Lots of NHS people helped save my life last year. Today I met one of them again
Last year I spent several months in the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff. I was very ill and needed four operations. It’s fair to say that consultants weren’t sure if I would make it. Of course such matters are not talked of directly. One did say to me shortly before I was discharged that if I was a cat I would have used up one of my nine lives.
Lots of people gave me expert care and assistance from porters and catering and cleaning people to nurses, doctors and consultants.
This afternoon I was back at the UHW Heath in Cardiff seeing a dear friend who is getting expert care in sorting out an issue.
While there I met Geraldine (Gerry) who nursed me in 2022. Gerry was not born in the UK but has been here for a good while and is a dedicated professional nurse. One of those that makes the NHS such a great service even now.
It was an emotional moment. I was so pleased to see a nurse who had helped me and she in turn that all that NHS care had been successful perhaps rather against expectations.
A reminder that at the core of the NHS are people values that the profiteers and privateers will never understand
Joe Grundy (b 18th September 1921): A Proletarian Salute
Edward Kelsey, a lifelong trade unionist, died in April 2019
aged 88 and the character he represented for so long in the Archers Joe Grundy
died a little short of 100 years of age in October 2019.
Joe Grundy was born 102 years ago on 18th September 1921
Joe’s funeral was held on 8th November 2019, at St Stephens
Church Ambridge
There was a lot of memorialising about the late Joe Grundy
in Ambridge after his death. His nemesis Bert Fry wrote a poem and the
Professor tinkled the keyboards with a special tune, believed to have been a
variation on The Wurzels, I am a cider drinker
Some of the memories were less than satisfactory however.
David Archer claimed that Joe Grundy was a poacher and, by definition that this
was wrong. The Ambridge Socialist believes that Joe Grundy was not poaching but
taking animals from common land for his own use and purposes. Further Archer
claimed that Joe Grundy’s dog had to be shot by the Archer Dynasty as it was
worrying sheep. This was simply an act of class war and vengeance on the
Archers’ part and deserves to be remembered as such.
Joe Grundy was a fearless and tireless opponent of the rich
of Ambridge and deserves to be remembered on the 102nd anniversary of his birth
as a proletarian hero. Someone who was always for the many of Ambridge not the
few, otherwise known as the Archer Dynasty
Roll on the Red Republic of Borsetshire
Queen Camilla has raised a glass to the 20,000th episode of the Archers
which has been broadcast since 1951.
The Ambridge of the 1950s which she no doubt fondly remembers is not that of
the 2020s, where climate change, lesbian love affairs & the Grundy’s cider
are the orders of the day.
Ambridge Socialist Editor Keith Flett said, the English Civil War is never
mentioned in the Archers but 1649 dispatched her husband’s predecessor. We say
roll on the Red Republic of Borsetshire
The Flower & Produce Show & the Ambridge Class Struggle
Traditionally the Flower and Produce Show has been one of the main arenas of
class struggle in the Ambridge calendar. Rivalries between the Ambridge proletariat
were often intense as were those amongst the bourgeoisie. Times change and the
younger generation in the village seem untroubled by their heritage. So far..
Natasha wants complete control of the tea rooms
Natasha and village idiot Tom along with Helen are planning to seize control
of the tea room (which they own but rent to Fallon). Perhaps this is where the
Ambridge class war is heading?
Its 53 years since the Beatles last released a new record, as opposed to all manner of others repackaging, reworking their back catalogue.
One wonders how much people under 60 either know of or like the Beatles music (I do remember and like btw) but it remains very profitable.
In the last year £8.4m has been paid to Paul McCartney,Ringo Starr (his publishing company) and the widows of George Harrison and John Lennon.
Apple made a profit of £9.4m although turnover fell from £58.4m to £27.3m and profit was also down due to fewer releases of material from 1970 or before.
Lennon and McCartney in their active musical years as a song writing team might have had something to say about this
An extract from a new book on goings on at the top of the Tory Party by Telegraph political editor Ben Riley-Smith suggests that Rishi Sunak tried to resign over Covid Party fines in April 2022 but was dissuaded from doing so by Rupert Murdoch.
There is an extract on the Torygraph website which suffice to say makes for dry reading.
The wider question of the supposed influence of Murdoch is a little more interesting.
Before 1997 New Labour certainly courted The S*n.
As the TUC this week underlined again after Hillsborough and Wapping the paper is or should be blanked by anyone with even a smidgeon of political and moral decency.
The S*n’s circulation has declined very significantly over the last 25 years but Murdoch still owns the Times, Times Radio, TalkSport etc.
Whether or not he directly contacted Sunak is disputed but his views seems to have been made known at the least.
One doesn’t need to read the Editorials in the Times and Sunday Times for long to detect a distinct Editorial position on who should occupy No.10. Sunak is regarded as OK and worth giving a chance to. Starmer is seen as a contender but there is still not 100% certainty that in Office he might not do something that is very slightly left of centre.
Of course Starmer, Reeves and lots of other politicians were seen at Murdoch’s summer party in London earlier in the year.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist and if Murdoch has any political influence of note I suspect its more with Labour than the Tories.
However even the point that he attempts to have influence and this is taken to an extent seriously reflects again the significant democratic deficit in British politics
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has praised the winners of the Medicine Prize at this year’s Ig Nobel Awards.
A team of researchers from a range of countries used cadavers to explore the number of hairs in the right and left nostril.
They found that on average there are 120 hairs in the left nostril compared with 112 in the right nostril.
The BLF says that the research is ground breaking, throwing light on a previously uncharted area of facial hair. It may in due course help to explain why hairs grown unevenly on people’s faces
Tom Machell’s funeral took place in Sheffield on 15th September. A lifelong socialist, trade unionist and friend who I had worked with since the late 1970s and shared many struggles, stories and beers. Below is a piece Tom wrote 15 years ago for the London Socialist Historians website which gives a flavour of the approach he took to changing the world
The Flying Pickets: The 1972 Builders’ Strike & The Shrewsbury Trials Dave Ayre, Reuben Barker, Jim French, Jimmy Graham and Dave Harker Des Warren Trust Fund / Bookmarks Paperback: 396 pages ISBN 978-1905192359
For those of us of a certain generation the Industrial upturn of the early 1970’s stands out as both a beacon of inspiration, and a living lesson in organising industrial disputes. Many observers like myself, in our mid-teens inspired by theoretical visions of socialism, watched mass strikes, mass meetings and demonstrations playing out in real time on the 6 o’clock news and they gave us and continues to give us inspiration and lessons in how we can achieve this goal.
In the context of the defeats of the late 1970’s, the defensive battles in Steel, Coal and the print in the early and mid 1980’s, the period stands out as a high point of industrial disputes. Those defeats, the destruction of manufacturing, the privatisation of public utilities, the atomisation of older strongholds of militancy like car manufacturing and the docks have left a legacy of ‘Thatcherism’ that the labour movement has only recently begun to come to terms with.
While the economy looks a different place today than it did in 1970 issues of organisation remain the same. Many of the earlier traditions in relation new workers immediately joining unions may have been lost but the issues for workers remain the same albeit in a different context. In broad terms for example we may have replaced thousands of car manufacturing jobs with assembly line tasks broken down to the minimum with thousands of call centre jobs with a totally un-empowered workforce likewise dealing with many repetitive tasks.
With the stirrings of militancy gaining ground, particularly in the public sector any re-examination of any struggle as significant as the building workers strike is timely to say the least. The building workers strike of 1972 eventually saw almost 350,000 building workers taking action in a highly unorganised part of the economy seen by many as a backwater. The strike was built on the flying pickets tactic learnt directly from the miners. A rank and file newspaper “Building workers Charter” led by the CP and read by tens of thousands was highly influential in the build up to the strike however disappeared during the strike itself as the CP emphasis changed from the 100s of CP militants who built the dispute on the ground to the officials in UCATT and T&GWU, all heavily influenced by either the CP or Broad Left, who led the dispute.
In the aftermath of the dispute a group of flying pickets from North Wales were tried and jailed for conspiracy, variously known as the ‘Shrewsbury Three’ or the ‘Shrewsbury two’ depending on how many were in jail at the time. The choice of this area was no coincidence as it was one of the weaker areas of union organisation. A similar tactic by the state the ‘Birmingham Five’ trial of pickets led to acquittal but the West Midlands was a much more organised area and the trials led to immediate walkouts at key sites. CP militant Des Warren who refused to submit was given a liquid cosh and eventually ended up broken physically but never politically. Ricky Tomlinson went on to Royale Family fame but continues to campaign for justice.
The Flying Pickets is a collaboration of those who participated at the time, as part of the dispute, as part of the industry or as part of the subsequent defence campaigns. The ‘classic’ account of the Shrewsbury pickets is told by Jim Arnison’s 1974 The Shrewsbury Three: Strikes, Pickets and ‘Conspiracy’ was not only written as part of the campaign against the jailing of pickets but more fundamentally to justify the actions taken by the CP during the course of the dispute. The Flying Pickets is altogether a different animal.
Importantly it brings together much source material and tells the story of the strike as it unfolded and tries to draw out lessons learnt at the time so that mistakes will not be repeated. In that sense it attempts to be a guide to ‘today’ rather than simply an academic analysis of the dispute or a collaborative autobiography. At times the book is critical of both the roles of the CP leadership in the national dispute and within the Shrewsbury campaign.
However the book suffers from a number of weaknesses. Without an existing knowledge of both the dispute and the participants then the book can be difficult to read and those criticisms somewhat too subtle. At times detailed knowledge held by the reader is ‘presumed’ but at other times too much detail is supplied.
Moreover the overall analysis of the events does not form part of the narrative but is given in a separate chapter at the end of the book. Some of the information given, for example CP membership, paper sales etc is spread across the narrative and simply ‘stands alone’ without comment .It is no doubt there to point to either declining membership or increased influence but this isn’t spelt out clearly and the reader is left to make their own conclusions. No doubt this was the intention of the authors but the analysis is weaker because of it.
At other times sections of the book read like the minutes of various campaign or union branch meetings have been cut and pasted into the narrative. There is no problem with this but they appear without any source references. The amount of new material that is produced for the book is a real strength but the lack of references makes using it for other work far more difficult. This is a great pity as for the first time much reference material associated with the book is presented for the first time together.
As Gerry Kelly a participant in the dispute and one of the ‘Birmingham Five’ comments in his review of the book: “The authors of this book have done the labour movement a great service by telling the story of the strike and its aftermath, and have rescued from history a struggle that was part of a high watermark in the class struggles of 20th century Britain.”
Tom Machell
London Socialist Historians Newsletter 33 Autumn 2008
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has named England Test captain as the England Cricket Beard of Summer 2023.
The BLF Cricket Committee deliberated for some while before determining that Stokes had shaved Moeen Ali for the annual accolade.
The campaigners say that it is not just Ben Stokes batting but his Beard Power on the field that has motivated the England team throughout the summer.
The majority of the England’s Mens Team now sport beards underlining the importance of Beard Power in modern cricket.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, competition bristled but we congratulate Ben Stokes on winning the England Cricket Beard of Summer. We hope his Beard Power continues into autumn with the World Cup due
The Ambridge of the 1950s which she no doubt fondly remembers is not that of the 2020s, where climate change, lesbian love affairs & the Grundy’s cider are the orders of the day.
Ambridge Socialist Editor Keith Flett said, the English Civil War is never mentioned in the Archers but 1649 dispatched her husband’s predecessor. We say roll on the Red Republic of Borsetshire
The controversy over Rick Stein charging £2 for condiments at his Padstow chippie has provoked a Times Editorial (14th September). £2 for curry sauce or mushy peas might seem ok but for tartare sauce even if home made?
The Times believes that the condiment is often the most important part of a meal and clearly Masterchef judges Torode and Wallace often agree.
Harold Wilson’s reputed love for HP Sauce is well known although he told a centennary dinner organised by the makers in 1975 that he preferred Worcester sauce. HP Sauce known as ‘Wilson’s Gravy’ was apparently promoted by his partner Mary and of course Private Eye.
One wonders if Keir Starmer has a favourite condiment?
The world (at least) of UK beer at the moment tends to focus on the cost of living crisis and the struggle of some craft breweries to keep going.
But global big beer which operates in a very different environment continues to be active trending just as it did in the 1960s and 1970s towards monopoly.
Carlsberg-Marstons shut the historic Jennings brewery in Cockermouth last year. It also sold the Eagle Brewery in Bedford to another brewer. It then put up the Hampshire brewer Ringwood up for sale. Today it has announced the closure of Wychwood in Witney.
At least some of the beers brewed by these breweries will be brewed elsewhere by Carlsberg Marstons. Local provenance will be lost- perhaps in particular water type, jobs will be lost under the name of efficiencies and beer will be trucked further around the UK in a climate crisis.
About this Big Beer cares in its company annual reports, boxes are ticked but the bottom line of profit maximisation remains. Note not just profit but the maximum profit.
The report of Wychwood’s closure mentions six jobs at threat. Clearly it takes more than six people to brew the volume of beer produced. Interestingly a report of the closure of the Eagle brewery noted it brewed Wychwood’s Hobgoblin.
For Carlsberg Marstons what some might regard as traditional beers with a history and culture are just brand names
Update
Carlsberg-Marstons have told Jessica Mason (Drinks Business) that the decision is down to a decline in the cask ale market. There is no question cask is struggling at least in some areas of the country. However a lot Wychwood’s product seems to be bottles and cans for supermarkets- essentially a beer brand. In that sense it might be thought that Carlsberg-Marstons see the brewery as an inconvenience.
The Chair of Oxfordshire CAMRA Tony Goulding has told the Oxford Mail that Carlsberg-Marstons have been running down the site since the start of the pandemic in 2020. Instead of investing in it they have decided to close it.
