Edward Carpenter at Millthorpe

This photo of the socialist writer, speaker and activist Edward Carpenter was taken at his home in Millthorpe in Derbyshire where he lived between 1883 and 1922.  Millthorpe being only three miles south west of where I live in Dronfield. It is currently covered by our Dronfield and District Branch of the Labour Party. So we can be proud to have Edward Carpenter as part of our socialist heritage.. 

A pamphlet entitled "Sheffield and Socialism" has recently been published by Principle 5 : Yorkshire Co-operative Resources Centre, Aizlewoods Mill, Nursery Street, Sheffield S3 8GG which provides  an extact from Edward Carpenter's important work "My Days and Dreams" which was first published in 1916 when he was at Millthorpe. The pamphlet can be obtained at a cost £2 from Principle 5. Tel: 0114 282 3132.

For people in the Sheffield and North Derbyshire area the pamphlet is a valuable feed into the work of Edward Carpenter. For it was very much his move to our area which arose from his developing commitment to socialist values. Initially he had become a curate in the Church of England, but he left the Church when he was 30 and moved to Leeds to engage in University Extension work, seeking to draw people from deprived areas into higher educational avenues. But when he discovered that too few people were being drawn into studies from such backgrounds, he moved into more grassroots forms of activity in our area. First, he had a year in Chesterfield, but soon moved to Sheffield where he built solid links with working class people who were pressing for social improvements.

With his inheritence on the death of his father, he purchased property and market gardening facilities at Millthorpe in 1883. It was his home base for the best part of the next four decades. And as you will see from the above photo he also developed a commitment to the making of sandals.

Although he involved himself in international travels and drew from the values and ideas of intellectuals such as Walt Whitman, he mixed considerably and regularly with working class activists. He was an advocate of rights of women and of homosexuals in an era when such views were very unpopular. On top of which Yeats, EM Foster, GB Shaw and HG Wells all visited him at Millthorpe. And he addressed 3,000 railway workers at Sheffield Corn Exchange along with Ramsay MacDonald in 1907. 

If the publication "Sheffield and Socialism" appeals to those who read it, then the book "Edward Carpenter : A Life of Liberty and Love" by Sheila Rowbotham (Verso - first published in 2008) is likely to be absorbing. The index gives no less than 97 page references to Millthorpe and 71 to Sheffield.

Carpenter also had at least 36 main works published. The best known being "Towards Democracy". My copy is over 400 pages long and much of it is a poetic style in its presentation. But whether its   approach is likely to appeal to readers will be indicated by the taster of his work as shown in "Sheffield and Socialism". Why not try it out ?

In Dronfield - on the right hand of the three people shown at the front of this photo is Edward Carpenter in the area of Sheffield Road. (Hat tip "Dronfield Through Time").
 
  

There is also this -  click here

Adult Education and Life Long Learning

Ruskin College Students and Staff 1962. Shortly after I had completed my studies there.

In pursuit of Adult Education and Life Long Learning a campaign was established last year. It marked the 100^th anniversary of the birth of a similar campaign which had a measure of success from the time of the First World War, but has been hit since by developments from the era of Thatcherism. The modern campaign aims at the development of adult education and life long learning in 21^st Century Britain. See its major publication here -

https://www.centenarycommission.org/wp-content/uploads/reports/The-Centenary-Commission-on-Adult-Education-Report-LOW-RES.pdf

The new campaign has four main themes. (a) To establish a Commission on the basis of the old one. (b) To conduct research around the history of adult education. (c) To preserve the remaining records on previous adult education – some of the past records having been destroyed from the former Adult Education College at Ruskin which I attended in its best days - the intake before the photo above. (d) Exchange knowledge on the significance of Adult Education.

Stress is placed on the need for Local Authorities to have a statutory duty to provide adult education, with each individual having their own learning account.

Then Universities need to give second chances to rejected applicants.

Currently the new campaign also provides a list of the following 18 recommendations.

1. The Government needs a Adult Education Lifelong Learning Strategy, with people having the rights to literacy, nursery and digital skills. This should also be open to those who are unemployed or part of the gig economy.
2. There should be a Government Minister appointed with specific responsibilities to see that the above is delivered.
3. There should be an Adult Learning Partnership drawing together local and regional government, universities, colleges and local employers on such matters aided by national media campaigns.
4. Funding should be provided for local authorities for such services.
5. Funding should be increased for Adult Community Services and Further Education Colleges, especially to aid those who have missed out.
6. Additional resources should go to the Workers' Educational Association and to other institutes of adult learning.
7. All Universities should provide Adult Education and Life Long Learning.
8. There should be an information campaign to motivate people to engage in such provisions.
9. Basic skills and strategies needed in the workplace need to be covered.
10. There needs to be a community learning account of £50 million per annum rising to £100 million in three years.
11. Further Education Colleges should have representation on their boards from local authorities, community organisations and trade unions.
12. An innovation and development fund of £50 million should be established to spread best practice, rising to £100 million in 3 years.
13. There is a need to use non-profit bodies such as the Open University to provide a digital platform.
14. Apprenticeship laws need to be balanced and flexible.
15. Employers should provide paid time off work for studies.
16. Employers should facilitate workers learning-representatives in the workplace.
17. Employers should submit annual reports on their educational and training provisions.
18. There should be funding in the gig economy for access to education, without loss of earnings.

Labour and Life Long Learning

   In a speech to the Association of Colleges on 14 November 2017 Jeremy Corbyn said "Just as Nye Bevan created the National Health Service in the aftermath of World War 2, the next Labour Government will create a National Education Service. We will offer cradle to the grave education that is free at the point of use."  This was a huge and massively important commitment which Labour now needs to retain and develop for the future. When achieved it will help to transform and improve our society massively. Providing us with a seriously minded society (yet one that is more happy and fulfilled) and which uses its developing understandings to ensure that our political system will be fully democratized and meet the needs and requirements of masses in our society who are currently in depressed and deprived circumstances.
   The establishment of an appropriate system of Lifelong Learning will, however, be much more complex than setting up the NHS was. For generally a person (or their relatives and friends) will be aware whether they are in need of help from a doctor, ambulance or hospital services. Determining when someone is in need of forms of adult learning facilities (and whom they should approach) will require a more complex range of life-time openings.
   The Labour Party Manifesto at the recent General Election included a section which briefly spelt out Labour's intended direction of travel on the matter of Lifelong Learning. See the items entitled "Further Education and Lifelong Learning" which appear on pages 40 and 41, click here.

   Unfortunately, this was not an issue which was able to obtain much coverage during the General Election period itself. This was partly due to failings by the media, but it also arose from the fact that Labour's own work in shaping its approach was only reaching fruition when the election was on top of us.
 
   A "Lifelong Learning Commission" co-chaired by Estelle Morris and Dave Ward only issued its Interim Report in July 2019. It was then only able to come up with its final 85 page report containing more detailed  recommendations as we moved into the dissolution of parliament for electoral purposes in November. Click here.   A summary of its 16 major recommendations appear on pages 58 and 59 of the report.

I will now confine myself to what has been my own specific interests in forms of adult learning, which is just the tip of the iceberg.
 
  My own commitment towards forms of lifelong learning developed after some of my early failures via school education and from later experiences starting from the time when I undertook my National Service as an 18 to 20 year old. My involvement with forms of lifelong learning being mainly restricted to the areas of politics, economics, industrial relations and philosophy. Labour's proposals go well beyond these matters. But I will now restrict myself to my own experiences.
  As an only child, I came from a solid coal mining background. My father and his five brothers all came to work at the same local pit and his only sister married a local miner. Only my Uncle Arthur finally moved away and joined the RAF. My mother's two brothers also started work in the pit, one then moving  into nursing. My mother and one of her three sisters also married coal miners. This meant that I had the advantage of being brought up in a tightly mining environment with close social bonds.
  But my shortcomings at Primary School were centered around extreme shyness and a serious inability at spelling. So I failed the then 11 plus exam and went to a Secondary Modern School and not a Grammar School. Then I had never read a book from cover to cover until at 12 a teacher took our class into the school library and made us borrow and read a book. I read John Buchan's "Mr Standfast" and was hooked. I later made it to Grammar School via an "occasional admissions" exam. But I was no success there when it came to the "O level" exams at 16, failing the key subjects of English Language and Maths. But in a post war period shaped by the Attlee Government there were lifelong job opportunities and I made it as a Railway Clerk. By then I was regularly into purchasing books such as H.G. Well's "Short History of the World" and visiting the local library, where my mother also borrowed serious novels.
   A key step in my own form of lifelong learning started when I undertook my National Service via an RAF Movements Unit at Basra, linking in with Iraqi State Railways. I was shocked by the harsh living and working conditions I saw many Iraqi people experiencing
   Then there was a book shop I visited in Basra which sold Rational Press Association books which challenged what had been my Methodist background. There were other books to buy and I also ordered works by writers such as G.B. Shaw, GDH Cole, James Joyce (recommended by a corporal), a volume of Shakespeare's plays and Tolstoy's "War and Peace".
   The man who ran the shop said that he had been stopped from my ordering Karl Marx's "Das Capital" when he checked the matter out with the local chief of police. But I also obtained the "New Statesman" weekly on rice paper, plus "Reynolds News" and the "Observer" which came by sea and were then two weeks old.
   I was finally demobbed at 20 in the midst of political turmoil around the British invasion of the Suez Canal and the Russian invasion of Hungary. It was a politically stimulating period. My initial avenue for expressing my developing political views were letters to the local press. Then a year after my demob I joined a body stimulated by GDH Cole called the International Society for Socialist Studies and even heard him addressed them. I also joined the Labour Party and after a few months became a local branch secretary and arranged for the meetings to rush through business each second month and then have a speaker and a discussion. A local Fabian Society was then founded at near bye Peterlee and I became their Secretary. I was into the dialectics of political debate.
   I then attended a Fabian Summer School held at Ruskin College in Oxford where I discovered that the College itself was for people like me, who had an interest in subjects such as Politics and Economics but no relevant "A" level qualifications as a pathway into such studies. I later made it into Ruskin College via references (one from Manny Shinwell my MP), writing an essay for them and attending an interview. My fees and living allowance being met by the Durham County Council. After 2 years full-time study, this led me to obtain an Oxford University Diploma in Economics and Political Science which enabled me to get a place at Hull University where I gained a degree in Politics and Philosophy.
    But that was only a leg up to my fuller involvement with Lifelong Learning. For from 1966 to 1987 I was a tutor in the Sheffield University Extramural Department (later called the Division of Continuing Education) taking Day Release Classes for Trade Unionists from areas such as the Coal, Steel and Railway industries plus classes for shop stewards. I mainly taught Politics, Industrial Relations and Student Skills. Numbers of my students also moved on to full time study at Adult Education Colleges, including Ruskin. Others became more fully involved in their Trade Unions and in areas such as Local Government.


        1983 Derbyshire Miners Day-Release Class

   Then my Department established an Access Course mainly providing openings into Sheffield University for adults without formal qualifications. I taught classes on Philosophy and then acted as Course Director. Those who successfully made it to full-time University Studies at Sheffield via our classes ended up generally with above average degree results.
   Then when I became an MP in 1987 three of my fellow Labour colleagues were former Yorkshire Miners whom I had taught on Industrial Day Release Classes and another Labour MP from that background had been a fellow student with me when I was at Ruskin. Dennis Skinner had also attended our Derbyshire Miners classes, then Ruskin. He was a day release student with us the year I arrived in Sheffield, but I was then teaching a different Derbyshire Miners Class.
   Although I studied and taught politics for 21 years before becoming an MP and then took many classes down to parliament on day trips, my parliamentary activity was also a huge learning curve. Not only was the range of parliamentary activity widespread, but constituents came forward with a complex range of problems which needed to be tackled. Luckily I soon learnt that if an issue was new to me, the first place of call to find out about a topic was the research staff in the Commons Library. For Conservative Government Ministers (at the best) would only answer the specific questions I asked them. Whilst a researcher would know that I was new to a topic and would explain what I really needed to know and pursue. The loss of their services are the main thing I have missed since retiring from the Commons in 2005.
  As an MP lifelong leaning was an issue I pursued, but circumstances dictated that this had to be in a  defensive capacity. Thatcherism struck at the work of Adult Education Colleges such as Ruskin and also ended payments of student fees. Next even Tony Blair (with my full opposition) removed University allowances for students for living purposes, thus adding further to their borrowing costs. These matters still need to be tackled.
   When I finally retired from parliament in 2005 I returned to an old habit of setting up monthly discussion meetings. This time as Political Education Officer for my local branch of the Labour Party in Dronfield where I have now lived for 50 years. I only passed on that commitment last year, but I still keenly participate in the group's discussions. In fact this item on Lifelong Learning arises because Bob Heath a former Sheffield University Extramural colleague of mine (whom I initially studied with at Ruskin College and then Hull University) discussed this very issue with us at our last meeting. Click here.   John Halstead who involves himself in both ILP activities and our local discussion group, being a further colleague from my Extramural days. He works closely with the Society for the Study of Labour History.  
   Then three other sources feed my attempts at my own form of continuing adult learning. First, I continue to read works in my areas of interest. Having found hardly any scope for fiction since I first turned up at Ruskin in 1960. Secondly, I scan the Internet for serious forms of information relevant to my interests - whilst seeking to avoid those comment boxes where people just fart at each other about politics. Then also there is the ILP.  Under the influence of Keir Hardie it was founded in 1893 and helped shape the Labour Party. But in experiencing a departure by Labour from its basic values, it set out on its own in 1932. It finally returned to the fold in 1975 changing its name to Independent Labour Publications. I then joined and participated with them in a wide range of Labour movement discourse.  

  Whilst I am for the forms of adult learning which I have stressed, Labour's recent publication correctly goes way beyond these matters, showing the wide number of areas where varying forms of Life Long Learning are very deeply needed. The whole issue should not just be an add on to Labour Policy, but needs to be at its heart.     
        
   
  
 
   

Politics And The Dialectics Of Debate

 
 Derbyshire Miners Industrial Day Release Students 1983.


Especially concerning politics I have always had a commitment to the dialectics of debate.

Approaching my 21^st birthday (and for the following four years) I wrote 29 letters to the Sunderland Echo and the Northern Echo in discussion with people such as the Chairman of Dorman Long on the issue of steel nationalisation and to the Secretary of the Durham Area Communist Party with a heading “Russia, with its privilege class, isn't Socialist”. Then some three months after my first letter I joined the Labour Party in order to participate in an essay competition on “Nationalisation” being run by Mannie Shinwell our local MP. I manage the second prize.

In the following year I became my local Labour Party branch Secretary and immediately arranged for them to have a speaker plus a debate at each alternative meeting. Soon afterwards a local Fabian Society was established and I became Secretary drawing in speakers such as Sam Watson the Durham Miner's leader. Our first speaker was the then General Secretary of the Fabian Society, Bill Rodgers. He was later to become part of the Gang of Four who set up the breakaway SDP. Many years later we met up as officers of an All Party Parliamentary Group on Strokes. So you can work with political opponents on specific matters.

I have always been keen to encourage and develop the holding of Labour Movement Discussion meetings.
 

At the age of 24 I went to study Politics and Economics full-time at the Ruskin College in Oxford, which in those days was for adults without formal qualifications. Lectures were followed by questions from students, seminars involving fuller discussions and weekly tutorials were held to discuss our written essays with tutors. After two years I then gained the qualifications to study Politics and Philosophy full-time at Hull University where similar methods of study took place. I came to appreciate the claim made way back by John Stuart Mill that the person who only knows their own side of the case, knows little of that.

Then for 21 years I mainly taught classes of trade unionists via the Sheffield University Extramural Department – especially coal miners, steel workers, railwaymen and classes of various shop stewards. The only shortcoming of these being that few women ever attended. A typical course would last over three years. A tutor would normally take a year's weekly class over 24 weeks, being with a class from 10am to 4pm each day. Sharing the coffee breaks and the lunch time period with students. The classes worked when the students were encouraged to involve themselves fully in debates and produced regular written work. Tutors got to know their students well and could draw people fully into debate as they came to appreciate their understandings and views on issues. It was fully the dialectics of debate. Any indoctrination by tutors would have been entirely inappropriate.

Depending upon their circumstances and commitments, numbers of such students went on to study at Adult Education Colleges such as Ruskin. Numbers of others became local Councillors, NUM branch officials, social workers or voluntary helpers for worthwhile causes. The very first class of South Yorkshire Miners I ever taught included a future MP, a future MEP and the NUM Branch Secretary at Cortonwood where the 1984 miners' strike emerged. It is a pattern we miss.

In time I also taught Philosophy on evening classes ran by our Department for adult students who had no formal qualifications, but were seeking places to study full-time in higher education especially at Sheffield University itself. Those who progressed via our range of classes were to achieve better degree results via Sheffield than the average normal intake. Our Department was also the only one with school inspectors and I was impressed when one of them took a full part in a discussion in one of the seminars I was running. I went on to become the Director for these courses, which unlike the Trade Union classes drew in a majority percentage of female students.

When I became an MP from 1987 to 2005, my pattern of the dialectics of debate came under something of a challenge. Procedural arrangements, whipping and Government control of the main agenda became the order of the day. This probably shaped my fairly regular rebelling against Tony Blair. But there were other openings for me to pursue. Select Committee work looks into different sided issues . I went for matters such as European Legislation and developments in Northern Ireland which gave plenty of scope for fully-fledged debates and are key areas today. Then parliamentary colleagues (some from other than the Labour Party) could be contacted to be drawn into official or unofficial meetings to discuss concerns about Derbyshire County issues, Civil Rights for Disabled People, Electoral Registration and other matters. Then there were plenty others initiatives by others that could be followed, such as concerns to protect remaining and former coal mining communities.

I have always been keen to arrange for Labour Party Discussion Meetings. Shortly after arriving in Dronfield 50 years ago I became the local Constituency's Political Education Officer. Then under different hats helped to arrange many debates in Dronfield under the umbrella of its Branch, a local Fabian Society and the modern ILP - Independent Labour Publications. I have just finished a 12 year period as the Dronfield Labour Party Political Education Officer covering over 130 discussions in that time – including one on the exact day itself  of the 120^th anniversary of Keir Hardie and others meeting to found the ILP. Such meetings are now being continued by others.

I am very much aware that today we have a new technology where discussions take place on web-sites. There seem to me to be two problems we need to tackle. First, those using comment boxes far too often make crude opposing comments, rather than seeking to enter into genuine and meaningful debates. It is rather like people just farting at each other. Monitoring by the operators of web-sites can contain this type of activity, but only a growth of serious initial contributions and similar forms of responses can deliver their potential. And it is a potential that related discussion meetings (under the dialectics of debate) need adding to.

There are also educational needs to incorporate the type of avenues I stressed above into our modern era of a changed technology.

Our local Edward Carpenter

Edward Carpenter lived from 1844 to 1929 and became a prominent socialist, poet and writer who wrote many books and lectured across the country, whilst being based at his home at Millthorpe from 1883 to 1922. He lived close to my own home in nearby Dronfield. He also involved himself in Extra-mural teaching at Sheffield University, where I also taught from 1966 to 1987. 

Though efforts have been made to remember Edward Carpenter, his important writings have largely been forgotten. Even in neighbouring Sheffield it is not possible to walk into a book shop and buy  copies of even his most famous works. However, one can easily purchase a copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, the poem that inspired Carpenter to write Towards Democracy.

Typesetting for a new edition of Towards Democracy is now. however, largely completed.  All that is needed is money to pay for the printing, and to launch a relevant co-operative so that it can continue via its members' involvement onto further projects.

For further details about this project and how you can support it, link here to see the work being undertaken by Millthorpe Press which is a key co-operative that will be largely led by its members, who will have a vote in further publications by the co-operative, as well as receiving a newsletter, and invitations to stand for its board. Your involvement and support would be most welcome.

Carpenter's former home at Millthorpe.

 

For more information about the importance of Edward Carpenter click here and much more can be found by googling. There is a valuable article about him click here.

HAT TIPS to Michael John Hattersley and Mick Walpole of "Dronfield Through Time". Here is a photo taken in the early 1900s on the main Sheffield Road through Dronfield with Edward Carpenter in the centre -
 

Bert Wynn and the Derbyshire Miners.

The meeting advertised below will focus on Bert Wynn who was Secretary of the Derbyshire Miners from 1947 to 1966. I never met him, but my very first visit to Chesterfield in 1966 was to his funeral at Brimington Cemetery. I had just been appointed to the staff of the Extramural Department at Sheffield University, but had not by then taken up the post. Soon afterwards I was to be involved in teaching politics to Derbyshire Miners attending day-release classes at their offices at Saltergate in Chesterfield. As Bert Wynn had played a key role in establishing these classes it was suggested that I should attend his funeral.

It was a most telling occasion. I was initially appointed to the Department to cover for the late Royden Harrison who was starting on two years leave of absence to undertake his research into the Webbs. His talk at Brimington in memory of Bert was as telling, informative and heartfelt as any I have ever heard.  It also showed me the strengths, significance and relevance of my new post and the depth of the abilities and sympathies of Royden as the person whose footsteps I was being asked to walk in. No-one could ever match up to Royden; but without the examples of himself and Bert we would all have been much weaker in our efforts.

Malcolm Ball who is the speaker at the following event, was a student on the Derbyshire Miners' Day Release classes from 1963 to 1966, just before I joined the staff of the Extramural Department. Click here for further details about him, which show the relevance to him of his topic.

The photograph below shows the former miners offices where day release classes were held in that period.

Chesterfield and North Derbyshire Momentum

Invites you to a public discussion at Chesterfield Library on Saturday 14^th October 1pm-2.30pm led by

Dr Malcolm Ball

on aspects of his book

CHANGING DERBYSHIRE NUM

                                                                                                                                                                         

With the death of Bert Wynn in early 1966 a long chapter in the history of Derbyshire Miners came to an end. His stewardship from 1947 to 1966 coincided with considerable changes in the Derbyshire coal mining industry. Over the later years of his stewardship the Area union had become smaller and with a younger leadership. These changes are the focus of this talk.

All Welcome

My Own Memories of Michael Barratt Brown

 
Michael Barratt Brown died on the 7th May which was General Election Day. He was 97. The only obituary I have seen about him appeared here in yesterday's Guardian. It covers the general pattern of Michael's life and work - and does this well. I will, therefore, only concentrate on some of my personal memories of Michael and apologize for referring to myself just as much as I do to Michael.

I first came across his writings in the 1958 and 1959 editions of "Universities and Left Review".  I was particularly gripped by a series he wrote called "The Controllers". It wasn't until 1966 that I first remember meeting him; but it is possible that our paths crossed briefly during the 1958-59 period when I attended meetings in London of a body called the "International Society for Socialist Studies" (ISSS). This body was set up following an initiative by G.D.H. Cole. Michael later told me that he had also attended ISSS activities. Shortly afterwards I became an avid reader of the initial political writings in "New Left Review", when it was edited by Stuart Hall.  Michael was then part of its editorial board. Michael's contribution to its first publication in 1960 being an article entitled "Yugoslavia Revisited". The Guardian review spells out details of Michael's war-time experiences in Yugoslavia. This led Michael to maintain a continuing interest in its twists, developments and final break-up.


My first memory of meeting him was when I joined the Extramural Department at Sheffield University in 1966. The bulk of my teaching was with trade unionists who attended Industrial Day Release Classes. At that time the majority of these classes were attended by workers in the areas coal and steel industries. Although this pattern changed and expanded over time. Michael was the Director of Studies for these courses, working tellingly on their development. The general pattern of these classes was for them to run for three years - without placing the hurdles of exams or published assessments in the way of those attending. The adult students attended a day each week for a 24 week period each year, over a span of three years. The first year centred on the study of industrial relations and the development of student skills, the second year on economics and the final year on politics. Michael tended to centre on the teaching of economics. Whilst I normally concentrated on politics. This meant that I often had the privilege of following on from a class he had taught. I invariably inherited a class of seriously minded and skilled students. A normal day would run from 10 am to 4pm, with the tutor joining in with the students for the coffee and lunch breaks - the later often being in a local pub. For tutors and students all of this was essentially part of the learning process. Michael automatically used these social activities as part of the learning experience, without looking as if he was being seriously minded.

The nature of the impact of these classes is illustrated by an initial class I taught. As I was a novice I shared the teaching with an established tutor. Michael then taught this class economics in its second year. The students included Norman West, Terry Patchett, Ron Rigby and Jack Wake. Norman went on to become an MEP,  Terry an MP,  Ron became leader of the Barnsley Council and Jack was then secretary of the NUM branch at Cortonwood - a position he still held in 1984 during the miners' strike.

The Derbyshire Miners classes came to have an extra day's studies added to their second and third years. So there were occasions when Michael and I taught the same class on different days of the week. I was closely aware of the solid and serious nature of his work with them.

I am still regularly contacted by Bryan Robson a former Yorkshire Miner, who invariably sings Michael's praises. Bryan rang me today and I informed him of Michael's death. He was shattered by the news.  I feel that the impact of Michael upon Bryan's life is well illustrated by the quality of his personal library.

The Russell Committee on Adult Education was in operation between 1969-1973. In that time it held a session of its enquiry with the staff of our Extramural Department. This may have arisen from the evidence which Michael had previously submitted to the Committee. For a section of our time was taken up with Michael's major proposal. Namely, that an Adult Education College on the style of Ruskin College in Oxford should be established in the north of England. Michael's father had been a principal at Ruskin and I had attended as a student much later from 1960 to 1962. Along with my fellow students, I had no prior formal qualifications; but as with most others I went on to obtain an Oxford University Diploma which gave me access to a place at University. Michael wished to add to that model, by including regular short courses for communal use. The Russell Committee adopted these proposals and it led to the opening of the Northern College near Barnsley in 1978. Michael was appointed as its first Principal and he effectively built the model provisions he had in mind.

1975 saw the retirement of the head of the Sheffield Extramural Department; Maurice Bruce. The staff were solidly in favour of Michael being appointed to the vacant post. I was secretary of the Staff's Committee at the time and took a deputation to meet the appointment's Committee, which was chaired by the Vice-Chancellor. I felt like we were taking icons to the Czar. And it was as successful. The post was given to an outsider.

When Michael subsequently left to take over at the Northern College, I maintained links with him. I arranged for an annual week's short course to be held at the Northern College for student's who attended classes run at our Extramural Department. These classes provided a means by which students (without formal qualifications) could seek Mature Entry into Sheffield University or to other avenues of Higher Education. The full-time students at the Northern College helped out enormously. When we turned up for meals they insisted on mixing with us and making us part of their college life. Even for just a week, the psychological impact of this upon our rather unsure part-time students was considerable. A later survey showed that our evening class students who finally made it to Sheffield University, ended up on-average with better results than student's who entered via formal qualifications. I also filled in for a period at the Northern College when they were short of a Political Theory tutor.

Many of the organisational arrangements I made for our short courses at the Northern College were made via their Bursar. This job went eventually to Mo Mowlen. Until we both met up in the Commons in 1987 as newly elected MPs. Michael and his staff were clearly aware of Mo's potential.

I bumped into Michael once as I was travelling by rail to the Commons. He was always a technical expert and had once claimed that he could teach day release students how to use a slide rule in just five minutes. So I asked him what the best way was to learn how to use a computer. His reply was "have grandchildren". I discovered the truth of this recently when I was sat at my computer with Amy my seven year old granddaughter who said "No grandad. not like that - like this".

 It is almost five years since I last met Michael. I heard him speak at the funeral of his friend Ken Coates at Brimington Crematorium at Chesterfield. It was Michael at his most effective, making a speech of great impact. As always what he said was a combination of the heart and the mind. Except that he had even more thoughts, memories and concerns to draw from than ever.

There was much more to Michael's life than the bits I bumped into. His list of publications is impressive not just in quantity, but in quality. The Common's Library dug a list of these out for me in 1998. His perspective on "political economy" was telling and is worth revisiting given the problems labour movements now face across the world. He achieved impressive results in developing "Fair Trade" arrangements. For he always knew that practice and theory had to be related to each other.

Numbers of his works can be found here. 

Also see here.


Of relevance to the areas I cover above is his "Adult Education For Industrial Workers", published by the National Institute of Adult Education (England and Wales) and The Society of Industrial Tutors in 1969. 

Spokesman Books | Michael Barratt Brown

Michael Barratt Brown

Our good comrade and friend, Michael, died in London on 7 May after several weeks in hospital following a fall at home. During his long and eventful life, he worked closely with the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and the Institute for Workers’ Control, and was a regular contributor to The Spokesman journal. We shall miss him greatly.

Michael Barratt Brown wrote extensively throughout his life on economics, workers' control and politics. During his long career he served in a Quaker Ambulance Unit and worked for the United Nations and, subsequently, in documentary films, in workers' education, in industrial democracy, in socialist economics, in resisting nuclear warfare, in honest academic research, and in Fair Trade among co-operative organisations.















 

   

Updated

I have added significantly to this earlier entry.

Mining and Me

Derbyshire Miners at an Industrial Day Release Class in 1983 - outside the WEA Centre at Chesterfield.


Although I have never worked in a coal mine, much of my life has been shaped by the nature of coal mining communities. Today is the 30th anniversary of the start of the 1984-5 Miners' Strike. It is an appropriate time for me to indicate something about what my mining inheritance has meant to me.

I was born in 1936 at Easington Colliery. At that time my father and all of his five brothers worked at the local pit, as did the husband of his only sister. His own grandfather had been killed following a fall of  large stone at Monkwearmouth pit, where Sunderland"s football ground now stands. This is telling, because my eight year old grandson is now a sixth generation Sunderland supporter, going back to our ancestor who was killed. My mother also came from a mining tradition. One of her brother's also worked at Easington's pit and her younger sister married a miner from the neighbouring Horden Colliery. Of my nine relatives who worked at the local pits, only my Uncle Arthur moved jobs by joining the RAF before the second world war. When Easington Colliery suffered a pit disaster in 1951 and 79 local miners and two rescue workers were killed, none of my relatives (which now included cousins) were amongst the fatalities. Yet my father and others were working in the pit at the time. They were in separate seams to the one in which the disaster struck. However, the father of the person who was later to become my first girlfriend was amongst those who were killed.

Mining communities weren't without their internal rivalries and disputes, yet they generally showed an exceptional form of communal coherence and self support. I came naturally to share in these co-operative norms, even though I did not always live up to them. I also followed them in their support for the Labour Party. It started as a form of tribal loyalty, but developed into a commitment to democratic socialist norms by the time I became Secretary of the Easington Colliery Branch of the Labour Party at the age of 21.

Apart from the period of my National Service and term-times when I was a full time adult student, I lived at Easington Colliery until I was 27. I then married Ann, whose father was an onsetter at nearby Shotton Colliery. We moved to Hull where I was studying. But we regularly returned (eventually with our children) to the two Colliery areas, until our parents died. So I joined the picket line on a visit in 1985. My mother was the last of our parents to survive, finally dying in 1999.  Easington Colliery and Monkwearmouth being the final two pits to close in the Durham Coalfield six year earlier.

My links with the coal miners were not, however, confined to my early and fading links with County Durham. From 1966 to 1987, I was an Industrial Day Release Tutor on courses run for Trade Unionists via the Sheffield University Extramural Department. The solid core of this work was with classes of miners from South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire. These classes ran from 10 am until 4 pm, including coffee and lunch breaks. I spent the full period with the men who attended. The main break normally being spent at a local pub for lunch and drinks. Miners attended over a 24 week period each year for three years. The South Yorkshire Miners attended one day per week, whilst the Derbyshire miners attended a second day each week in their second and third years. We studied together as equals and the tutors learnt at least as much from the experience as the students did. The main topic areas we covered were student skills, industrial relations, economics and politics. I dealt with aspects of all of these, except that I did nor specialise in economics - although it is a subject area which can't be excluded from the study of politics.

I had a range of other commitments, with classes from bodies including the Steel Industry, the Railways, my own ASTMS branch, shop stewards and mature students seeking entry to full-time higher education. These were all fine groups of dedicated students - the few exceptions tended to pack in their studies as they thought they were too much like hard work. The miners came from closely knit and inter-related communities and readily and fully joined in a form of shared education from the start. When I later became an MP, I often missed the depth of discussions in day release classes. For too much parliamentary politics is about point scoring and personal advancement. But at least I had some of my former ex-mining students around me such as Kevin Baron and the late Martin Redmond, Kevin Hughes and Terry Patchett. Then there was the late Micky Welsh who had been a fellow student at Ruskin College and had then returned to the mines, whilst teaching on our preparatory courses which were run for those looking for places on our miners day-release programme.

I had the privilege of taking miners' day release classes during the 1984-5 strike itself. Students took time out of their strike activities to attend. In the 1984-5 session itself, I was tutor for two classes of Yorkshire Miners who met on a Thursday and Friday. One student was missing for four weeks as he had been in Lincoln Prison because of a judgment about his strike activities. So immediately on his return he came to the front of the class to tell us of his experiences and to sustain a full mornings debate on policing, the courts and the prison system. He did an excellent job without any notes or any prior warning. I arranged for extracts from the classes' essays on their strike experiences to be published. One of these was from a fine, concerned, able and dedicated student called Bob Genders. Within a year of his return to work after the strike, he was killed in an accident at Rossington pit.

My first experience of meeting these miners was a telling occasion. I had been appointed to a position in the Sheffield Extramural Department, but was still employed at the North Notts College of further education at Worksop. But I was informed that it would be helpful if I participated in a selection conference to determine a fresh intake of Yorkshire Miners. This was held at the NUM Offices in Barnsley, which later became known as "Arthur's Castle". Well over 100 people attended, seeking the 20 places for a new intake. First a tutor gave an explanation of how to takes notes from a talk. Then another tutor gave a clearly structured talk from which they took notes. This would give us an indication of who had problems with writing. Yet some who had such problems were encouraged  to join one of our preliminary courses to tackle such problems. These courses produced numbers who then moved onto the normal day release programme and often became some of our best students. After the note taking exercise, those at the selection conference were divided into groups to discuss two separate topics. One of these would be about the mining industry and the other on a political issue. Tutors would chair the groups, but would swap places with a fellow tutor between the discussion of the two topics. I was initially placed on the platform which the Yorkshire NUM leadership normally operated from and had a group of about ten applicants with me. My job was to encourage everyone to contribute and see how people responded to each others points. The debate was of a telling quality, better than what I had been used to when an undergraduate. I wondered where I had landed myself and how I would manage in class. We were the only part of the University who had Government Inspectors. For a number of years an inspector came to our Yorkshire Miners' selection conferences. Not because she saw problems, because she enjoyed the day so much.

I taught the group of 20 students we selected (but as I was the novice I shared the teaching). Amongst the students were Norman West who went on to become the MEP for South Yorkshire, Terry Patchett a future Barnsley MP, Ron Rigby later leader of the Barnsley Council and Jack Wake from Cortonwood. The miners at Cortonwood walked out when faced with the closure of their pit on 5 March 1984, as the prelude to the lengthy strike. Jack was their Secretary. In all I was the tutor on 30 miners' classes, taking in 720 day sessions. Especially given the decline of the mining industry, numbers of our students moved on to adult education colleges and some went straight into university. One period of decline in coal mining reduced the size of a Derbyshire Miner's third year class to only nine students. Seven of them then moved on the full-time adult education colleges, especially Coleg Harlech.  Numbers ended up as lecturers, teachers, social workers, full-time trade union officers, NCB officials, councillors and the like. But the courses should not be measured in terms of social mobility, but in advancing commitments to the bulk of its participants to use their abilities to serve their communities - even though pit closures helped to destroy much that was best about their home territory. The impact on the tutors is probably seen in the fact that I helped establish and worked with the Miners' Support Group in Dronfield in Derbyshire. Where Ann and I have lived since 1969.

Eventually, in 1987 I moved on and served as  the MP for NE Derbyshire for 18 years. The mines were closing, although the Derbyshire Miners' Day Classes held out until 1994. I hope that I was not seen as a rat that was leaving a sinking ship. Although I could not join the NUM Group of MPs as I was a member of ASTMS (which eventually became part of present day UNITE), I attempted to take an active role in the parliamentary wing of the Coalfield's Community Campaign who operated from Barnsley - its Chair was the leader of the Chesterfield Borough Council. One of my ploys was to introduce a Energy (Fair Competition) Bill in 1993 as an alternative to Heseltine's energy policy which was finally closing Derbyshire's pits. But I was up against the Conservative Government. When the local pits finally went, efforts had to be turned to seeking proper compensation for those who had suffered from their mining experiences, over matters such as chest diseases and vibration white finger. So I was part of that general struggle.  Alternative job openings were also pushed for, but these pressures even gained negative responses when Blair became Prime Minister. I followed the miners tradition in that era of normally being on the best side, but losing out to the worst. Paradoxically, the small pit I aided the most effectively was a small non-NUM drift mine in my constituency. First, I was part of the struggle which got them added to European Union funding. Secondly, I was involved in efforts which got them added to power stations purchasing some of their output. Finally, when they could not obtain insurance cover for the mine, I vigorously pressed their case. But that effort would have failed. It was the owner who saved the day. He transferred the ownership of the mine to the men. They were then able to obtain individual insurance cover and continue their operations. It was worker's control, thanks to the boss!
 
In retirement, my interest in my past mining connections have led to me researching what the local heritage was which I inherited. As the pit at Easington Colliery was first sunk in 1899, I wanted to know about its past in the years before I was born. The fruits of my labours can be found in three articles which were published in the 2011, 2012 and 2013 editions on North East History which is the Journal of the North East Labour History. For more related material on the above themes, see the links provided at the foot of this page.    

 
From Easington Colliery at the time of Thatcher's funeral.

The Late John and Vi Hughes

John and Vi Hughes.

I attended an ex-students weekend at the Rookery at Ruskin College a few years ago to give a talk on Iraq, which I have had an interest in ever since I served my National Service there in 1955/6. Later I went to Ruskin to study, from 1960 to 1962. The talk I gave was at held in the equivalent of the old lecture room I had once attended to listen to John Hughes and other tutors. Shortly after I started my talk, John and his wife Vi walked into the room and sat at the back. It was a telling moment for me. Here was a man I respected as much as anyone I had come across and whose lectures and tutorials had been inspirational. Yet now he was coming to listen to me. My life from my time at Ruskin has been dominated by political education and political practice, Yet John and Vi turning up to hear me at the Rookery of all places, gave me more satisfaction than anything I have ever experienced in these aspects of my life. Way beyond anything like visits to 10 Downing Street, when I became an MP. After my studies at Ruskin, I eventually had the privilege of becoming a tutor on the same courses at Sheffield University which John had once taught upon between 1952 and 1954, including those he covered at Scunthorpe. Thankfully John did not only teach me applied economics, he used the ideal techniques for adult education. I knew whom I had to seek to follow. As an MP, I was in a group of his ex-students who hosted an evening with him in the Commons. Apart from talking to John and Vi after the meeting on Iraq, it was the only meeting I had with him after leaving Ruskin over 50 years ago. When I had a chat with Vi and John at the Rookery, I pointed out that his comments on one of my essays (after his inevitable encouragements) had said that it lacked an analytic framework. I did not appreciate what this meant and failed to raise the matter with him at the time. But after Ruskin I moved to Hull University and studied philosophy, so the point soon became clear to me. So I told John when we met , that I could now do analytic structures at the drop of a hat. My difficulty has been to find sufficient appropriate empirical information to sustain my analysis. John never had such problems. Vi also taught at Ruskin in my time, but not on the course I pursued. Yet we all invariably linked the two of them together and talked of "Vi and John". It was not just an indication of how close they were, but of the combined impact they had on our closed community. The fact that they died within a fortnight of each other must have been a terrible wrench for their family. Yet without seeking an inappropriate religious symbolism, it means that ever since they first met in 1948 John and Vi were together and virtually departed together. Their togetherness in pursing their joint values is what will be remembered, and will give comfort to those who knew them.

School of Democratic Socialism

The School of Democratic Socialism (SDS) will be holding two separate (but related) meetings on Friday, June 15, at the Aspect Court building [Room 15104] of Sheffield Hallam University.

Aspect Court is on Pond Hill, which runs past the bus Interchange, down towards the ring road and railway line. There will be an afternoon seminar at 14.00 hours on the question of Money and Finance: the Economic Crisis. John Halsteadl has prepared a brief paper to provide a focus for the discussion. Allowing for a break, the afternoon session should end by 16.30 at the latest.

This will be followed in the evening, at 19.00, by Linda McAvan, MEP, speaking on The Future of Europe, under the SDS general theme of 'there has to be a better way forward!'.

This is in advance the SDS preparing its programme for 2012-13. The two themes are related and require a greater political response than we seem to be getting from the political parties. There will be ample opportunity for you to express your views and we hope you can attend. Please feel free to pass this information on to anyone who may be interested.

Aspect Court has a reception, which is manned until 17.00 hours. SHU rent rooms on the first floor, while others occupy the top two floors. There is a porter on the door, who controls admittance after 17.00. The entrance to the Aspect Court building is opposite the old Queen's Head public house.

Those attending both the 14.00 and 19.00 hour sessions, may wish to make arrangements in-between the sessions for a snack and/or drink.

For background on the first year of the School of Democratic Socialism see here.

John Halstead, Ken Curran and Harry Barnes.

The Politics of Education

The following includes two quotes from the important book opposite.



(1). Our formal education system was founded on the notion of equipping people for work.

Foster's Education Act of 1870 (which needed to be activated by local bodies) catered for 5 to12 year olds and was directed at helping to turn them into more effective hired hands. It basically established a capitalist system of education.

Yet other values gradually emerged within and upon this formal system, to humanise it somewhat.

Within the system, some teachers and pupils began to ask the awkward question “Why”? Why should we do x? Why should we accept that z follows from y? And even, why should we take anything for granted?. Whilst the forces for conformity were powerful, the intellects key weapon of “why?” kept finding its way forward and partially helped to adjust the formal educational system.

Outside influences also came to impinged themselves upon the formal educational system. Working Class adults had for a long time educated themselves in what is known as the Autodidactic tradition (1) and had united together in ventures such as the 1842 Sheffield People's College (2) and had established collective facilities such as reading rooms for and by miners in the North East in 1850 (3). When school education spread from 1870, elements of the working class then pressed individually and collectively for improved education for their children.

The long term impact of such pressures came to their highest fruition with moves to full employment, a welfare state and forms of public ownership around the time of the ending of the second world war. A mixed model of education began to emerge alongside that of a mixed economy. For a period it seemed to open up the possibility of a vastly improved democratic model of education. But when a period of consensus politics emerged, further significant educational progress was somewhat placed on hold. Then from Thatcherism onwards, we have seen the earlier hopes dashed and (as with economics and social welfare) a dramatic shift back to the capitalist model. Today's difference being that modern capitalism needs numbers of people to have modern skills to handle a new and ever changing technology– even though many modern equivalents of the earlier wage-slaves end up working in inhibiting call centres and there equivalent, rather than in mines and factories. Many more (including the young) become long term unemployed.

(2). What then should we look for in an alternative democratic socialist model of education - even though we need to recognise that its very achievement will also require many other economic and social changes to be taking place at the same time? Here we need to recognise that the very ideas we carry in our minds are the key to wider social change.

First : Facilities and opportunities for Individual Self-fulfilment.

It is a characteristic of humanity that it developed intelligence as an evolutionary characteristic to ensure our well-being and survival. There is no end to our intellectual endeavour if it is encouraged and not destroyed.

Secondly : Avenues for our Collective Well-being and Advancement.

Democracy itself needs much more than a universal franchise and periodic elections (as important as these are). It needs a widespread interest in the search for the means by which we can build and maintain a fair and just society.

Thirdly : Everyone is shaped and influenced by their environment and experiences.

But too many of today's influences via the media, advertising and commercial values have undermined the previous mixed economy of formal and informal educational values. We need to work for an overall environment in which questioning, enquiry and the quest for understandings are to the fore. This has consequences for the quality of life, which goes well beyond an intelligent interest in political activity (important as this is).

Fourthly : Education should be for life.

People should have ready access to formal and informal educational avenues outside of their basic years at school or as college or university students. Minds that settle have died.

Fifthly : The stress on all the above forms of education, does not ignore the need to equip people for work.

But it does go way beyond such a concern. Not only can skills-training be part of a wider educational system, but those who are drawn into intellectual pursuits will find there is a spin off when they approach the world of employment. For intelligent people are well equipped to learn new and passing skills in what is a highly technological and changing age.

Finally : Democratic Socialist Education will only fulfil its potential if it recognises that nothing can ever be known with absolute certainty outside of claims of an analytic or tautological nature.

Whether people involve themselves in investigations in the areas of the arts, social studies or the sciences, they need to be aware that the person who only knows their own side of the case, knows little of that. We need to understand counter-ideas and to engage with them intellectually. The sciences are the area which are normally perceived as being able to supply us with the greatest reliability. Yet some of the scientific certainties that seemed to have been discovered by Newton were later replaced by the ideas of Einstein. And now some of Einstein's established ideas are being challenged by serious scientists. The reason that doubt is healthy in both education and life is that if we ever drop the question “why?” from our investigations we become intellectually inert.

Footnotes -

1. See Jonathan Rose “The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes” (Yale Nota Bene, 2002. The following quotes are from his book.
2. "The Sheffield People's College, founded in 1842, was governed democratically by its students: in 1849 the President was a shoemaker. The College taught geography, history, modern languages, Latin, Greek, science, and philosophy, and students were encouraged to discuss politics. Thanks to the People's College, observed one radical artisan, 'There is a peculiarity in the town of Sheffield above all others I have noticed: in that town, all classes of labourers dare to speak the truth that is within them, ay, and labour while they think' .” (p 190).
3. “Around 1850, nineteen out of fifty-four collieries in Northumberland and Durham had some kind of library or reading room.” (p 238).

In Jack's Shadow

Photo of the 1945 Labour Cabinet. Jack Lawson of the War Office is fourth from the right in the back row. The following (highly personal) review of his autobiography is over 3,000 words long.

Jack Lawson lived from 1881 to 1965 and wrote his autobiography entitled "A Man's Life" in 1932, adding a fresh chapter covering the intervening events in 1944. Although he achieved far more in his life than I have and he experienced infinitely harsher circumstances, a surprising number of events occurred to him which I can identify with. The biggest differences between us is that he was born more than half a century before me and worked for 30 years in the pits, starting at the age of 12. These are huge differences between us. They should always be borne in mind in what I say below.

Jack was born in the mining Village of Kells near Whitehaven on the western coast of Cumberland, whilst I was born at Easington Colliery on the opposing eastern coast in County Durham. My paternal grandfather was, however, born only ten years before Jack in a Cumberland mining community, but it was 30 miles inland from Kells. Both Jack and my grandfather later moved with their parents to the Durham Coalfield, where they both started work at 12.

Jack started work at Boldon Colliery, which was situated less than four miles north west of Monkwearmouth Colliery in Sunderland where my grandfather's own dad suffered a fatal accident from a fall of stone in 1907. Sunderland's football ground is now built on top of the former Monkwearmouth pit and at one time my wife worked for a firm situated just a couple of streets away from that colliery. My grandfather also lived in differing houses in the vicinity of what was then Sunderland's ground at Roker Park, with my father being born in one of these houses (next to a pawnbrokers) in 1909.

Reflecting upon the many mining families who settled in the Durham Coalfield and who had come from far and wide to settle in County Durham, Jack states that there " is only one dialect now, and only Durham people. The melting pot process is complete" (p 43). This description solidly applied to Easington Colliery where my grandparents and their established family finally settled permanently in 1912, just a year after the pit went into full production.

Jack also says that at Boldon, he "lived in the isolation of a colliery" (p51). This was before the days of public transport and also describes early life at Easington. My father was brought into that community when he was two years old and remained solidly part of it for the next 84 years of his life.

Jack adds that most "miners have had experiences which makes one feel that it is only by a 'miracle' that they are alive" (p 61). My own father's miracle occurred in 1951 when he was working in the local pit when 79 men (and then two rescue workers) were killed. His miracle being that he was working in a different seam from the explosion. Yet at home we did not know he was safe until he returned.

Jack became a Methodist lay preacher and he provides a telling description of what he saw as the impact of Methodism in the Durham Coalfield in the early years of the 19th Century. "Their hymns and sermons may have been of another world, but the first fighters and speakers for unions, Co-op Societies, political freedom and improved conditions, were Methodist preachers" (p 69). I also listened to Methodist sermons at least twice (then over three times) a week between the ages of 12 and 18. My mother had been brought up as a Methodist in the mining community of Sunniside in South West Durham and initially sent me to the Sunday School at the Easington Bourne Methodist Chapel. She continued to attend the Methodist services until prevented by dementia in her old age, whilst I deviated during my National Service and came to reject notions of the "other world". But I sort to retain the moral and political prescriptions which Jack highlights. In a chapter entitled "Little Bethel" (pp 67-74), he gives a classical exposition of the claim that British Socialism was shaped by Methodism rather than Marxism. It was not for several years after I had lost my links with Methodism that I first seriously examined any of Marx's writings.

In 1904 a Branch of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) was founded at Boldon and Jack became an activist, undertaking equivalent tasks to those he undertook as a Lay Preacher around the area's Chapels, now using a soap box to supplement the pulpit. He was 22 when the ILP Branch was founded. Labour did not set up an individual membership structure until 1918. My equivalent was to join the Labour Party in Easington Colliery at the age of 21, after returning from my period of National Service. I was no speaker, so instead I became Secretary of the Local Branch of the Labour Party, where I persuaded them to invite speakers - for now that I was an atheist I missed listening to socialist sermons. It was to be a further 17 years before I also joined the ILP, although it had just changed its name and some of its practices by becoming a publications organisation - Independent Labour Publications. I have retained links with them ever since then.

At an early stage, Jack became an avid reader and collector of serious works of literature. In Jonathan Rose's fine book "The Intellectual Life of the British Working Class" (Yale Nota Bene, 2002), Jack is recognised as being a leading example of the autodidactic tradition. Jack had a depth and commitment to books which went way beyond my own, but I stumbled forward. Up to 12, I had got by reading comics, the local football papers, the Daily Herald and my maternal Grandmother's News Chronicle. But then our teacher at the Secondary Modern School took us into the school library and told us to borrow a book and read it, I choose "Mr. Standfast" by John Buchan and was hooked. I still hold 16 of Buchan's books, most of which were purchased in the Everyman Edition at 4s 6d (now 22 and a half pence). I am, therefore, pleased to see that a quote from Buchan is used on a cover of an edition of Jack's book saying that " 'A Man's Life' should be read by everyone". When I moved beyond Buchan, I came to purchase the Penguin editions of the plays of George Bernard Shaw with their long prefaces as well as a random selection of easier-to-read books by authors such as Conan Doyle. I was slowly moving forth, but none of this matched the depth and scope of Jack's reading as a young man. He tells us how he used "orange- boxes painted, with brown paper covering, tastefully cut at the edges" (p 81) to hold his many books. Having failed my eleven plus, then fluffed the key "O" levels of Maths and English Language and even having dropped-out of the piano lessons my mother sent me to (although she had bought a second-hand upright piano), she became keen to encourage my gradual interest in books. She was determined that I would do things that meant I would not need to go down the pit. So she bought me a bookcase and I then succeeded in upsetting the wife of the Methodist Sunday School Superintendent by placing a photo of GBS on top of it. It was the shape of things to come. A ready-made bookcase would have indeed been a luxury for Jack. Our four roomed colliery house met the needs of my father, mother and myself as an only child. A similar four room house had to be shared by Jack's parents and their ten children. Orange boxes full of classical literature are something which impress me in such a crowded environment.

Jack also "discovered a certain booksellers in Newcastle" (p 74) where he met "kindred souls from other parts of Northumberland and Durham" (p 75). I found the equivalent (or perhaps the same bookseller) in a Newcastle indoor market when I adopted the habit of visiting the town's Theatre Royal. On my 17th birthday, I bought a copy of "The Webbs and their Work" edited by Margaret Cole (London: Frederick Muller Ltd. 1949) which contains an article by Jack himself entitled "The Discovery of Sidney Webb". Jack tells us that in his efforts to find literature about Trade Unions a "steady, thoughtful, elderly miner said he thought a man called Sidney Webb had written a 'History of Trade Unionism'. There was not one to be found in the colliery, so it was ordered off of a bookseller in Newcastle" (p 187-8 of Margaret Cole's book). This was how how Jack discovered Sidney Webb, who was to become a fellow Durham County Labour MP and a fellow Government Minister in the First Minority Labour Government of 1924. Indeed Jack was to stand unsuccessfully for the Seaham Parliamentary Constituency (encompassing Easington) in 1918, which Sidney went on to win and to serve as their MP from 1922 to 1929.

Jack's love life was to have certain similarities with my own. In describing his first meeting with his future wife, he outlines an event at Boldon where "I met 'Her'. She lived in Sunderland, and was visiting friends in the colliery when I met her with a girl friend whom I knew" (pp 82-3). I first met Ann who became my wife in Sunderland itself where we both worked. A mother of a lad I worked with as a railway clerk worked in the office of a neighbouring store, with Ann. This led to my meeting "Her". Ann was herself from a mining background. her father was an onsetter at Shotton Colliery which is closer to Easington than either places are to Sunderland.

Methodist meetings and political meetings helped Jack and then myself to develop interests in speeches, discussions and adult education. Jack took the high road via Methodist pulpits, political platforms and then "a group of us ...started an adult school...long before the Workers' Educational Classes" (p 77). I took the low road of being an honorary secretary, first fixing up speakers for the Christian Endeavour at the Chapel, then when I dropped religion there were secular equivalents through which I undertook similar tasks - the local Labour Party and the Peterlee and District Fabian Society. Speakers I arranged for the later included Mannie Shinwell MP and Sam Watson the Secretary of the Durham Miners Association, people whom Jack worked with closely. Sam being his protege. It must be remembered that Sam initially had a much more left-wing reputation than the one he later acquired.

Although he was 25 and married and faced major financial difficulties, Jack undertook two years full-time study in politics and economics at Ruskin College in Oxford in 1907. After selling their furniture, his wife found work in Oxford and he did some domestic work at the college (p 99). 53 years later at the age of 24, I also went to study at Ruskin College. But I had the great advantage of receiving funding from the Durham County Council on which Jack had served. I also had no marriage commitments, it being only between my first and second years at Ruskin when I met Ann. Jack discovered about the existence of Ruskin College when he talked about books and art to his marra, Jack Woodhead. When Jack mentioned John Ruskin, his mate told him about the College which bore Ruskin's name and encouraged Jack to contact them (pp 93-5). Jack undertook the College's correspondence course and then went into full-time study with them. Whilst my discovery of Ruskin College arose from my attending a Fabian Society School held there during an Easter vacation.

Although it wasn't preplanned, I came to use Ruskin College as a stepping stone into university. Jack's youngest brother Will did the same when he followed in Jack's footsteps. But Jack himself turned down the Principal Dennis Hird's offer to help him do the same. Jack returned to the pit at the close of his course and pursued his political and trade union commitments. He acted as voluntary election agent for Labour and for a miner at Jarrow in the 1910 elections. My equivalent was in North East Derbyshire in 1983, when I was agent to Ray Ellis who was President of the Derbyshire Miners. Jack was next elected as checkweighman at Alma Colliery in North West Durham. He tells us that "I soon discovered that my work as check-weighman was a mere detail and by no means my real work. I was their business man, watching closely and attending to every detail effecting their wages and conditions. I was adviser on domestic questions, lawyer and executor. So are all checkweighmen. Pit-craft first, spokesman in the office, much tested guide in meetings..." (p 114). It was the era in which Beatrice Webb came to call the Parliamentary Labour Party "the Party of Checkweighmen" (p 250, "Master and Servants" by Huw Beynon and Terry Austrin. London: River Oram Press, 1994).

Unlike me, Jack fought in a war, volunteering in 1916 and becoming a lead driver of mules in France; finally being demobbed in 1918. My own two years in the forces were mainly served in Basra in Iraq when I was called up for National Service. I was part of a Movements Unit where in contrast to the recent history of Iraq, I was lucky enough only once to hear a shot fired in anger when a prisoner escaped from a neighbouring Iraqi Army camp, but they missed him as he dived into the river. Jack's brother Will was, however, killed in France during the First World War. Will once having wrote home to say "This is not war: it is a permanent industry of death" (p 145).

Jack moved on to become the Labour MP for Chester-le-Street from 1919 to late 1949. My equivalent was to be the Labour MP for North East Derbyshire from 1987 to 2005. But there were some major differences between us. He spoke from Labour's front benches during the minority Labour Governments of Ramsay MacDonald and then served in the Attlee Government from 1945 to 1946. At the end of 1949 he moved on to the Lords. I never rose to such dizzy heights. Jack's autobiography, however, skates over his parliamentary and governmental experiences. His focus is on his mining and mining family background.

He took the title of Baron Lawson of Beamish and also became Lord Lieutenant of Durham. These were unpaid positions and he was obliged to live on income support. But his title turned out to be an appropriate one, for after his death Beamish acquired a substantial Mining Museum, preserving memories of the Durham Mining tradition in a former coalfield where no pits have remained since the closure of Monkwearmouth Colliery in 1993.

Jack knew the Easington Colliery area well (its pit also closed in 1993). As mentioned previously, he was the unsuccessful Labour Candidate for the Seaham Constituency in 1918, when he perceptively (but unhelpfully in electoral terms) campaigned against reparations being placed upon Germany (p 154). In 1944 he addressed the St. John's Methodist Chapel on "My Travels to China" (p 13, "Methodism in Easington Colliery 1913-1963", a Jubilee Brochure). Unfortunately, I missed out on his talk as I was only eight at the time and went to a different local Methodist chapel. But his Methodist, socialist and Durham Mining Association commitments are likely to have drawn him into Easington on many occasions.

Unfortunately, Jack's autobiographical coverage mainly peters out once he becomes a MP. The 1944 edition is 191 pages long, but the years between 1919 and 1944 are crammed into the last 31 pages. There is nothing at all on the 1926 General Strike nor on the 1931 economic collapse. And there is little on his electoral politics, nor on where his victories took him to. Yet if you wish to find out what Durham Big Meeting was like in its heyday, what a bitter fight between two miners was like when surrounded by fellow gamblers and (above all) what life was like for a closely knit mining family, then this is the book for you. For instance; after his brother is killed during the first world his mother searches out a treasured baby's toy and hands it to Jack for his six year old daughter, saying "Take this home for your babby hinny. My babby's gone." (p 150). Then Jack's own eleven year old son Clive is killed following a bombing raid in 1941 (pp 184-7).

The appeal to me of Jack's book is not just that I also originate from a Durham mining community, but that I worked closely with miners from South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire for 21 years. Furthermore, I did this in a capacity which links in with one of Jack's commitments - working class adult education. I was a tutor on day-release classes for trade unionists run by the Sheffield University Extramural Department/Division of Continuing Education. The persistent core of these classes were for members of the Yorkshire and Derbyshire NUMs. Their interests were grounded (like Jacks') on their lives in their mining communities. Numbers moved on to study full-time in adult education colleges such as Ruskin. Many became, like Jack, avid readers of serious books. My big regret is that I never placed a copy of "A Man's Life" in the book boxes we took to these classes. It was crafted for exactly such a readership.

When I moved into the Commons after the joy of teaching as an equal in adult education, I became on MP for a Constituency with a similar tradition to Jack's Chester-le-Street. For 67 of the years between 1907 and 1987 my seat of North East Derbyshire had been represented by coal miners, the pattern was only cut into when the seat fell briefly to opposing Liberals or Conservatives. Three deep mined pits and a drift mine still remained in existence when I went to Westminster. Only the drift mine now survives, but I am thankful to have participated in three campaigns to prevent its closer. The consequences of the end of deep coal mining in North Derbyshire became a key concern on my agenda. I always tried to be accepted as something of a substitute miner.

But Jack outmatched me as a Labour MP also. He represented Chester-le-Street from 1919 to December 1949, when he went to the Lords. It was later replaced by the North Durham seat. Chester-le-Street went Labour in 1906 and (then as North Durham) has continously been Labour ever since.

For me, Jack's book strikes all the key cords. The thin coverage of his non-mining years does not really matter, as there are plenty of alternative works to turn to by professional historians. It is Jack at the coal-face which matters; whether down the pit, in the community or with his family.

Note : as second hand copies of Jack's small book cost £25, potential readers may wish to borrow it via the inter-library loan system. I did this for £1.50p.