Monday 7th October 5.30pm Rosalind Eyben, John Horner & the Communist Party, Uncomfortable Encounters with Truth.
Recording of seminar
Despite their influence on British politics there are few thoroughly researched and critically distanced accounts of the lives of twentieth century British trade unionists and of leading working-class communists. Until he left in 1956, John Horner was one of the British Communist Party’s cold war success stories but has been forgotten about because he stayed silent when others published their memoirs. Horner drafted a lively, unpublished autobiography of the first half of his life but never wanted to write or even speak about his time with the CP until towards the end of his life he revealed to his daughter, Rosalind Eyben, some of what most ashamed him about his past. In her illustrated talk, Rosalind discusses how Horner created the modern Fire Brigades Union and the problem of political allegiance, personal morality and states of denial associated with his membership of the Communist Party that were later to haunt him.
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