Author: Stuart Butler

Class Conflict in Uley 1795

Uley and Michinhampton Common 1795

(1795 was a key year of national unrest, high food prices, decline in ‘deference’ and anonymous threatening letters)

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.

One of three notes sent to the gentlefolk of Uley in July 1795 – a parish that had seen incendiarism against the houses of master clothiers.

The response was to eventually provide subsidized bread – but the quality was found wanting, and so this message was sent two months later, in mid-September:

The distress of the industerous people through the dearness of provisions calls aloud for an immediate consultation therefore a meeting is desired next Munday morning 21int by nine o clock in the morning on Hampton coman to consult what steps to take for an immediate alteration. Be pld to let more know it further. With it make no delay or else we all must starve immediately.

The response was to put troops on standby – 300 people met on Minchinhampton Common on the afternoon of that day and another, smaller crowd gathered on 5th October.

The next local ruling class response was some detective work in Uley to ascertain who was the author of the anonymous letters – they decided it was an ‘obscure’ local tailor. The JP, the Reverend Baker, and fellow magistrates, thought a warning would suffice, but two other differently lettered, seditious, anonymous notes threatened violence: ‘expect to loase yr heads without any ado’.

In consequence, the magistrates decided to ask the Secretary of State, the Duke of Portland, for advice.

His response?

‘The person in question is in so low a situation of life … that I am inclined to think it may perhaps be the best way of preventing disturbances in future to let him know that the Magistrates are well informed of his attempts & that they have it in contemplation to proceed against him, which may possibly induce him to quit the country …’

E.P.Thompson in his chapter The Crime of Anonymity in Albion’s Fatal Tree shows how this sort of dialogue between the ruling class and the lower orders was part and parcel of the so-called Age of Deference. Gloucestershire was no exception – and just think! How many anonymous threatening letters might have been destroyed at source, or have disappeared, or remained unwritten for lack of materials or courage – or just blew away, or lost legibility, provenance and import in a night of rain?

So just as with Stroud Scarlet and slavery, we might need to go beyond the available evidence:

So how do we create a counter-narrative?
That is,
“A performative counter-narrative, what we might call a ‘guerrilla memory’”,
Or “Lieux de memoire, sites of history, torn away from the moment of history” (Pierre Nora),
Memorialisation that moves beyond ‘obsessional empiricism’
and ‘the fetishisation of surviving historical documents and sources’,
To a counter-heritage, a counter-memorialisation.

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.

How a Cotswold Village Memorialises Itself: Uley

In 1795, anonymous threatening letters were left for gentlemen of the parish,
Sufficiently disturbing for the local JPs to contact London for advice,
And sufficiently noteworthy for inclusion in national historical studies,
So, having done the reading, I decided to hop on the number 35 bus,
The timetable giving me a clear hour’s run before the return to Stroud,
In an attempt to take a few photos of how Uley presents its history
To itself, its residents, plus tourists and visitors.

The Uley Millennium Green notice boards
For People and Nature, And Breathing Spaces,
Make no mention.

There is a brass plaque in The Street:
Uley Community Stores
Officially opened by HRH The Prince of Wales
On the 22nd February 2013;

There is a detailed large map of Uley and Owlpen,
But again, no mention of 1795;

The church has several grand 18th century gravestones,
Master clothiers remembered,
But, alas, no ‘Village-Hampdens’:
‘Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.’

Stroud and the Black Atlantic

Thoughts derived from a reading of
Creating Memorials Building Identities The Politics of Memory in the Black Atlantic
(Alan Price Liverpool University Press 2012)

Doors of No Return,
Historic, documented, liminal places,
Not gone with the wind, but both visible and invisible,
Spaces and places in the black Atlantic archipelago
With messages and mementoes from the slaving past,
Open doors to the truth –
But we too have landscapes that require re-reading,
Reinterpretations that acknowledge a history
That might be interwoven with the triangular trade,
But whose messages are obscured or buried –
The home of Stroud Scarlet, for example;

So how do we create a counter-narrative?
That is,
“A performative counter-narrative, what we might call a ‘guerrilla memory’”,
Or “Lieux de memoire, sites of history, torn away from the moment of history” (Pierre Nora),
Memorialisation that moves beyond ‘obsessional empiricism’
and ‘the fetishisation of surviving historical documents and sources’,
To a counter-heritage, a counter-memorialisation.

Well, Nelson Street lends itself well to this:
(A maritime name – but our narrative ignores Trafalgar,
And instead remembers Horatio Nelson’s commander in the Spanish Main,
Colonel Edward Despard, executed as a republican in 1803:
‘Fellow Citizens, I come here … to suffer death upon a scaffold … a friend to truth, to liberty, and to justice … a friend to the poor and the oppressed’,
And the African-Caribbean Cuba Cornwallis,
who in 1780 carried and nursed the delirious Nelson
All the way downriver through Nicaragua, and so saved his life.)
A pub called the Golden Fleece,
A clock called the Blackboy Clock, with an explanatory plaque,
That foregrounds horology rather than slavery –
Indeed, there is absolutely no reference whatsoever to the Age of Enlightenment,
And the engendering of an ideology of justificatory racism,
Nor to the symbolism of the black boy being the relentless slave of Time …

Perhaps we could have a window display somewhere,
Of sugar loaves, tobacco, rum, fragments of Stroud Scarlet,
Seeds from the West Indies and Africa fashioned into a triangle,
Images of the infamous slave ships,
Collages of images and text and poems and statistics,
To leave as counter-heritage calling cards,
At welcoming pubs and cafes;
Counter-heritage calling cards listing local residents and addresses
of those who benefitted financially from the 1834 abolition of slavery,
A Stroudwater Slavery Trail,
Connecting the Blackboy Clock, the abolition arch, Sheepscombe and Lypiatt,
(where residents owned slaves in the West Indies)
With performance and interpretations of the walk for exhibition,
Then different visits each year to country houses, stately homes and so on,
Buildings and landscapes with hidden slavery connections,
For further reinterpretations, as we move art and monument
From object to process
And from ‘noun to verb’,
As we create museums of the past, present and future.

See Stroud and The Triangular Trade.

Stroud and the Triangular Trade

18th
Century
Sea Dog Doggerel:
A 21st Century Shadow.

‘All
Ship-shape
And Bristol fashion’:
With river, canal and turnpike,
Cloth could be carried down to Bristol, bound for
Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea, Benin, Angola, Gambia.

 Then
The Door
Of No Return:
 The Middle Passage,
 Nevis, Barbados, Jamaica,
Virginia, Haiti and South Carolina.
They fill the hold with sugar, cotton, tobacco:
Commodities that still cast a ship-shape shadow. 

From
Where else
Did this nation’s
18th century boom time come?

War,
Slavery,
Enclosure,
Exploitation
Mechanisation,
And the British Empire,
But the most lucrative of all
Was the shark’s feeding frenzy. 

And
Stroud lies
Hidden within the
Long decayed ledger books
Of Bristol merchants at their quayside,
Stroud Scarlet bought and sold in the damp
Teasled mill air of the tenter hooked Five Valleys,
Before exchanging use and life for human life and death
On the Middle Passage for the West Indies and the Americas.

Hidden History at the Rose and Crown: Captain Swing

When you stay at a posh gastro-pub like the Red Lion,
Just by the River Avon at East Chisenbury, near Pewsey,
With a prehistoric, Saxon, medieval and tranquil landscape all around,
It’s hard to remember that you are deep in Captain Swing land:
‘ In taking my leave of this beautiful vale I have to express my deep shame, as an Englishman, at beholding the general extreme poverty of those that cause this vale to produce such quantities of food and rainment. This is, I verily believe it, the worst used labouring people upon the face of the earth. Dogs and hogs and horses are treated with more civility; and as to food and lodging, how gladly would the labourers change with them!”
Sunday November 21st 1830, is when it all kicked off,
With 200 labourers demanding higher wages
And an end ‘To them damned threshing machines’;
Sir Edward Poore met the labourers at Manningham:
“I am satisfied that your wages ought to be raised and I will do my utmost to obtain for you a more adequate compensation for your labour”,
And he tossed them a sovereign and believed order had been restored.
But a sense that the old moral economy would prevail over new and base capitalism,
Encouraged the rioters, and in a long chat with Augustus Hare, the rector of Alton Barnes,
They said that a magistrate had informed them that they would be breaking no laws
If they were to smash the threshing machines with their hammers and iron bars.
So they marched from the wharf at Honey Street,
Allington, All Cannings, Patney, Maningham Abbots and Woodborough,
Until some 250 men met at the Rose and Crown at Little Woodborough,
Had their customary bread, cheese and beer,
Then smashed machinery (threshing, chaff-cutting and haymaking machines)
At farms in Woodborough, demanding money from farmers
(John Clift at Church Farm offered two half-crowns –
It needed another ten shillings before they dispersed),
They then traversed the bridge over the canal at Honey Street,
And so to Alton Barnes and Manor Farm, next to the church.
The tenant (Robert Pile) had been to Marlborough, with the yeomanry,
Putting down riots at Rockley,
But returned to use pistol and shotgun against the labourers as they tried to wreck machinery;
He was attacked, in turn: “God damn your blood, you tried to shoot me, and now I’ll do for you”.
The rioters dispersed after attacking the house and receiving a ten pound note;
They moved on to Stanton St. Bernard, then back to the Rose & Crown,
Where the yeomanry captured 28, before taking them to prison in Devizes
(En route an attempt was made to rescue the prisoners at Chirton),
Two sentences of death (Charles Davis and Laban Stone) were handed out,
Commuted to transportation;
The yeomanry remained on alert,
But the new poor law would soon do its work,
And the labourers were rendered docile for a generation,
Until ‘Hodge’ listened to Joseph Arch
And a trade union was born.

November 24th 1830 — About two o’clock we were summoned by two half drunken men who professed to be „sent on‟. They came to the door and asked for money, “any trifle‟, announcing that two hundred were coming at their heels. After failing of their errand, they went down to Pile’s House opposite, whither I followed them. He was gone to Marlborough, and there was none but the women in the house. As the only chance, I had the church bells rung, but none of the labourers came; perhaps they were too far off, and did not hear. About ten minutes after the troop arrived. The machine had been taken to pieces, but that did not satisfy them; they must break it. And breaking it they were, when Pile dashed in on horseback, and fired … they dragged him down, and have nearly killed him. Then they burst into the house and broke everything to pieces, and for sometime I expected they would serve us in the same way; so irritated were they, and so mad with drink. Indeed they talked of coming back tonight and burning down all his ricks and barns … The Yeomanry were here by six and I have just heard that they have surprised several of the rioters in the public house at Woodborough. (Letter of Augustus Hare)
November 25th 1830 — We have had no further alarm beyond the many reports, of which, if we believed one half, one could not have much rest…… Troops are at Devizes and Marlborough. We have our own special constables, patrols and fire engines and I trust are in a better state of preparation than we were. Poor Mr. Pile is not out of danger, I fear, though I hope he will do well. A large fireball was found in his field the morning after the attack. We hear of five great fires over the hills towards Calne, and at Salisbury dreadful work is going on. Our ring leaders are chiefly taken and we had the pleasure of seeing some of them go past with the cavalry yesterday morning. All the villages round about us seemed to have contributed their fair share of men, and I fear there are some very bad ones amongst them. Our village had not one, and only two were from Great Alton (Alton Priors), but of course they all rejoice secretly at what is being done to bring them greater wages. At the same time some of them are frightened to death, and the wives come crying about their husbands, they are sure they will get their heads broken. At all hours people are coming – farmers to consult about what should be done, and with fresh stories. In short, we live in a strange nervous state; and if we do not make an example, and that speedily, of some of the worst, there will be no end to these outrages …
The greater part of our rioters are men who earn from twelve to twenty shillings a week at the wharf and spend it all in the beer shops. (Letter of Maria Hare)
November 26th 1830 — The activity of the magistrates and yeomanry have struck a panic which will, I trust, spare us any further alarm. Yesterday a Bow Street Officer came to get information. He came out of Kent and says his own impression is certainly that the fires proceed from the people of the country. He hoped to have got a good clue to one of our incendiaries. The chiefs of our ring leaders are in custody and Augustus went this morning with Mr. Miller to identify some of the prisoners. He was doubtful about one, till the man put an end to his hesitation by saying, “You, Sir, can witness I was not breaking the machine, for I was talking to you.” I have written so confusedly before that I think you will have no clear idea of my share of the day, so I will tell you what I saw. On the approach of the troop, as they came over the bridge, Augustus said to me “Go home and keep in the house” and so amid the cook’s entreaties that “master would come home too”, which I knew was in vain, we betook ourselves to the house, locked and bolted the doors and windows, and had just retreated upstairs when a thundering knock came at the front door. Finding my plan of concealment would not do, I presented myself at the drawing room window and held a parley with them. “They wanted to do no harm”. “What have you got those clubs and hammers for, then?” I refused money and went away, but the continued knocking, and threats of breaking doors and windows, soon made me pull out some shillings and throw to them, with which they went away content. Meanwhile I saw in the churchyard all the women and children collected; leaning over the wall of Mr. Pile’s yard I could distinguish Augustus and one or two others; and in the farm yard and all round it were a mob, with shouts, hammering the machines to pieces. I suppose this had gone on for about twenty minutes or half an hour when we (the cook and myself, for the other servants were all gone nearer the scene of the action) heard a tremendous gallop, and in an instant saw Mr. Pile riding furiously amongst the mob, who gave way directly, and had he kept his ground there, all had been well. There was a confusion, and all I could distinguish was that the farmyard was cleared; a report of a gun came from the ricks behind the barns, there was a great scream set up, loud shouts, and to my horror I saw Augustus and those with his rush into the field amongst them. However, the alarm for him was not long; after a few minutes I distinguished him leaving the crowd, and making his way to the house, and never did my legs carry me more willingly than as I flew down the stairs to open him the door. When I again got to my station the mob were all come round and advancing upon the Pile’s house, and the noise was terrible of breaking their windows and doors. As they had vowed vengeance against Augustus for having brought the gun out of the house, he kept out of sight, whilst I sent away the few who came for money, and who were easily contented. After they had completed their destruction at Mr. Pile’s, which was not till the poor mangled victim was brought downstairs again, and had given them £10, we had the satisfaction of seeing them file away across the fields to Great Alton. In about half an hour they returned to break the Crowe’s machine which we had put in the field, and then we saw no more of them; but as they went off to Stanton, declaring of their intention of returning at night, it was an amazing relief when Mr. G. and some other men arrived, who said they had just left Devizes, and heard the troops ordered “on Alton‟. And so ended our siege, which it must be owned was as little resisted as ever enemy was; but the best labourers were all at a distance, and those near, far too frightened to give any help. (Maria Hare)
December 10th 1830 — The odd thing about the riots is, that this is not a year of scarcity. There has been no hard winter and no uncommon pressure of any sort to raise this outcry. And when one sees half of the discontented, are men who spend their money at the beer shops, and who might get ample if they chose, it hardens one against sympathy with their distress, and inclines one to think the lenity and indulgence granted in return for their proceedings, not the best judged. (Maria Hare)

http://www.wiltshire-opc.org.uk/Items/Wilsford/Wilsford%20(Pewsey)%20-%20Charles%20Davis%20Swing%20Riot%20Captain%201798-1831.pdf
http://www.wiltshire-opc.org.uk/Items/Woodborough/Woodborough%20-%20Swing%20Riots%201830.pdf
http://www.wiltshire-opc.org.uk/Items/Alton/Alton%20Barnes%20-%20Swing%20Riots%201830.pdf

Names for the Chartist Beer and Chartist Film Progress Report

WHAT’S NEW:

Two updates:

1. The beer – a message from Greg at Stroud Brewery: ‘We have the John Frost artwork, and putting it together on a bottle label. Chartist whisky aged organic smoked porter to be bottled Sept/October. So beer will be ready for sipping in November.’ We are now deliberating on the accompanying text.

2. Film news from John:

Dear all,

Firstly I must apologise for the delay in getting in touch. I had hoped that we would have started filming by now but other things have unfortunately got in the way – most noticeably the theatre festival which will take place in Stroud from 9th to 11th September (www.stroudtheatrefestival.co.uk) – apologies for the little advertisement!

I am looking to start as soon as possible with filming and would like to know people’s availability through August and September (as these look like the best times to film) in a bit more detail so that we can cast and begin filming scenes.

I have spoken to the Museum in the Park and it will be possible to use there for some filming. The Sub Rooms is being painted at the moment but again we can use the space for filming when this is done. The big common scene which sparked the whole film off I will know more about later this week when I have had the chance to discuss wildlife issues further with the Stroud District Council green spaces person.

I have sent this to as wide a circulation as possible and some of you may not have attended any of the meetings we have had so far. We need people! To inhabit crowd scenes for meetings in pubs, outdoors and churches. When I have a clearer idea of availability I will be able to say when we need people. Sorry I realise this is a bit vague but I have ideas as to who will be cast in some of the roles and it is really when I know all the availabilities that I will be able to move things further on.

If you know of any musicians who want to write songs from the chartist songbook the link is https://www.calderdale.gov.uk/wtw/search/controlservlet?PageId=Detail&DocId=102253

If you know of anyone else who should be involved in the project please also let me know.

Thanks for your patience and apologies again for the delay.

All the best

John Bassett

Director – Spaniel in the Works Theatre Company

www.spanielworks.co.uk

Ten new faces among the committed group of people who read through the script on Monday – good to see some young people present too. We have a potential troupe now of some thirty people. John and Andy will start filming very soon. We have asked SVA if we can show the film at the Brunel Goods Shed on November 4th.

This was posted on Facebook to advertise the June event :

Good People of Stroud and Ye Five Valleys,
Hear Ye, Hear Ye:

We are having a meeting on Monday June 13th to read through the latest version of the script and start casting and sorting dates for filming on the Chartist film project. This will be at the Sub Rooms at 7.30 in the George Room. If you have not been on John Basset’s email list, then please let John or myself know if you wish to attend so that we can link you to a draft script.

In addition, if you are a musician or know any musicians who might want to write music for songs we found in the Chartist songbook please pass on our details and we will send a copy of the words for people to peruse and hopefully write songs for. We are looking for all genres, not just the folk idiom.

The Republic of Ireland’s game will be over by 7.30, so no worries on that score.

Thank You, Good People of Stroud and Ye Five Valleys

Read through of script and casting at the Subscription Rooms in the George Room on Monday June 13th at 7.30. John (Bassett) of Spaniel in the Works will email scripts.

In addition if you are a musician or know any musicians who might want
to write music for songs we found in the chartist songbook please pass
on my email details and I will send a copy of the words for people to
peruse and hopefully write songs for.

All the best

John Bassett
Director – Spaniel in the Works Theatre Company

Calling all Stroud musicians! You may know about a film we are making about the Chartists. As part of the research for this we found a “Chartist Hymnbook” – the word hymn is very loose by the way. We are looking for musicians from all backgrounds, styles and genres to put some of the verse from these to music. If you are interested please message John Bassett. Thanks.

1. Andy Wasyliw and John Bassett will shortly lead the next read through of the completed script. They have agreed a schedule for the filming of the interior scenes. This filming will take place quite shortly. John will then speak with SDC about when filming could take place on Selsley Common. Please contact John at info@spanielintheworks.co.uk for anything to do with the filming (I deal with the walks and spoken word events).

2. I had a pleasant time on Selsley Common on the anniversary date of May 21st, taking pictures of the footpaths that would have been used on May 21st 1839, as well as the hawthorn in all its may blossomed splendor. A talk followed at the Bell about Chartism in general, and the Selsley meeting in particular. The porter was tasted, praised and self-referentially toasted.

3. Jim Pentney has sent through this review (partly in haiku) of the Stroud Radical Reading Group’s Chartist spoken word event at the Golden Fleece on May 18th.

Review in haiku.

Back room radical reading

of the Northern Star

Radical reading

‘When Adam delved and Eve span’

Chartist poetry

Full Marx Arts and Crafts

that shoulder giants still stand

in the Chartist rhymes

Wednesday 18th May, Golden Fleece back room.

It was, I think, the jolliest Radical Reading evening, partly because the Northern Star verses are so accessible and direct and not trying to be clever. They deserve to be sung – probably were in just this sort of setting. Part of an essay was read and it was said, although stifled and suppressed, Chartism was the most significant political movement of the nineteenth century laying fertile ground. I put a word in for Alan Davenport.

A potted history of Chartism and a contextualization of the 1839 Selsley Hill meeting can be found at http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/the-5-ws-and-h-of-chartism.html

1. Tom Brown has finished the art work for the bottled beer: a splendid depiction of John Frost.

2. Stroud Radical Reading Group members have earmarked their next meeting on May 18th 7.30 pm for an evening’s discussion on Chartist poetry. This is at the Ale House in Stroud.

3. I hope that two further, future events might develop from this meeting: (a.) a spoken word event, (b.) written/other media responses as though participants were Chartists from 1839, visiting our times in 2016. (What’s good and what’s disappointing sort of thing.)

4. In addition, I envisage 3 walks with performance and readings in the landscape etc.: 1. From Stroud Brewery to the Bell at Selsley. 2. One from the Ale House to the workhouse and Stroud cemetery. 3. One involving Allen Davenport – nationally famous Chartist born at Ewen by the source of the Thames.

5. John Bassett (Spaniel in the Works) has finished our third version of the script – we have been absolutely and patiently pains-taking in ensuring that we have a perfect piece that we run with. We have listened carefully to the suggestions offered at the last meeting when we collectively read through the script: gender balance and family viewpoints.

6. Initial filming (thanks to Stroud Festival) gets closer. John will shortly be contacting Andy Wasyliw about the schedule; storyboarding etc. We are still hopeful of being ready for November 4th. The other events listed above will definitely be happening before that date.

7.The photocopying bill for the last read through was nearly £50 – we need to email the script in future. Please let John know your email address etc., if necessary (see email address on the Spaniel in the Works website).

The Chartist commemorative beer has been brewed at Stroud Brewery – likely name ‘Chartist’ on the basis that ‘A pint of Chartist, please’ rolls off the tongue quite easily. The beer is a good old fashioned porter – just the ticket. The label is quite possibly going to feature an image of John Frost who was the leader of the Newport Rising in 1839, but was also selected as prospective Chartist parliamentary candidate for Stroud on Rodborough Common on Good Friday, 1839.

We’d like to thank people for putting us right about the necessity to avoid May through to late July as a date for filming our take on the 1839 Chartist rally on Selsley Common. The last thing we want to do is harm any wildlife. And we’d also like to put peoples’ minds at ease about how we create the illusion of 5,000 people present: it will be an illusion.

It is also important to point out that “Day of Hope” is a small community based production with limited funds made for and by Stroud people. This is not a massive production with lots of vehicles and a massive crew invading the common.

The well documented May 21st Selsley Common Chartist meeting was an important moment in Stroud history and a part of the introduction to true democracy for the whole of the country. Using the actual location is important to us but it is also important not to offend people or indeed disturb wildlife.

We are currently in communication with Stroud District Council about when and how we film outside on Selsley after late July.

We will be able to meet our deadline for the film’s finish, however, as we shall now film the inside scenes first.

With thanks again,

Day of Hope production

NEED TO PROTECT SKYLARK FLEDGLINGS, SO NO LONGER FILMING ON SELSLEY COMMON IN MAY. IT WILL BE SOMETIME AFTER THE 3rd WEEK OF JULY. DETAILS WILL FOLLOW after discussions with Stroud District Council.

WE ARE AIMING TO SHOW THE FILM IN EARLY NOVEMBER, TO COINCIDE WITH THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1839 NEWPORT RISING. HOPING FOR THE BRUNEL GOODS SHED. SHED BOOKED FOR NOVEMBER 4th.
John Frost – who had earlier been provisionally selected to oppose Lord John Russell as MP for Stroud – was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered for his involvement in the Rising. The sentence was commuted to transportation.
Newport has recently held a whole day of official commemoration of the Rising and we are in close contact with Newport – we hope to link up.

OLDER NEWS:

I thought it a good idea to have a central place to review progress towards the Chartist film; the associated events such as 2 or 3 Chartist walks, the Chartist spoken word event, the Chartist writing workshop, and of course the NAME OF THE BEER.

This is the link/place and I’ll update through the winter, spring, summer and autumn. Twenty people met for the first read through of the script at the Sub. Rooms on February 23rd; it was a most encouraging start and John is now working on the next draft, pondering on the date for the next meeting, and even having some preliminary thoughts about casting.
Filming can then start: inside scenes as and when; Selsley in the late summer; editing in the early autumn.

At the moment, we are envisaging a walk or two for the Stroud Fringe and Stroud Festival in the late summer; a workshop, spoken word event and film in Stroud (SVA and/or Brunel Goods Shed).

I think it would be great to have an event at the Stroud Brewery, too.

See https://chashtownley.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/john-frost-chartist-candidate-for-stroud-meeting-at-rodborough-common-29-march-1839/ for more information on John Frost.

‘Hi Stuart,

I would love to support the project, and sure we can have a beer aptly named for the occasion. It is still a bit far ahead to work out how exactly we will pull it off. Our seasonal calendar is fairly set but we have a few options including re-branding any of the bottling brews we are doing at the time. We are also looking at a porter aged in oak casks, which if we get on with it soon, could be ready for autumn and we could dedicate this to the Chartists of Stroud, past, present and future…

Some suggestions for names would help and any images you have will get us thinking.

Cheers

Greg’

Tory Philosophy and History: a Satire

I have to be honest,
I do know Tories,
And they can be quite personable –
We all make sense of the world in different ways and all that;
But as a type, an archetype, a stereotype,
Then it’s all a bit different for me,
My prejudices come to the fore,
And there are a number of reasons why I find it hard to love Tories:

Because they watch Downton Abbey, War and Peace and Jane Austen on the telly,
And constitute the most reactionary government since Peterloo in 1819;

Because they use statements like
‘Now let me be quite clear about this’,
And ‘it’s just plain common sense’,
Ignorant of the fact, as Trotsky said,
That ‘Common sense is the wisdom of the ruling class’.

Because they like hunting: truly, ‘the unspeakable after the uneatable.’
And, talking of Hunt, it’s not just his mealy mouthed sanctimony,
Nor his hypocritical NHS cant, nor the way he cuddled up to Murdoch –
Because they all do that –
No, it’s because of his appalling Pecksniffian smug-lipped face;
He honestly thinks it makes him look honest in front of the camera:
Behold the tragedy and the irony of self-delusion – as well as media-training.

I can’t stand the sight of all those white men in suits braying in the Commons,
When introducing the bedroom tax or cutting tax credits or cutting Sure Start,
Or claiming it’s possible to live on £7.50 a day and then claiming forty quid for a breakfast,
Or tax payers’ money for their horses and their stables,
Then trousering rent while declaring war on social housing.

I don’t like their definition of a welfare state,
Which is essentially bulldozing housing estates and then building affordable homes,
Which only cost £400,000.

There’s more …
I despair when they claim that food banks aren’t necessary
And then laud these as an example of the Big Society in action.
Then there is the way they lionise philanthropy and charity,
And wage war on its negation: parity.

And the way they say the reason why Etonians and Harrovians rise to the top
Is because the Left has closed down the grammar schools.

I singularly hate the fact that the top twenty Tory donors are tax dodgers.

I hate the way they say the word ‘strike’ in such a pejorative way,
Ditto, ‘nationalisation’ and ‘trade unions’,

I hate the way the House of Commons’ champagne bill has doubled since the last election,
And I can’t stand the way they say that they are now ‘the party of working people’,
And I loathe those brainwashing weasel words, ‘striver’, ‘shirker’, ‘aspirational’;
Then, again, I might just loath even more the way they use the term ‘Taxpayers’ money’,
As though the poorest and the richest are bonded together in harmony of interest and commonality,

It’s all part – conscious for some, instinctual for others – of their divide and rule mentality.

I don’t like the way they demonise Asian women who can’t speak English,
And their threat of deportation if such women don’t pass their exams.

I particularly hate the way they worship ‘modernity’ alongside ‘heritage’ and ‘tradition’,
But say that trade unions are dinosaurs, alongside socialists, Marxists and communists.

I hate them because we have the most expensive railways in Europe
And they don’t seem to care that it’s impossible to travel at Christmas and Easter.

I hate the way they think and say that we should spend our time
Moving from one energy supplier to another, just to save a few pence,
Because this shows the virtues of privatisation, competition and the free market.

I hate them because of the Bullingdon Club, their fun and games
Of vomiting, smashing up restaurants and porcine fellatio.

I hate them because London pollution levels went beyond safe in 2016,
Yet they talk of cutting out all ‘the green crap’.

I especially hate the way they claim that they are pragmatists,
Not ideologues, but just honest people who speak the plain truth,
When in fact they make Orwellian 1984 Newspeak seem naïve,
Innocent, ingenuous and, as it were, amateur.

And talking of History and 1984, I loath Gove
For his little Englander Island Story approach to the curriculum
And Nicky Morgan for her obedient and dutiful commitment
To testing, academisation and privatisation of schools,
As well as her steadfast disregard for any evidence that says that she is wrong.

There’s more:
Cameron’s response to the flooding to show he cares?
Send in the troops.
Cameron’s thanks to Scotland for staying in the Union?
English votes for English laws.

But let’s return to hatred,
And conclude:
I hate the way they invoke the spirit of Dunkirk, the Blitz and the Second World War,
Forgetting that the reward for the long, hard slog to victory
Was the Beveridge Report, the Welfare State and a promise that
There would be no return to the Great Depression, austerity and balancing the books;
Instead, there would be council housing, an NHS, free education, full employment.
Now, the promises are broken with deceit, delusion, hoodwinking, trickery,
As they beguile, con and cozen us, as they take us for a ride,
Take us to the cleaners, and pull a variety of fast ones,
With their cronies at the Mail, the Telegraph, the Murdoch media,
The BBC, the freebies, the Daily Express;
Disinformation, illusion, hogwash, indoctrination,
And all in the name of a free press.

But, going back to 1819, the most reactionary Tories ever and Peterloo,
Let’s remember Shelley:
We are many, they are few.

Searching for the WW1 Nissen huts above Cowcombe Hill

My gran and gramp ended up living in a Nissen hut near Cowcombe Hill in 1921. This was after volunteering and serving in France, and then being made redundant in London ‘owing to slackness of trade’; whilst gran had brought up two young children, as well as working as a ‘canary girl’.

Those two young children – my dad and Auntie Kath – would eventually have two other brothers, but those first years in the early twenties must have been idyllic for Rod and Kath.

Dad loved being taken to the Crown at Frampton Mansell in his later years, and would sit outside gazing wistfully into the distance. My auntie sent dad this poem when he was ailing in the 1980s. I took it with me on my cycling expedition today (19.1.16), searching for the site of the Nissen huts.

For My Brother

When we were young and full of fun
And all our days were carefree
Do you remember that September
We climbed the old pear tree?
The finest crop grows at the top,
That bramble jam we ate,
Our mother made and carefully laid
On shelves with name and date.
We took a stick and went to pick
The biggest blackest berries,
Pulling down to near the ground
Clusters hung like cherries.
Remember the gate where we used to wait
For the early morning light,
To show in the field the wonderful yield
Of mushrooms, gleaming white.
The nuts we found so full and round
And filberts too, so rare,
That lovely autumn on Sapperton Common,
What joy we used to share.
Wild harvest brings a host of things
Mushrooms, nuts and fruit,
But best of all, with every fall,
Comes memory, absolute.

I would like to thank Diana Wall of the Minchinhampton History Society for helping me find the location of the huts. I posted a request for information on the Facebook Five Valleys WW1 group and Diana was so helpful:

‘I wonder if they were the huts left by the Australian Air Force at Minchinhampton Aerodrome? Although just in Minchinhampton parish, they seem nearer Frampton Mansell and were used as rental accommodation in the twenties and thirties …the huts were down the little lane that goes from Gypsy Lane to the main entrance of Aston Down (it is now blocked off for cars) Some of the bungalows there still contain elements from those early huts – one contains part of the chapel. I will see if I have any pictures in my stuff on the aerodrome.’

The bungalows there have names such as Old Aerodrome Farm and ANZAC Bungalow – there was nobody around when I visited and it was real edgelands terrain: I had to make my way circumspectly through a motley collection of old vehicles in what might have been a scrap yard. But it was easy to imagine that the cars and vans could have made their own way there, riderless, through their own volition. It felt as though I had wandered into a Cohen brothers’ film, surreally set in a Forest of Dean 1980s enclave, but on top of the Cotswolds in 2016. A sort of Wolds Fargo.

But there was something even more captivating down the end of the lane – a mouldering, roofless, ivy clad red brick structure, with mature ash trees and saplings poking out through the windows from what once had been the floor. I knew I must be in the right spot because involuntary memory kicked in:

Dad could never eat chicken – he always ate beef on Christmas Day in those pre-turkey days of the 1950s and ‘60s – and every Christmas Day, after a few pints, he would tell us why. The annual story of life in the Nissen hut never varied but always entertained:

‘I was just a boy and got stuck in the pantry. The door closed to with a bang and there was no light, no lamp, no candle. I couldn’t see the door-handle to get out, and I was surrounded by the most awful screeching and squawking. It was all around me like banshees from Hell. I was scared out of my wits.

It wasn’t till my eyes got accustomed that I saw all these chickens hanging from the wall. Dad had wrung their necks but hadn’t finished the job and they were half dead and half alive. It was horrible. I screamed and screamed till mum eventually came and got me out. I haven’t touched chicken since that day. Never have and never will.’

Now, my dad was no softy … It was universally acknowledged that he’d had a bad war – he served in the jungle behind Japanese lines with the Chindits in World War Two, and he used to tell me some hair raising stories about that when he sat me on his knee in the mid/late 1950s … but he could never eat chicken.

And that all came back to me today – the right place at the right time. As was my brother, Keith, who told me that the hut was so elongated that dad learnt how to ride a bike inside the home – up and down, up and down. To keep warm, too, I should think.

 

“Calais Allez” by James Pentney

Haiku Hiking (cont.)

Overlook repetition
Calais allez vous

Fireworks overhead (5th Nov), the Stroud charity Marah, organised a sleep out in Saint Lawrence churchyard in recognition of homelessness.

The name Marah comes from the book of Exodus – a hard place.

Twenty five years before with a Leonard Cohenite drone in my head, I scribbled  ‘Platerest Fireworks’. Platerest, near Bucharest, was where there was a so-called orphanage: Windows with no glass, spasmodic freezing running water, dodgy wiring and no light bulbs. On the fifth of November a coach arrived from Cornwall and amongst the contents was a box of bulbs.

Late afternoon on the fifth of November
Darkness was closing on tiny hands frozen
Like hatched little birds without any words
What do they know and remember?

There they remain on the fifth of November
Filaments broken in darkness unspoken
Silent as time, how they should shine
What do they know and remember?

The fifth of November, cross Europe to trail hereMattresses, towels and a box of light bulbs
What should we give, how should we live
What do we know and remember?

The night of the fireworks, the fifth of November
Screwing the bulbs in and switching the switch on
They clapped and they cheered, lit up the tears
What did they see and remember?

The fifth of November, still glows in the embers
But beauty is candlelight silent on Christmas night
What will they see and where will they be
Where will they be in December?

At least at Platerest there was a roof. Multiply by ‘n’ re the refugees of today.

Things link – carving stone at Marah led to the Independence Trust above the launderette.

There a group photocopied and hand stitched Haiku Hiking, which Stuart Butler kindly encouraged by posting on his blog ‘Radical Stroud’ Tuesday 8am; mindful meditators sit in silence at St Laurence Church. 9am the following week Richard Pond handed me six sides of sheet music set to the words.

What should we give now?

Snug in boots with felt innards, last year I trudged off to a dentist appointment in Dursley. The boots were covered in mud when I arrived so I left them outside. Sat in the waiting room wearing just the felt insides, an elderly gentleman approached.

“I have not seen boots like that since I was a boy,” he said in a broken accent. “I used to make them in Siberia. We would dip them in water and they froze immediately with a coating of ice. They kept me alive.”

He explained he was born Polish and his parents were dead. Alone he had crossed Europe somehow and by the end of the war he was in Palestine where he became a British army cadet. Demobbed he came here and married a Dursley girl.

Tuesday 5th January 2016
Down along the Downs
A rainbow trunk leads on east
Through moss green branches

Wednesday 6th
Sub-merged in the mist
Verging West Dean’s wader birds
Merge in the wet lands

The Long Man looks down
Mist lifts to see refugees
And the Iona stone

Battle Abbey siege
Come on in said the stone man
Don’t say we saw you.

 Dover’s Castle Inn
Where Wellington planned defeat

Fab four penned Day Tripper

Battle of Britain

Pilots eye dope smoking maid
‘She’s not so dumb’

Thursday 7th January
Wild Dover dawn
Day tripper beats into the port
Spray over the bow

Dolphin guards Calais
High razor wire board border guards
Piss into the wind

Waste landed fenced in

Bulldoze ferry terminal
Exit demolished

Eritrean Christmas
Tree bells ring out nourishment
Shaking their cold hands

Armour clad riot police appeared under the road bridge at the entrance as I made my way out of the Jungle.
“Twit, forgot the pocket Scrabble.” I turned back.
A boy, Syrian at a guess, rode by on a bike.
“Do you want to learn English?”
He nodded. I gave him the Scrabble. “It’s a game.”
The so-called Jungle is a frontier township of domed tents huddled around the busy, muddy high street of improvised shops and kiosks. On foot through squally showers I trudged beside high white fences topped with coils of razor wire, round roundabouts, passed an occasional bleak factory site, white police vans and over the railway track back to the port. Lines of lorries thundered by.                A onetime ferry terminal was being demolished.

Signs “sortie, depart, exit” tumbled onto the puddled sea front.
Foot passengers are few
A fellow day tripper asked
“So where are your boots?”
He had also been aboard on the morning crossing from Dover. I had muttered “Merci beaucoup”, when he helped me shoulder the rucksack over two coats, weighed down with Iona stones, mallet, chisel, camping stove, gas, food. On my feet paraded the felt lined, Canadian arctic boots. It was his scarf that made me assume him to be French.

Now I was returning considerably lighter if wetter:
“Tell me what you’ve been doing,” he enquired in a strong Irish accent.
I tried to explain about the boots; about the carved stone from Iona; that today is Christmas day in Ethiopia; about the church made of timber and plastic by the Eritrean refugees and how I had shared Christmas dinner with them. He asked interested probing questions.
“Are you with a church group?”
“No, I often go to church, but I’m here independently.” It was my turn. “And where are you from?”
“Derry.”
“Hasn’t Derry lately been the City of Culture?” I think he was pleased I knew that. “And you, are you a philosopher?”
“I have a degree in philosophy,” he paused, “from the Open University. I did it when I was a prisoner, a political. I was first put away for seven years when I was sixteen.”
It could not have been long after Bloody Sunday.
“Then I did a life stretch.” He would have known the hunger strikes and dirty protest of the H blocks.
We went on to talk about the cruel things we do when we are young and think we are right, both now being grandfathers. How one needs to learn to see things from others’ perspective.
“And faith for you?” I questioned.
“There’s an intelligence to evolution,” he replied.  In a word perhaps, God.
Two lads from Derry about his age were working as volunteers with West London Cyrenians for homeless people in the late 1970s. They could well all have been at school together.

Brian and Tommy knew they could not remain in Derry and not be drawn into the troubles, so they left; and he stayed. The same choice faces those in Syria, Iraq, Eritrea (cont.)

Between a stone and a hard place
Haiku Hiking (cont.)
From the Long Man to Long Kesh
Au revoir, my friend

Friday 8th January 2016
Pilot hunched in stone
Looking up to the sun rise
Over the Channel

Seven hours later
The western skyline blazes
Down from the Ridgeway

Monday 11th January
Cricklade’s slipway’s lost
In Old Father’s overflow
Splashing old boys’ boots

 

The Ale House in Stroud, Stroud’s Workhouse and Pauper Burials

The first meeting of the Stroud Radical Reading Group took place in the aptly named Ale House in Stroud, hard by Union Street. Union Streets very often came into named existence after the passing of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act – parishes were grouped into Unions, with a central workhouse: NO OUTDOOR RELIEF. Individual parishes lost their workhouses with their possibly more lenient atmosphere andallowance of outdoor relief. Henceforth, conditions inside the workhouse were to be made worse than if you had the worst paid job outside (called ‘lesser eligibility’).
In effect, POVERTY WAS CRIMINALISED.
How excellent then, to sit near the plaque in the Ale House, with its Mr. Bumble praise:

Stroud Ale House Plaque Image

IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF THE BENEVOLENCE INTEGRITY AND PERSEVERANCE WITH WHICH THE LATE EDWARD PALLING CARUTHERS ASSISTED FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS OF HIS LIFE AS CHAIRMAN OF THIS BOARD IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE AFFAIRS OF THE POOR. THIS TABLET IS INSCRIBED BY THE UNANIMOUS WISH OF THE GUARDIANS NOVR 1842.

Jump down to the end of this piece for a piece on Stroud Workhouse, but for now, here’s a few lines on the meeting on Wednesday January 13th 2016: ‘This month we will be reading ‘Reform or Revolution?’ by Rosa Luxemburg. We will be discussing this short pamphlet and the important ideas which arise from it. It’s our first meeting so feel free to come along, even if you have not read the book! The reading is free online at www.tinyurl.com/srrg01  For more details get in touch: Search ‘Stroud Radical Reading Group’   StroudRRG@gmail.com

“Are there no workhouses?” asked Mr Scrooge,
(In a manner of speaking)
“Well, yes there are”, she politely replied,
(In a manor of speaking)
“Do you know Stone Manor on Bisley Road,
Near Stroud Cemetery’s Pauper’s Path?”
(Rattle his bones over the stones,
He’s only a pauper who nobody owns)
Here comes the creaking wheelbarrow,
With the open hinged, burnished coffin,
The shrouded corpse ready for the open pit,
An abrupt incarceration on the hard rock,
Without ceremony or by your leave,
Anonymous resting place for the restless dead,
Feeling gravity’s pull down the steep scarp,
And the noxious effects of the acid soil;
But with soil so thin, rock so hard, pits so shallow,
Cotswold storms raining in from the sea
Would disinter corpses, the slipping dead,
Strange meandering memento mori,
Gewgaws, bones, trinkets, keepsakes,
Grave work for Old Father Time in his sou-wester,
Leaching the dead down rain-washed rivulets,
Down to the Frome, thence the Severn and the sea,
While forget me nots waved goodbye in the wind.

Forced Walks and Holocaust Day

A message from Richard White:
Greetings walkers…I thought you might be interested in this update on the Honouring Esther project I am doing with Lorna Brunstein….repatriating memory, renewing stories, generating resonances.

Our project to complete the Forced Walk: Honouring Esther is now in good shape for the walk in Germany on 4 and 5 February. We will walk the actual route of the death march from the site of the slave labour camp to the Belsen-Bergen Memorial, stopping as we did in Somerset in April at points along the way to listen to Esther’s testimony and other thoughts and sounds. At those points we will share as much as we can of the experience, amplify the resonances via social media, and welcome online interaction with those who want to share it with us. We will gather sounds and images from those moments as we walk the route 71 years to the day that Esther did.

More detail on the web site herehttps://forcedwalks.wordpress.com/the-walk-in-germany-2016/

If you are thinking of joining us on foot it is time to make your arrangements and please contact us directly.

There will be a further briefing for those wanting to follow online soon.

We have spent a lot of time on logistics and fundraising and now it istime to focus on the art, with that in mind for those of you able  to get to Bath we would like to invite you to an open conversation at
44AD Gallery, Bath on Sunday 17 Jan afternoon 16.00-18.00.
An opportunity to explore the issues and help us reflect on our practice as artists in this context. If you are thinking of joining us on foot, but haven’t decided, do come along.  If you are able to make this please RSVP, thanks.

Our networking in Germany is taking off and it looks like we will have some great support and local walkers joining us. It may be that we will meet someone who saw the group of Polish Jewish women leaving the camp called Waldeslust, 71 years ago. In Somerset we had Mayors and it looks like we will be met by the Mayor at Winsen at the end of day 1. This will be a powerful experience, whatever your involvement has been to date, you are making this possible. Join us on foot or online

Best wishes
Richard


— 

Richard White
mob: 07717012790

web: www.walknowtracks.co.uk