war added together… And it should be remembered that all this service, both voluntary and “directed,” was done, if not entirely without a grouse, then almost entirely without any encouragement from the enemy. Even in the first of these three years at present under review there were six months without so much as an Air Raid Warning.

1943 By January of 1943 there was no less than 5,500 Fire Guards in the Area, but there were to be only eight Red Warnings to brighten their lives through the whole year.

1944 Each of the first six months of the year had one Red Warning, but during the second half of the year there were not even any Preliminary Warnings.

On March 28th a 1,000 kilo parachute bomb dropped in a field just over the boundary in the Tetbury Area. There was considerable blast effect, but owing to the almost complete absence of buildings there was but slight damage.

On May 15th two more bombs dropped just over the border in the Tetbury Area. Both bombs fell in fields…

For the past many months large numbers of American troops had been stationed around Stroud…

During July and August when the menace of “flying bombs” was at its height, ten Wardens went as reinforcements to Richmond, Surrey.

THE CLOSING MONTHS

1945 Relaxation and standing down had been the order of the day for three months and this policy was intensified with 1945. There had been no Air Raid Warning for six months and, as a matter of fact, Stroud was never to hear the sirens sounded again during the war except for the monthly test…

May 2nd was the “Appointed Day.” On that day the Government decided that the Civil Defence organisation was no longer needed for the purpose of the war.

CIVIL DEFENCE FAREWELL PARADE

(some extracts)

…

The glow of burning Bristol o’er the hill…
Th’unusual sound of guns near where we dwell,
The sudden winking flash of bursting shell;
The search-light glares, the falling flares, the sense
Of menace in the circling plane’s suspense;
When dooming – dooming – Nazi planes flew by
With loads of death for other towns near-by.
The sudden siren’s eerie wail,
The hurried dash through rain or snow or gale…
The Civic Leader of our ancient shire
Spoke words of thanks which made our hearts inspire;
And thanks to God, that our dear friendly town
Had been preserved ‘neath danger’s threat’ning frown…

The second half of the book looks back at the various committees and plans that were formed and issued during the conflict:

THE PARISH INVASION COMMITTEE

In August 1941, the Stroud Rural District Council set up the following Parish Invasion Committees and appointed the Chairmen of each:-

Amberley
Bisley-Miserden-Oakridge
Cranham-Slad-Sheepscombe
The Stanleys
Minchinhampton
Painswick
Randwick and Whiteshill
Stonehouse
Thrupp and Brimscombe
Woodchester…

On September 18th, 1941, the Chairmen of the Parish Invasion Committees were called to a meeting under the Chairmanship of Mr. Bramwell Hudson. For the next nine months regular monthly meetings were held and then less frequently until March, 1943, when it was felt every possible eventuality had been considered and all necessary arrangements to meet invasion made…

Some idea of the work undertaken by all Invasion Committees appears in the chapters on Anti-Invasion Schemes and War Books.

AFTERMATH SCHEMES

In March, 1941, a booklet was issued: “If the Blitz Comes to Stroud and Nailsworth – How You should Act”; a list was drawn up for Repair Squads, who would move into action after heavy raids. Here is the list:

43 Bricklayers 26 Plumbers 268 Carpenters 6 Slaters 88 Electricians 22 Tilers 216 Engineers 20 Timbermen 318 Fitters 30 Welders 6 Main layers 43 Pipe joiners 1189 Various

Local Authorities were responsible for the repair of houses damaged by enemy action. Large stocks od repair materials were held by the three local Councils. These stocks included such things as roofing felt, laths, galvanised iron, iron piping, nails and paint. There were also stocks of tools, ladders, wheelbarrows and the like.

The Councils also held large stocks of pipes and cement for the repair of roads.

Arrangements were also made for the salvage and storage of furniture that might have had to be removed from bombed houses… Numerous large barns and other buildings were, by kind permission of some twenty-five farmers, earmarked for the storage of furniture and an aeroplane hanger (a relic of the Great War) was requisitioned.

Arrangements were made for the salvage of commodities from any damaged shops in the area… Every shop in Stroud, Nailsworth and Stonehouse was asked to make arrangements for alternative premises to which their stock could be moved. Returns filled in by the majority of traders showed that in 1941 there was estimated to be no less than 1,100 tons of goods in Stroud shopping centre alone, and beside this, the Ministry of Food had 1,300 tons of food in the town, and the Admiralty and the Office of Works and Buildings large stores of equipment. Plans were worked out as to how many men and lorries it would take to move any particular stock. The Home Guard volunteered to supply the men, and arrangements were ready for the issue to them of salvage armlets and entrance permits. Messrs Gopsil Brown offered the use of some thousand corn sacks, and there was a large store of sandbags, for packing the commodities.

The Surveyors of the three Councils were in charge of the salvage of building material from houses damaged too badly for repair.

The Civil Defence Transport Officer…had earmarked…ninety-one lorries and vans that he could call upon. Unofficially, there were a further seven cattle lorries and eight cars with farm trailers available.

A scheme was also organised by the Transport Officer whereby the general public would have made available their cars for the purpose of moving the homeless… Some sixty-seven cars were listed…

Some twenty-one buildings in the Area were earmarked as Emergency Mortuaries and nine of the larger factories also offered buildings for this purpose… Five motor vans, by kind permission of the Stroud Laundry, Co., were earmarked as mortuary vans. Quantities of sheets, towels, buckets, bandages, labels, screens and coffins were held…

If the water supply had been cut off by enemy action then the districts affected would have been supplied temporarily by the Stroud Brewery Company’s two 720 gallon beer lorries… A further 3,000 gallons could have been carried at a time in sundry tanks…

If the shopping centre of Stroud had been badly damaged , Shopping Booths would have been set up …

Under instructions from the Ministry of Food arrangements for eight Emergency Cooking Centres were made… These Centres would only have been used if the Utility Services had broken down through severe enemy action and it had been impossible for cooking to be done at home. Eight ladies…volunteered to take charge…

The following equipment and food was stored ready for use:-

16 boilers 2 ranges 6 insulated containers 8 mechanical can openers 2,000 dessert spoons 2,000 half pint mugs 2,200 knives 200 forks 400 tea bags 8 50lb. cases of tea 16 cases of 28ibs of sugar 388 tins of biscuits 93 cases of 48’s pork and beans 194 cases of 24’s vegetable stew 24 cases of 48 14 and a half ounce condensed milk 8 cases of 24’s rice pudding 8 7-ib tins of cocoa 20 cases of 56ib margarine 26 cases of beef hash 9 cases of 12 3-ibs. meat roll 6 cases 48 1-ib meat roll.

ANTI-INVASION SCHEMES

The District Invasion Committee was required to make schemes to meet two eventualities – one, in case the whole area was isolated by the invading enemy from the Regional organisation and, two, in case the town of Stroud was cut off from the Rural District and from Nailsworth…

Offers of equipment included:-

660 bicycles 105 portable coppers 726 wheelbarrows 118 pairs of binoculars 1,972 spades 94 tents 830 ladders 356 bedpans 177 primus stoves 1,143 blankets 1,657 buckets 1,055 hot water bottles

The card that was to be hung up read as follows:-

INVASION

The first thing is to believe that Invasion will come
The second thing is to realise what we shall be up against. Invasion will probably start with the biggest air raids ever known. Gas will be used…Air-borne troops may be dropped all over the country-side…
The third thing is to prepare for invasion.
The fourth thing is to know quite certainly what your Defence Committee is doing to prepare for Invasion
The fifth thing is to keep fit…Stand firm…
One code word only was to be used and this code word – was Rallyho! On hearing this code word men were instructed to report to one of the following Rallying Points…
The Western National ‘Bus Company’s Canteen, London Road, Stroud
The British Restaurant, Thrupp
The British Restaurant, Dudbridge
The British Restaurant, Stonehouse
The British Restaurant, Nailsworth
Messrs. Fibrecrete’s Canteen, Chalford…
Arrangements were made for transport of both men and tools, and in case motor transport broke down it had been ascertained that there were (anyway on paper if not in stable) 468 horses and two donkeys that could have been used for haulage purposes. Both the donkeys were at Nailsworth.

Fake Views

Trigonometry Points or Trickonometry Points?
The clue is in the name of course:
Ordnance Survey: Ordnance: artillery;
Survey: examine and record an area of land;

The clue is in the time as well as space:
The 18th and 19th centuries:
The formation of the United Kingdom,
When English and Hanoverian imperialism
Mapped the new Union Jack with redcoat ruler,
And with muskets and new names and mathematics,
With charts and furlongs and charters,
Enclosing common and custom
With a new and ruthless toponymy.

Trigonometry Points or Trickonometry Points?
The clue is in the name of course:
Ordnance Survey: Ordnance: artillery;
Survey: examine and record an area of land;

Hear William Blake in London,
Marking signs of woe in the ‘charter’d streets’
And the banks and docks of the ‘charter’d Thames’,
As access, space, and freedom immemorial,
Were measured and circumscribed by new laws:
The Age of Reason trumpeting the triumph
Of Adam Smith and the division of labour
In the advance of dark, Satanic mills;
The Age of Reason trumpeting the triumph
Of the division of space through enclosure,
Both rural and urban, both maritime and littoral,
With chains to measure, but also to fetter
Republicans, protestors and trade unionists;
The use of chains for William Blake’s
‘Mind-forg’d manacles’,
An image suggestive of both
Government propaganda,
And an individual loss of imagination;
Autonomy exchanged for alienation
Among these green and pleasant lands,
Where we have today a right to roam
Through just 8% of our Jerusalem.

And beyond those dark Satanic mills?
Lines of latitude and longitude
Colouring the globe Stroud scarlet,
And the seas too, as Britannia ruled the waves,
And as William Blake penned these lines:
‘They told me that I had five senses to inclose me up,
And they inclos’d my infinite brain into a narrow circle,
And sink my heart into the Abyss, a red round globe hot burning,
Till all from life I was obliterated and erased’;

These trig points may have mapped our highlands and islands,
But they also pointed the way to Blake’s Atlantic Islands,
To Ireland and to the Americas, and to Africa,
To the Atlantic Archipelago,
To the slave trade and to Empire,
And they also pointed the way to the Age of the Anthropocene.

This is the hidden ambient history
Of these six thousand concrete pillars:
The illusion of mathematical neutrality,
The illusion of abstract reason and rationality,
The illusion of freedom;
And so:
‘Bring me my Bow of burning gold,
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of Fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green & pleasant Land’.

Inspired by a Reading of
Red Round Globe Hot Burning

Stroud Scarlet and the Iroquois

We all know of the cloth stretched out on tenterhooks
Around Stroud and the five valleys:
Stroud Scarlet, Uley Blue, Berkeley Yellow,
Out there in the newly enclosed fields;
Gate and fence and hedge and notice board,
Where once the land was walked by custom
And ‘Its only bondage was the circling sky’;
Where the high walls of dark satanic mills
Enclose handloom weavers and spinners
In a new bondage of the ticking clock,
As the scarlet and yellow broadcloth
Crosses the Atlantic archipelago,
To reach the Iroquois in their circling sky,
In the so-called Age of Reason
When rationality was equated with private property,
And racial hierarchy with Enlightenment.

Here are two texts to illustrate this linkage
Between Stroud, its valleys, and the Iroquois:
The first from the Iroquois leader, Joseph Brant,
Where he contrasts his homelands with England:

‘We have no law but that written on the heart of every rational creature by … the great Spirit. We have no prisons – we have no pompous parade of courts – we have no robbery under the colour of law … Our sachems, and our warriors eat their own bread, and not the bread of wickedness … The palaces and prisons among you form a most dreadful contrast. Go to the former places, and you will see, perhaps, a most deformed piece of earth swelled with pride … your prisons – here description utterly fails! Liberty to a rational creature, as much exceeds property, as the light of the sun does that of the most twinkling star, but you put them on a level, to the everlasting disgrace of civilization.’

The second is from Uley in Gloucestershire from 1795,
Just eight years before Joseph Brant’s letter above:

‘O remember ye poor in distress by ye high prs of provision if not the consiquens will be fatall to a great many in all parishis round a bout here how do ye think a man can support a famly by a quarter flour for a shillin and here is a man in this parish do say the poore was never beter of as they be now a fatel blow for him and his hous and all his property we have redy 5000 sworn to be true to the last & we have 510000 of ball redy and can have pouder at a word & every think fitin for ye purpose no King but a constitution down down down o fatall dow high caps & proud hats for ever dow down we all.’

The third text to illustrate this linkage
Does not yet exist – it will be the result
Of your thoughts, dear reader,
On the nature of these connections
Between Gloucestershire and the Iroquois;
And your thoughts or writing
On the definition of civilisation;
And on the definition of progress;
And on the definition of freedom;
And on the definition of humanity;
And on the definition of the Anthropocene.
We leave that to you, dear reader;
But why not take a walk down to Walbridge;
Study the information board by the canal bridge;
Picture the Stroud scarlet out there in the fields behind you,
Picture the wars of conquest and of empire,
Picture Stroud scarlet cloth crossing the world,
See it circumscribing the circling sky;
Then gather your thoughts and words in bondage.

Personal Writings Inspired by a Reading of
Red Round Globe Hot Burning
Peter Linebaugh

The Gladstones at Gloucester

William Ewart Gladstone,
Late nineteenth century Liberal,
Principled opponent of imperialism,
According to some history books;
Serial chancellor of the exchequer,
Serial prime minister,
Son of John Gladstone
(MP for New Woodstock, Oxfordshire,
Courtesy of the Duke of Marlborough),
Found his father looking well, but tired,
When he visited his father in Gloucester.

John Gladstone’s pseudonym was ‘Mercator’.

William Ewart Gladstone’s maiden speech in parliament,
Would be a defence of the owners of enslaved peoples.

John Gladstone arrived in Gloucester in 1825,
Gradgrind wealthy,
Counting his profits:
Shipping interests in Liverpool,
Sugar plantations in the West Indies;
Counting his enslaved people:
2,508 men, women and children
in Jamaica and Demerara;
Rejoicing that revolt against enslavement
(On his plantations)
Had been viciously suppressed by the Stroud Scarlet army.

John Gladstone’s pseudonym was ‘Mercator’.

William Ewart Gladstone’s maiden speech in parliament,
Would be a defence of the owners of enslaved peoples.

Slave owners liked to take the waters at spas,
Bristol, Bath, Cheltenham …
Oblivious to the Middle Passage across the Atlantic,
And the crimson wake of the slave ships,
As they enjoyed the balm of saline warmth,
And, so it was with John Gladstone.

A dutiful husband and father,
Christian too,
And shrewd with money,
He moved to the Gloucester spa area in 1825,
His wife and daughter (both by name of Anne)
Were in need of healthful waters,
And where better than the chalybeate waters,
There at the Pump Rooms,
‘at the foot of what is now Brunswick Road’;

The teenage William Ewart Gladstone,
Spent his time carving his initials
into the bark of Gloucester trees;
His father invested in a local bank,
The Gloucester & Cheltenham.
He also spent £80,000 on further plantations,
And property in the West Indies and South America.

He was an implacable opponent of abolition.
And kept an eye on Gloucester,
As it ‘might be of use to himself or one of his sons’.

No one received more in compensation,
When slavery was abolished.

The railways of Britain are witness to that.

Remember that when you visit Gloucester.
Walk to the foot of Brunswick Road.
There’s a hidden heritage there.
Not just chalybeate waters.
But a crimson Atlantic archipelago too.

John Gladstone’s pseudonym was ‘Mercator’.
He received more in compensation than anyone else.
Partly because of his son.
That compensation figure came to 40% of GDP.
British taxpayers only ceased paying interest
On the loan required in 2015.
When John Gladstone died,
His estate would be valued at over £70 million,
In today’s values.

Letter in The Guardian Wednesday 24 June 2020
‘Are readers aware of the slave rebellion that took place in 1823 on the Gladstone sugar estate in Demerara county, British Guiana? It was led by African slaves who had to bear the names of their slave owner. They were father and son, Quamina and Jackie Gladstone, and there is a monument to them in present-day Guyana. A British prime minister four times, William Gladstone’s wealth was built on slavery. It is beneath contempt that he gained a reputation for kindness by bringing into his home the child prostitutes of London to have a meal and a rest for one night, while his plantations were run with brutality and the rebellion was put down with the utmost savagery.’

This was written by a descendant of slavery survivors of Guiana.

Stroud and a Hidden Colonial Landscape Number 1

A comparison of Island Man and Limbo with a formal piece of writing as an assessment, if wanted. There then follows a piece about Rodborough. Obviously, this guide is written for a very mixed audience. Please adapt to suit. You are all very different!

Firstly, download a copy of Island Man by Grace Nicholls and Limbo by Edward Kamau Brathwaite. (There are copies below, if required, after all the questions.)

Read Island Man three times. The first time without making any notes. Just get the gist. After the second reading, try to write a two or three sentence summary of the meaning of the poem. After the third reading, make some annotations on your poem or notes on another page, with responses to the prompts below. Or if you feel confident, then just think these questions through or discuss them.

What happens in lines 1-10?
What happens in lines 11-19?
How do the descriptions vary between London and the Caribbean?
How is the language a bit dreamlike?
How is the poem irregular in structure? Why do you think this is?
What emotions and outlooks on life do you find in the poem?
NOW WRITE DOWN TWO OR THREE WORDS OR PHRASES FROM THE POEM. Explain why you have chosen these.
What do you read into the title?
What is interesting about the first line?
Can you find a metaphor?
Which senses feature in the poem?
What do you read into the last line?
Find out about the poet, Grace Nichols, with a quick internet search. GCSE Bitesize might still have this poem up in the English (Literature) area.

Firstly, download a copy of Island Man by Grace Nicholls and Limbo by Edward Kamau Brathwaite. (There are copies below, if required, after all the questions.)

What happens in lines 1-10?
What happens in lines 11-19?
How do the descriptions vary between London and the Caribbean?
How is the language a bit dreamlike?
How is the poem irregular in structure? Why do you think this is?
What emotions and outlooks on life do you find in the poem?
NOW WRITE DOWN TWO OR THREE WORDS OR PHRASES FROM THE POEM. Explain why you have chosen these.
What do you read into the title?
What is interesting about the first line?
Can you find a metaphor?
Which senses feature in the poem?
What do you read into the last line?
Find out about the poet, Grace Nichols, with a quick internet search. GCSE Bitesize might still have this poem up in the English (Literature) area.

Now read Limbo three times. The first time without making any notes. Just get the gist. After the second reading, try to write a two or three sentence summary of the meaning of the poem. After the third reading, make some annotations on your poem or notes on another page, with responses to the prompts below. Or if you feel confident, then just think these questions through or discuss them.

What happens in lines 1-19?
What happens in lines 20-36?
What happens in lines 37-51?
Note how the poem uses extended metaphor interlinking the voyage, the dance, and slavery.
Note use of rhythm and repetition.
Is there more than one emotion expressed in the poem?
NOW WRITE DOWN TWO OR THREE WORDS OR PHRASES FROM THE POEM. Explain why you have chosen these.
Is the poem one extended sentence? What do you read into this?
What is the effect of using the first person and using short syllable words?
Is there a turning point in the poem?
Which senses feature in the poem?
What contrasts do you see?
Find out about the poet, Edward Kamau Brathwaite with a quick internet search. GCSE Bitesize might still have this poem up in the English (Literature) area.

If you want to develop your skills at writing an essay where you compare two poems, here’s your chance.

How do the two poems, Island Man and Limbo, present differing perspectives on black identity?

You could answer by using the SPIDER technique:
SITUATION: context, where and when and what’s going on etc.
STRUCTURE: stanza, line length, form etc.
PERSON: who is speaking/writing; voice used etc.
IDEAS and IMAGERY
DICTION: type of vocabulary/language etc.
EXPRESSION: figurative language – simile, metaphor etc.
RHTYHM and RHYME and READER RESPONSE

Here is an essay guide that you can use if you wish or ignore as you wish. It gives a guide to paragraph structure, if wanted.

What is happening in Island Man? What is happening in Limbo? What does each say about black identity? One quote for each.
How do the poets speak with their voice? One quote for each poem.
How is imagery used? One quote for each poem.
Is there a pattern to each poet’s vocabulary? Is the vocabulary simple and straightforward or elaborate? Is there a mix of formal and informal? One quote for each poem.
Can you find examples of figurative language? One quote for each poem.
An analysis of structure: number of lines; rhyme; rhythm; free verse; blank verse; syllables; punctuation. How does the chosen structure convey the meaning of the poem?
Conclusion: what do the titles indicate about the poems? What does each poem say about black identity? How are they similar and how are they different?

Here are some good words and phrases that you might want to choose from when comparing poems in an essay:

On the one hand/ on the other hand
However/ differs from/similarly
Whereas/share/both/contrast
Have in common/although

Here are some good words to use in your PPE paragraphs to show analysis/evaluation of your chosen quote:

Reveals/shows/conveys/emphasise/stresses/captures/reflects/
echoes/implies /suggests/indicates

Now go to this link:

http://radicalstroud.co.uk/the-last-words-of-thomas-jubiter/

Read Thomas’ story and then study the quotation at the end. Discuss with a partner. Do you agree or disagree (or a bit of both) with the statement about facts and metaphor? Explain your reasoning.

Now look back at the parish register entry for William Jubiter on the link above. We know nothing about his life apart from the terse entry in the parish register.

Perhaps you would like to visit Rodborough churchyard for a walk and remember William. Perhaps you would like to recreate his life with a poem. You will need to use your imagination for the content of the poem via the 5Ws (who, where, when, what, why) and the H (how).
Here is a poetry writing guide for the form of your poem:

POETRY WRITING SKILLS

Use the information sheet for ideas about the CONTENT of your poem and this checklist for poetry writing SKILLS.

What is your title?
What is your structure? Stanzas (verses) or one connected piece? If you choose stanzas, will they have the same number of lines?
Rhyme or not?
Will your lines have the same number of syllables a line (for example, 10) or not? This can give rhythm.
Blank verse doesn’t rhyme but has a regular number of syllables per line.
Free verse doesn’t rhyme and doesn’t have a regular number of syllables per line.
If you write a haiku, it only counts as a starter.
If you write an acrostic poem, it only counts as a second starter.
Will you include ONOMATOPOEIA?
Will you include SIMILES?
Will you include METAPHORS?
Will you include IMAGERY?
Will you include PERSONIFICATION?
Will you include ALLITERATION?
Will you include ENJAMBMENT?
Will you include CAESURA?
Will you include A VARIETY OF PUNCTUATION? ANY COLONS OR SEMI COLONS? COMMAS? FULL STOPS? DASHES? ELLIPSIS? PARENTHESES?

HOW WILL YOU SHARE YOUR POEM?

Island Man

Morning
and island man wakes up
to the sound of blue surf
in his head
the steady breaking and wombing

wild seabirds
and fishermen pushing out to sea
the sun surfacing defiantly
from the east
of his small emerald island
he always comes back groggily groggily

Comes back to sands
of a grey metallic soar
to surge of wheels
to dull north circular roar

muffling muffling
his crumpled pillow waves
island man heaves himself

Another London day

Grace Nichols

Limbo

And limbo stick is the silence in front of me
limbo

limbo
limbo like me
limbo
limbo like me

long dark night is the silence in front of me
limbo
limbo like me

stick hit sound
and the ship like it ready

stick hit sound
and the dark still steady

limbo
limbo like me

long dark deck and the water surrounding me
long dark deck and the silence is over me

limbo
limbo like me

stick is the whip
and the dark deck is slavery

limbo
limbo like me

drum stick knock
and the darkness is over me

knees spread wide
and the water is hiding

limbo
limbo like me

knees spread wide
and the dark ground is under me

down
down
down
and the drummer is calling me

limbo
limbo like me

sun coming up
and the drummers are praising me

out of the dark
and the dumb god are raising me

up
up
up

and the music is saving me

hot
slow
step

on the burning ground.

Edward Kamau Brathwaite

WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #5

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Lechlade to Newbridge 16 miles

I walked past Shelley’s Close by the Church …

Where Shelley wrote his ‘Summer Evening Churchyard’,
Crossed the bridge and turned left for London,
It was just the sort of light I like for a riverine walk:
Waves of silver rippling through the dark waters,
Moody clouds above Old Father Thames’ statue,
Once of Crystal Palace, now recumbent at St John’s Lock –
But the nineteenth century was soon forgotten:
It all got a bit Mrs Miniver and Went the Day Well?
After Bloomer’s Hole footbridge:
I lost count of the pillboxes in the fields and on the banks
(‘Mr. Brown goes off to Town on the 8.21,
But he comes home each evening,
And he’s ready with his gun’),
As I walked on past Buscot, with its line of poplar trees,
Planted to drain the soil in its Victorian heyday of sugar beet
And once with a narrow gauge railway dancing across
A lost Saxon village at Eaton Hastings;
Then on past William Morris’ ‘heaven on earth’
At Kelmscott Manor (‘Visit our website to shop online!’),
Walkers occasionally appearing beyond hedgerows,
Like Edward Thomas’ ‘The Other Man’;
Then to Grafton Lock, and on to Radcot’s bridges and lock
(The waters divide here with two bridges:
The older, the site of a medieval battle after the Peasants’ Revolt;
A statue of the Virgin Mary once in a niche in the bridge, too,
Mutilated by the Levellers, before their Burford executions;
The newer bridge built in the hope and expectations
Of traffic and profit in the wake of the Thames and Severn Canal),
Past Old Man’s Bridge, Rushey Lock and Rushey Weir:
A traditional Thames paddle and rymer weir
(The paddles and handles, called rymers,
Dropped into position to block the rushing waters).
Now it’s on to isolated Tadpole Bridge on the Bampton turnpike,
Now past Chimney Meadow – once a Saxon island,
Then Tenfoot Bridge – characteristically,
Where an upper Thames flash weir sed to pour its waters,
Until Victorian modernity silenced that;
Then past Shifford Weir and the hamlet of Shifford,
Once a major Wessex town, where King Alfred
Met with his parliament of
‘Many bishops, and many book-learned.
Earls wise and Knights awful’.

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Lechlade to Newbridge 16 miles

I walked past Shelley’s Close by the Church …

But you finish your waltz through a Saxon landscape:
(The honeystone bridge at Newbridge is in sight)
Buscot, Eaton Hastings, Kelmscott, Radcot, Shifford;
And along the Red Line of resistance from the summer of 1940,
The skeins of geese and ducks no longer calling,
There’s an evening mist gathering over the river:
‘The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
The ploughman plods his weary way
And leaves the world to darkness and to me’;
It’s time for an imaginary pint

At the Maybush (the Berkshire bank),
And another imaginary pint …

At the Rose Revived (the Oxfordshire bank) –
The bridge is actually 13th century, and only called Newbridge
As it’s newer than the original 12th century bridge at Radcot:
‘The Thames Path 40 miles to the Source 153 to the Sea.’
‘In 1644, the Battle of Newbridge was fought on the banks of the river.
Parliamentarian William Waller attempted to cross in order to surround Oxford and capture King Charles, but was defeated.’
I rather like the use of the word ‘but.’

STATE OF HUNGER RESEARCH:
PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN
REFERRED TO A FOOD BANK
CANNOT AFFORD TO BUY THE ABSOLUTE ESSENTIALS
THAT WE ALL NEED TO EAT,
STAY WARM AND DRY, AND KEEP CLEAN –
WITH 94% FACING REAL DESTITUTION

It seems certain that in the next few months there is going to be growing pressure on the food banks. At the same time ,the collection points at supermarkets are nearly empty as people shop for their families. Can the supermarkets make provision for those that can afford it to make a monetary donation when they pay for their goods. ?

Each week the Food Bank managers could find out how much is in the “pot” and buy goods to that value by ” click and collect”. In this way they can get the food and other goods they are most short of. It also cuts out multiple handling . A simple sign in each Supermarket in front of the tills would be sufficient to remind shoppers to help the Food Banks in these difficult times.

Mike Putnam
Stroud

Medieval Monarchy and a Radical View

Edward the Second

Kings and Queens, Princesses and Princes,
Fairy Stories for children and for grown-ups,
But this is no fairy tale,
This is the story of a reign gone wrong:
King Edward the Second, most foul murdered,
So-say, on our Berkeley Castle doorstep,
Screams, they say, heard for twenty miles,
His cortege stopping at Standish en route
For a regal entombment at Gloucester …
This Gothick tale is not made for the Age of Enlightenment –
Oh, go away, Tom Paine with your Reason:

‘When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are easily poisoned by importance, and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions’ …

Let’s keep the fairy tale going if we can –
Oh, but how much do you loathe and detest
Tales like The Princess and the Pea and their ilk?
And by all The Rights of Man and Woman,
A simple question to ask of pomp and circumstance:
Why do monarchs wear crowns upon their heads?
Anthropologically speaking,
I suppose head-dresses, wreaths, crowns and the like
Signify ‘otherness’, legitimacy, immortality,
And yet, let’s be honest with ourselves,
People look slightly strange in a crown –
We wear paper hats at Christmas Dinner,
And laugh at ourselves in an echo
Of the World Turned Upside Down,
And the Twelfth Night’s Lord of Misrule,
But we also laugh at ourselves because we look comic:
You look weird in a crown, be it paper
Or heavy with gold and wrought with jewels …

But on to Edward the Second at Gloucester,
And a popular history paperback,
Edward the Second The Unconventional King
(Kathryn Warner) –
The foreword by Ian Mortimer
Offers some interesting observations
About monarchy, but not, perhaps,
In the way that the writer intended,
But what do you make of all of this?

Edward the Second

…
‘Primogeniture was a cruel method of selecting a king’ …

‘Edward is … a member of a … select group: a king whose failings were more important than his successes in the history of the realm … William the Second, whose tyranny … paved the way for Henry the First’s charter of liberties – the first time a King of England was formally bound to the law. There is the even more notable example of King John, without whose ineptitude there would have been no Magna Carta. The divisive rule of his son, Henry the Third, led to the establishment of the English parliament. And it was the reign of Edward the Second that brought to the fore the radical notion that Englishmen owed their loyalty to the Crown itself, not the wearer. Even more importantly, Edward the Second’s enforced abdication demonstrated that there were limits to the inviolable status of an anointed hereditary monarch. From 1327, if a King of England broke his coronation oaths, he could be dethroned by his subjects acting in parliament …’

How do you parse or deconstruct that?
Or …

‘When government was vested in a single individual, its failings were almost entirely personal … Edward the Second’s short temper, his overbearing pride, and his refusal to compromise … he was always trying to have things both ways: to have the dignity and power of a King and yet at the same time the freedom of the common man – to dig ditches, go swimming [ and thatching, rowing boats and driving carts] and to give lavish gifts to his friends, if he felt like doing so. The result was the almost inevitable alienation of the nobility, who expected a man to be one thing or the other; either a properly regal King or a plain commoner …’

“I greatly lament that I have so utterly failed my people,
but I could not be other than I am.”

“He forsook the company of Lords, and fraternized with harlots, singers, actors, carters, ditchers, oarsmen, sailors and others who practice the mechanical arts”; And as regards Piers Gaveston – this example of how Edward “run to Piers among them, giving him kisses and repeated embraces; he was adored with a singular familiarity, already known to the magnates, furnished fuel to their jealousy” gives a flavour.

But then, in the words of Kathryn Warner:

‘The men who had heaved a sigh of relief at the death of Piers Gaveston now realized, to their horror, that Edward had replaced him with a man who was far worse and far more dangerous. Scalacronica says, “the great men had ill will against him [Edward] for his cruelty and the debauched life which he led, and on account of the said Hugh, whom at that time he loved and entirely trusted.”’ When Hugh Despenser was eventually hanged, drawn and quartered, his genitals were cut off too, “because,” Froissart said, “he was a heretic and a sodomite, even, it was said, with the King, and this was why the King had driven away the Queen.”

In conclusion, parse these words of Kathryn Warner:

‘He was not an evil man or one who set out to make anyone suffer; it was his misfortune and his kingdom’s that he was born into a hereditary monarchy and had no other choice than to succeed his father.’

And the tale of his murder?
Apocryphal or a poker-full?
And the tale of his escape from Berkeley,
Some other man murdered and placed in the coffin,
An impostor entombed at Gloucester,
Apocryphal or a poker-full?

Anno Domini 1327
Anus Horribilis?

Common People

The lexicon of popular history,

With its ridge and furrowed semantic fields and stories,
Opens doors of childhood perception,
To fields of knowledge, imagination,
Wonderment and enchantment –
But, I think, especially enchantment.

Take, for example, an Anglo-Saxon tale,
The tale of Alfred the Great and the burnt cakes:
The moral of the tale presented to me in childhood books
Was all about the humility of a king
(A king in a common kitchen, indeed!),
And the curtness of the woman in the kitchen,
When discovering that the stranger –
Preoccupied with Vikings rather than griddles –

Had ruined the cakes.

But could a different moral have been presented to my boyhood self?

Where’s the next meal going to come from?
The woman in the kitchen has so many things to do.
Cooking cakes is, in fact, a difficult and highly skilled task.

Popular histories for grown-ups carry on this approach,
Textually rather than through pictures perhaps,
But the effect is the same.
Take the phrase ‘ordinary people’, for example:
The word ‘ordinary’ is, I think, used almost as a pejorative,
Rather than as a synonym for majority;
And what synonyms do we find for ‘ordinary’?
Ordinary, as in ‘not distinctive’ …
Common, everyday, humdrum, run of the mill …

The lexicon of popular history,

With its ridge and furrowed semantic fields and stories,
Opens doors of childhood perception,
To fields of knowledge, imagination,
Wonderment and enchantment –
But, I think, especially enchantment.

Had ruined the cakes.

But could a different moral have been presented to my boyhood self?

Where’s the next meal going to come from?
The woman in the kitchen has so many things to do.
Cooking cakes is, in fact, a difficult and highly skilled task.

And what synonyms do we find for ‘common’?

Routine, simple, trivial, daily, plain, banal, homely, mediocre, prosaic, monotonous, stale …

The coarse, common people:

Coarse: not fine, rude, rough, unrefined, inelegant, low, lowbred, uncouth, vulgar,
As opposed to courteous, gentle, patrician, highborn, wellborn …
This is a vocabulary permeated by class, hierarchy and property
(And where did that property come from?),
And so any search for the provenance,
First cause derivation and origin
Of pure, unadulterated meaning of these words
Is a search for etymological fool’s gold,
Unless you visit ancient Rome, perhaps,
And its lexicon of class-based language,
Patrician: Good; Pleb: Bad; Vulgar: Bad.

And with conventional History’s
Fetishization of textual evidence,
Conventional History can so easily become
An endless story of kings and queens and nobles,
Heritage … Blue Plaque Heritage …
With the unlettered majority – the ordinary –
Consigned to the dustbin of history.

Now, as is fairly obvious,
I’m no expert in sociolinguistics,
Linguistic anthropology or cultural hegemony,
But at the very least, I think we might question
The assumptions and implications that lie
Beneath much of this vocabulary,
The hidden labelling that lies beneath the surface
Of our lexicon, our language, our discourse,

Of our ridge and furrowed semantic fields:
‘The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose off the common,
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.’

And that includes language and meaning too,

Literal and figurative,
Which is why we have this watchword;
‘Beyond the Empirical,
Beyond the Documented:
Counter-Heritage!’

Francis Haverfield in The Romanization of Britain 1912
‘The rustic poor of a county seldom affect the trend of its history.’

General Election 2019: Red and Green and Blue.

The roots of Socialism’s environmentalism go way back: Thomas Spence, for example, who thought enclosure and what we call now call factory farming should be replaced by ‘People’s Farms’.
John Thelwall – ‘that Jacobin fox’, ‘the most dangerous man in Britain’ – associate of Coleridge and Wordsworth, who stayed here in the summer of 1797. His studied observations of ‘Nature’ would foreground working people too. It wasn’t just the cult of the picturesque and the sublime for him.
The Chartists, too, had a programme that involved a back to the land strand. They saw the environmental degradation caused by unbridled capitalism, industrialisation and urbanisation. Let’s not forget the 5,000 who met on Selsley Common in 1839.
Then, of course, we have William Morris. Visit Selsley Church to remind yourself of his influence! And sit and reflect on the long history of Socialism’s embrace of environmentalism. Then read the below!

A Show at the Hustings in Stroud

To Play the Martyr

or Shooting Ourselves in the Foot!

For

The truth I think is all too plain to see:

If I vote Green, I end up with the Enemy.

For, alas, I think it all too true:

‘Vote Green, get Blue’.

Vote Green, get Blue?

A Plea to my Green friends:

We cannot vote with our heart,

We need to vote with our head:

We need to vote Red.

Surely a much better story –

Than ending up with a Tory.

The Best Show in Town:

For the Many

Not the Few!

Prehistory and Wormholes of Time

As the traffic rumbles past on Cotswold roads,
It’s hard to hear the chip of stone on flint,
Or the croak of corvids with their blood-drip beaks,
Or the breaking of the bones of a skeleton,
Or smell the rotting flesh on the capstone,
Or taste the ashes of the dead on the nightfall wind,
Or see the blood red sunset behind the silver river
Or the standing stone’s silhouette,
But try hard on a winter’s afternoon,
And you might just slip down a wormhole of time,
To rituals of death and memory,
And recognize the prehistoric past
For what it is and was:
Not something primitive and alien,
But something shared.