Category: Walks

“No Pasaran!”

“Where Are the Faces We Seek?”

This extract from a contemporary poem gives a flavour of the 1930s. You’ll hear about the Means Test which was, in essence, a vicious attack on the unemployed living on the dole during the Great Depression when unemployment as a national average reached 25%. The extract shows how domestic and foreign policies were intertwined,

 

‘Where are the faces we seek, the British faces?

Let the living answer the roll call of the dead …

Where are those who tramping on Means Test marches

Knew that the road they had taken against oppression

Led to the front in Spain

The shouts in Trafalgar Square of “No Pasaran!”’

 

Narration:

The rise of Hitler in 1933 and his aggressive foreign policy led socialists and communists and liberals and men and women of all persuasions that a stand had to be taken when Franco led a fascist revolt against the democratically elected Spanish government in 1936.

There was a belief that if fascism could be stopped in Spain, then that united front would show fascist powers such as Italy and Germany that war would not pay. In short, victory against fascist aggression in Spain could deter further wars.

Working women and men, the unemployed and the intelligentsia began to make their way to Spain in the face of opposition and disapproval from British government. Many without passports walked the Pyrenees and made their way to the universal front that separated freedom from oppression and the rise of European fascism.

The British government refused to heed the warnings from Spain.  Ignoring German and Italian aggression in Spain, the British government pursued a policy of non-intervention.

Here this warning that came from the courageous poet Fredrico Garcia Lorca, who was killed by the fascists.

“I will always be on the side of those who have nothing.

All we want is liberty and a better standard of living and culture for all of Spain and for all Spanish People”

The horses are black

The horseshoes are black

On their capes shine stains of ink and wax,

Their skulls are made of lead

Which is why they do not weep

Up the road they come

With their souls of patent leather

Narration:                                                 

And so with Spain facing a fascist revolt and with Hitler trying out terror bombing tactics of civilians as they did at Guernica a feeling developed that Spain was a European battlefield for civilization.

On April 26, 1937, Guernica was the scene of devastating bombing by the Condor Legion of Nazi Germany‘s Luftwaffe. Stuka dive-bombers practised the terror-bombing strategy that would be employed in the Blitzkrieg campaigns of 1939-1940.

Narration:                      

The bombing went on for 3 hours non-stop. The constant shrieking of the stukas dive-bombing and dropping their bombs with hideous accuracy and atrocity.

When the bombing was over the people left the shelters in silence. To find the streets littered with broken bodies No one was crying and only profound shock was written on their faces.

They could not understand the nightmare that had just taken place.

Everywhere flames and thick black smoke, people praying, some stretching their arms to heaven for the mercy that never came.

Men, women and children wandering through the woods in search of their loved ones only to find their broken, bloodied and bullet ridden bodies. When it grew dark the flames of Guernica were reaching to the sky and the clouds took on the colour of blood…’

Narration

The International Brigades were made up of cosmopolitan volunteers from across the world, united in their determination to stop Franco and fascism. Hear the voice of this volunteer:

‘We had tried to help the Baques by attacking Huesca in May 1937.

We fought the fascists west of Madrid in the battle of Brunete.

We sent in 2 divisions including the 15th International Brigade and the British Battalion.

We advanced to bloodshed and defeat, 25,000 casualties including 300 communists taken prisoner.

They were found later with their legs cut off.

In January 1938 we tried once more to deflect Franco from Madrid at Teruel but the aerial and artillery bombardment was relentless.

We froze in the blizzards and knew then that the war was lost        

 

                                                          Music and song?

Narration:                                        

Chamberlain’s infamous 1938 Munich agreement with Hitler, selling Czechoslovakia down the river, showed Stalin there was no hope for an alliance with the British government against Hitler, so he stopped propping up the Republican cause and Soviet aid was cut back. The International Brigades were withdrawn in November 1938

We came from Gloucestershire

To free the Spanish heart

The heart of the Spanish people

Betrayed and torn apart

We’ll stay as long as it takes

For the cause of Liberty

To fight for what is right

Till everyone is free.

Frontiers that divide the people

Soon we will tear apart

Though the masses speak a thousand tongues

We only have one heart

Now red with people’s blood

From the bombs of the enemies’ raids

Flags blooming like flowers on Freedom’s barricades

Girl of the people’s army

Do not weep for me

Yes, I may have a British name

But I came to Spain to fight for Liberty

And so, in Madrid, the great struggle between two incompatible beliefs raged. Madrid was fighting for Spain, for justice, for humanity

Now let’s hear from La Passionara

Isidora Dolores Ibárruri Gómez (also known as Pasionaria (“the passionate one” or Passion flower“),  Republican  and communist. She is renowned for her slogan ¡No Pasarán! (“They shall not pass!”), which she issued during the Battle for Madrid in November 1936.

La Passionara  

‘People of Spain, do not turn off your radios.

All around us are lies and rumours.

Death to fascism!

We will die on our feet rather than live on our knees.

Fight with whatever you have, with knives and burning oil if need be.

We must defend the Republic!

Every home a fortress, every street a trench, every neighbourhood a wall of iron.

Women of Madrid, today, look for your men not in the factories but in the trenches.

No Pasaran!’

Song: Viva La quince Brigada                                 

Viva la Quince Brigada,
rumba la rumba la rumbaLa

Viva la Quince Brigada,
rumba la rumba la rumbaLa

que se ha cubierto de gloria, Ay Manuela ¡Ay Manuela,

que se ha cubierto de gloria, ¡Ay Manuela ¡Ay Manuela

2 Luchamos contra los moros, rumba la rumba la la rumba

mercenarios y fascistas, rumba la rumba la la rumba

Viva la Quince Brigada ay Manuela Ay Manuela

Viva la Quince Brigada,
ay Manuela Ay Manuela

  1. Solo esnuestrodeseo,
 rumba la rumba la rumba la.

la
a cabar con el fascismo, rumba la rumba la rumba la.

Viva la Quince Brigada,
 ¡Ay Manuela ¡Ay Manuela

Viva la Quince Brigada,
 ¡Ay Manuela ¡Ay Manuela

  1. En los frentes de Jarama, rumba la rumba la rumba la.

notenemosniaviones   rumba la rumba la rumba,

Ni tanquesnicañones, ay Manuela   ay Manuela

Ni tanquesnicañones, ay Manuela   ay Manuela

  1. Yasalimos de España,
   rumba la rumba la rumba la.

Para luchar en otrosfrentes, rumba la rumba la rumba la.

Viva la Quince Brigada,
 ay Manuela   ay Manuela.

Viva la Quince Brigada,
 ay Manuela   ay Manuela

Narration:       

The fascists entered the capital at the end of March 1939 and Britain formally recognized the new fascist government.

Narration: La Passionara 

When the years pass by and the wounds of war are staunched…then speak to your children.

Tell them of the International Brigades.

Tell them how coming over seas and mountains, crossing frontiers bristling with bayonets, these men reached our country as crusaders for Freedom.

They gave up everything- love, country, home and fortune – fathers, mothers, wives, brothers, sisters and children.

Your cause, Spain’s cause, is ours.

Today they are going away. Remember them

BUT BEFORE WE HEAR ABOUT THOSE HEROES, let’s remember again how domestic and international politics were intertwined. Oswald Mosley held a meeting of the British Union of Fascists at 10 John Street in Stroud in 1934.SHOW PHOTO  He is thought to have stayed at Cainscross House (76 Westward Road). This was the home of Lt.-Colonel Gudman, leader of the West of England branch of the BUF.

Fascism had its supporters in this country after Mussolini’s March on Rome in 1922 (check date). Many were active as strike-breakers during the General Strike in 1926. I wonder if that Gudman was …

He wrote to the local press in 1939 opposing the Kindertransport. But enough of this, let’s hear about the anti-fascists.

A West Country Declamation

We remember Bill Morrissey of Elmore,

Gloucester vehicle builder and keen cyclist,

He crossed the Pyrenees by night,

To fight fascism at Teruel.

We remember Percy Williams of Swindon,

GWR engineer and then the 15th Brigade,

A young man killed at Caspe in machine gun fire.

We remember James Albrighton,

A young student from Wiltshire,

First protecting Madrid, then wounded at Brunete.

We remember Stafford Cottman,

Attacked by Blackshirts in Bristol,

He volunteered straightway at the age of 17,

To join the POUM and sleep in caves,

Then fight on the Aragon Front;

He escaped from Barcelona to pay tribute

To the International Brigade at Jarama.

We remember the Bristol Brigaders,

Who lost their lives:

William G. Boyce, January 1938, Teruel;

John Burton, February 1937, Jarama;

Lesley Huson, May 1938; E. Stephens, July 1938.

We remember Ralph Bates of Swindon,

Out on Barcelona Docks, then defending Madrid.

And then directing mountain troops in the Pyrenees.

We remember Winifred Bates, writing pamphlets

At the Ministry of Information,

Coordinating medical volunteers,

Then working in the French camps.

We also remember Ronald Bates of Swindon,

Fighting with the anti-tank unit at Teruel.

We remember Thomas Duncombe,

Of Wotton-under-Edge,

Killed at Gandesa, April 1938,

Trying to stop Franco reaching the sea.

We also remember Margaret Duncombe,

Gallant nurse,

International Brigade Medical Services.

We remember Laurie Lee,

Writer, poet, labourer and ant-fascist,

Walking out from Slad with his violin,

Crossing the Pyrenees to fight Franco.

We remember Wogan Phillips from Colesbourne,

Driving his Ford to Barcelona,

Helping Stephen Spender;

Ambulance driver in the Segovia Offensive,

Demanding compensation for British ships

Bombed by Franco,

Then organising a refugee ship for Mexico.

We remember Ted Fletcher,

30 Regent Street, Stonehouse,

Ambulance driver;

And Michael Johnston of Great Rissington,

He fought all the way from the Jarama to the Ebro;

Wounded, he then worked as a transport driver.

We remember the Minchinhampton naval rating,

Dive-bombed by Stukas in his frigate off Alicante.

We remember Alfred Brooks of Bream Labour Party,

Cinema manager in the Dean,

Shielding his six Spanish refugee children

From the Pathe newsreels of Spain,

By keeping them busy in the projection room,

Or dancing flamenco in the Dean.

We remember Mrs. Phelps,

Saluted by a Spanish refugee

Saluted by a Spanish guard of honour,

At her wedding at Holy Trinity, Stroud.

We remember Harry Clements,

Nellie and Bert Mardell, Nellie Shaw,

Mary Robert, Marcel Morand and Joy Evans,

All of Whiteway,

Who helped the refugees feel at home and find work.

We remember the Stroud greengrocer,

With his gifts of food to the refugees,

The local fundraisers,

Mr E.G.Hobson,

And the Stroud Committee to help Spanish democracy.

We remember Paul Ruiz,

Rowed by his dad to a waiting ship,

11 years old, bound for Gloucester;

Paul would later marry a local girl,

Not returning to Spain until after the death of Franco.

We remember Lawrence Baxeda of Catalonia,

His children taken by their mother to Mitcheldean,

He stayed with his brother to fight Franco;

Under a death-sentence, they escaped to France,

Surviving the Nazi occupation,

To be reunited with family in 1949

And find work in Cinderford Saw Mills.

Finally, in this eulogy,

We remember once more,

Laurie Lee,

Writer, poet, labourer and ant-fascist,

Walking out from Slad with his violin,

Crossing the Pyrenees to fight Franco.

We shall remember them all:

‘No Pasaran!’

Now finally let’s remember Thomas Duncombe (this is a flash-back to Wotton under Edge at the turn of the century)

Our ceremony here today, commemorating the life and death of Thomas Duncombe, owes its provenance to the serendipitous discovery of his name in IB files, together with the listing of his birth-place as Wotton Under Edge.

Because of this, we thought it right and proper to honour his name and to memorialize his death at Gandesa, fighting the fascist forces of Franco.

Our guest speaker was Dave Goodman, a fellow Brigader, who fought in the same sector as Thomas and who was captured and imprisoned. Dave came down from Stoke and stayed with us for that occasion on Saturday November 21st, 1998. Dave spoke the eulogy.

We planted two mountain oaks from the Pyrenees, held some readings and David John Helvig created a memorial tablet that was housed in Wotton’s tourist information office.

About 70 people attended the ceremony.

DECLAMATION

I would like to conclude with the paragraph I wrote back in 1998. It is still apposite.

The new millennium’s multicultural Gloucestershire needs to be aware of its anti-fascist past. Every year, the people of Wotton gather at their war memorial in November, to remember those who gave their lives from the town and locality. Yet one name has been almost completely forgotten – that of Thomas Duncombe. Until today.

Thomas Duncombe. “No Pasaran!”

Adey’s Lane, leading to the Old London Road. The only gate for the general public on the left as you walk up out of Wotton. You will find the trees there.

 

 

 

The Blackpool of the West (A Tale of Two Bridges Or Two Bridges and a Tunnel)

The Blackpool of the West

It’s so close to the endless edgelands of Avonmouth,

That warehouse-dystopian modernity,

Where no-one seems to manufacture anything,

Just store stuff, move stuff or exchange stuff,

And then choose a café for a coffee and a croissant:

The British economy.

But a century ago, courtesy

Of the Great Western Railway,

Severn Beach was reinventing itself,

As a holiday resort of sorts,

A Pleasure-land of the floodplains

With their isolated farms and cottages,

And then a railway station opened there in 1923

(The circular Avonmouth line had opened

Earlier at the turn of the century).

Its inter-war hey-day saw excursions,

Cyclists, promenaders, hikers,

Chalets, sheds, a structure built from bits of an old bus,

A boating lake, cafes, tea shops,

And the Blue Lagoon Swimming Pool,

With diving boards, see=saws, a slide and fountains,

At ‘The Blackpool of the West’.

And what else might you see in the summer-time

Along its mile-long ‘shingle beach’?

Look hard and ignore the bridge across the river,

For there they all are, forgetful of war,

Picnicking, paddling and dipping in the Severn,

When that fearsome turbid tide recedes,

And there are the twopenny deckchairs,

And there, the bicycle-stalls and donkey rides,

The paddling pool and the Water Carnivals,

The Bathing Beauty contests, the Seaside Revues,

And the celebrated Dance Competitions,

Are they doing the Lambeth Walk along the shingle sands?

But look.

There’s still more to see at Severn Beach:

Rollercoasters, swing-boats, and roundabouts,

The Ghost Train, dodgems, crazy golf,

And the boating lake:
(There were two islands at the boating lake

with an ice-cream parlour and decorative ‘willow pattern’ bridges) …

If the weather disappointed, then there was

The ‘Galvanised Gaumont’ showing the latest flicks,

Or the Severn Beach Hotel (aka the Severn Salmon),

With its litany of public bars, lounge bar, skittle alley,

Snooker room and ball room.

And if the weather is fine (it usually is at Severn Beach!),

Then you can watch the bicycle side-cars

As they traverse that shingle beach,

Bringing supplies to the refreshment stalls.

But wait.

Here’s the ghost of Ozymandias

Stalking the shingle beach:

‘Nothing now remains except the ornaments

at the base of the steps leading up to the pool.

These can still be seen complete with traces of the old familiar blue paint.’

 

Ozymandias is the motif that accompanies us on this walk,

As do the cliches of psychogeography

(But as someone once said, cliches are cliches

Because they do the job and that’s why they’re used a lot):

Liminality and palimpsests are two a penny here,

But these choices from the lexicon are not

The sole reason why I think this amble

On a red-hot July Sunday afternoon

Elevate this meander into an

Open air pop-up museum of sorts:

‘a temporary exhibition carefully curated, but with changing displays created by visitors with a widening circle of participants: a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.’

 

We did have a widening circle of participants:

A party of Japanese tourists

Grateful for our pointing out the location

Of the Blue Lagoon and also its absence

On their guides and phones;

We tripped through time with aid of information boards,

Plaques, posts and the memory

And recitation of the opening lines

Of Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

As we passed the occasional old farm,

As afternoon turned towards evening:

‘The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.’

What next?

Hay bales in rolling fields beyond barbed wire –

Discussion on the symbolism and history of barbed wire;

Discussion on texts such as The Book of Trespass,

And the deceptive iconography in Constable’s The Hay Wain;

The personal importance of William Cobbett’s Rural Rides:

How I’ve shared this text with friends and in history talks,

Asking audience members to raise their hand if they have read it,

I do so again on this walk;

I buy another two copies when I get home,

Probably the fifth time that I have bought this book –

I leave one, not forgotten on my shelves,

But on the table in the dark back room,

The cover upturned to act as an exhibit of sorts;

The other, a present for a companion.

But back to the walk – what next?

A glimpse of medieval ridge and furrow:

“Was there really more land under the plough on the eve of the Black Death?”

The word ‘warth’ on an information board leads to further discourse

About land reclaimed from the river and also memories

Of a performative walk upstream around Slimbridge,

In search of the possible 1649 Digger settlement there.

(https://radicalstroud.co.uk/the-diggers-at-slimbridge/)

 

 

Next up were teazles springing up on the footpath,

A reminder themselves of pre-industrial working

(The ‘domestic system’ as it was termed in my schooldays),

A reminder of handloom weavers and raising the nap,

And we raised the nap too with our own stories

On the Severn Beach Heritage Trail and the Severn Way:

‘The Trail starts on the sea-wall, almost underneath the Second Severn Crossing. It continues north from the trail described in the Severn Beach leaflets. Unlike Severn Beach, many of the sites still exist and can be seen by following this trail.’

And this is beguiling.

You reach New Passage,

 Where ‘a ferry had plied the river for centuries’,

Updated by the Bristol & South Wales Union Railway

(1863, broad gauge),

With a train that ran up a wooden jetty,

Some third of a mile long jutting out in the river

And ‘An imposing hotel was built to accommodate passengers’,

Who were often forced to wait by inclement weather,

And the second highest tidal range in the world.

The opening of the Severn Tunnel in 1886

Changed everything, of course:

Not just for passengers but freight too,

Particularly South Wales coal –

The life-blood of the Great Western Railway.

And so concludes our trip through Severn space and time.

Did we create an Open-air Exhibition of sorts?

Did we meet our definition of a Pop-up Museum?

Yes, we did in a pedestrian manner of speaking:

‘A temporary exhibition carefully curated, but with changing displays created by visitors with a widening circle of participants: a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.’

 

A walk.

A happening.

An open-air pop-up museum.

Created by slow walking, reading, conversing, writing and recording.

This truly was “walking as a situated practice”

at “the intersection of embodiment, site and heritage”,

as I/we “write from within the grounds” we “move through”.

‘

A Walk can be an Open Air Museum

A BS3 Museum Walk (Others Are Available)

Join me on one of my regular walks from my home to Ashton Gate, the home of Bristol City. I am highlighting the exhibits I connect with. If you were to undertake the walk you would, undoubtedly, see different things.
Exhibit 1 – Perrett Park
I enter Perrett Park through its main entrance at the top end and move slightly to the right. In front of me, on the skyline, I see, to my left, Dundry Parish Church. To my right I see Clifton Parish Church (Christchurch). Over the course of 12 months I am able to watch the sunsets as they move between the two churches, Dundry in the winter and Clifton in the summer. The variety of views seem infinite as do the range of colours and skyscapes to absorb. As one descends the steep concave slope which makes up the park, near the bottom entrance you encounter two anchor points. They are left over from World War. Barrage balloons were tethered there in attempts to deter the Luftwaffe bombing Bristol Docks and the goods marshalling yards at Temple Meads railway station. It’s difficult to imagine anyone bombing the harbourside in Bristol today. Or is it? I forgot to mention that, from the top of the park, you can see the Suspension Bridge.
Exhibit 2 – A Victorian Post Box
After leaving Perrett Park one quickly reaches St John’s Lane a long road that winds through Bedminster. At the junction with Paultow Road a Victorian pillar box is encountered. I have a thing about post boxes because they are a good way to mark the evolution of a particular location. In a place like Bristol that usually means the development of an urban setting. The pillar box on St John’s Lane gives me a clue as to when some of the adjacent housing was built. Further along I am likely to find post boxes but with markings of later monarchs. Towns and cities tend to spread out from a central point. Have a look at www.postboxmap.co.uk .
Exhibit 3 – Broad Plain RFC Ground
A couple of hundred yards along St John’s Lane is The Brunel pub. Behind it lie several rugby pitches, the home of Broad Plain RFC. But, long before the oval ball moved in, from 1894 until 1904 it was the home of Bristol South End FC which came Bristol City FC after the club amalgamated with Bedminster FC in 1897. Apart from my emotional connection to City through a lifetime’s support, it fascinates me that the site once had crowds of up to 14,000 to see some of the best teams of the day.
Exhibits 4 and 5 Albert Inn and McDonalds
As my journey continues onwards I reach the corner of Sheene Road and West Street, Bedminster. The former pub on the corner, currently known as the Departure Lounge, was once the Albert Inn and a pre-eminent venue for jazz music in Bristol. The thing is, I always meant to go there but never did. And then it closed about 20 years ago and has lurched along as a pub and bar ever since. The reason for it closing down, as I recall, was that the site was going to be redeveloped. Across the road on the opposite corner is a branch of McDonalds. It wasn’t always like that. For many years it was derelict. It had been the site of the Bedminster Tram Depot until a bomb hit in 1941. That, along with other bombs elsewhere in the city, meant the end of trams in Bristol although they were already on their way out before Germany’s intervention. My paternal grandfather worked at the tram depot.
Exhibit 6 – South Street
As I walk past South Street School I think of a friend who had been a pupil there. She could remember being taken to The Downs in 1897 when Queen Victoria visited the city in celebration of her Diamond Jubilee. Knowing somebody who had been alive at the end of the 19 th Century at the end of the 20 th Century gave me a real connection with the past.
Exhibit 7 – Tobacco Factory
Towards the end of North Street is the bar and arts venue, the Tobacco Factory. It is the one remaining reminder of Bristol’s tobacco industry. Once, In Bedminster and Ashton, there were what seemed like numerous red brick buildings all involved in producing tobacco products. As someone who has never smoked, even as a child, I was curious as to how so many people were employed producing such a deadly thing. And then it was gone, removed first to Hartcliffe then out of the city completely.
Should I be nostalgic at the sight of the one remaining testimony to such an
industry?
Exhibit 8 – Football Murals
In keeping with the street art reputation in the Ashton/Bedminster parts of BS3 recent years have seen a number of murals appear on the walls of buildings approaching Ashton Gate. They are all dedicated to ex-players living and dead who left their mark with the fans of Bristol City. I may sound a little middle class here but I do appreciate the crossover of a sport with a working class history and a modern form of art that fits the location.
My walk is at an end. I have reached the football ground. That’s another set of exhibits.

Trevor Simpson

Walking: Art-act and Artefact

 

We finished the previous chapter thus: Macfarlane argues that Thomas prefigures the Situationists, ‘Pioneering the walk as an art-act, as artefact.’ Well, that sort of sounds like walking as a pop-up museum in a way, doesn’t it?

I asked my sister, Fliss, and brother-in-law, Rod, if they would send me a few lines about their memories of walking the Downs in Wiltshire when they sometimes recited lines from Edward Thomas to each other.

4 July 2026

Now that our days of long rambles on the Downs

are beyond us, we have wonderful memories of the

sweeping views we had from places like

Wansdyke and Ridgeway, from where at one

spot towards Hackpen, five hill forts are in

view with:

Uffington, Liddington, Barbury, Oldbury and

Martinsell all clearly visible.

Often the words of Alfred Williams and

Richard Jefferies came to mind –

‘Still to find and still to follow

Joy in every hill and hollow

Company in solitude’(A.W.)

‘It is eternity now

I am in the midst of it

It is about me in the sunshine’ (R.J.)

Ridgeway walks always brought

Andrew Young’s ‘On the Ridgeway’ to mind

and we often recite these lines to each other.

65 years wed and it seems as though they

were penned especially for us.

‘Thinking of those who walked here long ago

On this greenway in summer and in snow

She said, “This is the oldest road we tread,

The oldest in the world?”

“Yes, Love,” I said.’

With these happy days only memories

our short strolls are now devoted

to botanising and it’s astonishing

the joy to be had when keeping

eyes down when ambling along.

On a rail track walk we recently

Found five varieties of cranesbill.

Then came the canal, bringing

Edward Thomas to mind with –

Willows, willow herb and meadowsweet

Plus

High cloudlets in the sky

While

Nearby a blackbird sang.

In early spring, our search for ‘Each year’s

First violets, white and lonely’

are usually found in the most unlikely

places – roadside verges where they struggle

to emerge through litter and fallen leaves,

yet they somehow survive.

We are always dipping into Edward Thomas and

have come to love ‘The Huxter’ for the image

it gives of a poor but happy pair chuckling

as they ‘bump down the lane’

Pure Magic

Rod Smith and Felicity Smith

The Huxter

He has a hump like an ape on his back;
He has of money a plentiful lack;
And but for a gay coat of double his girth
There is not a plainer thing on the earth
This fine May morning.

But the huxter has a bottle of beer;
He drives a cart and his wife sits near
Who does not heed his lack or his hump;
And they laugh as down the lane they bump
This fine May morning.

I keep the letters sent to me by my sister and brother-in-law, but not neatly tied together in a bundle or secreted in a box. I leave them in odd places on book shelves hither and thither and forget where I have put them. And then have unexpected surprises and pop-up memories around the house.

 

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/wiltshire-walking-with-edward-thomas/

 

 

 

Walking and Cycling and Pop-up Museums

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an Hour.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Blake’s lines have become something of a Radical Stroud motif for a number of reasons.

But this is the fundamental reason:

I started writing A Guide to the Radical History of Stroud and the Five Valleys around 2011, with a narrative history occasionally touched by a comedic Mark Steele/ Mark Thomas style of analysis. A visit to the Writing Britain exhibition at the British Library completely changed my approach: no more the lonely writer in the garret burning the midnight oil trope. Instead, collaborative writing on the hoof: ‘Footprints and Footpaths not Footnotes.’

And, also, collaborative texts revealing the extraordinary within the ordinary, in an EP Thompson quest (The Making of the English Working Class): rescuing ‘the poor and anonymous from the enormous condescension of posterity.’ A Blakean optic not just upon the landscape but on social history too.

And that approach led me to a free verse style of writing up my/our walks and the recording of my historical research and consequent blogging: it enabled quick scribbling and composing but with a touch of figurative style. (I include a guide for this approach in a link at the end of this piece.)

I read around psychogeography, the Paris Situationists (‘Underneath the pavement, the beach!’ another of our motifs), Rebecca Solnit, William Hazlitt, Richard Jefferies, Edward Thomas, Phil Smith, et al so as to contextualise my walking through landscape and history: ‘slipping through wormholes of time.’

But now, all roads lead to Edward Thomas.

And Richard Jefferies.

Edward Thomas on Walking and Cycling
Richard Jefferies on Walking

Bike or boots?

Bikes or boots? A difficult question sometimes, and an obvious one at others. I suppose, it’s a question of what you fancy, or a matter of where you want to travel, or how far, or how much time you have: whether you want to wander across fields, or pursue a path along lanes, or up a succession of hills, and down the consequent dales. Or what you did yesterday.

This is how Edward Thomas compared the two pursuits in 1913 In Pursuit of Spring:

‘It was a still morning … But not until I went out could I tell that it was softly and coldly raining. Everything more than two or three fields away was hidden.
Cycling is inferior in this weather, because in cycling chiefly ample views are to be seen, and the mist conceals them. You travel too quickly to notice many small things. But walking I saw every small thing one by one.’

‘Under elms near Semington the threshing machine boomed, it’s unchanging note mingled with a hiss of the addition of each sheaf. Otherwise, the earth was the rooks’, heaven was the larks’; and I rode easily on along the good road somewhere between the two.
Motion was extraordinarily easy that afternoon, and I had no doubts that I did well to bicycle instead of walking. It was as easy as riding in a cart, and more satisfying to the restless … At the same time, I was a great deal nearer to being a disembodied spirit than I can often be. No people or thoughts embarrassed me. I fed through the senses directly … through the eyes chiefly, and was happier than is explicable … a foretaste of a sort of imprisonment in the viewless winds.’

Robert Macfarlane writes in the introduction to The South Country that ‘Edward Thomas was a compulsive walker’, and mentions Helen Thomas’ assertion that “His greatest pleasure … was to walk and be alone”, spurning roads, often walking in a circle for a whole day, without a map, “guided by the hills or the sun”. Macfarlane argues that Thomas prefigures the Situationists, ‘pioneering the walk as an art-act, as artefact.’

 Helen Thomas wrote in the preface to the 1932 edition of The South Country (first published 1909): “for him the most satisfying days were when he wandered far afield alone, rereading forgotten footpaths and hidden lanes, stopping at remote and primitive inns where strangers were rare … to Edward Thomas walking was not merely exercise … Nor was he … only the nature lover intent on observing … Nor was he only the aesthete … the beauty of the contours of the hills, the symmetry of the trees, and the grouping of the villages. Nor was he only the wayfarer meeting fellow travellers … talking … listening… Nor was he only the artist transmuting all this into words. He was all these and much more.”

This is Edward Thomas near the start of the book: ‘I have used a good many maps in my time, largely to avoid the towns; but I confess that I prefer to do without them and to go, if I have some days before me, guided by the hills or the sun or a stream – or, if I have one day only, in a rough circle, trusting, by taking a series of turnings to the left or a series to the right … and to return at last to my starting-point … The signboards thus often astonish me … There is a wealth of poetry in them …’

Another Wiltshire walker is of interest here: Richard Jefferies in his book The Amateur Poacher:

‘Those only know a country who are acquainted with its footpaths. By the roads, indeed, the outside may be seen, but the footpaths go through the heart of the land. There are routes by which mile after mile may be travelled without leaving the sward … village to village, now crossing green meads, now cornfields, over brooks, past woods, through farmyards…’

Macfarlane argues that Thomas prefigures the Situationists,

 ‘Pioneering the walk as an art-act, as artefact.’

 Well, that sort of sounds like walking as a pop-up museum in a way, doesn’t it?

More to follow on Edward Thomas later.

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/creative-writing-guide/

 

 

 

 

Walking a Pop-up Museum

I’ve been giving a question some thought: Can a walk (be it themed and purposeful or just ad hoc recreational) not only create a pop-up museum, in consequence, when back at home (individually and/or collectively), but also create a mobile pop-up museum itself whilst in the very act of walking?

Sometimes, of course, this happens automatically, serendipitously and solipsistically, when you’re out and about: that Penny Lane feeling: “And though she feels as if she’s in a play, she is anyway”, and that Truman Show illusion you get sometimes when staring at the world.

In short, when you’re Feeling Groovy, life seems to be a sort of pop-up museum … “Hello lamp-post, what you knowin’, I’ve come to watch your flowers growin’…” And you can get that flight of individual imagination whilst out walking in a group, too, of course, as well as on a solitary ramble …

I tend to drift in and out of company while out on a group-walk; in the main, I like to let my thoughts roam free and unconstrained, making unusual connections and correspondences; but, obviously, and on the other hand, we learn a lot from conversation too: ‘Every day’s a school day’ – surely, it’s only the arrogant fool who believe they know absolutely everything …

William Hazlitt, however,  wrote a wonderful essay on the joys of solitary rambling back in the early 19th century. It’s food for thought.

Where do you stand on walking and talking?
On rambling and ranting?
On orating and hiking?
I’m more of a Hazlitt strider myself:

‘One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room, but out of doors, Nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone … I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time … “Let me have a companion of my way,” says Sterne, “were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines.” It is beautifully said: but, in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment … ‘

I know what Hazlitt means:
Wordsworthian pantheism,
Or William Blake flights of fancy,
Or psycho-geographical musing,
Or Zen-style footfall mindfulness,
Are often inhibited by the clang of voices,
And the din of conversation;
But on other occasions, it’s true
That the knowledge of a companion
Can act as a stimulus to a new understanding,
Or a novel re-creation of a landscape;
And, sometimes, of course, we need to catch up
On ‘news’ with friends or family –
It is all, I suppose, a matter of balance:
A dynamic harmony of opposites
Help make for an enriching walk in company –
Sometimes alone, and sometimes alive
To conviviality and congeniality,
And sometimes finding empathy,
Shared meanings and understanding
When exploring the land in shared silence –
Followed by a post-ramble sharing
Of individual and collective experience
In mutual discourse on how we read our walk,
A deconstruction and re-creation
Of how we made sense of it all;
For as William Hazlitt put it:

‘I am for the synthetical method on a journey in preference to the analytical. I am content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to examine and anatomise them afterwards. I want to see my vague notions float like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to have them entangled in the briars and thorns …’

Well said, William.

But it’s time now to return to pop-up museums. Let’s remind ourselves of what a pop-up museum is so that we can properly assess whether a walk fits the bill. What exactly is a pop-up museum? This is the definition we work with at Radical Stroud: a temporary exhibition carefully curated, but with changing displays created by visitors with a widening circle of participants: a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.

 

Well, a walk is certainly temporary; exhibits can include maps, photographs of the route from the past, documents, texts, artefacts carried in rucksacks etc.; the display obviously changes as the walk unfolds, and conversation adds to the mix; then talking with strangers and people you meet along the way widens the circle of participants; there might be information boards and plaques along the way, and we sometimes have a bit of performance on a walk – so it certainly can be ‘a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.’

 

We can all learn, of course, from the walking practices of different people and groups. When I accompanied Walking the Land, their practice often involved silent walking with occasional breaks for sketching, photography, writing, recording, video and so on. I often take photos not for social media but as an aide memoire for writing up later – I deliberately avoid making notes so as to strengthen my powers of recall. I write long hand at home first of all: I feel that my mind is more creative and lateral when not circumscribed by the linear A-Z keyboard of my computer.

When on seaside walks with my family, I collect driftwood, and pen lines about the day. Some we leave around the house or in the garden as surprise ‘theatres of memory’ while there is also the joy of seeing pieces in my daughters’ homes celebrating the birth of their children. Stroud railway station has an information board that echoes those acts of creation: NATURE WEAVING

When you next go out on a walk make a collection of natural items that you find interesting. These could be twigs, bark and leaves and fallen feathers. If you have some additional items such as wool at home use these too.

When you are at home make yourself an easy weaving board out of thick cardboard and carefully cut some matching slots at the top and the bottom of the card (about A5 size).

Next, take a long length of wool or string and wrap it around the slots … Once you have completed wrapping the wool around the cardboard start adding your finds from your walk and any additional materials you may have at home.

Attach the items by putting them under and over alternate threads on the board … do the same with pieces of wool or anything else you would like to add.

Charlotte Rooney is a colleague who is also worth following when out on a walk:

“I have always been a bit of a magpie when out and about, unable to resist picking up anything that catches my eye – leaves, feathers, sticks, stones, bits of rusty metal. Sometimes these things form the basis of simple creations or photos or ‘organisings’ that I make when I get home.

It’s hard to deconstruct what feels like such an instinctive, organic act – I hesitate even to call it a practice, it’s just what I do.  If pushed, I would say that there’s something in the act of walking – as many artists and writers will attest to – that allows for untethered thought, a state of mind that enables loose connections to be made, for the subconscious to churn away doing its thing. Maybe this informs what I collect. Certainly, if I am walking with a theme or intent in mind, it shapes what catches my eye, what commands my attention, though just as often the connections are only apparent when I get home, sift through my haul, let my hands and mind wander over the objects I unearth from pockets and bag.

In this way, at the end of a walk I’ve often assembled a miniature, ephemeral, temporary cabinet of curiosities – items that are assembled randomly for the love of the things themselves and their intrinsic, aesthetic beauty – but for all that, sometimes a coherent story can arise from the collection even if was not the collector’s intent.”

And now some words from another colleague: KATIE MCCUE:

‘A corner of a path turned, a brow of a hill reached, a sweeping vista revealed, a secret glade beckoning.

Whether experiencing the joys of a flaneur or being guided by those who now more than I will ever know, (of history, geology, politics or nature) … I see in my own way.

Now seeing is different to looking and my way of seeing is full of shape, colour, movement, light & dark whether macroscopic or microscopic.

Seeing is a feeling thing and an act of creation in itself, it’s an inspiration that often fills me with a need to write or paint or draw.

A guided walk triggers my imagination to people the landscape with folk from the past. I see the men and women of pre-history before our valleys were formed by se and glaciers. I see the medieval farmers in ancient fields, I see the workers and weavers, I see laughing Victorian children paddling in streams, I see the tired eyes of children working in the mills.

These same images can come to mind when I wander as a flaneur with no particular plan in mind. However, it is these walks that truly make my soul sing & my eyes drink in the sight of an insect, the pattern of grasses in the wind, the way the light filters through trees when I stand so small beneath the canopy looking up.

I see in my own way. It feeds my creativity.’

That mention of creativity by Katie reminds me of the notion of writing your own heritage trails – old railway lines offer such scope for industrial archaeology, oral history/memory collection, Shelleyesque Ozymandian reflection, and also William Blake’s doors of perception.

I begin with industrial archaeology at the site of the old Dudbridge railway station in Stroud. These are my words for the nascent heritage trail on the branch line to Nailsworth:

Dudbridge Railway Station

I often walk the cycle track below Rodborough Hill,
The old Midland Railway spur from Dudbridge,
And I often cycle the track on to Nailsworth,
Musing on the springs and watercourses, the ancient holloways,
The Roman villa, medieval ridge and furrow, the woollen mills,
The occasional mill chimney, still rising high into the Stroudwater sky.

But, today, I stand at the blue brick retaining wall

At the old Dudbridge railway station,

Watching the cars career around the roundabout,

Drivers mostly oblivious of the history of Dudbridge;

But when I ignore the roar of the traffic,

And I find my mind’s historical eye,

I can see a medieval pilgrim crossing the bridge,

A packhorse with Cotswold wool a mile behind.

For here I stand by the confluence of two rivers.

But also, at the junction of two railway lines:

The interface of water power and steam power,

The inexorable march of the industrial revolution:

Foundries and forges and furnaces

And cranes and pulleys and chains and smoke:

A century-old pandemonium at Dudbridge,

Where once there was an orchard and there is still a Meadow Lane.

Carefully cross the road and study the information plaques

On the wall at Sainsburys; the clothier’s 1646 doorway too;

The inscription at REDLERS from 1910;

The information board at Kimmins Mill,

Then retrace your steps carefully back to the blue brick wall,

And recite these words from T.S. Eliot to yourself:
“And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

Now for Ozymandias (and the industrial relics on the cycle track spur of the Nailsworth line running from Stroud through Rodborough to Dudbridge):

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

It’s a motif that runs through much of my rambling.

But it’s getting to the point where I need to conclude this opening chapter. This essay is turning (indeliberately) into a self-referential piece of writing: the piece is almost turning into a performative pop-up museum itself. Time to stop before I get carried away with myself. I’ll finish with a nod to William Blake which will add as a bridge to the next post on this subject.

‘To see a World in Grain of Sand,

And Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour.’

It’s another motif.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stroud General Strike Exhibition

Hello there,

This is for anyone who has read the General Strike 100 May newsletter and is thinking of visiting the Radical Stroud exhibition. The exhibition (some of it anyway) is now on at the famous and enchanting pub, The Prince Albert. If you fancy a visit, I guarantee you won’t regret it. Have a scroll around this  website and you will also see a guise for walking around some of the key sites in Stroud associated with the General Strike with a few explanatory words for historical context.

Hope to see you.

Swindon and the General Strike

Swindon and the General Strike

Factory walls can sometimes feel like prison walls,

But I always thought the Factory walls in Swindon

Had a welcoming, warm and friendly feel,

Even in the low sun days of midwinter.

For this was a railway town,

A Great Western Railway Company town,

A paternalistic railway company town,

With swimming baths and a hospital,

And a blue print for the NHS;

A Park for exercise and amusement too,

And the Mechanics Institute

For education, reading and advancement.

The largest engineering works in Western Europe,

310 acres, 14,000 employees,

Two railway stations:

Over 50 million tons of coal passed through Swindon each year:

one fifth of the country’s annual output.

But when I started train spotting, aged six,

In that halcyon summer of 1958,

With my in-built respect for the GWR,

And its Western Region successor,

And all its chocolate and cream nostalgia,

How could I have known about the General Strike,

In Swindon, thirty-two years before?

When we placed pennies on the line,

To see how the Cheltenham Flyer

Would burnish and flatten those spare coins,

And when Sir Felix Pole, Castle class, 5066,

Rode rough shod over those pennies,

How could I have known that Sir Felix

Was a real person from thirty-two years before?

The vindictive GWR General Manager during the General Strike?

To a boy in 1958,

1926 was more like the nineteenth century,

…

But on Sunday, 2 May 1926, there were two contrasting events in Swindon: the Archdeacon, Dr. Talbot, preached a sermon strongly condemning a strike; the Trades Council’s second Council of Action conference worked out agreed responsibilities for the conduct of the strike in Swindon to be put to mass meetings … they moved solidly and enthusiastically into action.

 

And the strike started solidly in Swindon:

With a meeting of 6,000 in the GWR Park. ‘Telegrams from one union after another were read out’ and this resolution passed: “That this mass meeting of trade unionists pledges itself to carry out the instructions of their executive committees and any duties their local committee may call upon them to do, and to act in no way that would lead to any disturbance.”

 

Mass meetings of those on strike AND their families followed, with thousands in the GWR Park and an array of recreational and educational activities: football and cricket matches; bowls and darts competitions; concerts, socials and literary events while the Swindon ‘General Council’ dealt with the daily demands of overseeing permits, pickets, speakers etc.

 

In fact, the strike was so solid that pickets were barely needed,

And with the trams and power station municipally owned,

The mayor declared that no trams would run

And fuses would be removed from the main industrial enterprises.

But an irate Town Clerk sent a report to the Civil Commissioner for the South Midlands district, Major the Rt. Hon Earl Winterton MP who ordered an investigation ‘as the condition of affairs there was serious.’ The mayor told the official that if power were restored probably all the workers at the power station would come out and ‘the town would be plunged into darkness,’ Fourteen naval pensioners were eventually recruited from Portsmouth to break any strike if it should occur at the power station.

 

But resentment would grow in the town

After an official GWR notice was put up

At the Temple Street NUR HQ;

The notice politicised the strike

As ‘a deep conspiracy against the state’;

And as regards railway re-employment

after the strike’s eventual end:

Loss of position, status, pay,

With the threat of damages, costs, and the sack

For leading trade unionists;

A mass meeting in the GWR Park followed.

Sir Felix Pole regarded the strike meetings held in the park

And the picketing at the main entrance to the railway works

As trespassing on company land.

And he no doubt felt elated when he heard that

The Reverend K Crisford, the curate at St Marks Church by the railway line

Who preached a sermon against the railway companies

and the Government and supported the strikers.

And who after the service walked to the park in his cassock and surplice

to address a massed strike meeting.

was forced to leave his post after the strike had ended,

The only member of the established church’s clergy to openly support the miners.

And how could I have known about all of this,

When one of the first songs I learned at my mother’s knee

Followed these railway lines:

‘Down at the station,

Early in the morning,

See the little engines

All in a row,

Man with a green flag,

Blows upon his whistle,

Peep, peep, peep,

And away we go’.

There was another version in 1926,

Which lampooned the upper-class strike breaking train drivers:

Bristol Bulletin ‘To Heaven by the LMS’

Early in the morning, per broadcast from London,

See the little puff-puffs all in a row,

D’Arcy on the engine, pulled a little lever,

Expansion of the boiler – UP WE GO!’

But down at Swindon Railway Works,

There were equally extraordinary scenes,

With the famous WA Stanier, Works manager,

Wielding a hose pipe to inundate

 

Apprentices who went on strike at the tunnel entrance,

(He was the model for the Rev Awdry’s fat controller btw)

And CB Collett, Chief Mechanical Engineer,

Would issue this notice:

‘In view of the large number of men who have failed to report themselves

for duty these works are hereby closed until further notice’;

It wasn’t just the GWR, of course;

Swindon printers and tram workers were also stopped work on Monday May 3

On the first wave of industrial action;

The Co-operative Society rooms in Harding Street

Became an HQ for coordination of picketing,

And accounting of the Distress Fund, for fully 10,000 people,

By the Swindon Central Strike Committee aka “The General Council”:

‘Magnificent solidarity’ was the initial synopsis;

“United action is our watchword.”

On the other side, there stood, resolute,

The Swindon Volunteer Services Committee;

Whilst troops and police were offered to the GWR;

But Collett informed the Swindon NUR branch:

‘I don’t want them. If you gentlemen sitting here are prepared

to assist me in protecting the property,

I am prepared to do without them.’

The NUR replied:

‘We at once gave him that guarantee.’

Beyond the railway works,

Disagreement and confusion simmered

Over the withdrawal of the electricity supply,

But despite this,

The Swindon Advertiser commented on May14th:

‘The town has been very quiet and orderly.

The police have had no trouble whatsoever’:

Despite, or probably, because of

The daily round of mass meetings in the parks,

The sports matches, the tournaments,

The concerts, the readings, the entertainments …

It was a peculiarly British general strike in Swindon, too …

A few GWR trains began to run through Swindon,

partly due to the Oxford plus four brigade. ‘I say, rather.’

Only nine drivers broke the strike in Swindon.

Fireman Taylor had the idea of treating them as though they were dead, having a mock funeral procession and cremation on the Corporation rubbish tip.

And so, in a Swindonian version

Of the old Skimmington cavalcade,

Whereby transgressors of a local moral code

Were lampooned in effigy and with rough music,

Some strike breakers were honoured with a procession:

A mock funeral cortege that wound its way

To the council rubbish tip for ‘cremation’;

The coffins, made by firemen, were embellished,

By wives, mothers, daughters, grand-mothers and aunts,

With curtains or cloth, and wreaths of nettles

And dandelions for floral decoration;

The cortege was followed by some thousand people,

While every street showed its approbation:

‘Of course, when we called with a coffin all the neighbours came out.

They were delighted! We had no trouble with any of them;

almost everyone in those streets had someone on strike themselves.

We had the whole population with us in the demonstration.’

With the police granting permission

And controlling the traffic

Around ‘Manchester Road, the Centre and down by The Ship’;

Traditional rough music:

The death knell created with an iron monger’s shop sign,

a trowel and a four-foot long set square.

A mock undertaker in top hat, long tail coat,

black gloves and striped trousers led the cortège

A derisive cacophony and pandemonium,

Greeted the cortege on its way to Morris Street,

And mock funeral service and cremation:

‘At each home [of a strikebreaker] when we knocked we told them we’d come to take them for a ride, and that if they didn’t come with us we’d have the pleasure of burying them.’  ‘A woman came out of her shop to give them two gallons of paraffin for the cremation. Joe Baldwin, a train driver, borrowed a white table cloth from a lady in the street, and dressed in this as a surplice he said a burial service over the nine coffins.

As he set fire to them his last words were

‘May the wind blow their remains to the corners of the earth,

And to hell with them all’.

Cars, motor-cycles, side cars and bicycles

Were also used to transport the British Worker

And TUC strike bulletins down to Swindon,

While Friday May 7th would see a report to the TUC,

After the famous Ben Tillett addressed a large rally in the town:

‘Position at Swindon splendid.

Spirit … 100%.

Any other national leaders coming this way

we shall be pleased to accommodate.

Demand for larger supplies of British Worker.

Our lines of communication … excellent.

We have made certain arrangements for your despatch riders to obtain petrol. The CWS here have fixed us up splendid.’

‘The townsfolk got the news from the daily mass meetings of thousands in the GWR Park. It was like a Labour Fete every day.

As regards the Swindon and Wiltshire press,

The Evening Advertiser was a single-sheet,

And British Gazette in tone and some content;

The North Wilts Herald would later fulminate

About the withdrawal of the fuses at Moredon power station,

And consequent immobilisation of the printing presses:

‘a desperate step to stifle the freedom of the press’

‘an amazing action in which Swindon,

so far as we have been able to ascertain,

stands alone among all the civic authorities of the country’;

People didn’t stand alone on the Milk Bank

by the railway station, however;

Crowds would jeer as volunteers drove passing trains,

With women to the fore, aprons full of stones,

To lob at strike breaking footplatemen;

Some striking footplatemen also secretly planned to grease inclines

to make firing and driving more difficult.

But money was tight with strike pay low,

And none at all for those not called out until the second wave,

But unable to work because of the impact of the first wave,

With shortage of fuel or the removal of fuses or lack of transport

That rainy day had arrived for that money put by,

‘Feeding Centres’ and the Coop Distress Fund provided succour for some

Teachers commented on hunger facing large families.

‘Put your heads down on the desks and close your eyes:

“Hands up who didn’t have breakfast this morning?”

And some churches and chapels helped out too,

Despite the GWR notice of Monday May 10th,

Describing the strike as a ‘deep conspiracy’,

Not against the company, but ‘against the state’;

A notice as intransigent and uncompromising

As the one put up outside the NUR Temple Street HQ,

With its conditions about employees returning to work,

And consequent penalties.

In according and predictable consequence,

There was a mass meeting in the railway park,

While the government stiffened its resolve,

And, locally, the mayor was forced to give in,

With the arrival of those twelve naval pensioners,

Fuses were restored with plans for trams to go on the streets staffed by volunteers

More mass meetings followed:

At the GWR Park; and at the Mechanics Institute:

‘one of the finest meetings ever held,

the hall being packed to excess and the members very enthusiastic’.

Another meeting followed at the Princess Street Recreation Ground;

The second wave of strikes was called out,

with another ‘mass meeting of members as soon as possible

and that the wives of members be invited’.

The strike was rock solid both in Swindon and on the GWR:

20,000 men and women not at work in the town and surrounding villages. Discussions continued at the Swindon General Council about what to do about the naval pensioners and the volunteers on the trams

 

So, it was a bolt from the blue on Wednesday 12th May:

The General Strike was called off.

On the afternoon of Wednesday May 12, Bill Sargent was on Railway Clerk picket duty outside the Mechanics Institute: ‘Someone dashed across from the Park saying that they had heard on the one o’clock news that the strike was over. Of course, we knew that the employers must have given in and that we’d won the victory.’

 

Victory was presumed at first,

Until the full facts came through in the afternoon.

A meeting was called for the next day at the Park:

GWR employees would stay out

In the face of Sir Felix Pole’s obduracy …

But this talk has to stay within its 25 minutes and so will deal with the nine days only … And so, to conclude … with some personal stories …

Some strikebreakers were veterans but Harry Avern, 26 and with four children, couldn’t resist the offer of a permanent job from the running shed foreman if he would act as a fireman. He faced a hail of stones near Reading and returning from Paddington he was landed with an aristocratic driver who left them stuck in Box Tunnel devoid of steam. Harry didn’t get a permanent job, ‘all he got was an illuminated certificate for strike breaking, and a [guinea] postal order from a grateful GWR.’

And the final conclusion:

The Swindon Advertiser commented that ‘the men and women on strike whose hearts were in the strike comprised an infinitesimal proportion of the whole.’ But the veteran Swindon socialist orator, Reuben George commented that ‘Spiritual life is higher… now for Wherever the men met, the voice of the politician and sectarian was hushed. There were Liberals, Tories, Labour Socialists, Church, Chapel, Roman Catholics, Unitarians, Salvationists; men of strong political and sectarian bias and men of none whatsoever… These men and women met as one. They spoke from the various platforms. They joined in the work of organisation; and what is more and greater than all, they forgot all Party bitterness and sectarian strife. They threw themselves wholeheartedly into the question of help for the miners.’ Swindon Advertiser 18 June 1926

The GWR and the General Strike C.R. Potts Oakwood Press

The General Strike ed. Jeffey Skelley Lawrence & Wishart especially chapter 9 on Swindon by Angela Tucket

The General Strike Day by Day Keith Laybourn Sutton Publishing

 

 

 

The Bespectacled Historian and the Blue Plaques

The bespectacled historian has had a good idea.

Stuart (for it is he) said, “Why don’t we have a train ride and a bus ride and a walk and conjoin the Rev Awdry blue plaques at Rodborough and Box?”

Everyone said it was a great notion and so they made a plan.

Some would meet at Rodborough Avenue to view the first plaque and then catch the 9.34 to Swindon, change there for Bath, then catch the bus to Box. Others said that they would drive to Box and meet the throng there.

“What a splendid way to celebrate the Reverend Awdry,” Katie announced.

“And the GWR, too, of course,” Bob added.

The morning of Thursday February 5th 2026 was dark and stormy. But snowdrops lit a path to spring and a robin trilled in the churchyard as the bespectacled historian made his way to the Rev Awdry’s grave at Rodborough.

The bespectacled historian – not in shorts today – tightened his hood against the wind and the rain and descended down to Rodborough Avenue to the first blue plaque of the day.

Here he met the rather wonderful Dorcas. The only person Stuart had met with that name before was from the deep, deep past in deepest Wiltshire and when Stuart mentioned that to Dorcas, she exclaimed, “My great-grandmother was from Wiltshire and she was named Dorcas too.”

There was a pause: “It was an open-air baptism.”

This was the stuff of Thomas Hardy and Richard Jefferies, thought Stuart, as Dorcas carried on, garrulously, “I found out about this walk online and was curious to find out about it. I’m a good walker. The other day I walked from Whitminster to Stroud – I’m from Longlevens in fact – and in the shop doorway in Stroud was a Thomas the Tank Engine book. So, I thought this is a sign. This is meant to be.”

They made their way down towards the railway station through the mud and the mire. Dorcas began to think that she couldn’t face a five-mile trudge through the fields around Box as the rain continued to pour. She decided that she would spend the day in Rodborough and visit the Awdry grave.

Stuart explained how to find the grave and the stained-glass window as they bade farewell. Dorcas entered a café whilst the bespectacled historian turned the corner towards the station.

There was an ominous gathering of wayfarers there laded with suitcases and rucksacks – that augured ill, thought the bespectacled historian.

And sure enough.

Trains were cancelled every way which way.

A break-down on the line.

Not floods in Sapperton Tunnel or embankments slipping…but that might well happen again in this relentless windswept rain.

The bespectacled historian was stricken with a head-cold so perhaps this was a blessing in disguise, he thought, despite losing money on his ticket.

He informed friends and colleagues as well as he could, hoping that no-one would drive to Bath or Box in this inclement weather awaiting his arrival and feeling consequently angry at his absence.

He decided that he would reschedule the walk for later in the year when the sun might hopefully shine. And, after all, he thought, he had already led a group on the Box blue plaque walk in the late spring last year.

But what if the sun refused to shine and the rain continued to fall …

He thought again: if people followed this link, then they could walk around Box themselves without any need for the bespectacled historian’s presence …

https://www.colerne-pc.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/20200319-Box-Heritage-Trail-Interactive-Map.pdf

And so he sent this telegram.

A Stroudwater 1825 Weavers’ Riots Détournement

 

Wallbridge Mill ST 848050

Nathaniel Watts first introduced the flying shuttle here in the 1790s – the start of mechanisation.

 

 

Ham Mill SO 861032

Jennifer Tann Wool and Water: ‘Ham Mill was a focus of the weavers’ riots in 1825.’ 31.5.25 Edwin Perrin suspected of working for the Marlings at too low a price. When he was at Ham Mill, he faced the collective wrath of some 200 weavers. On June 2nd, 600-700 weavers marched to Ham Mill. One of Marling’s men ended up in the brook but the next marked man managed (with poetic (in)justice) to hide in the Counting House.

 

Vatch Mill SO 872066

June 3rd: 200 weavers, some of whom ‘held sticks over the heads of Mr Peter Wyatt and Mr George L Wyatt, and threatened to knock out their brains and to destroy the mill.’ The next day saw 3,000 gathered; unfinished cloth woven below rates seized.

 

Bliss Mill SO 893025 Tayloe’s Mill 892025 Tann: ‘Little survives of Bliss Mill, save part of the clock tower.’ The Company Arms/Coffee Tavern Chalford GL6 8NS Three gabled Cotswold stone building once linked with the East India Company. A Troop of Horse sent by magistrates after tumult at Chalford: the soldiers ‘were stationed between Blisse and Tayloe Mills and their horses were stabled by the Coffee tavern/the Company’s Arms.’ Weaving in the Stroud Valley during the 19th Century by A. Phelps.

 

Longfords Mill ST 867992

  1. Jones Graeme, Major 10th Royal Hussars, Bristol ‘…William Playne, Longfords Mill, Minchinhampton from Stroud visited on me this morning to report serious event outrages which had occurred near Stroud … I think it is my duty to make this communication to you, Sir, and to request that you should let me be furnished with instructions on the subject from His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief …’

 

Cainscross The lake at the lawn opposite Tricorn House?

‘The cessation from labour commenced on Friday 29th April and on the Monday following the weavers assembled in considerable numbers at Cainscross where they were met by several of the Manufacturers: but not coming to any satisfactory arrangement shuttles to the amount of several hundred were instantly collected’.

 

Break Heart Hill Stinchcombe Road Dursley GL11 6ER and Stinchcombe Hill and Nympsfield

Meetings of more than 3000 weavers were held on subsequent days on Break Heart and Stinchcombe Hills and on Monday last they congregated on Selsley Hill to the number of not less than 6000 … On each of these occasions several of their employers agreed to advance the prices but a number sufficient to satisfy the weavers not having yet consented to their terms another meeting was held on Wednesday last at

Nympsfield when deputations of workmen from several parishes attended and it was strenuously urged that they should resume their labour for those Gentlemen inclined to accede to the new prices. The majority however obstinately resisted this reasonable proposition until the whole of the Manufacturers had expressed their compliance and the business consequently remains unsettled. But it is justly due to the weavers to add that their conduct throughout has been orderly and respectful to their superiors and they gained general approbation by their quiet and peaceable demeanour even when assembled in the greatest numbers.’

‘Manufacturers presented a written request’ to Justices of the Peace for an address to the Home Secretary for ‘a body of Military to be stationed in the Neighbourhood to assist the Civil Power in protecting their property.’

 

Stafford Mill SO 859038 Hyde Court (Chalford) Brimscombe Mills SO 866024 Henry Wyatt & Co Vatch Mills Bowbridge Mills ST 857043 Ham Mills.

The ‘Woollen Manufacturers’ who signed this representation were William Stanton & Sons Stafford Mill SO 859038 Robert P Pelly Hyde Court (Chalford) Harris Stephen & Co Willam Lewis Brimscombe Mills SO 866024 Henry Wyatt & Co Vatch Mills Geo. Lewis Brimscombe Mills Jos. Partdidge & Co Bowbridge Mills ST 857043 Wm. Jn. Wood Chas. Glover Wm. Marling & Son Ham Mills.

 

Spillmans Court Rodborough GL5 3RU

Letter from the Justices of the Peace, Henry Burgh and Peter Hawker, to the Home Office. ‘…the weavers are soon become so violent that we think it almost impossible to have an Offender lodged in safe custody without military assistance … Manufacturers consider all their property in most imminent danger…’

June 15th: Henry Burgh’s letter to the Home Secretary: “on Tuesday the 7th large quantities of weavers, masons and others assembled and proceeded to many acts of violence, which obliged me to read the Proclamation against tumultuous assemblies.” The assembly did not disperse, however, “and having thrown stones at the Military as well as those who had come forward to assist the Civil Power,” the troops were “requested” to “disperse” the assembly “which was effectively done in a short time in as humane manner as possible.” Several were arrested and some “committed to Gloucester Gaol.”

He went on to say that he had printed a notice “to convince the People that the Combination Laws are not repealed and I have put it into execution against several Weavers and Masons for intimidating Workmen. The county is now quiet …” He adds that appeals for help, sent by the weavers to Wiltshire, the districts around Wotton-under-Edge, Dursley and Uley, have received no support.

 

Stroud

4.6.25 P Wyatt of Vatch Mills was ‘assaulted by a mob’ in front of the Magistrates Office. (Old Town Hall, The Shambles)

7.6.25: ‘the mob was as great as on the preceding day and committed many acts of violence. Some acts of intimidation were also committed by Masons towards others of their trade who had not struck for wages.’

Bristol June 7th 1825

‘Sir … I received orders yesterday morning … to detach one squadron of the regiment under my command to Stroud which was immediately carried into effect. I suppose it arrived at Stroud by 8 o’clock last night.’ T. Jones Graeme, Major 10th Royal Hussars

 

June 8th 1825 J.C. Wallington, Captain commanding detachment Royal Hussars: ‘the squadron under my command was called out yesterday evening to disperse a mob collected in the town, which proceeded to acts of violence. We accomplished this object with some trouble including the slash of the sword only. We made prisoners of some of the most disorderly, no accident occurred.’

 

“On the 10th of June a paper was vended at Stroud signed ‘The True British Weavers’ purporting to be a relation of events that had lately occurred in the Neighbourhood respecting the Weavers and the Clothiers – the paper had no Printer’s name on it – the vendor of the paper (Henry Beeseley) was apprehended and committed to prison as a vagrant.”

John Williams D.D. Minister of Stroud, Gloucestershire to the Home Secretary asking for clemency to be shown to William Fitting, serving three months imprisonment at Horsley with hard labour:

‘On the Saturday preceding the arrival of the Cavalry, there were about 2,000 weavers assembled in the Town, and a very large concourse of them, before the door of the Clerk of the Magistrates, demanding the release of prisoners … On enquiring, I found that the prisoners were dismissed respecting whom the tumult was made, as the aggression was on the part of the Master rather than the Men.’

Mr Holbrow’s fish pond Badbrook mill pond was Mr Holbrow’s fishpond in 1825. The road and bus station by cinema and Five Valleys shopping centre are there now

4.6.25 members of the ‘mob’ ducked a number of their opponents ‘in Mr Holbrow’s fish pond’‘

Saint Monday’, June 6th ‘at Stroud a mob of about 2,000 continued to duck persons in Mr Holbrow’s fish pond’.

 

Chalford

‘I despatched Lieutenant Dent with 20 men to Chalford … to protect a factory which the mob had threatened to destroy … This morning I have sent another party with the High Constable to execute warrants against some of the ringleaders. The town seems perfectly quiet today … The Clothiers met yesterday and agreed to give the weavers the increase of price they demanded. The Masons, Carpenters and Millwrights have also struck for more wages.’

13.6.25 The Gloucester Journal

‘JOHN RUDGE weaver OBADIAN GARDINER weaver ENOCH WEAR weaver NATHAN PEARSE weaver ENOCH STEPHENS weaver JAMES BAXTER jun weaver JOHN TURK weaver SAMUEL GARDINER weaver JOHN STEPHENS weaver JOSEPH HUNT weaver THOMAS HUNT weaver THOMAS STEPHENS jun weaver JAMES CROOK weaver AMOS HUNT weaver JOHN BARTLETT weaver JANO CORNISH weaver WILLIAM POULSON weaver

The above persons are charged upon Oath with having on Thursday 2nd June and on several successive days riotously and tumultuously assembled together at Chalford in the Parish of Bisley and Minchinhampton in this county and in Company with many others at present unknown committed acts of violence whereby several Individuals were much injured and the Peace of the Neighbourhood greatly disturbed.’

 

The Brook Nailsworth Bridge Street? The deepest part after the three steams have joined?

‘Saint Monday’, June 6th, saw weavers who undercut ducked in ‘the Brook in Nailsworth bottom by a large mob’.

 

 

 

Horsley Gaol (site at Priory Fields, Horsley)

George Fletcher Riot and assault 3 months Luke Robins ducked William Fletcher 3 months William Fitting aged & Peter Workman Riot 3 months Thomas Weir Riot and assault 3 months

 

Northleach House of Correction

Thomas Osbourne Who ducked William Clark, Also riot and assault 2 years William Pickford Riot and assault 12 months Isaac Nutt Riot and assault 12 months Joseph Mint Riot and assault 12 months

George Heskins Riot and assault 9 months Richard Preene Riot and assault 6 months

Radical Stroud is grateful for the support of UNITE 007 Gloucester Branch in putting on this and associated events, exhibitions, research, leaflets and more discursive or creative  writing. So grateful. Past and Present conjoined.