Kmflett's Blog

The Ambridge Socialist.

A farewell to Peggy Woolley. Matriach & Gangster Granny* who left a positive legacy for Ambridge, despite reactionary views

The Ambridge Socialist bid a sad farewell to June Spencer (Peggy) who died at the magnificent age of 105 in 2024. Now the funeral of alter ego Peggy Woolley has taken place in St Stephens Church Ambridge.

She was the last link with the beginning of the Archers in 1950, and became the Matriach of ruling class Ambridge as well as being sponsor of Hilda the cat, an expert in animal class war..

Without question Peggy was the Matriach of ruling class Ambridge & according to Archers fan Queen Camilla a Gangster Granny* (Times 9th November 2024)

Below is an extract from the Ambridge Socialist from 2019 where Peggy put her financial backing behind what became the rewilding of Ambridge project. She had a strongly reactionary side but her legacy is much more progressive.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1wn1zl3q5qo

Reaching a significant birthday Peggy called a family meeting on Friday morning. Her aim: to save the planet, well Ambridge anyway. While those at the meeting were perhaps a slightly incongruous group- Brian Aldridge after all managed to pollute the Am and kill thousands of fish- Peggy announced her plan to offer £500K to those coming up with the best scheme to save the environment for future generations.

Whatever happened to the Tory Party? Liz Truss’s Irish Whiskey promotion

I posted on BlueSky on 2^nd June that I’d passed over further comment on a story about Liz Truss on the grounds that it suggested she needed help rather than further ridicule.

However the matter escalated to a Times Editorial (3^rd June)

The Times has an issue about how former PM’s pursue their post No.10 careers. It cites the case of Alec Douglas Home who was Tory PM for a bit over a year before losing the 1964 Election to Harold Wilson. After leaving office he spent his time salmon fishing.

Of course the post No.10 careers of more recent PMs have had their controversial moments, one thinks of Cameron and Blair.

The Times concern however is Liz Truss’s involvement with the launch, last month, of a brand of Irish Whiskey. The launch took place in Scunthorpe, and featured Dougie Joyce who had been jailed for 19 months for beating up a 78 year old man. Truss commented that supporting the rehabilitation of offenders was important. No doubt but perhaps not by recent former PMs.

The Times concerns appear under stated. The Editorial suggests that a period of silence from Truss would be welcome. And very unlikely to happen. It might have asked what kind of state the Tory Party is in if  a recent ex-leader and PM can behave in public as Truss does, not just the whiskey but the conspiracy theories. It might also have asked why Kemi Badenoch has not expelled Truss if she is still a member. Indeed BBC journalist Chris Mason did ask her this and she replied that she didn’t know if Truss was still a member.

Meanwhile Private Eye summed the Truss-Whiskey issue up far better than the Times

E P Thompson’s Desert Island Discs remains available on Sounds

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0093yqd

The choice of music is interesting in itself but the discussion between Sue Lawley and Thompson also has some interest.

The programme was broadcast in November 1991 and Thompson noted that he had let his Labour Party membership lapse as he had been preoccupied with several years of ill health. In fact he died in August 1993.

The discussion touches on the founding of New Left Review and the importance of CND but perhaps the most interesting point is that Thompson emphasises that his research sources for the Making of the English Working Class were primarily from the West Riding (he was then living in Halifax and working as a WEA tutor across West and North Yorkshire) and that the Making is a West Riding book.

Thompson had noted his use of West Riding sources in the original 1963 Preface where he noted that the book was ‘coloured’ at times by them. In a Preface to the 1980 edition he returned to the point noting that the writing of the book had only been possible in part because of the extra mural classes he had taught in the West Riding in the ten years previous to publication.

He tells Lawley and the point has been made elsewhere that in teaching adult students in the 1950s he found links back to nineteenth century radicalism.

Thompson was determinedly provincial (something he saw as an important political strength) with no great love of London. Of course had his sources been more from the Great Wen the Making might have been a rather different book. Something he perhaps recognised in the book he published with Eileen Yeo, The Unknown Mayhew, which examined Mayhew’s investigations into London labour and poor in the late 1840s and early 1850s

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that former Australian Test cricketer Merv Hughes has been given a special award for hirsute sustainability.

Hughes, 63, has long had a distinctive and totemic moustache.

As the years go on the temptation is often to trim and shave off facial hair, but Hughes, present at Lords for the Australia v South Africa game, has sustained his magnificent moustache

Merv Hughes moustache is as iconic as W G Grace’s beard

This is the front page strap on the Daily Telegraph (12th June). The author the (far right) Allister Heath formerly of the London freesheet City AM is the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph.

The Telegraph after a lengthy period of limbo now has now owners. Its always been a right-wing paper (established 1855 when the telegraph had a similar role to the internet now) but was known for decent news reporting along with the opinion columns. In recent times its become a views paper (hence the strap). It won’t survive if it continues as a views paper. You don’t need to pay to read opinions like those held by Allister Heath. You can read them free on Twitter.

Jaipur IPA at 20

June 2025 marks the 20^th birthday of Jaipur IPA

It remains a craft flagship beer that has crossed over into the mainstream in can and bottle format, and now cask too. I’ve seen it piled high in Lidl from time to time which is a useful benchmark for that.

I’ve been drinking a 20th anniversary can but a little earlier had a pint on cask in Wetherspoons where it currently seems to be fairly regularly on the bar

I certainly can’t claim to have been aware of it or had a pint of it until 2010/11 probably at the Jolly Butchers in Stoke Newington or the Euston Tap.

Its 5.9% strength seemed strong at the time (it still is) although in a world where 6% plus beers are easy to find it might be argued the world has moved on.

That would be wrong because Thornbridge is still innovating and building the profile of Jaipur

Thornbridge have produced variants a DDH version and a 10% Jaipur X and in 2024 a Jaipur Black and a Jaipur (Burton) Union both cask beers

The original remains a distinctive addition to the list of great British beers. Proof that tradition can develop in a modern day context not just be something for the history books.

Rewriting recent history. Trump restores ‘Robert E Lee’ name to military forts

A statue of the Confederate General Robert E Lee was officially taken down in Richmond Virginia in 2021.  Numerous attempts to get it taken down had been resisted until the pressure of the Black Lives Matter movement finally saw it done.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/08/robert-e-lee-statue-confederate-general-richmond-virginia

The statue was one of many put up not immediately after the US Civil War but decades later to remind people who was in charge in the Southern US- slavers. At the time Donald Trump called the removal of the statue ‘desecration’ and later claimed that if Lee had been in charge in Afghanistan the US would have won. The kind of view of history that makes even Boris Johnson’s efforts look tolerable.

Now Trump has ordered the name Robert E Lee to be restored to military installations underlining if it were needed his racism.

It wasn’t just in the US that racists venerated Robert E Lee though. A few minutes from my North London abode at Tottenham High Cross there was for some years a pub named after him. The attached nightclub Charlie Browns was better known. The late Dale Winton DJ’d there and mentions the pub in passing without comment on Lee. Then again Winton who died in 2018 backed Trump in 2016.

Robert E Lee does however still deserve to be remembered as the Civil War General who led the military fight against the abolition of slavery. Remembering and cheering on are not the same things

The World Test Final between Australia and South Africa is being played at Lords Cricket Ground from 11-15th June, although it may not last that long

Its the first Test Match at Lords to have Brewdog beers served in the various bars. The Scottish brewer, which has a controversial employee relations history, won a five year contract to serve beers from 2025.

Historically public bars at Lords served Watneys, with Fullers cask beers available for members only in the Pavilion. Fullers beers were then served more widely for a couple of seasons.

More recently Marstons (now Carlsberg-Britvic) has been served including hand-pumped Pedigree in public bars. However Marstons no longer brews and one can only take it that Carlsberg werent interested in the contract.

While Brewdog, which hasnt produced cask beer for some years, gave a commitment to brew one for Lords there isn’t any sign in publicity of this. Reports indicate that there is some kind of Brewdog cask.

However Brewdog is offering 10% off to MCC members at its bars. Whether the famous egg and bacon ties and blazers (official MCC wear) are likely to be found in Brewdog bars is another matter. Again reports suggests some significant discontent about the quality of the beer at Lords with the change to Brewdog..

*Gramsci

John Arlott, Nicholas Pooran, Six Hitting & the 2025 IPL

With 72 matches played over 1260 sixes were hit in the 2024 IPL.

Abhishek Sharma hit the most-42 with Heinrich Klaasen and Virat Kohli next on 38 each.

In 2025 there were 74 matches played and 1294 sixes were hit

Nicholas Pooran topped the six hitting chart with 40 which won him $10,000

The reasons for the ever increasing number of sixes in games range from shorter boundaries to heavier bats being used and players who are more skilled at hitting them.

Michael Atherton (Times 25th April 2024) noted that John Arlott described six hitting as the most companiable act in cricket because there was a direct bond between player and spectator- particularly if the latter caught the ball.

Now so many are hit that it’s more like a game of whacker. The balance between bat and ball is destroyed. Indian crowds certainly love the spectacle as do, mostly, crowds in England and Wales in T20 games.

In my view there is a place for excitement in cricket and it can sometimes be very exciting. The six hitting deluge is turning what was once exciting into a commonplace.

The 2025 IPL started on March 22nd 2025. There were 74 games with the delayed final on June 3rd 2025