Category: Write Up

Peterloo and Revolution

REVOLUTION 1819-2019

This was the time when the age of Marx replaced that of Burke,
The time when the ‘swinish multitude’ and ‘the mob’ became a working class,
When there was not just the economic revolution of school textbooks,
But also a presence of a possible political one,
A time when Tom Paine’s The Rights of Man (sic),
Viewed as seditious and libellous
By the nation’s rulers,
Could sell 200,000 copies in a year,
When the population was only around ten million,
And so many could not read – but they listened,
And learned and remembered,
Despite the patriotic cavalcades
And violent contrived disruption of ‘Jacobin’ meetings,
Despite the show trials and government spies,
The arrest of booksellers, the banning of political meetings,
The censorship and illegalisation of criticism of government or monarchy.
This was our land in the 1790s:
Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women,
Pitt’s repression at home and war abroad,
Food riots all around our five valleys
(‘We might as well be hanged as starved’),

http://radicalstroud.co.uk/the-1766-food-riots-and-the-hangmans-noose/

The Naval Mutinies of 1797
(“An attempt was made to give to the ships
in mutiny the name of ‘The Floating Republic’.”)
‘Secret Jacobin springs’ were rumoured:
‘Jacobin emissaries and the Corresponding Society …
Jacobin management and influence is at the bottom of this evil’;
The Red Flag was hoisted;
Richard Parker was elected President by the mutinous delegates:
‘… We are not rebels to our country, our country are rebels to us.’
‘I and my brother delegates are all united, and acting in the cause of humanity;
and while life animates the heart of Dick Parker, he will be true to the cause.’
Anything else to rock the ship of state?
Riots against the Militia Act in Scotland,
Wolfe Tone and rebellion in Ireland –
When more people were killed by the army
Than in the ‘Reign of Terror’ in Paris …
Pamphlets such as King Killing;
The Happy Reign of King George the Last;
100, 000 people meeting at Copenhagen Fields, Islington;
The King’s carriage attacked:
‘No War! No King! No Pitt!’
This sung to the tune of ‘God Save the King’ at Drury Lane Theatre:
‘And when George’s Poll
Shall in the basket roll,
Let mercy then control
The Guillotine.’

REVOLUTION 1819-2019

This was the time when the age of Marx replaced that of Burke,
The time when the ‘swinish multitude’ and ‘the mob’ became a working class,
When there was not just the economic revolution of school textbooks,
But also a presence of a possible political one,
A time when Tom Paine’s The Rights of Man (sic),
Viewed as seditious and libellous
By the nation’s rulers,
Could sell 200,000 copies in a year,
When the population was only around ten million,
And so many could not read – but they listened,
And learned and remembered,
Despite the patriotic cavalcades
And violent contrived disruption of ‘Jacobin’ meetings,
Despite the show trials and government spies,
The arrest of booksellers, the banning of political meetings,
The censorship and illegalisation of criticism of government or monarchy.
This was our land in the 1790s:
Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women,
Pitt’s repression at home and war abroad,
Food riots all around our five valleys
(‘We might as well be hanged as starved’),

http://radicalstroud.co.uk/the-1766-food-riots-and-the-hangmans-noose/

The Naval Mutinies of 1797
("An attempt was made to give to the ships
in mutiny the name of 'The Floating Republic'.")
'Secret Jacobin springs' were rumoured:
'Jacobin emissaries and the Corresponding Society ...
Jacobin management and influence is at the bottom of this evil';
The Red Flag was hoisted;
Richard Parker was elected President by the mutinous delegates:
'... We are not rebels to our country, our country are rebels to us.'
'I and my brother delegates are all united, and acting in the cause of humanity;
and while life animates the heart of Dick Parker, he will be true to the cause.'
Anything else to rock the ship of state?
Riots against the Militia Act in Scotland,
Wolfe Tone and rebellion in Ireland –
When more people were killed by the army
Than in the ‘Reign of Terror’ in Paris …
Pamphlets such as King Killing;
The Happy Reign of King George the Last;
100, 000 people meeting at Copenhagen Fields, Islington;
The King’s carriage attacked:
‘No War! No King! No Pitt!’
This sung to the tune of ‘God Save the King’ at Drury Lane Theatre:
‘And when George’s Poll
Shall in the basket roll,
Let mercy then control
The Guillotine.’

read more

Happy Birthday Thomas Spence

Coming events cast shadows before,
Fings are wot they used to be,
Not so much a la recherce des temps perdu
As deja flippin’ vu:
London on Thomas Spence’s birthday,
(June 21st 1750)
Today June 21st 2019:
No need to try and slip through wormholes of time,
The present has caught up with the past:
Central London still owned by the aristocracy,
Not so much the old Paris Situationists’ cry,
‘Underneath the pavements the beach!’
As ‘Pavements owned by the dukes!’
Record numbers sleeping rough,
Nicked for ‘Loitering’ and ‘begging’
Under the 1824 Vagrancy Act,
‘Royal Ascot’ (Queen Anne 1711);
An antique selection method of an antique prime minister …
But the longest day dawned well,
With a message from Keith Anderson
At the Thomas Spence Society,
Wishing him a happy birthday,
With poems and songs and well wishes for our walk;

Coming events cast shadows before,
Fings are wot they used to be,
Not so much a la recherce des temps perdu
As deja flippin’ vu:
London on Thomas Spence’s birthday,
(June 21st 1750)
Today June 21st 2019:
No need to try and slip through wormholes of time,
The present has caught up with the past:
Central London still owned by the aristocracy,
Not so much the old Paris Situationists’ cry,
‘Underneath the pavements the beach!’
As ‘Pavements owned by the dukes!’
Record numbers sleeping rough,
Nicked for ‘Loitering’ and ‘begging’
Under the 1824 Vagrancy Act,
‘Royal Ascot’ (Queen Anne 1711);
An antique selection method of an antique prime minister …
But the longest day dawned well,
With a message from Keith Anderson
At the Thomas Spence Society,
Wishing him a happy birthday,
With poems and songs and well wishes for our walk; read more

Oakridge Walk February 23rd 2019

‘When vapours rolling down a valley
Made a lonely scene more lonesome’,
Wrote Wordsworth in The Prelude –
Well, we weren’t lonely, a group of ten
Walking through early morning mists and fog,
Discussing enclosure of Oakridge common land,
A death-threatening letter for the squire,
Demeaning shouts of ‘Who stole the donkey’s dinner?’
Loud following him on his daily rounds
Past Lilyhorn Farm and Bournes Green.

A watery sun shone vaporous
As we stopped at a spectral crossroads,
Cogitating upon the Roman villa,
Down in the nearby fields of Bakers Farm,
Then processing Neolithic track-ways,
Past a field of sheep and hidden long barrow,
The sun now silvering the streams that run
Down to the Frome and thence to the Severn.

‘When vapours rolling down a valley
Made a lonely scene more lonesome’,
Wrote Wordsworth in The Prelude –
Well, we weren’t lonely, a group of ten
Walking through early morning mists and fog,
Discussing enclosure of Oakridge common land,
A death-threatening letter for the squire,
Demeaning shouts of ‘Who stole the donkey’s dinner?’
Loud following him on his daily rounds
Past Lilyhorn Farm and Bournes Green.

A watery sun shone vaporous
As we stopped at a spectral crossroads,
Cogitating upon the Roman villa,
Down in the nearby fields of Bakers Farm,
Then processing Neolithic track-ways,
Past a field of sheep and hidden long barrow,
The sun now silvering the streams that run
Down to the Frome and thence to the Severn.

read more

A Swindon Town Great War Pilgrimage

A Swindon Town Remembrance Pilgrimage

We must have numbered a football team,
Umbrellas unfurled at the cenotaph,
Where we spoke of Walter Tull and Spurs,
And Swindon Town and Northampton Town
Footballers who fell in the Great War –
The rain providing a suitably melancholy backdrop,
As we made our hilltop climb to Christ Church,
A welcoming peal rather than a knell
Resonating across the Old Town sky,

While we gathered, inside, by the war memorial,
Inscribing George Bathe’s name on a remembrance cross,
George Bathe, STFC, KIA 1915,
A memento mori for all to share,
Carried by George’s great-nephew, Phil,
Before we made our blue plaque way to Radnor Street,
To talk of Freddie Wheatcroft, star Swindon striker,
Killed in Action,
And Alfred Williams, the Railway Poet,
And the writer Edward Thomas who loved Swindon so much,
Killed in Action.

A Swindon Town Remembrance Pilgrimage

We must have numbered a football team,
Umbrellas unfurled at the cenotaph,
Where we spoke of Walter Tull and Spurs,
And Swindon Town and Northampton Town
Footballers who fell in the Great War -
The rain providing a suitably melancholy backdrop,
As we made our hilltop climb to Christ Church,
A welcoming peal rather than a knell
Resonating across the Old Town sky,

While we gathered, inside, by the war memorial,
Inscribing George Bathe's name on a remembrance cross,
George Bathe, STFC, KIA 1915,
A memento mori for all to share,
Carried by George's great-nephew, Phil,
Before we made our blue plaque way to Radnor Street,
To talk of Freddie Wheatcroft, star Swindon striker,
Killed in Action,
And Alfred Williams, the Railway Poet,
And the writer Edward Thomas who loved Swindon so much,
Killed in Action.

read more

For the Love of a Chartist

PRESS RELEASE

FOR THE LOVE OF A CHARTIST

STROUD THEATRE FESTIVAL

Chartism was a working class movement of the 1830s and 40s that wanted to establish democracy in the country, at a time when only the aristocracy and middle class men had the vote.
It was based upon 6 points: the secret ballot so there could be no intimidation; payment of MPs so that working people could stand; same-size constituencies to prevent the old rural aristocracy lording it over the new industrial towns; ending the ownership of property rule to become an MP, so that working people could stand; votes for all men over 21 (there were Chartist groups in favour of votes for women even back then, however); annual parliaments so that governments would keep their promises.

All but one of these is now the law, of course, but you could easily end up in prison in Chartist times for supporting these ideas … lose your freedom, your job and home for wanting a democratic government…

It’s time to remember these freedom-fighters, and rescue them from what EP Thompson called, ‘the enormous condescension of posterity’.
And so this show – our counter-heritage rescuing of two special working people from the enormous condescension of posterity: George Shell of Newport and Charlotte-Alice Bingham of Stroud.

PRESS RELEASE

FOR THE LOVE OF A CHARTIST

STROUD THEATRE FESTIVAL

Chartism was a working class movement of the 1830s and 40s that wanted to establish democracy in the country, at a time when only the aristocracy and middle class men had the vote.
It was based upon 6 points: the secret ballot so there could be no intimidation; payment of MPs so that working people could stand; same-size constituencies to prevent the old rural aristocracy lording it over the new industrial towns; ending the ownership of property rule to become an MP, so that working people could stand; votes for all men over 21 (there were Chartist groups in favour of votes for women even back then, however); annual parliaments so that governments would keep their promises.

All but one of these is now the law, of course, but you could easily end up in prison in Chartist times for supporting these ideas ... lose your freedom, your job and home for wanting a democratic government...

It's time to remember these freedom-fighters, and rescue them from what EP Thompson called, 'the enormous condescension of posterity'.
And so this show - our counter-heritage rescuing of two special working people from the enormous condescension of posterity: George Shell of Newport and Charlotte-Alice Bingham of Stroud.

read more

Chip Shop Walk

Chip Shop Hop

A group of us gathered at the corner Bath Road and Frome Park Road, initially in search of the legendary Rodborough Chip Machine
http://radicalstroud.co.uk/the-face-that-launched-thousand-chips/

We then flexibly followed the score from walkwalkwalk – thanks to Clare Qualmann, Gail Burton and Serena Korda – (see at the end), so as to be part of a worldwide chip shop exploration. Our chip shop heritage pilgrimage took us from Bath Road to Cainscross, to Cashes Green to the High Street, to Simpsons, to Nelson Street and so to sunset and bed.
We had a lovely time chatting with staff in all the shops and explained our quest, emphasizing that this was not, as Deb Roberts put it, anything to do with ‘Chip Advisor’. Robin Treefellow wrote a poem especially for the occasion, which he performed in two different locations, once outside a cloth mill and once, natch, outside a chip shop.
Chips are not from Hell
they come from Heaven Highest
chips are winged angels
flying with greasy wings
coated in sparkling salt
into our contentious world
where they relieve our tearful cries
for help is here
the chips, the excellent and goodly chips
we partake of their ambrosia
soaked in vinegar
stubbled in salt
hot and rewarding between the teeth
as we swallow
the chip carries us up to the golden light
in the knowledge our troubles have passed
the chips!
O, heavenly chips!
Sanctus, Sanctus, Excelsus
Amen.

Chip Shop Hop

A group of us gathered at the corner Bath Road and Frome Park Road, initially in search of the legendary Rodborough Chip Machine
http://radicalstroud.co.uk/the-face-that-launched-thousand-chips/

We then flexibly followed the score from walkwalkwalk – thanks to Clare Qualmann, Gail Burton and Serena Korda - (see at the end), so as to be part of a worldwide chip shop exploration. Our chip shop heritage pilgrimage took us from Bath Road to Cainscross, to Cashes Green to the High Street, to Simpsons, to Nelson Street and so to sunset and bed.
We had a lovely time chatting with staff in all the shops and explained our quest, emphasizing that this was not, as Deb Roberts put it, anything to do with ‘Chip Advisor’. Robin Treefellow wrote a poem especially for the occasion, which he performed in two different locations, once outside a cloth mill and once, natch, outside a chip shop.
Chips are not from Hell
they come from Heaven Highest
chips are winged angels
flying with greasy wings
coated in sparkling salt
into our contentious world
where they relieve our tearful cries
for help is here
the chips, the excellent and goodly chips
we partake of their ambrosia
soaked in vinegar
stubbled in salt
hot and rewarding between the teeth
as we swallow
the chip carries us up to the golden light
in the knowledge our troubles have passed
the chips!
O, heavenly chips!
Sanctus, Sanctus, Excelsus
Amen. read more

Rodborough Walk

We followed the old way out of Rodborough, taking Kingscourt Road to follow the 1300 Manor boundary. A route of old farmsteads, vanished feudal obligations and lost names.
De Rodboroughs and Gastrells, Achards and the Cynnes.
Red valerian and plump roses topped the summer limestone walls as we continued up The Street, through shady hanging beech woods and on to the site of the Horestone. Lost marker of the boundary of the manor of Minchinhampton.
Then a sharp climb, out of the shaded wood and up the dazzling limestone grassland slopes of the common. Such a richness of wild flowers. Their names as beautiful to the ear

We followed the old way out of Rodborough, taking Kingscourt Road to follow the 1300 Manor boundary. A route of old farmsteads, vanished feudal obligations and lost names.
De Rodboroughs and Gastrells, Achards and the Cynnes.
Red valerian and plump roses topped the summer limestone walls as we continued up The Street, through shady hanging beech woods and on to the site of the Horestone. Lost marker of the boundary of the manor of Minchinhampton.
Then a sharp climb, out of the shaded wood and up the dazzling limestone grassland slopes of the common. Such a richness of wild flowers. Their names as beautiful to the ear read more

Synchronised Global Walking May 12th 2018

It was May the 12th, 2018,

Synchronised walking was happening all over the globe

Via a shared urban score:

‘Cities tend to start in the middle and spread outwards, thinning as they go…

a familiar phenomenology … in the middle of things.

But where is that exactly, and how can we be sure?

…you are unlikely to encounter a sign telling you that you have arrived.

This is, of course, one of the surest indications …

that you are back in the middle of things:

the signs pointing the way will have dried up.’

But we were in the country,

Far away from the City of London;

How could we see, hear, touch, taste and smell

The space-time of a city, out here in the shires,

Far away from Jeremy Corbyn and the TUC Rally,

Far away from William Blake and London:

It was May the 12th, 2018,

Synchronised walking was happening all over the globe

Via a shared urban score:

‘Cities tend to start in the middle and spread outwards, thinning as they go…

a familiar phenomenology … in the middle of things.

But where is that exactly, and how can we be sure?

…you are unlikely to encounter a sign telling you that you have arrived.

This is, of course, one of the surest indications …

that you are back in the middle of things:

the signs pointing the way will have dried up.’

But we were in the country,

Far away from the City of London;

How could we see, hear, touch, taste and smell

The space-time of a city, out here in the shires,

Far away from Jeremy Corbyn and the TUC Rally,

Far away from William Blake and London:

read more

A Nine Mile May-time Walk around Nailsworth

With thanks to Bob Fry for the prologue and Robin Treefellow for his stream of consciousness imagery.

Dusty spikes of blue Bugle
Sanicle.
Yellow Archangel.
Hemlock Water Dropwort.
White Deadnettle.
Cow Parsley and May Blossom, shining white in the green hedgerows, everywhere.
Early swallows skimming the air above the buttercup meadows (where Robin recited his poems)

*

The Dream of Nailsworth

The waters’ intonation
washed in Nailsworth.

Before the cloth mills,
before the cars brought their disquiet
the waters sang among alders.

The world was a flicker of a fish
hiding from the heron.
Nailsworth knew nothing of Egypt’s pyramids
or the fall of Carthage.

Softly persisting to go where its water went,
Nailsworth bred dreams and spawned thousands of little worlds in marshy meadows.

With thanks to Bob Fry for the prologue and Robin Treefellow for his stream of consciousness imagery.

Dusty spikes of blue Bugle
Sanicle.
Yellow Archangel.
Hemlock Water Dropwort.
White Deadnettle.
Cow Parsley and May Blossom, shining white in the green hedgerows, everywhere.
Early swallows skimming the air above the buttercup meadows (where Robin recited his poems)

*

The Dream of Nailsworth

The waters’ intonation
washed in Nailsworth.

Before the cloth mills,
before the cars brought their disquiet
the waters sang among alders.

The world was a flicker of a fish
hiding from the heron.
Nailsworth knew nothing of Egypt’s pyramids
or the fall of Carthage.

Softly persisting to go where its water went,
Nailsworth bred dreams and spawned thousands of little worlds in marshy meadows. read more

Paris 1968 50th Anniversary and The Prince Albert Beer Fest Anniversary too

This anniversary coincides with the 11th Prince Albert Beer & Music Festival, Thursday 3rd – Monday 7th May
Real ale, cider and perry. Food available all weekend.

And here are some slogans from Paris, fifty years ago.
You could declaim one or two,
over a pint or two, if you fancy it.

Soyez réalistes, demandez l’impossible.

Be realistic, demand the impossible.

La barricade ferme la rue mais ouvre la voie.

The barricade blocks the street but opens the way.

Refusons le dialogue avec nos matraqueurs.

Let us not dialogue with our persecutors.

On achète ton bonheur. Vole-le.

They buy your happiness. Steal it.

Sous les pavés, la plage !

Beneath the paving stones – the beach!

L’ennui est contre-révolutionnaire.

Boredom is counterrevolutionary.

*Pas de replâtrage, la structure est pourrie.

No re-plastering, the structure is rotten.

This anniversary coincides with the 11th Prince Albert Beer & Music Festival, Thursday 3rd – Monday 7th May
Real ale, cider and perry. Food available all weekend.

And here are some slogans from Paris, fifty years ago.
You could declaim one or two,
over a pint or two, if you fancy it.

Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible.

Be realistic, demand the impossible.

La barricade ferme la rue mais ouvre la voie.

The barricade blocks the street but opens the way.

Refusons le dialogue avec nos matraqueurs.

Let us not dialogue with our persecutors.

On achète ton bonheur. Vole-le.

They buy your happiness. Steal it.

Sous les pavés, la plage !

Beneath the paving stones - the beach!

L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire.

Boredom is counterrevolutionary.

*Pas de replâtrage, la structure est pourrie.

No re-plastering, the structure is rotten.

read more