Kmflett's Blog

Dickie Bird Cricket Umpire 1933-2025. Of class & cricket

The well known cricketer for Yorkshire and Leicestershire and more particularly Test cricket Umpire Dickie Bird has died aged 92.

Born in Barnsley, Bird played cricket with the late journalist Michael Parkinson and the England batter Geoffrey Boycott an association which endured over the decades.

As Bird noted in his 1997 autobiography there was an element of class to his cricket. Parkinson went to a grammar school and found his way eventually into TV. Bird went to a secondary modern school and left at 15 with no qualifications. However he made his way through life with sporting achievement.

Both equally valid and not reflective of the artificial division then made in their schooling

When it came to examinations, the bright boys like Michael Parkinson went to Barnsley Grammar School, and the others went to Raley Secondary Modern. I went to Raley. I didn’t mind, because it was a good school for sport. It was at Raley that I started playing competitive sport and became captain of the cricket and football teams, the smallest player in either. We had to play cricket on the football ground; it was very rough – not exactly Lord’s! The ball was flying over your head and shooting over the ground.

Dickie Bird – Wikipedia

Socialist History Seminars Autumn Term 2025

Monday 6^th October 5.30pm Geoff Brown, a People’s History of the Anti-Nazi League

Monday 20^th October 5.30pm on Zoom Dilan Tulsiani ‘Traditions of Dissent: The British Section of the League Against Imperialism and British interwar anticolonialism’. To Book https://www.history.ac.uk/news-events/events/traditions-dissent-british-section-league-against-imperialism-british-interwar-anticolonialism

Monday 3^rd November, 5.30pm  Elaine Graham Leigh But we have horns’: Finding a Revolution in Medieval Carcassonne, Room 301, Institute of Historical Research. To Book But we have horns’: Finding a Revolution in Medieval Carcassonne | Institute of Historical Research

Monday 17^th November Steve Cushion, 5.30pm, The Legacies of African Enslavement and the Case for Reparations, Room 301, Institute of Historical Research. To Book The Legacies of African Enslavement and the Case for Reparations | Institute of Historical Research

Monday 1^st December, 5.30pm, Vassilis Fouskas, Cyprus 1974. Anatomy of an invasion, Room 301, Institute of Historical Research. To Book Cyprus 1974. Anatomy of an invasion | Institute of Historical Research

All seminars are free. Please book at the link as space is limited.

Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet St, London, WC1

Image Steve Bell bellbelltoons.co.uk

The Rapture is an evangelical piece of mumbo jumbo that says all believers will ascend into heaven and the rest of us will be despatched down below.

Its very similar to the end of days ideas that populated minds of sections of the poor in the early nineteenth century, a reflection that tough lives in the present could somehow be replaced by a very different one.

There is a bottom line though. God clearly has a beard and if you don’t have one the Rapture is not for you

I worked in the City of London in the 1980s (I still have an office there) as did Nigel Farage so I’m well aware of what he means by a PFL.

The TLA dates back at least to when he was running UKIP in 2015. Erstwhile advisor Raheem Kassam (now co-owner of a MAGA restaurant in Washington) revealed it in a Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis that caused her to remind viewers of what is stands for: Proper Fucking Lunch.

Farage is still at it btw. The Sunday Times published an interview with Farage at his favourite Pimlico whine bar and restaurant Boisdale in June 2025. It reported what his PFL consisted of

Farage is eating Lamb and Kidney pudding (Suffolk lamb, suet crust, claret gravy) £34.50 which he describes as a ‘proper fucking lunch’ and drinking claret

Farage’s favourite pub chain Wetherspoons sell a Steak & Ale pudding with red wine & onion gravy for around £7-8 with a glass of red wine but I doubt this constitutes a PFL.

Kasseem also noted on Newsnight that a PFL consisted of two bottles of wine each.

Those were the days (I drank more beer than wine) but the days of the boozy lunch certainly in the City of London are in serious decline. There is (a lot of) work to do and being unsober in the afternoon doesn’t work as it were.

As for Farage representing working people, those PFLs in the 80s were all with managers and professionals (unlike Farage, all union members)

Ysanne Churchman

Grace Archer was killed off by the BBC 70 years ago on 22^nd September for trade union activity

It is 70 years on 22^nd September since Grace Archer (Fairbrother) died in a fire as she tried to rescue horses from a barn fire. The unfortunate event, which took place on the same night as the launch of independent television, attracted 20 million listeners.

The reality of the demise of Grace Archer was revealed on a Radio 4 programme, Dead girls can tell no tales, on 19^th September 2015.

The BBC had decided to kill off a leading character to coincide with the launch of ITV, but which one?

The actress Ysanne Churchman, who died aged 99 in 2024, was chosen and she was clear why:

It was “victimisation because I’d been to Equity to get my fees put right”. Churchman wanted the same pay as her male co-stars, and for actors to be in the union. The Archers creator Godfrey Baseley wanted her out.

Ambridge Socialist Editor Keith Flett said, 70 years on its time for the BBC to issue an official apology

Having had the post World War One mandate for Palestine until 1948 when Israel appeared as a State in the area, a process known as the Nakba, Britain finally got around to recognising the Palestinian State on 21st September 2025.

It is largely symbolic, and certainly it doesn’t in itself do anything about arms sales. It is however a marker of the impact of thirty central London marches for Palestine since October 2023, and of course a wide range of other protests.

On 22nd September the Palestinian flag was raised at the newly formed Palestinian Embassy in West London. Again its symbolic but also a moment of historical importance given the role that British imperialism has had in Palestine for over a hundred years now.

Beard Liberation Front

22nd September

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has claimed victory after Boris Johnson posted pictures of himself clean shaven on his Twitter account

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, had called on Boris Johnson to shave off what some called his ‘holiday beard’ after pictures appeared on social media earlier in September

The campaigners say that the former Tory leader was giving beard wearers a bad name and bringing the hirsute into disrepute.

While holiday beards are a known thing, Jeremy Paxman famously grew one in 2013 and then had a protracted dispute with the BBC about whether he could wear it while presenting Newsnight, Johnson’s facial hair not even managed to reach the stage of a  beard.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Boris Johnson did himself and the hirsute no favours by attempting to grow a holiday beard. We are pleased that he has heeded our call to shave it off

Tim Farron MP 2021

Beard Liberation Front

22^nd September

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Concerns on little evidence of either beards or sandals at 2025 Liberal Democrat Conference

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that there are concerns over a lack of evidence of either beards or sandals at the Liberal Democrats conference in Bournemouth

The LibDems have been traditionally the party most associated with a beard and sandals image. However campaigners say Ed  Davey’s view that the Party is attracting more One Nation Tory voters may mean that the image is being played down.

The BLF has observers at the main party conferences and will award the accolade of the most Beard Friendly Party Conference at the end of the season.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, the conference agenda contains no obvious business aimed at opposing discrimination against the hirsute and the concern is that the beards and sandals image may be in decline in the LibDems

Queueing in pubs: how much of a tradition?

The debate on queueing in pubs seems to be continuing with Roger Protz posting on Blue Sky on it for example and lots of comments on various FB sites (more on that below).

Queueing in part is a social tradition, a sort or rudimentary nod to equality that the fittest and strongest don’t come first. The London bus queue has been replaced by  a huddle (or sometimes scrum) around the door although believe it or not there are some places in the UK where the bus queue still exists.

Pubs are more problematic. Thinking of some favourite beer and beard bars, in several there is not enough room at the bar to do anything but queue. In another since people are invariably sitting at the bar, it’s a case of where you can politely elbow your way in. There would be no point in queueing.

Much of the debate seems to centre around Wetherspoons which does after all have 800 pubs. Of course these days you can sit at your table and order on the App, assuming that the App is UpToDate which on my occasional Spoons visits it sometimes is not.

Most if not all Spoons have lengthy bars but often not huge numbers of bar staff serving. Matters have improved considerably since the days of what I used to think of the Spoons random service method. Here you stood as much chance of getting served hovering somewhere in the vicinity of the bar and catching the eye of a bar person as you did standing at the bar.

Any way on those Spoons visits I do order at the bar not least because it’s a good way of making sure you get the beer you actually want. Understandably sometimes bar staff can get distracted. I never see a queue but these are traditions which depend on social interaction. A queue is certainly preferable to random service but I think if I found one I’d retreat to my table and use the App.

A sobering final thought is that queuing at the bar for a beer is not the worst of things. In the Making of the English Working Class (1963) E P Thompson notes in a section on Standards and Experiences that well into the nineteenth century queuing for water to drink or wash clothes in in some rural and urban communities was common.

Looking at the runes while there are articles (not monographs) on aspects of the history of queuing there does not appear to be a social history of the queue. Happy to be corrected but otherwise there is an interesting subject for a potential PhD student