Write Up – Page 5 – Radical Stroud

NOT ONE DAY MORE: Overton’s Window

I’ve just come across the term ‘Overton’s Window’,
In an article by Owen Jones,
Also called the ‘Window of Discourse’:
The way ideas are viewed by the public,
In a spectrum of judgement that runs from
The Unacceptable, to the Radical, the Acceptable,
The Sensible, the Popular,
And finally: Policy.

It’s obvious that the way this window –
Or Zeitgeist –
Is now defined,
Has been revolutionised
By social media, activists and clicktivists,
While any notion of ‘the public’
Must now accommodate a whole new Generation Y:
The dispossessed millennials are taking the reins –
Paul Dacre and Rupert Murdoch and co.
Can still ride roughshod,
But only in their own heft now.

It’s a weird thing for me,
Someone who first read Marx nearly fifty years ago,
Someone who has been marginalised
By mainstream orthodoxy’s definition of common sense
For nearly half a century,
To see a 2017 Labour party political broadcast,
Where a voice demands the full fruits of her labour:
The revolution will be televised!
So this Saturday’s demonstration:
NOT ONE DAY MORE
#TORIES OUT NO MORE AUSTERITY,
Hosted by The People’s Assembly Against Austerity,
Feels as though the trip from Stroud to London,
Might, this time, look different from the carriage window:
A left wing journey to the centre of the capital,
Not through moderation, compromise and trimming –
But through redefining ‘common sense’,
Aka ‘the practical wisdom of the ruling class’ –
A journey through the Slough of Despond,
To Old Oak Common,
Past Paddington’s hidden Tyburn Tree,
To Portland Place and the BBC,
To Westminster Bridge, where,
‘Earth has nothing to show more fair’:
‘Rise like lions after slumber,
In unvanquishable number’:
‘From each according to their ability,
To each according to their needs.’

And when we got there … it was like something out of William Blake: we wandered through London’s chartered streets, with songs of innocence and experience, with anger and lament for Grenfell Tower, every step along the pavements and the reclaimed chartered streets, a step upon austerity’s mind-forged manacles, a step through a theatre of dreams, possibilities, and practicalities, a kaleidoscope of banners, flags and wit: a new Window of Discourse right there in Parliament Square, where Jeremy Corbyn spoke for nearly half an hour with all the command of the art of the rhetorician, but from the heart, too, with passion and with sincerity – as new spectrums of light danced around the windows of Westminster.

The flags, banners and balloons danced in the air near the chartered river too: Not One Day More; Tories Out; For Health Homes Education JC4PM; Austerity isn’t Working; Austerity Kills Justice for Grenfell; I’m So Fucking Angry; A Theresa May lookalike: We Cut 10,000 Fire-fighters Jobs Because Your Lives Are Worth Less; trade union banners and balloons; Strong and Stable?; Capitalism Kills; Thatcher in the Rye; Rise Like Lions after Slumber; LGBT Rights Human Rights; Kick the Tories Out; Defy Tory Rule; Workers of the World Unite; Austerity is the New Terror Your Country Needs You War on Austerity; Justice for Grenfell; Latinxs con Corbyn; Theresa DisMay; May DUPed the Country; Organise Strike Resist; Cut War not Welfare; No to Islamophobia No to War; Flags of love danced around Big Ben – as new spectrums of light danced around the Overton’s Windows of Westminster.

I carried my banner from Stroud to Westminster with pride, inviting conversations along the way, leaving a trail of old ladies in Stroud lamenting May in Middle Street, discussions of anger and frustration at privatisation and cancelled trains in the packed waiting room at Swindon, thumbs up and car beebs as I ran from Paddington to Oxford Street to march with my parents. As we heard the chants as Corbyn came on stage, I asked my 67 year old dad, have you ever heard another politician have their own song and he said “not in my lifetime” The collective energy on the march was tangible and it’s quite something to be part of this.

Essia Harding

Momentum Is The New Chartism

When the Daily Express and the Daily Mail tried to control
The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, back in the thirties,
He commented in his masculine way:
‘What the proprietorship of these newspapers is aiming at is power,
But power without responsibility,
The prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.’
In the 2016 referendum,
We had Arron Banks:
‘Facts don’t work, and that’s it …
It just doesn’t work.
You have to connect with the people emotionally.
It’s the Trump success.’
And the General Election of 2017?
The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express,
With their slew of headlines,
Make it difficult not to think of John Heartfield,
And his Weimar agit-prop:
Big business pulling Hitler’s puppet strings;
What a coincidence that Boris Johnson should speak on the very subject
Of Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘soft on terrorism’ trope,
The very day before The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express
Splashed their similar views all over their front pages –
I think this means that we now have a new category
Of political system for the text book:
A liberal-democratic 21st century variant of Fascism:
‘Strong and Stable Government’; ‘Coalition of Chaos’; ‘Brexit means Brexit’;
‘We make no apology for drawing attention to the fact that Jeremy Corbyn
has spent a lifetime siding with people who want to do Britain harm,
would weaken our defences and make our country less safe …’.

(The 2017 General Election)

Nearly two centuries ago,
Five thousand Chartist supporters met on Selsley Common,
Affirming their support for working class political power,
Through the Six Points,
Five of which have become law:
Secret Ballot (1872); Equal Constituencies (1885); Universal Franchise (1928);
Abolition of Property Qualification to stand as an MP (1858);
Payment of MPs (1911);
Annual Parliaments;
It was thought that this would usher in democracy,
But the transgressions of our so called free press
(Remember the Zinoviev Letter forgery in the Daily Mail at the 1924 election?
The Daly Mail has got a long history and a lot of previous),
Mean that those points have been nullified:
The ballot is no longer secret – voters’ heads are full of lies
(Or ‘cultural hegemony’ as Gramsci put it,
Or ‘false consciousness’, as Marx put it);
The next constituency redrawing will favour the Conservatives
In their bid to establish a one party state;
Many people have forgotten the struggles of men and women:
Imprisonment, hunger strikes, death, transportation,
Or they’ve not been taught about it, or listened,
And abstain on principle,
Or vote ‘on principle’,
Or forget to vote …
MPs are unrepresentative of the population,
Even with 51% of the new intake educated at comprehensives …

The Chartists could not imagine a world where money talks so persuasively:
They thought votes for all would mean equality of power,
Where one vote is worth the same as another,
And where the voter was free from coercion, intimidation and control:
But what we have today is not democracy,
It is a liberal-democratic variant of fascism,
A stepping-stone towards a one party state,
Where Brexit might not just mean Brexit,
But also mean a form of totalitarianism;

But Momentum,
With the new wave of young activists in the Labour Party
Are the new Chartists:
The Chartists of the twenty first century,
People who remind us that we can control history,
We can fight back against the lies of the press,
We can prevent a liberal-democratic fascism,
We can establish socialism,
We can fight back,
‘For the many, not the few”,
Carrying the mantle of Shelley’s rage against Peterloo,
And the dictatorial Six Acts:
‘Ye are many – they are few!’

And in tune with this noble democratic tradition…
The Politics Kitchen initiative on Stroud High Street –
The inspiration of Skeena Rathor –
Is centrally about recognising and empowering
The forces of the heart
In our broken political system.
A return to “3-D politics” –
Face-to-face, body-to-body –
Heart-to-heart, relational politics.
A deep democracy that is both
Witness and friend.

Rodborough, Sunday June 11th

A year ago we wandered through the sculptures
And hidden gardens of Rodborough,
Depressed and stupefied after the referendum result,
Lowering clouds gathering over the Severn,
Proving that the notion of a pathetic fallacy is not a fallacy –
But this year, the sun shone on the sculptures,
The flowers were particularly and pleasantly fragrant,
The tea and cake taken in the church graveyard,
Tasted sweetly of the resurrection of Labour,
And the party in the Prince Albert
Showed Stroud at its inclusive best:
A complete cross section of society,
In a happy harmony of delight,
A heaven where ambrosia and nectar were shared equally,
By friends, families and strangers,
And where everyone was a comrade:
David Drew and family laid on a spread
To thank all supporters and workers,
People spoke of past elections and struggles,
David’s seven general election results
Were attached to the beer pumps
In a panoply across the bar,
The front door of the pub was garlanded
With a red and white banner:
‘Thank You’,
The chimney breast was covered with the banner
Of the Stroud Constituency Labour Party,
Lottie and Miles served tea and cake,
David ran a tab at the bar,
People spoke of their Thursday tears of joy,
David spoke of his commitment to the manifesto,
Everyone stood to applaud him –
But John Bloxsom reminded us
That there is another election ahead:
So while we celebrate in the carefree present moment,
We know that we prepare for the future:
But time is an illusion on a sun splashed Stroud afternoon,
For this is a new dawn –
This truly is a new dawn.

Bakanalia Border Morris by Deborah Roberts

Credit to Deborah Roberts for the above photos.

Credit to Bob Fry for the above photo.

Thirty Something Local Historic Reasons to Vote for David Drew

Thirty Local Historic Reasons to Vote for David Drew and Keep the Tories Out

Remember:

Thirty Local Historic Reasons to Vote for David Drew and Keep the Tories Out

Remember:

1. The Diggers and their Slimbridge Civil War community and those who supported them in Stroud and the Five Valleys
2. The Parliamentarians imprisoned in Painswick Church
3. The growers of Nicotiana Rustica who defied both King and Cromwell
4. Those who took direct action for a ‘moral economy’ against high food prices in Stroud and the Five Valleys
5. Those cloth-workers who took direct action against low wages and long hours in Stroud and the Five Valleys
6. Those who opposed slavery
7. Those who took direct action against the game laws
8. Those who opposed enclosure
9. Those who took direct action against turnpike tolls
10. Those who were transported
11. Those who supported Chartist demands for democracy
12. Those who were forced to emigrate
13. Those who opposed the workhouse
14. Those who opposed the exploitation of children
15. Those who supported the legalization of trade unions
16. Those who supported the cooperative movement
17. Those who, like William Morris, were alert early to environmental degradation
18. Those who opposed imperial aggrandizement
19. Those who opposed wars of aggrandizement
20. Those who supported votes for women
21. Those who supported free education, pensions and healthcare
22. Those who supported the General Strike
23. Those who opposed fascism
24. Those who suffered and made the ultimate sacrifice in two world wars
25. Those who voted for a Welfare State and a planned economy
26. Those who opposed racism
27. Those who supported the Equal Pay Act
28. Those who opposed sexism
29. Those who opposed apartheid
30. Those who opposed Thatcherism n all its guises
31. Those who supported gay rights

Not Bad for a Village Team

Tranmere –
The name suggests a crossing of the waters,
A ferry across the Mersey,
A crossing of the River Rubicon,
Or for us, the River Thames –
On the 9.55 Football Poets Special,
Speeding through the Golden Valley,
Past Swindon’s railway works,
The Vale of the White Horse,
Then on through Sonning Cutting,
Sequestered Berkshire,
Suburban Middlesex,
Old Oak Common,
To Paddington.

We sat in an overcrowded carriage:
Richard, now ready, having scoured Stroud,
And all villages and hamlets of the Five Valleys,
Until at last finally securing an FGR scarf,
Chewing on his bacon and egg sandwich,
But worried that he’d left the gas ring on,
Stuart, with a stone in his shoe from his yesterday walk,
Seeing it as a pilgrim’s scruple,
The retention of which would be necessary for victory,
For only the scrupulous would be triumphant,
After enduring self-flagellation,
Crispin, now ready, after tirelessly badgering
Wembley Stadium about his treasured, magic drum –
More of that later.

But there we were,
At Wembley,
Like a village gawping at the big city,
Just 3,500 souls,
Thirteen charabancs only
(Six from FGR, 4 from Stroud, 3 from Stonehouse),
Like some Laurie Lee
Cider with Rosie day out revisited,
A Last Supper of the Season,
While the massed ranks from Birkenhead and Liverpool
Numbered 15,000 and fifty coaches,
Confident of victory,
Against this rustic outfit.

But Crispin had a plan –
Crispin Thomas, like Oscar,
The clairaudient in The Tin Drum,
Worried that Wembley would ban his drum:
‘the day will come …
oh how I pray
for my white drum’,

Eventually receiving this email from Wembley Stadium:

Hello Crispin,

I hope you are well. This isn’t a problem and the staff are aware of you and your drum.
Please make your way to the accessible entrance at the turnstile and they will check the drum and they will let you in.
Many thanks,

Crispin, now ready,
Crispin,
Now revelling in his clairaudient condition,
Obtaining a ‘singing end’ for FGR,
Joining ranks with the other FGR drummer,
To wave his arms in the air to draw the FGR crowd
From their numbered, specified seats,
And so amplify the support, noise and chants,
With supporters standing en masse behind the goal,
Despite the tickets stating in bold:
Persistent standing is not allowed.

But we were allowed,
Because all fans behaved themselves responsibly –
But many thanks to Wembley’s staff for their dispensation,
For this concentrated noise
Gave succour to the team on the pitch
Throughout the whole ninety minutes:
The support was continuous.

And at the end,
After all the chants of
‘On our way, on our way,
To the football league we’re on our way’,
And,
‘Not bad for a village team,
Not bad for a village team’,
The man from the Met. came up to Crispin,
Congratulated him on his drumming,
Congratulated FGR’s three and a half thousand
For outshouting Tranmere,
Adding,
‘I had a tear in my eye at the end.
I was so pleased for you.’

Not bad for a village team,
A team at the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere.

Painswick Beacon and Botany Bay

Thanks to Deborah Roberts for the above Photo.
www.deborahroberts.biz

—

The solstice is a time for wonder and the imagination,
But sometimes you need facts, figures and measurements:
Lines of latitude and longitude – maritime chronometers too,
Were needed for New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land,
For those weavers, cloth-workers, hatters, labourers and servants,
Transported as convicts, far distant from their Painswick homes,
On ships such as the Emma Eugenia, Florentia, Lady Ridley,
Duncan, Gilmore, Persian, Lord Hungerford, Bengal Merchant;
People such as Ann Alder, Henry Beard and Samuel Beard,
John Birt, Isaac Estcourt, James Green, William Haines, Charles Cook;
And at winter solstice-tide, we gathered at Painswick Beacon,
Latitude 51°48’27″N and longitude 2°11’44″W; 283m / 928ft.,
SO 86836 12076, ready for sunrise at 8.14, on the 22nd of December,
A dozen of us, to welcome the mid-winter dawn,
Close by an Iron Age hill fort,
The ghosts of our prehistory all around the scarp,
(At a beacon: ‘from the Saxon’,
Meaning a sign, portent, light, lighthouse,
A source of light or inspiration),
Welcoming the first lengthening day of the season,
As it spread its light and inspiration
Over the Malverns, the Cotswolds, the sinuous River Severn,
Over a landscape etched with names and signs and portents
Such as Ongers, Kimsbury, Paradise,
Spoonbed Hill, Kites Hill, Popes Wood, Saltridge Hill, Cud Hill,
Holcombe, Brentlands, Podgewell, Bacchus –
Distant memories for our exiled Painswick ancestors,
Their ghosts gathered to witness farewell
To the longest day of the year,
Near Botany Bay,
33.9930° S, 151.1753° E …
But today,
We reunited them with their landscape,
And their history,
With a toast to their memory and to the sun:
Painswick Beacon, Botany Bay,
New South Wales and Van Dieman’s Land,
Mid-winter and mid-summer conjoined,
With solstitial imagination,
A lighthouse of time and space.

Sixty People Gathering

Above Photos by Deborah Roberts.
www.deborahroberts.biz

Sixty people gathering
In the welcoming woodland of Stroud Brewery,
Watching the preview of Day of Hope,
Listening to tales of weavers’ riots
And Chartist dreams;
Quaffing Chartist porter
While Paul Southcott sang us songs
Of the world we have lost …
Resting by a sun warm red brick bridge,
Walking past the last leafed sessile oaks,
Red berried hedges and apple bobbed branches,
Watching navvies on their way to Sapperton …
On past lock gates to Bowbridge:
Alongside Brunel’s main line,
The Great Western viaducts,
The River Frome and ruined mills,
To Wallbridge and the Midland Railway –
And so to the Bell at Selsley:
To gaze at November’s late afternoon light
Gilding Rodborough Common,
Seeing John Frost up there on Good Friday 1839:
Toasting him with more porter,
With songs of poachers and talk of Jenner and Colonel Berkeley,
Hearing Janet Biard tell us of the serpentine lines
Of Chartist supporters and sightseers,
Making their way to Selsley Common
From all over Stroudwater’s hills and valleys,
Along lanes, holloways and tracks of prehistory,
Back on Whitsuntide, May 21st 1839.
We climbed with their ghosts,
To join in the huzzas for the six points
And the hisses for Lord John Russell,
Silhouetted against a sun splashed orange sunset,
The Severn a silver line gleaming in the distance,
Hearing how the common would have been a white scarp land
Of limestone quarries and heaped blocks of Cotswold stone
Back on that famous Selsley day,
Hearing of the Pre-Raphaelite wonders of Selsley Church –
Until Paul gathered us in an old sheltered hollow,
For one final communal twilight song,
Until we wended our way back to the present,
In the gathering gloom of this last November Saturday:
A Day of Hope and a Day of Remembrance.

Watch on Facebook

So here is the link to a bit of Day of Hope which we prepared for yesterday’s walk. This is not a finished item and some bits a bit rushed but gives a feel of the overall project.

A fine day of songs, speeches and good ale. Well done to you and your co-conspirators. The finale was elemental and timeless with the backdrop of sky and river and the cold just beginning to bite.

Martin Carslake

Selsley

Trains and Boats and Games

I was due to meet Andy at Temple Meads:
He was coming on the train from Yate,
I was coming from Stroud via Swindon
(I wanted to call in at the Radical Book Fair,
To collect a pamphlet on smuggling),
But the signals were down at Parkway,
So I sat on a bench outside Temple Meads,
Listening to a man talk of seeing the debuts
Of Colin Bell and Wynn Davies,
While I ate a cheese and onion pasty,
Awaiting Andy,
When another man sat next to me,
Opened a map and asked:
”Do you know Bristol?’
I thought – correctly – that he might be a Derby fan,
So asked him if he fancied going to the match by boat,
Just as Andy texted:
Train cancelled, he’d have to drive,
So he’d meet me at the ground with my ticket.

My new, substitute Rams mate introduced himself,
Shook my hand: ‘Peter’; ‘Stuart,’ I replied,
Explaining that I wasn’t local, but a Swindon fan –
‘We’ve got something in common then,’
‘Dave Mackay,’ I replied.

It was going well.

We talked of Derby pubs:
The Brunswick, the Alexandra, the Peacock,
And how I’d never been to a match by water before –
Peter has previous, however:
‘When I watch a match at Derby,
I have a couple of pints in the Peacock,
Then walk along the River Derwent,
So that’s going to a match by water, I suppose.’

This sounded all a bit Arnold Bennett to me,
Transposed from the Potteries to the Peacock,
And I drifted away:

‘Around the field was a wide border of … hats … pale faces, rising in tiers, and beyond this border, fences, hoardings, chimneys, furnaces, gasometers, telegraph-poles, houses and dead trees.’

I thought of Arkwright, Cromford, the Derwent, and Bennett,
Until Peter asked me about Stroud, and Slad,
And, reverie over,
We spoke of Laurie Lee, the Woolpack, Clough, Taylor,
Forest, Mackay, Robertson, the European Cup Final,
Our banner referencing George Orwell at Real Madrid:
‘Homage to Clough n Taylor’,
And my letter to Brian Moore,
Asking if the cameras could focus on our pennant,
And his reply, written in fountain pen,
‘What a night in Madrid, Stuart!
Hope you got the message over,
Best wishes, Brian.’

Peter Quinn, for it was he, then talked of his book:
A Ram’s Fan’s Fanfayre,
With chapter headings,
All starting with the prefix ‘For’:
‘Fortune, Forgettable, and so on,’
Conversing as the ferry made its way through the docks.
Until we alighted, asked the way of some Bristol fans,
And I left Peter in safe company at a cider- house,
The suitably named ‘Orchard.’

The build up to the game was great –
Peter and the ferry,
Andy with my ticket, driving befuddled through Bristol,
Eventually meeting me at Ashton Gate,
Then meeting his B.C.F.C. mate, Lee,
Who took us for a tour of the ground …

Then the constant singing of the beer swilled Derby fans,
‘Forest are losing, Forest are losing,
‘We are Derby, Super-Derby, Super-Derby, Super Rams’,
‘Derby Army’, ‘Derby Army’, ‘Derby Army’,
The man in the fancy dress outfit: ‘Sheep on Tour’,
Hearing the half times: Swindon, two nil down,
Meeting my BCFC brother in law, Trevor, after the game,
With Bruce, my wife’s cousin, over from Canada,
Meeting my charming, new grand-nephew, Rupert,
For the first time …

The match was a slightly tedious one all draw,
With countless throw-ins, a general air of ineptitude,
And if it wasn’t for the Rams fans,
Funereal.

But the build up, and the aftermath,
The meeting of friends old and new,
Peter the Ram,
Andy the Ram.
Lee the Robin,
Bristol supporters on the ferry,
Bristol supporters at the Orchard,
Bruce, political reporter for the Toronto Star,
The greeting of a new baby,
A fourth generation Bristol City fan:
Rupert the Robin,

All mean that the day, and hence the match, too,
Have to be filed under the chapter heading:
‘Unforgettable’,
Because sometimes a football match
Is only incidental to the enjoyment of a football match –
It’s what happens before and afterwards that count:
Trains and Boats not Games.

The Weavers and Workhouse Walk

Also see Angela’s website by clicking here!

Well, that was a walk, that was, and even though it’s over, it’s hard to let it go.

Well over one hundred people gathered in the Ale House in Stroud for the stroll through Stroud up to the cemetery, and then other people, attracted by our purpose, joined us as we made our way through town. It was a most – literally – moving sight, to witness such a number of people making their orderly way along Nelson Street and up Bisley Road. It must be a long time since those streets saw such a scene: a scene of gentle, studied pilgrimage.

I was feeling a little nervous as the clock approached four, our starting time. I expected twenty people, but was beginning to wonder that we might have fifty; Angela Findlay, my co-presenter thought seven would turn up, with the threat of rain; I then began to witness an almost biblical sight as more and more and more and yet more walkers, visitors to the town, artists, notables and historians relentlessly surged into the front bar, like some epic flood.

We met in the Ale House not just because of the excellent beer festival, but also because a key text for our walk lies upon the wall in the front bar: a commemorative 1842 plaque praising the beneficence of the workhouse overseers. I contextualized this with an introduction about Chartism locally and nationally; Angela contextualized this with a prologue about the relationship between Stroud’s workhouse and the cemetery.

Next, some performance: I read a poem about the paupers’ graves; Gemma Dunn, visiting from London, read a first person account of the May 1839 Chartist mass-meeting on Selsley Hill, and Tim Johnston from Historic England read a 1795 anonymous threatening letter from Uley.

It was hot and humid and full to the gunnels, and after each speaker had alighted from their stool in the thronged room, our troupe made its way to Nelson Street. It looked almost Pied Piper-like – but this was a collective walk that broke down the barriers between guide, performer and audience: the line of walkers seemingly had its own collective mind, as well as both a conscious and unconscious sense of direction.

I came up the rear – and joined the orderly assembly by the Black Boy clock. The little triangle of land, opposite, with its overhanging tree, provided a natural stage and here we discoursed on General Wolfe, Stroud Scarlet, rioting weavers, Gloucestershire slave owners, local parish registers, the Black Atlantic, the black boy clock, and counter-memorialization. Janet Biard read a first person account from the 1825 riots; Chris William spoke of forty years ago when the Black Boy flats were the teachers’ centre – one of his tasks was to wind up the clock every three days; John Marjoram spoke of his time with the clock, too; Trish Butler gave each walker a copy of a Stroud Scarlet poem, in the spirit of active counter-heritage.

I found this utterly moving: the sun was shining, we were reclaiming the streets – we had to make way for one car only in the half an hour we were there in Castle Street – and such a open air meeting was a compelling medium for a discussion on 18^th century history: entirely in the spirit of the subject matter in a lah di dah self-referential post-modernist sort of way. There was also talk of psycho-geography and mythogeography, but time marches on and we needed to walk up Bisley Road to the cemetery.

A long line of walkers made its sentient, serpentine way along the pavements: this was an absolute spectacle in itself, and to witness one hundred people making their studied way up the steep incline of Bisley Road is something I will never forget. It’s hard to find a parallel or simile for such a sight – there probably isn’t one. It was a unique and ineffable experience. Thanks to Stroud Fringe for making it happen.

Angela addressed us from the front of her house; she spoke of its history as the Cemetery Gate Lodge, former home to the Cemetery Superintendents, and the symbolism of the sculptures in the cemetery, before before leading us to the chapel, where she spoke to us from the back of a waiting and handily placed open van. She spoke of the ecumenical nature of the internments and Pauline Stevens informed the crowd of the comprehensive research available on the Stroud Local History website. Other members of the audience added their thoughts too, in the spirit of this shared experience. Angela spoke of her work on memorialization and counter-memorialization.

It was now time to move to the area of the paupers’ graves. The audience was visibly moved by Angela’s recitation of her research and previous art installations, counter memorials to those long forgotten by history. A litany of the occupations of the buried indigent inmates of the workhouse, gleaned from the Death Records and revealing Stroud’s industrious past, plus details of the rudimentary nature of their graves, left an almost tangible, numinous atmosphere in the leafy, shadowed gloom of the graveyard. A fellow walker later told me that he was moved to tears by Angela’s gentle evocation within such a mute yet haunting landscape. I know from other later conversations that he was not alone.

Jim Pentney concluded with a few words about our Allen Davenport Chartist pilgrimage along the banks of the River Thames. Jim held aloft the stone he has carved from Allen’s birthplace at Ewen; we are taking this to the Reformers’ Memorial at Kensal Green, where Allen’s name appears. Finally, in the spirit of the shared collective experience of our walks and explorations, Jim said that all are welcome to join our Thames side ambles to London; information will appear on this website.

Some of us then retired to the Crown and Sceptre for some excellent and varied beer, where Angela, enthused and overwhelmed by the huge and positive response, thought that we really should put it on again next year. She most definitely has a point: as I first left the Ale House, some visitors who couldn’t get into the bar for the introduction, had already asked me if we could reprise the event.

What a day: well, that was a walk, that was; it’s hard to let it go.

Also see Angela’s website by clicking here!

My Memories of July 30th, 1966

Summer holidays were long then:
Eight weeks,
And by the end of July,
We’d run out of money and run out of fags,
And that was the big talking point:
We had no fags for the match,
No fags,
No Embassy, no Number Six, no Gold Leaf.

I told my mates of my dad’s jungle Chindit trick
(I’d read it in Safer than A Known Way,
About a soldier escaping back to British lines in Burma),
Smoking fags made out of tea leaves and bog roll,
And things were that desperate,
What with nerves and all,
That my mates thought it a good idea;
We gave it a go,

The fags were a fiasco,
But you look on the bright side when you singe your eye brows,
And even though we burnt our noses in the flames,
Mickey Hamm said that at least it got rid
Of the smell of my old Mice and Men dog, Chum.

We stared forlorn at the burnt Typhoo – Hornimans mix,
And the charred fragments of Delsey and Sellotape,
We had one last hope:
Extra time.
Dad took a last fag from his packet of Senior Service –
We hoped he might give us a drag,
Especially if we stared at him all the way through the tab;
He smoked slowly and obliviously and he smoked the lot,
And then stubbed the dog-end out in the ash tray.
We thought it was all over,
It was now.

STROUD GLOUCESTERSHIRE Wednesday 11th December 2024

Category: Write Up