My VE Day Memories

Towards the end of the Second World War at the age of 19 Dennis Donnini from Easington Colliery became the youngest soldier in the Second World War to be awarded the Victoria Cross. He was killed during his act of bravery. Locally where I then lived his family were exceptionally well known as his father ran a popular ice cream parlour situated in Easington's main street of Seaside Lane. After my father retired as a miner, my parents moved into sheltered accommodation named in memory of Dennis as “Donnini House”. Details about Dennis can be found here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Donnini

    On VE Day on 1945 I was an 8 year old living at Easington Colliery in County Durham on a Council Housing estate where the bulk of the men were local coal miners. Although it was part of a large estate, our street only had ten houses and there were a similar number in the street opposite us. Tables (with chairs) were taken from both sets of houses and placed from end to end in our shared road. We held a fine celebration with food and drinks. Similar festivities took place across the rest of the Council Housing estate as well as in the colliery housing area for miners and their families. Like most of the men around us, my father worked at the local pit. His extra contribution to the war effort having been to serve as an Air Raid Warden.

    The main war time attack on Easington occurred when I was only 4 years old when 50 colliery houses close to the pit were hit, with 14 people being killed, 30 injured and some 300 being made homeless. I remember nothing about this as I lived in a different part of Easington at the time and was probably asleep. The matter would be kept from me. (Link into the start of this key article  by Mary N Bell on such attacks. The rest of the 56 pages is also well worth an examination  - Click here )

    It was not until near the end of the war that I became aware of what had happened. For my father took me by bus to Hartlepool to see a German fighter plane which had been shot down. Then as we passed the area near Easington pit, he pointed to the pock marks from enemy gun fire on the side of the Trust Hotel which had occurred during the attack.  

    We had moved into the street where our VE Day celebrations were taking place just before I was due to start school as a 5 year old. Our house was only four doors away from where my Grandmother and Uncle Bill lived. As my grandmother was an invalid, my mother and I spent a great deal of time in their house. Air raid sirens often went off in the evening and my mother and I would dive under the table. But my grandmother would not budge from her rocking chair.

    These raids did not hit Easington, as they were mainly directed at Sunderland to our north and sometimes at Hartlepool to our south. From our back garden I could see protective barrage balloons over Hartlepool, some 10 miles away. Sunderland being just a bit further to the north.

    When we arrived at our Council House near my Grandmothers, we had an air raid shelter in our back garden. But as it was flooded it was removed. A brick air-raid shelter was later built on the road where our celebrations later took place, but it was mainly an unused building and its condition degenerated.

    In fact there was only one local air attack I recollect. Near the end of the war a German plane was being pursued by British fighters. It fired its guns as it retreated. My mother rushed into my bedroom placing herself on top of me for my protection. The plane's shots hit one man on our estate in his house on the arm and other shots dislodged tiles at the nearby Secondary Modern School.

    In my early years at school I had a gas mask for a period and also picked up matters about the war from family discussions, but it was only really a couple of years later as the tide started to turn in Russia in 1943 and then we entered Normandy in 1944 that my knowledge of war events grew.

    Aged 8, near the end of the war my parents took me to the cinema as they wanted to see Pathe News showing the allied troops entering the camp at Belsen. I was made to duck under the seat in front of me when the item emerged. But I could hear the commentary and have seen its horrors many times since.

    I was able to participate fully in events on the 50^th Anniversary of VE Day. As I was then the MP for North East Derbyshire I arranged for my wife and her late mother to accompany me to a commemorative event addressed by the Queen in Westminster Hall in the parliament building. As my mother-in-law was in a wheel chair, we were given a rather good spot. Then the same happened when we next visited the fly past outside of Buckingham Palace. 

Here is an item I wrote about my Easington Colliery 10 years ago. Click here.

Surviving the Climate Crisis

 

An important work entitled “The Future We Choose - surviving the climate crisis" has recently been published by Manilla Press. It is written by Christiana Figueres the former UN Executive Secretary for Climate Change and Tom Rivett-Carnac who was senior political strategist for the Paris Agreement.

Unfortunately, the style of writing (especially for the first half of the book) is somewhat convoluted and might be off-putting for many. But it is a work which needs to be persevered with, for it provides solid proposals on the type of avenues we need to pursue to guarantee the future of humanity.

As a taster, I give below very brief summaries of ten forms of action it presses that need to be widely pursued to protect the future of mankind. These are covered in separate sections in the second half of the book.

1. Move to the development of onshore wind turbines in place of fossil fuels.
2. Remove 80% of our cars from the roads and what remain should be electric forms of transport.
3. Defend the truth. Scientists generally agree that Global Warming is extremely dangerous.
4. Eliminate waste – reduce, reuse and recycle. Move beyond the mindset of
   consumption and ownership.
5. Undertake an energy audit of your home and reduce your air flights, especially if you live in a wealthy country.
6. Reforest the earth. In addressing climate change few actions are more urgent.
7. Linear GDP growth can no longer be the priority. More stuff does not mean a better life. Invest instead in a clean economy.
   8. We can use technology responsibly, delivering emission reductions. It is now possible to completely redesign our central energy grids.
   9. We need to build gender equality. Women often have a leadership style that is essential to responding to the climate crisis.
   10. Most important of all, we all need to involve ourselves in democratic politics to end operations in which corporate interests have captured the operations of our political systems. 
   
   Added 25 April - This could be a key development - click here. 
   Added 26 April - Also click here.
   Again 26 April - For virus deaths per thousand of national populations. The top nine nations are all European with the UK in fifth place, although it has no record for such total deaths in care homes and the like. So its real position could be higher and worse. Click here.
   May 9 - Click here. 
    

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

60 Years Ago Today - Manny and Me

  MANNY SHINWELL
 

As then Secretary of the Peterlee and District Fabian Society it is 60 years ago today since a Day School which I had organised was held at the Easington Colliery Secondary Modern School - where I was then a 23 year old school governor.

The topic was on the issue of the re-nationalisation of the Steel Industry, although the meeting was held in a solid coal mining area. 63 people attended with the Women's Section of the Easington Colliery Labour Party serving food and drinks during the break. I was also the Secretary of the Easington Colliery Labour Party at the time and activists from the Women's Section used to form half of our Branches normal attendance of 30 or so.

The speakers I arranged to address the meeting were (1) Ronald Parker the Vice Chair and Political Education Officer of the Cleveland Divisional Labour Party who had sound knowledge about the Steel Industry and (2) Manny Shinwell our local MP who when Minister of Fuel and Power in 1947 (when I was a 10 year old) had nationalised the Coal Industry.

I am having technical difficulties at the moment, but I am attempting to link into a connection which will show a 60 year old item from the Northern Echo which shows a photo of five of us at the event. These are the two speakers and three of our branch officials - Bill Horsfield our Treasurer, John Alderson our Chair and myself. John had taught my wife English at school, although it would be a further three years before I met her. I will adjust this paragraph if and when I resolve my technical problems. (It is page 89 of the Journal shown here - which is page 91 according to the numbering of the site : http://nelh.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/North-East-History-Issue-48.pdf   ) 


Manny Shinwell had a big influence on my life. I had gained a clear interest in politics from my experiences of the harsh nature of life for many Iraqi people when I undertook my National Service at Basra in 1955-56. Then I was demobbed in the middle of Suez Crisis and the Russian Invasion of Hungary - a dramatic political era. But as I was not impressed by Gaitskell's leadership of the Labour Party I held on a year before deciding to apply for Labour Party membership. In the meantime, I went to a variety of left-wing political discussion meetings and wrote regular political letters to the Northern Echo, the Sunderland Echo and the Durham Cronicle. I became an associate member of the national Fabian Society (attending their discussion meetings in Durham) and a member of the International Society of Socialist Studies established on an initiative by GDH Cole, whom I heard address them at a meeting in London.

Then Shinwell ran an essay contest for Labour Party members in the Easington Constituency on nationalisation. So I joined them in order to enter. The first meeting I went to was to collect my prize of £3 for coming in second in the contest (my essay being numbered 16). The first prize went to John Alderson who appears on the photo I refer to. It was a packed constituency meeting held at nearbye Blackhall with Shinwell presenting the prizes.

Within a few months of joining the Labour Party I became Secretary of the Easington Colliery Branch of the Labour Party, persuading them to have a speaker with a discussion at alternative monthly Branch Meetings. Then four of us competed for the role of Constituency Secretary and I was the runner up.

The Peterlee and District Fabian Society first meeting was held on 7th February 1958, just over two years before our Day School at Easington. It was addressed by Bill Rodgers the Fabian Society General Secretary, who later became one of the Gang of Four defecting from Labour to set up the Social Democratic Party. I discussed the event with him years later and was impressed by how well he remembered it.  Later speakers included Sam Watson the leader off the Durham Miners, Shinwell and Jack Dormond who was eventually to follow on from Shinwell as our local MP.

During the 1959 General Election I acted as a local election agent, covering the Easington Colliery and Easington Village area on behalf of Shinwell. It was the first General Election in which I had a vote.

Then from October 1960 I obtained a place to study full-time at Ruskin College. Shinwell had written a reference to them on my behalf and pushed my cause. I had earlier been selected to attend the 1960 Labour Party Conference, but backed off as it clashed with the start of my studies and I was substituted. Yet I had moved and carried a ban-the-bomb resolution at our Constiteuncy Party. A stance (amongst many others) which led to Gaitskell making his famious "fight, fight and fight again" speech in the other direction.

Where I now live in Dronfield (although living at Sheffield at the time) I became a member of the Contact Club when it moved to it present and purpose-built facilities. As a Trades and Labour Club it was officially opened on its new site by Shinwell himself on 12 August 1967. Unfortuneately, I missed what was a key event for me because I was away teaching at an Adult Education Summer School at Colegh Harlech at the time. It would have been ideal if the events had not clashed.

I hold five books written by Shinwell. Two contain his signature and another was his gift with a label as a presentation copy. Then I have two other books written about him.   

Shinwell was first elected to serve what was then the Seaham Constituency with the count taking place at the Easington Colliery Infant School in 1935 - the year before my birth. He defeated Ramsay MacDonald who had been the local MP and Prime Minister, but who had defected from the Labour Party. The 1935 count took place at the Easington Colliery Infant School. But there were separate Infants Schools close to each other for boys and girls. So I am not sure if it is the one I later attended.

29 April ; I have just discovered this about Shinwell at Easington. Both the video and the script describing its content are for me exceptional. See here.

 

In Memory of Joe Ashton

I am very sorry to hear about the death of Joe Ashton the former Labour MP for Bassetlaw. Although he served longer as an MP than I did we were both MPs together over a shared period of 14 years from 1987 to 2001, during which time I got to know and admire his work.  In his memory, I re-produce below a report of a fine Discussion Meeting which I arranged for him to address in Dronfield back in January 2009.  

Joe, The Shop Steward For Former MPs

First, Joe in full flight. Then, Christine Smith (Chair, Dronfield Labour Party), Joe Ashton and me.




























The photos are from our latest discussion meeting, which was addressed by Joe Ashton. He has always been a popular speaker in Dronfield, having in the past addressed a local May Day Rally and a packed public meeting. It was no surprise that he doubled the average size of our attendance.

Joe was the MP for Bassetlaw in North Nottinghamshire for over 32 years. After he left the Commons, he helped to establish the Association of Former Members of Parliament gaining a positive response to his initiative from Michael Martin, the Speaker of the Commons as well as from many of his past colleagues.

A survey of former MPs was conducted on behalf of the Association by the School of Politics and International Studies at Leeds University where 343 members of the Association were issued with a questionnaire. Copies of the Leeds University report which was published in October 2007 were circulated at our meeting. As were copies of the Associations magazine "Order! Order!".

Although some MPs (as I did) announced their retirement well in advance and prepared to move into either retirement or a fresh career, others faced the trauma of losing their jobs in the glare of often adverse publicity. This can occur contrary to expectations, with a former MP often then having immediately to start from scratch to build a fresh life.

Whilst in our current era of the credit crunch and major job-losses, people may not see MPs to be a special case; Joe is keen that a body should be maintained which can seek to further ex-MPs' concerns and draw upon their past experiences. The average shelf life of an MP on the parliamentary benches is only 8 years, so the rapid turn over is likely to involve many hidden problems. On top of this, former MPs have developed interests and areas of expertise that should not just be thrown to one side.

Joe was christened as the MPs' shop steward during his time as an MP. It is, therefore, entirely appropriate that he should continue that role during his own retirement on behalf of his fellow former MPs.

As would be expected, the bulk of the time at our Dronfield discussion meetings is taken up with debating our speaker's presentation. However as Joe was well known to everyone as a former columnist, author, playwright, frontbencher and Sheffield Wednesday supporter; the discussions were bound to go well beyond the initial scope of his presentation. But as with all worthwhile discussion meetings, people left buzzing and continued their own discussions in groups. Which is exactly what discussion meetings are supposed to be about.

Easington Colliery - Past and Present.

Easington Colliery Pit Disaster 1951 (when I was 14).

In 1936 I was born at Easington Colliery in County Durham. It was my home base until 1963, although between 1954 and 1956 I was pulled away to undertake my National Service in the RAF, mainly in Basra in Iraq. After then settling back in Easington I later became an adult student being away from home during term times between 1960 and 1963. I then married and although my wife Ann came from nearby Shotton Colliery, we moved to Yorkshire then Derbyshire. But my parents continued to live at Easington until their deaths in 1993 and 1999 with my wife, myself and then our two children regularly visiting them.

The Easington I remember was a vibrant community, living a coherent if often harsh communal life based fully on the operation of its coal mine. For apart from quarrying and farming, little had existed in the area until the pit was first sunk in 1899. Then the initial progress was slow as much of the coal to be extracted came from under the sea. It took until 1910 before coal was finally extracted and the community then expanded and developed.

Life drew almost entirely from Easington's mining operations. When teachers, shop-assistants, railway workers, doctors and others moved into the area they did this essentially to service the mining community. Communal facilities grew mainly to meet the needs of miners and their families. There came to be a Miners' Welfare, a Workingmen's Club, Pubs, a wide range of Churches and Chapels, Colliery Houses, Age Miners Homes and Council Houses, a Welfare Park with its main football ground opened by Ramsay McDonald when he was the local MP and Prime Minister, annual cricket contests for made-up local teams and at one time three cinemas with long queues especially at the Rialto on a Sunday evening and for children's programmes at the Hippodrome on a Saturday morning.

The social bond was added to by important helpful social responses to the harshness of pit life. On top of numerous mining injuries, 192 men and boys where killed in the pit starting with a sinker in 1900 and ending with a power loader in 1991. With 83 being killed in the pit disaster in 1951. My father only surviving because he was in a different seam from the explosion.

Yet in spite of the tough nature of mining life; miners, their families and others providing commercial and social needs helped to build important social bonds. Here is an important article which I have just come across which shows the serious social decline which has hit the Easington Colliery community since the pit was closed in 1993 - https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2018-05-08/25-years-on-pit-villages-worst-fears-realised/

And whilst coal mines can't function for ever, action needed (and still needs) to be taken to ensure that the communities they helped to build are preserved, re-built and improved. For there are alternative avenues to coal mining.

Unite Community calls for help for the most vulnerable

Chesterfield and North Derbyshire Unite Community

PRESS RELEASE

Contact name:    Colin Hampton

Contact tel:         07870387999

Email: colinhampton45@yahoo.com

Embargo: none 

 

Unite Community Calls for help for the most vulnerable

At its monthly meeting Unite Community in Chesterfield has called for immediate assistance from the government for the most vulnerable in the present coronavirus crisis.

Unite Community, part of Unite the Union, brings together people, students, claimants, pensioners, those not currently in work, and allows them to organise giving them a voice.

‘As the coronavirus crisis deepens we need clear and decisive action to prepare health services and protect the most vulnerable in society’ said Colin Hampton secretary of the local branch. ’This crisis will impact most on those with the least and the Government has had very little to say about this.’

The branch members had outlined at their meeting how years of underfunding had weakened essential public services and the social security systems that many need to survive.

Unite Community in Chesterfield and North Derbyshire is calling for the Government to respond positively to the demands for

·        Full sick pay for all workers making sure that the many workers in precarious employment are given financial security preventing destitution. Thousands of workers now fall into this category including the many bogus self-employed in the gig economy as well as those on zero hours or minimum hours contracts.

·       There should be no benefit sanctions and the five week wait for Universal Credit should be stopped.  Those currently on benefits and the thousands who will lose their jobs as businesses close down need social security.

·       There should be immediate end to evictions for rent arrears across both social housing and the private rented sector with provision for a moratorium on rent and mortgage payments.

·       Emergency provision should be provided for the homeless who will be particularly at risk during the crisis.

·       There must be support for families and children where school closures take place.  Many of our most vulnerable families rely on free school meals to feed their children.

‘Our community came together to support the miners and their families during the great strike 35 years ago.  Today we face an even bigger task, and the cry of ‘They will not starve’ must be heard again with community coming together to make sure all of us get through this crisis’. Colin went on to say, ‘People have to rally round but Government at all levels must play a key role with immediate emergency funding and support.’

/ends

Colin Hampton

c/o 1 Rose Hill East

Chesterfield

S40 1NU

01246 231441

07870387999

Also from -
 

The scale of the challenge right now is difficult to overstate. The collective responsibility and action required of us to keep each other safe is tremendous.  Some will find it easier to rise to the occasion - to self-isolate, to work from home. Others will be weighing impossible decisions - deciding between their health, their livelihoods and the wellbeing of the communities and employees they support. As we face unprecedented insecurity, we need to meet people's real needs with workable solutions. Not only to address the crisis of today, but to look to the future and how we can build a resilient, healthy and good society that will withstand the crises of tomorrow too.  That's why Compass is calling on the Government to take necessary action and guarantee a basic income for everyone in the UK without delay.

Sign our petition now

As the coronavirus crisis unfolds, the case for a guaranteed basic income is clear and more urgent than ever.  This level of economic insecurity is new but for millions of people insecurity has been a day-to-day experience for years. Our economy has been changing since before the virus hit. Automation, climate change and a broken welfare system have already pushed people to breaking point and beyond. Two weeks ago, Compass launched the Basic Income Conversation to kickstart a broad and popular movement for basic income in the UK.  We set out to have a serious public conversation about what basic income could mean for this country. To find out what people really think of the idea and grapple with the difficult questions and tensions it throws up. That conversation is now more important than ever.  But in this turning point, we have to respond. Help move the needle on basic income by signing and sharing this petition now.

I'll sign the petition

A basic income alone is not going to get us out of this. But it's one piece of the puzzle that will give people what they need right now - and can bring us closer to remaking the public realm and creating a new political and economic settlement for the future. 

In solidarity,

Neal

 

 

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 The Island Of Ireland

 
The Irish Labour Party had a spell in politics when it was as successful in electoral terms as Sinn Fein has just now become. Sinn Fein having acquired 37 seats, which is the same number which Labour acquired in the 2011 General Election and when a Fine Gael-Irish Labour coalition was then founded. I give below a link to the Irish Labour Party's recent Election Manifesto, which seems to me to have attractive features. But Irish Labour have only now obtained six seats. There should be scope in the politics of the island for Labour Party activities to be aimed at establishing a good relationship between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. But although people in Northern Ireland can now join the UK Labour Party it has no similar constituency structure to the rest of the UK. When Dick Spring was the leader of the Irish Labour Party he pointed out that it was easier to unite one set of people living on two islands than to unite two sets of people living in one island. But as the majority of the people in Northern Ireland are not currently in favour of a united Ireland, two mobilised Labour Parties across the island could fruitfully work together to extend and improve relationships. This is especially required given Brexit, where within the EU the Irish Government needs to be pressed to work to overcome any future form of border controls. Given Sinn Fein's history and its hard line united Ireland stance, socialists should be looking instead for the alternative avenues I suggest. I need to find out whether any of the candidates for our Labour Leadership agree with me. See - https://www.labour.ie/manifesto/building-an-equal-society/
Hat tip: Geology.com - the source of the above map.

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.     
        
   
  
 
   

The Way Ahead For Labour

   

   As a consequence of Labour's collapse at the General Election and the move towards  electing a fresh leader, a serious yet comradely debate is needed within the Labour Movement on what our future direction of travel should be - and who can best lead this. Even if this is unlikely to happen, some of us should try to push for it. 
 

   The Manifesto that we should have been fighting the general election on should now form a major part of our discussions in relation to our direction of travel. For apart from the section on Brexit which arose from an unsatisfactory attempt to reconcile conflicts inside both the PLP and the wider movement, it is a very important document. Although as a Manifesto it should really have honed-in on what could feasibly have been delivered within the lifetime of the new parliament. Yet it was so fully directed at overcoming the major strengths of the controls of capitalism, that many of its proposals would have been undermined by such very powers within the operations of a mere five year period.

   Sidney Webb in shaping Labour's old Clause 4 and planning earlier socialist programmes from near the end of the first world war, was so fully aware of the powers of capitalism that he stressed the need for care and gradualism. He was even depicted as walking slowly in front of a socialist steamroller holding a red flag. For when any specific expliotive power of capital is tackled, it is itself likely to turn to fresh devices that will then further need to be dealt with - and that slows up the process. We can't just wish away the powers of Capital. It requires steamroller type persistence and gradually mastering anti-social activities.

   Labour's recent Manifesto should not be seen as something which could ever have been delivered in the life of a single parliament, but as a general direction of travel. The Manifesto did, however, start out on a key item which needs to be a top priority (before we run out of time) - the need to tackle climate change via what it called a "Green Industrial Revolution." On this, the Manifesto covered the key areas of the economy and energy, transport, environment and animal welfare. It is a pity that its proposals were not given wider publicity - even by the Party itself. There was even a case for the Green Party pulling out of many parliamentary contests and joining in the support of Labour Candidates on this key matter.

   The other key sections of the Manifesto were on the need to "Rebuild Our Social Services", how to "Tackle Poverty and Inequality" and the need for "A New Internationalism". But as this was a Manifesto for a General Election in which we were seeking to become a Government for the next five years, it was not something we could democratically have fully hoped to deliver in that period. Yet there were few references in the Manifesto to time restraints. Apart from a time qualification which was made in saying that ''Labour will deliver free full-fibre broadband by 2030" and not by the likely next election in 2025.

   There were, however times, when the Manifesto went over the top in its claims. Such as - "We will adopt an ambitious Vision Zero approach to UK road safety, striving for zero deaths and serious injuries". Well that is not going to happen as long as we have road transport - although actions could significantly reduce such killings and injuries.

   Then the section sub-headed "Ministry for Employment Rights" contains the need for no less than 30 key items. It is difficult to see these getting onto the statute books within a five year period - unless we adopt a Militant-style Enabling Act. Which is more a revolutionary socialist technique than a democratic socialist approach.

  Yet the direction of travel in the Manifesto (except over the matter of Brexit which is now mainly outside of Labour's control) is something which we fully need to press for. Which candidate for the Labour leadership will now see that this is the type of approach (given a sensitive form of gradualism) that needs to be retained as a basis for its agenda? 

Labour's Key Policies

The Web-site of Independent Labour Publications is running a really important pro-Labour article in relation to the current General Election.

 

The writer Barry Winter covers Labour's proposals to tackle a range of massively important social problems. These include - (1) Poverty and Low Pay. (2) 200,000 children living in absolute poverty. (3) School and Youth Services being pushed past breaking points. (4) Wide areas where those over 65 are also seriously hit. (5) Many private tenants being trapped in squalid slum houses. (6) An NHS with serious staff shortages. (7) 25,000 annual deaths linked to the effects of pollution.

The article is a must for democratic socialists and also needs to be more widely absorbed. It can be found if you link here.

Easington Colliery - aspects of its past.

Crowd waiting for news outside the pit at Easington Colliery following its 1951 pit disaster. I was 14 year old at the time. My father was in the pit when the disaster occurred. He survived as he was working in a different seam from the explosion. He later helped with the salvage work. I also had four uncles and a number of cousins working at the pit then. None were killed. Many escaped by being on different shifts to those who were killed.  All were deeply devastated.

Four articles of mine concerning aspects of the history of Easington Colliery can be found via the links below. They all appeared in annual publications of the journal of the North East Labour History Society called "North East Labour History".

They can be accessed fully via the following links. Just click into the top one and scawl for the rest.

http://nelh.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/North-East-History-Issue-42.pdf

Pages on this link are 47 to 57 as double pages. Those in the journal being 88 to 108.  

http://nelh.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/North-East-History-Issue-43.pdf 

Pages on this link are 78 to 96. Those in the journal now on single pages being 76 to 94.

http://nelh.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/North-East-History-Issue-44.pdf

Pages on this link are 106 to 124. Those in the journal being 104 to 122.

http://nelh.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/North-East-History-Issue-48.pdf

Pages on this link are 83 to 91. Those in the journal being 81 to 89.

Also see the item below this one on this blog. There also is a link at the close of this for 30 items on "Easington".    

  

   

 

My Early Life At Easington Colliery

 See the penultimate paragraph below for reference to the above.

 I was born at Easington Colliery in 1936 and it was my home base for 27 years until 1963 when I married and my wife and I moved to Hull where I was then an adult student at their University.

    However earlier I spent spells away from home. Between 1954 to 1956 undertaking my National Service in the RAF. For the bulk of 1955 and 1956 I served in Iraq. Then I later became a full-time student at an adult education college in Oxford from 1960 to 1962, returning to Easington for the vacations.

   I next studied at Hull University from 1962. For my first year there I again returned to my home to live at Easington during the vacations. I then married Ann in the summer of 1963 and we rented a flat in Hull for two years. She originated from nearby Shotton Colliery. Both of our fathers being local coal miners. My dad being down the pit at the time of the 1951 disaster, but in a different seam to the explosion. He later helped with salvage work.  

    After my graduation at Hull my new employment as a lecturer took Ann and myself to Worksop for a year, then to Sheffield for three years until Ann and I moved next door to Dronfield in North Derbyshire just over 50 years ago. Where I eventually became the local MP between 1987 and 2005.

    Ann and I returned to the North East on a regular basis whilst our parents were still alive. My mother living the longest until 1999. We have made occasional visits to the area since then.

    In fact until I was called up to undertake my National Service in 1954 I had never travelled anywhere further south from Easington than York. I did a day trip to there at 16 when I was interviewed for my first job as a railway clerk. My employment as a Railway Clerk whilst living at Easington taking me no further away than work at Stockton to the south and Sunderland to the North. My first two years being spent at the neighbouring Horden Station.

    So despite my moving away from Easington Colliery 56 years ago at the age of 27, it has always been a pull for me. I had three articles about its history published in the annual journal of the North East Labour History Society in their 2011, 2012 and 2013 editions. These covered the period from the initial efforts to sink its coal mine in 1899 up to 1935. I would have liked to have continued with these articles in order to finally cover at least the period up to the closing of the pit in 1993. But when the 2013 edition was published I had reached 77 years of age and was walking badly. Nor do I drive a car, yet I had been travelling regularly to Durham as my main research required me to make visits to the Durham Library research facilities via public transport. Unfortunately it was all getting beyond me. I also, however, wrote a more personal piece about my Easington background for the Labour History journal for their 2017 edition. The following provides a link to search for these articles - http://nelh.net/the-societys-journal/previous-issues/

    I also wrote a forward for Mary Bell for her fine book “A Chronicle of Easington Colliery” which was printed by Amazon in 2014. It is a publication that everyone interested in the area should read. Amazon also printed her fine book of poems entitled “Where the Pits Were”. Another telling publication is “Easington Throughout The Years” by Eileen Hooper. See here for avenues of access to these three publications - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chronicle-Easington-Colliery-Mary-Bell/dp/1501025481

    My blog was established on my 70^th birthday, hence it is called “Three Score Years and Ten”. Its thread on “Easington” now shows 30 items which can be trawled back to. These items have attracted above average readership. See -

http://threescoreyearsandten.blogspot.com/search/label/Easington

63 Years Ago Today At RAF Habbaniya in Iraq

The photo shows what was its HQ.

On 5^th November 1956 Britain and France invaded Egypt in what became known as the Suez Crisis. The Iraqi Government then had Nuri al-Said as Prime Minister and were under British influence having signed the Baghdad Pact in 1955. Immediately riots broke out against the Suez invasion in areas such as Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Najaf, Kafu and Hilla. These could be seen as triggers which eventually led to the Iraqi Revolution of 1958 under Qasim.

At the time of the outbreak of the unrest I was in Iraq. I had undertaken the bulk of my National Service in the Royal Air Force at a Movements Unit in Basra. But as I was due to be demobbed I had been moved to the RAF camp at Habbaniya to await a plane to take me back to Britain. So I did not directly experience the unrest, being stuck in the camp.

But on 5^th November a flight in front of mine set of from Habbaniya to Cyprus on the first leg of its journey back to Britain. But as it was approaching a fighter base in Syria permission was withdrawn for it to fly over that country. So it had to double back to Habbaniya.

Whilst having a meal in Habbaniya I listened to the BBC News over the loud speakers telling us that there were no British troops in Iraq ! Plans were then made, however, for RAF flights to and from Iraq to be made via Ankara in Turkey. And I was given a place on the first of these. Although we were intercepted by Turkish fighters who made signs to us that we would be shot down if we did not return to Iraq. Luckily they must have received radio information confirming that we had permission to proceed, as they then flew away.

As reservists who had completed their National Service were at the time being called up to help with the fight in Eqypt, I was worried that I would not be demobbed and be caught up in the conflict. But I only had clerical experience working with Iraqi State Railways and Shipping lines. Pen pushers such as myself (filling out Arabic forms in English) were not what the invasion needed.

Unfortunately, my life was then taken over by my being demobbed and returning home to my previous job as a railway clerk. So I never discovered exactly what turmoil faced my former RAF colleagues at Basra. I had served there for 20 months and had never experienced any problems whatsoever from the local community; yet I moved almost daily around areas such as its railway station, good yards, docks and the Basra town centre. Then Iraqis worked as clerks and labourers on our camp. But this peace and tranquility are likely to have changed a great deal after 5 November. I had avoided any problems by the skin of my teeth.

For what was happening in Iraq at the above time, the following is a useful source – pages 115 to 117 of “Iraq” by Adeed Dawisha, Princeton University Press. I refer to the first paperback version published in 2009.

It was, however, my experiences in Iraq and the Suez Crisis which drew me into subsequent political activity. I have since attempted to make up for my failure to reconnect with RAF Basra personnel at the time of my demob and now hold a proud certificate of honorary membership of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions – who surfaced in 2003. 

For more on Iraq follow the link below