Category: Events

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.

This performative presentation was commissioned by the Chartist Convention to commemorate the 1839 Newport Rising, in general, and the death of George Shell, in particular.
Parts might be repeated, again, on the anniversary of the Rising next November, when we might perform by candle light in the graveyard of St Woolas Cathedral in Newport.
It was there that the dead insurrectionaries were secretly buried at night by the army to prevent any public displays of grief with consequent martyrdom. So circumspect was this military procedure, that all the horses’ hooves were muffled…

Stuart Butler
07923489663
stfc12@hotmail.com
www.radicalstroud.co.uk

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
https://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.

Thanks to Deborah Roberts for the above photos.

Chip Shop Hop

A group of us gathered at the corner of Bath Road and Frome Park Road, initially in search of the legendary Rodborough Chip Machine
https://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.

This is part of the overall project: A Wander is not a Slog

https://awanderisnotaslog.wordpress.com

Other walks are scheduled for London, Greece (aiding refugees), Canada and the USA. It may be that our expedition is the only one in the world featuring chip shop poesy.
The piece immediately below is about the social history of chip shops within the context of the industrial revolution:

Common

Common – Low- Coarse – Vulgar – Immodest – Inelegant – Indelicate – Plebeian – Uncouth – Uncultivated – Unrefined – Lower class – Working class – Humble – Mean – Simple – Plain – Obscure – Low born – Rude – Base – Unwashed

‘You’ve had your chips’

Fish and chips and football and fags and fog:
Steam trawlers off the Dogger Bank,
Or off Iceland or in Arctic waters,
Home to Hull and Aberdeen and Grimsby,
North Shields, Milford Haven,
And then the railway lines to Billingsgate.

While down at the other stations, railway halts,
Markets, depots and railway sidings:
Potatoes, peas, coke, gas, oil, lard;

While over in the engineering works:
Trays for fish, trays for chips,
Scuttles and scoops and baskets for spuds,
Batter bowls, fish slicers, cruets, egg whisks,
Washing, peeling and chopping machines,
Refrigerators, tiles,
Shop fittings, counters, chairs and tables and cloths.

And in the fish and chip shop:
Steam and smoke and condensation,
Collective conviviality,
Eating with your fingers while reading
Last week’s newspaper’s football results;
Betting, the pools, a smell of beer,
Undomesticated housewives spurning cooking …
Common …
Such a loud and visible working class merriment
That fuelled middle class condescension,
Snobbery and suburban distaste:
As with Hemel Hempstead’s mayor in 1913:
‘I think that probably the fish frying trade
is the most terrible in existence.’

But seven years later came the music hall song:
‘Chips and Fish! Chips and Fish!
Eh! By gum it’s a Champion Dish!
Oh! What a smell when they fry ‘em,
Just get a penn’orth and try ‘em.
Put some Salt and Vinegar on, as much as ever you wish,
You can do, do, do without supper when you’ve
Had a bob’s worth o’ Chips and Fish!’

There were over 30,000 chip shops then,
Keeping the working class going through war,
The General Strike, the Great Depression,
Unemployment, short time working,
Debt, rent arrears, and shared kitchens,
With a welcome alternative
To the ubiquitous bread and dripping,
Bread and jam and milky tea,

I don’t know how many chip shops there are now,
But they still offer solace as well as sustenance,
For who can forget Jilted John:
‘I was so upset that I cried all the way to the chip shop’ –

But what happens when the last real chip shop closes for the last time?

‘You’ve had yer chips, mate.’

Unless we keep the real chip shop frying
And the chip shop red flag flying.

Inspired by a re-read of Fish & Chips and the British Working Class 1870-1940 John K. Walton Leicester University Press 2000

The Chip Shop Walk Score

‘To be practised in unknown cities (or parts of cities) or any place with potential for multiple chip shops. 1. Locate a chip shop. 2. Buy a bag of chips. 3. Have them wrapped ‘open’ to eat whilst walking. 4. Choose a direction to walk in. 5. Walk and eat. 6. When you locate another chip shop, repeat from step 2. 7. If you finish your chips before locating another chip shop, ask passers-by to point you towards one. 8. Cease when exhausted/sated … Best practised in a small group (sharing chips) in order to avoid chip poisoning. Can be adapted to other foodstuffs, depending on local ubiquity.’

Addendum
We walked on August 16th: the 199th anniversary of Peterloo. We commemorated this tragedy with a reading of Oliver Lomax’s poem – each walker was given a copy of the poem to wrap around their chips and read as they walked. Here’s the first stanza:

Peterloo
I beg you will endeavour to preserve the most
perfect silence. Put your hand to the ground and
take its pulse.

The poem can be found in its entirety here: https://www.wcml.org.uk/blogs/Lynette-Cawthra/A-new-poem-about-Peterloo/

Football’s Coming Home at The Prince Albert

I like visiting the Albert,
I like the way it commands a crossroads,
Welcoming all cardinal points of the compass,
Just like a traditional inn should,
I particularly like it when the football comes home.

I like visiting the Albert in springtime,
When vases of flowers greet you in the bar,
With vernal fragrance and equinoctial promise,
Stretching into blossoming infinity,
But that’s not as good as when the football comes home.

I like summer drinking in the Albert,
With a pint of Alton’s Pride,
It’s like an infusion of Thomas Hardy,
With every novel you’ve ever read
Returning like a Native,
Or like the football.

I like autumn drinking in the Albert,
When mists and mellow fruitlessness
Entwine themselves around the eaves,
Just like a gothic Woman in White,
Or Jordan Pickford.

I like winter drinking in the Albert,
Sledging down the snow-scaped common,
Then in the bar for mulled ale and wine,
Just like we’re in A Christmas Carol,
But not with the ghost of Sam Allardyce.

I like visiting the Albert,
I like the way it commands a crossroads,
Welcoming all cardinal points of the compass,
Just like a traditional inn should,
I particularly like it when the football comes home.

I like visiting the Albert in springtime,
When vases of flowers greet you in the bar,
With vernal fragrance and equinoctial promise,
Stretching into blossoming infinity,
But that’s not as good as when the football comes home.

I like summer drinking in the Albert,
With a pint of Alton’s Pride,
It’s like an infusion of Thomas Hardy,
With every novel you’ve ever read
Returning like a Native,
Or like the football.

I like autumn drinking in the Albert,
When mists and mellow fruitlessness
Entwine themselves around the eaves,
Just like a gothic Woman in White,
Or Jordan Pickford.

I like winter drinking in the Albert,
Sledging down the snow-scaped common,
Then in the bar for mulled ale and wine,
Just like we’re in A Christmas Carol,
But not with the ghost of Sam Allardyce.

I like walking around the Albert,
With a boulevard and a bowling green,
A welcome in the streets,
A chat on the allotments,
It’s like the Orwell pub of his dreams,
But it’s not The Moon Under The Water,
It’s The Prince Albert,
It’s The Football’s Coming Home.

It’s The Football’s Coming Home,
It’s The Prince Albert,
It’s George Orwell’s pub of his dreams.

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

Bird’s Foot Trefoil
Rock rose
Milkwort
Fairy flax
Kidney vetch
Quaking grass
Yellow rattle
Orchids – green-winged, common spotted, fragrant & pyramidal.
Wild Thyme
Wild Marjoram
Lady’s Bedstraw
Mouse-ear Hawkweed.

At the summit, we assembled on a mysterious earthwork and paused to consider the hard life of the medieval peasant, burdened with duties and obligations to the Lord of the Manor hard daily tasks of animal husbandry, agriculture and hay making unjust burden for of the Poll Taxes and consequent unrest and revolt.
The 637th anniversary of the murder of Wat Tyler.
John Ball hung, drawn and Quartered just one month later.

And then we returned over the glorious high summer common back to Rodborough.

Writen by Bob Fry

Alternative Heritage Walk

Radical Stroud’s June walk is a week-early Jo Cox Memorial Walk: Meet at Rodborough Church, Friday June 15th at 10; returning to the church at 1pm. We shall be investigating the medieval history of Rodborough from the days when it was still owned as part of the Manor Minchinhampton by the Abbess of Caen. A trail that takes in several recorded medieval residences and places.

Radical Stroud’s June walk is a week-early Jo Cox Memorial Walk: Meet at Rodborough Church, Friday June 15th at 10; returning to the church at 1pm. We shall be investigating the medieval history of Rodborough from the days when it was still owned as part of the Manor Minchinhampton by the Abbess of Caen. A trail that takes in several recorded medieval residences and places. The idea would be to go down Kingscourt Lane to Kingscourt and thence towards Rodborough Manor then up to Rodborough Common. The walk would take us to meet the De Rodboroughs, the Achards, the Cynnes, and to the forgotten Horestone marking an old boundary and up to the vanished Rodborough Common Wood. We shall also, natch, commemorate Wat Tyler, leader of the Peasant’s Revolt, murdered on June 15th, 1381. Readings and psychogeographical musing as per. Led by Robin Treefellow.

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:

‘I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe …

In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear …’

But we did descry the Reverend Kilvert
As we wandered into the spring of 1870,
Slipping down some wormhole of time:
‘Hay in the distance bright in brilliant sunshine …
Every watercourse clear upon the mountains in the searching light …’,

We wandered past the wooded site of the Battle of Bryn Glas,
Where Glendower’s and Mortimer’s armies clashed,
In bloody carnage in 1402:
‘The noble Mortimer …
Was by the rude hand of that Welshman taken,
A thousand of his people butchered …’;
And there, farther in the distant hills,
A tumulus at the source of the River Lugg,
And there, Offa’s Dyke,
There, a deserted medieval village,
As we made our way through woodland and holloways,
And through a profusion of flowers and names:
Bluebells shimmering on high spring sward,
Ferns and bracken unfurling their fronds,
Primroses, daffodils, stitchwort, cuckoo flowers,
Lady’s smock, cuckoo pint, lords and ladies, priest’s pint,
Campion, sanicle, rhododendrons in a churchyard:
‘Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood’;

The churchyard conjoined William Blake and Thomas Gray,
The churchyard conjoined the time and space,
That connect shire and city –
For those twelve days taken from the pay packet of 1752,
Take us to a TUC rally on old May Day in London in 2018,
And William Blake’s ‘mind-forg’d manacles’,
Transmitted across the country on the BBC,
Just like a city-walk …
a familiar phenomenology …
Comfy old BBC,
Entertaining, informing and educating …
But just as a city changes shape with the centuries,
With a centre that wanders away from itself,
So the BBC’s signposts,
Now turn only to the right.

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.

A lush sap soaked mind prevailed
as Nailsworth wrapped woods about its hills,
it was all you could hear: the pulse of sap to water to sap.
Rolling inward like a vortex
drawing a secret power.

Unknown to the world
Nailsworth in its valley
singing other times.
Flashing dragonflies,
coughing deer,
the animals are gods in Nailsworth’s bosky gospel.

 

Nailsworth

Where is the nail?

In the bend about water running

going up the boggled lane

through the settled crease of one cottage

a throw of luck stone

towards the moon’s dying corner

where is the nail?

in places snickering with froxsome springs

where delving badgers are between

the meadows once here with roots under gone
to weaving whereabouts to dreams in soil deep

of worms singing to butter tub moons

I know by irksome way and fiddly path

the nail is here.

there in the creak croak of fulling mill,
rumbling wheel rolling water

the clatter whack of loom frame in a damp walled hug slope cottage

in crying out owls from mouldy heart ash trees

by slippery sliding road ice

the nail is here.

Jingling in pennies and knotted in travellers joy.

in the places, the lostings and found things, today and yesterday,
moon lamped and in the going, the staying.

the nail is what put it together.

the nail is what had the cockerels crowing.

(Robin Treefellow)

God Save Great Thomas Paine

Why, sirrah, and why, madam, hast thou not read thy Tom Paine?

‘Kings succeed each other not as rationals but as animals …
an hereditary governor is as inconsistent as an hereditary author.’

And you needn’t visit Paris in this, the year of our Lord,
Seventeen Hundred and Ninety Two,
To witness republican enthusiasm,
You could travel on the turnpike to Sheffield instead,
And witness the 5,000 cutler ‘republican levelers’,
The ‘Sheffield sans-culottes’ with their Angel of Peace
Proffering Tom Paine’s Rights of Man to Britannia,
While across the land, parodies of the national anthem are sung:
God Save Great Thomas Paine,
While
AT THE FEDERATION THEATRE IN EQUALITY SQUARE,
On Thursday
Will be Performed
A new and entertaining Farce, called LA GUILLOTINE!
Or GEORGE’S HEAD IN THE BASKET!
Dramatis Personae: Numpy the Third …
Tight Rope Dancing from The Lamp-post,
By Messrs. CANTERBURY, YORK, DURHAM &.
And
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!’
The following 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’

Why, sirrah, and why, madam, hast thou not read thy Tom Paine?

‘Kings succeed each other not as rationals but as animals …
an hereditary governor is as inconsistent as an hereditary author.’

And you needn’t visit Paris in this, the year of our Lord,
Seventeen Hundred and Ninety Two,
To witness republican enthusiasm,
You could travel on the turnpike to Sheffield instead,
And witness the 5,000 cutler ‘republican levelers’,
The ‘Sheffield sans-culottes’ with their Angel of Peace
Proffering Tom Paine’s Rights of Man to Britannia,
While across the land, parodies of the national anthem are sung:
God Save Great Thomas Paine,
While
AT THE FEDERATION THEATRE IN EQUALITY SQUARE,
On Thursday
Will be Performed
A new and entertaining Farce, called LA GUILLOTINE!
Or GEORGE’S HEAD IN THE BASKET!
Dramatis Personae: Numpy the Third …
Tight Rope Dancing from The Lamp-post,
By Messrs. CANTERBURY, YORK, DURHAM &.
And
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!’
The following 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’

Or you could visit Uley in 1795,
To read a threatening letter:

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 forhim 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.

Or hear the words of Sir George Paul on our locality:
’‘the cry of want of bread … forms a body of insurgents, amongst them
are mixed a number of seditious persons’,
And the Earl of Berkeley
‘A vein of bad materials runs through the lower order in the clothing part of the county which still continues to study Tom Paine with a few political clubs
of the very dregs and of T. Paine’s cash’.

Why, sirrah, and why, madam, hast thou not read thy Tom Paine?

‘Kings succeed each other not as rationals but as animals …
an hereditary governor is as inconsistent as an hereditary author.’

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.

Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié ne font que se creuser un tombeau.

Those who make revolutions by halves do but dig themselves a grave.

On ne revendiquera rien, on ne demandera rien. On prendra, on occupera.

We will claim nothing, we will ask for nothing. We will take, we will occupy.

* Ne négociez pas avec les patrons. Abolissez-les.

Don’t negotiate with the bosses. Abolish them.

Le patron a besoin de toi, tu n’as pas besoin de lui.

The boss needs you, you don’t need him.

Ni Dieu ni maître!

Neither god nor master!

Comment penser librement à l’ombre d’une chapelle?

How can one think freely in the shadow of a chapel?

Vivez sans temps morts – jouissez sans entraves.

Live without dead time – enjoy without chains.

* Il est interdit d’interdire.

It is forbidden to forbid.

Dans une société qui a aboli toute aventure, la seule aventure qui reste est celle d’abolir la société.

In a society that has abolished all adventures, the only adventure left is to abolish society.

L’émancipation de l’homme sera totale ou ne sera pas.

The liberation of humanity will be total or it will not be.

Je suis venu. J’ai vu. J’ai cru.

I came. I saw. I believed.

Cours, camarade, le vieux monde est derrière toi!

Run, comrade, the old world is behind you!

Il est douloureux de subir les chefs, il est encore plus bête de les choisir.

It’s painful to suffer the bosses; it’s even stupider to pick them.

La révolution est incroyable parce que vraie.

The revolution is incredible because it is real.

Les motions tuent l’émotion.

Motions kill emotions.

Bannissons les applaudissements, les spectacle est partout.

Let us ban all applause, the spectacle is everywhere.

Un seul week-end non révolutionnaire est infiniment plus sanglant qu’un mois de révolution permanente.

A single nonrevolutionary weekend is infinitely more bloody than a month of permanent revolution.

Le bonheur est une idée neuve.

Happiness is a new idea.

Plus je fais l’amour, plus j’ai envie de faire la révolution.
Plus je fais la révolution, plus j’ai envie de faire l’amour.

The more I make love, the more I want to make revolution.
The more I make revolution, the more I want to make love.

Je jouis dans les pavés.

I find my orgasms among the paving stones.

La perspective de jouir demain ne me consolera jamais de l’ennui d’aujord’hui.

The prospect of finding pleasure tomorrow will never compensate for today’s boredom.

Construire une révolution, c’est aussi briser toutes les chaines intérieures.

Building a revolution is also breaking all the inner chains.

Le sacré, voilà l’ennemi.

All that is sacred – there is the enemy.

La poésie est dans la rue.

Poetry is in the street.

*La culture est l’inversion de la vie.

Culture is the inversion of life.

L’art est mort, ne consommez pas son cadavre.

Art is dead, don’t consume its corpse.

Ne me libère pas, je m’en charge.

Don’t liberate me, I’ll do it myself.

Si vous pensez pour les autres, les autres penseront pour vous.

If you think for others, others will think for you.

Professeurs vous êtes aussi vieux que votre culture, votre modernisme n’est que la modernisation de la police.

Professors you are as old as your culture, your modernism is only the modernisation of the police.

Debout les damnés de l’Université.

Arise, you wretched of the University.

Même si Dieu existait il faudrait le supprimer.

Even if God existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.

Je t’aime ! Oh ! dites-le avec des pavés !

I love you! Oh, say it with paving stones!

Travailleurs de tous les pays, amusez-vous !

Workers of the world, have fun!

Pouvoir à l’Imagination.

Power to the Imagination.

Je participe
Tu participes
Il participe
Nous participons
Vous participez
Ils profitent

I take part
You take part
He takes part
We take part
You all take part
They profit.

Ne changeons pas d’employeurs, changeons l’emploi de la vie.

Let us not change employers, let us change how we employ life.

STROUD RADICAL HISTORY: ALTERNATIVE HERITAGE WALK – Friday 18 May 2018

Two years ago an Alien landed in Nailsworth, unnoticed by the Stroud Valleys folk. Since its arrival after fifty years temporarily rooted on Planet Essex, this strange being has immersed itself in the Gloucestershire soil, attempting to make sense of its move here “for a change, and it ticked more boxes than anywhere else”.

See how a creature far from home has struggled with unfamiliar territory; intensively exploring its new homeland on foot, or by bicycle, guided by its ‘Ordnance Survey Explorer 168’, Gloucestershire ‘Pevsners’, and Wikipedia.

Join a naive explorer for a circular walk, as this being shares with you its Outsider Views on the Stroud Valleys heritage, as it attempts to blend-in with its new people.

Two years ago an Alien landed in Nailsworth, unnoticed by the Stroud Valleys folk. Since its arrival after fifty years temporarily rooted on Planet Essex, this strange being has immersed itself in the Gloucestershire soil, attempting to make sense of its move here “for a change, and it ticked more boxes than anywhere else”.

See how a creature far from home has struggled with unfamiliar territory; intensively exploring its new homeland on foot, or by bicycle, guided by its ‘Ordnance Survey Explorer 168’, Gloucestershire ‘Pevsners’, and Wikipedia.

Join a naive explorer for a circular walk, as this being shares with you its Outsider Views on the Stroud Valleys heritage, as it attempts to blend-in with its new people.

The seven mile route takes in the stories of Negelsleag, as well as Forest Green, Newmarket, Shortwood, Rockness, Washpool, Barton End and Avening. We will share stories from the Jurassic period, Long Barrows, stone mines, mills and cloth, Nonconformity, the arrival of the railway, the football clubs, Quakers and bacon.

There will be a couple of readings from Essex exile, Fred Slattern, a poem exorcising his Essex ghosts and embracing his Celtic fringe, and his mercifully short prose piece about a lost soul and a meeting at the Crossroads, where we might meet the ghost of Shipton, high above Nailsworth.

There will be contributions on tangential themes from other members of Radical Stroud. If YOU have any stories to share, bring them along.

Meet at 9:30 at Cossack Square, Nailsworth, opposite the Britannia, a hundred yards south from the Nailsworth bus station. (You could catch the 9:08 Number 63 ‘Forest Green’ bus from Stroud Merrywalks.)

No need to book for the walk, just turn up. Allow five hours. Bring refreshments. There will be a short stop at a pub for a drink, en route, and the option for food and drink after the walk at The Brittania.

More information from sootallures@yahoo.co.uk