The tradition of wassailing is one of having cakes and ale on Twelfth Night or Epiphany the following day. Since it is Try January, why not do that. It does underline, if nothing else, how out of touch with seasonal traditions Dry January is.
This time of year is that of few hours of daylight and scarcity of fresh produce so things like cake and ale were and are welcome.
A tradition was to bake a cake with a bean, or possibly a pea or a coin in and the person discovering it in their piece of cake became the Lord of Misrule for Twelfth Night
The traditional Wassail was to go house to house with the following cry:
we are not daily beggars that beg from door to door
But we are friendly neighbours whom you have seen before.
There is also a case I think for attempting to reclaim a radical tradition of the Lord of Misrule. A giant model of a naked Nigel Farage paraded through the streets sitting backwards on a donkey would add something to the sum of human jollity.
In this most difficult of years when pubs have been shut more often than open, partly due to very real health concerns but also partly due to the obsessions of temperance campaigners, there has still been some great beer produced. Sometimes in cask, more often in keg, can or bottle there has been enjoyment which has been otherwise in very short supply.
My partner Megan Davies and myself have drawn up a shortlist of some of our favourite 2020 beers. Not all first appeared in 2020, although most did but either way at year end a ‘big up’ to all involved. Let’s hope for a better 2021 though achieving that will require as much hard work as hope.
By definition the range of beers sampled,when pubs have been shut for a good chunk of the year is less extensive than usual. Hence there are breweries such as Exale, Howling Hops, Pressure Drop and Redemption in London that have continued to produce a range of great beers and not forgetting Crafty Devil in Cardiff where we have both been a lot more than usual…
Red Willow Blackberry Saison
Donzoko Big Foam lager
Lost & Grounded/Burnt Mill Big Thaw 2 West Coast IPA
Their Twelfth Night and ours. 5th January, 6th January or 16th February?
British socialist historians have paid some attention to the importance of folk customs (see EP Thompson Customs in Common)primarily as a way of understanding the roots of non-marketised ways of grasping value and importance in society and seeing if the traditions have continued to have any impact in more recent times.
Britain was the world’s first industrialised country and already by 1850 more than half the population were industrial workers rather than being reliant on the land for a living, either as peasants or agricultural labourers. Something there may explain the popularity of the Archers one suspects as a sort of reminder of a lost arcadia.
However the focus on custom and tradition has been patchy and that is certainly true of twelfth night.
I can’t am afraid offer any definitive thought on whether you should take down the Xmas decorations on 5th January or 6th January. The Church of England thinks it should be the eve of Epiphany (hence the 5th) but then leaves the decorations up to celebrate Epiphany. That is the thing about customs. They might be in common but they are often disputed.
Twelfth Night is part of a season of festival, carnival and revolt that starts on All Hallows Eve (Oct 31) and can end as late as Shrove Tuesday.
The appointment of a Lord of Misrule is connected with Twelfth Night but can occur earlier.
The title Lord of Misrule sounds radical but there is no mention of it in Christopher Hill’s The World Turned Upside Down’ about the period of Parliamentary rule after 1649. Some commentary suggests that it was really more to do with poking fun at the established order the better to keep it in place, and in some cases- for example in New Orleans- it became firmly established with a celebration of the old- reactionary- order of things.
Whether it’s the fifth or the sixth it seems clear that in folk custom the tradition of misrule that begins on October 31st does not end with Twelfth Night but continues at least until Shrove Tuesday which in 2020 is on 16th February
CLR James was born 123 years ago today in Trinidad and died on 31st May 1989 in Brixton
James met Trotsky and was a leading figure in the early Trotskyist movement.
He wrote Black Jacobins about the Haitian Revolution and perhaps the definitive book on cricket Beyond a Boundary. He was central to the Brixton based journal Race Today in later life
I believe that the examination of the stroke, the brilliant piece of fielding will take us through mysticism to far more fundamental considerations, than mere life enhancing
Tory MP who owns a Barbados sugar plantation still silent on reparations
Tory MP Richard Drax who owns a Barbados sugar plantation refused to back Black Lives Matters protests
The Observer has revealed that the Tory MP for South Dorset Richard Drax, whose ancestors were paid £3m (in 2020 money) in compensation when slavery was abolished in the 1830s has inherited and now farms the same Barbados sugar plantation.
When the compensation payment was revealed in 2013 Drax made no comment but he has now told the Observer that it was all a very long time ago and nothing to do with him
He has now, very belatedly added his plantation to the register of MPs interests. There have been further calls for him to pay reparations but from Mr Drax, silence on the matter:
When asked to support Black Lives Matter’s protests last summer, Drax declined. His response is clearly in the ‘all lives matter’ area refusing to recognise the realities of racism from which his family benefited in the past.
The group (Weymouth Stand Up to Racism) also asked Dorset’s MPs to sign a call for the House of Commons to support the Black Lives Matter campaign, and a call for the UK to stop selling teargas, riot shields and rubber bullets to the United States, where police forces have been clashing with protesters following the killing of Black man George Floyd by police.
Both Richard Drax MP and Chris Loder MP said they would decline, each saying that they “do not sign Early Day Motions.”
Mr Drax added: “I should not have to say this because any decent-minded person would already think and act on it, but I will always stand up against discrimination, wherever it is found and whoever it is directed at.”
Dorset Echo 18th June 2020
In an opinion piece in the Dorset Echo two days later Drax refers to a Black Lives Matter in London and claims that ‘rioters’ defaced the Cenotaph. This did not happen on that protest or any other BLM protest. There was an occasion in 2010 when it did about another matter entirely.
It suggests that Drax the plantation owner is keener on attacking anti-racist activists than he is in promoting anti-racism and certainly not at all keen on making amends for his own family history of gathering wealth from slavery.
A recording has surfaced of Donald Trump telling the Secretary of State covering Georgia to ‘find’ 11,780 votes because Trump believes he ‘won’ the State in the November 2020 Election:
Trump seems to be echoing the (ironic) view of Bertolt Brecht whose lines after the 1953 Uprising in the old East Germany suggested that if people did not support the right Government it was time to elect a new people
After the uprising of the 17th June The Secretary of the Writers Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?
Which Islington pubs did the 1905 Bolshevik Congress meet in?
This post may appear to be rather more niche (even) than many of the other posts on this blog.
It focuses on which Islington pubs the 1905 Bolshevik Congress met in (actually since this relates to socialists and pubs perhaps it isn’t quite so niche)
Robert Henderson was a curator of the Russian section of the British Library and his knowledge of Lenin’s several periods in London is unparalleled.
The 1905 Congress is of wider interest because while it was a meeting of the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party (RSDLP) in practice some of the Menshevik wing of the Party did not attend but held a breakaway meeting in Geneva. This meant that it was in effect the first Congress where delegates of what became the Bolshevik Party were in a majority, although far from all those attending were Bolsheviks and some were in fact Mensheviks or other currents.
Lenin did chair and speak at most of the sessions.
According to Henderson these sessions began on 19th April at the Crown and Woolpack in St John St, Angel, Islington and ran, off and on, into May. They changed location quite a few times. The other Islington pub where the 1905 Congress certainly gathered was the Hare and Hounds at 181 Upper St (more or less opposite Islington Town Hall).
The Crown and Woolpack which is now a hairdressers, became known because a secret policeman gained admittance and hid in a cupboard to report on proceedings.
The puzzle is that there are numbers of references on-line (including BBC and Morning Star reports) that the pub the Bolsheviks met in was the Three Johns. This is just around the corner from the (ex) Crown and Woolpack in White Lion St and still functions as a pub. Henderson makes no reference to it in his book.
It may be that it was another of the several locations the 1905 Congress did actually meet in but I can as of yet find no hard evidence on that.
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party congresses were held in London in 1905 and 1907, with Lenin in attendance on both occasions. Henderson quotes Victor Sebestyen’s assessment of the 1905 congress – in his recent book Lenin the Dictator – as ‘probably the most pointless of all the various leftist conferences before 1917’. Henderson disagrees, but such gatherings did take place under challenging circumstances. The head of the Russian secret police claimed that a third of the delegates at the 1907 congress were in the pay of his service. Russian spies weren’t the only ones paying attention: Scotland Yard was in the game too, and at the 1905 congress, held in an upstairs room of the Crown and Woolpack in Clerkenwell, one of its Special Branch men hid in a cupboard to eavesdrop, though he probably knew no Russian. Despite the revolutionaries’ precautions against infiltration by unauthorised persons, the same man got into another meeting under heavy disguise and was able to report that ‘a vote on revolution’ had been carried by 21 to seven.
Sheila Fitzpatrick, extract from review of Robert Henderson, Lenin in London (2019) London Review of Books 7th January 2021
Helen Rappaport notes that Lenin, who had visited London before, took delegates on a London tour at the close of proceedings
One of the venues hired for the 1905 Congress was an upstairs room of the Crown and Woolpack pub on St John Street in Islington. Before leaving, Lenin took delegates to the British Museum reading room where Marx and Engels had worked, to the Natural History Museum and Regent’s Park Zoo plus, the obligatory pilgrimage to Karl Marx’s grave in Highgate Cemetery.
Philip Moss, we understand, has been bailed by Borsetshire Police. The whereabouts of Gavin is unknown as is that of the three slave workers Moss recently sold. Meanwhile on New Year’s Day Borsetshire Police demonstrated their well-known talent for bungling investigations by arresting Kirsty.
The Ambridge Socialist calls for Philip Moss to be brought to trial and jailed for human trafficking activities. We also call for Kirsty to be released without charge.
Sign the Ambridge Socialist petition here (& please share)
Tracey and Jazzer have had a New Year liaison in the cricket club Pavillion. Clearly they are the Ambridge Dream Team for 2021.
The God Mother & Temperance
The Ambridge Socialist is all about the class struggle so it was good to see the God Mother, aka Peggy, Head of the ruling Archer Dynasty at the Ambridge New Year’s Eve activities. She had a strong warning for Chris about drink. It did after all do for one of her previous husbands Jack who was landlord of The Bull back in the day. While her words were no doubt prudent it was enough to make the Ambridge Socialist Editorial Board reach for a glass of the Tumble Tussocks.
The Government is often accused rightly, of being out of touch with how ordinary people live their lives.
Boris Johnson displayed his legendary out of touchness again on Sunday when failing to properly address the question of the spread of COVID-19 infections in schools.
He appeared on the Marr programme on Sunday 3rd January and opined that it was safe for pupils to return to Primary Schools on Monday (except where they are closed due to COVID-19)
The 450,000 strong National Education Union whose members, unlike Old Etonian Johnson, are familiar with the schools dont agree and have told teachers they may not work if there are safety concerns. Head teachers and SAGE agree.
The start of secondary education will be delayed until later in January but the start of primary school will happen or not on 4th January depending not on safety but random Government policy
Johnson has previously complained that the reason for the rise in infections was not school pupils but mixing in households.
Clearly he is remembering his own schooldays.
He was a boarding pupil at Ashdown House Prep School in East Sussex from 1975-1977.
He then won a scholarship to Eton from 1977 until 1982 where apart from his first term he was a boarding pupil on college premises.
What did this mean?
Johnson was a boarder in ‘College’ at Eton the area reserved for those like him who had won Scholarships to the school.
In his biography of Johnson Andrew Gimson notes:
Each boy in Eton has his own room, and every evening after house prayers, (Martin) Hammond- the Master presiding- would walk the corridors of College from 8.45 until about 11.15, dropping in on one boy or another.
No mixing and personal supervision therefore, rather unlike the State school system that Boris Johnson nad no experience of and no idea about.
In johnson’s memory pupils at school dont mix with parents either. Except in the real world, they do…
Petition to keep Primary Schools closed due to safety concerns:
Their Holidays and Ours: Does Christmas still have twelve days?
January 5th is Twelfth Night, in the traditional calendar a festival to rival that of Christmas Day, and January 6th Epiphany. These dates mark the end of the Christmas holiday period.
How far people in work in 2020 observe a 12-day holiday or take time off depends on occupation, employer practices and individual circumstances. It may be that some official statistics are collected on the matter- although I’m not aware of them.
Whether time off is extended or otherwise over the Twelve Days has been the subject of employer and class led change.
For example Hutton in Stations of the Sun notes that in 1797 the Customs and Excise Office in London closed for six days between December 21st (St Thomas’s Day) and 6th January (Epiphany). By 1838 it opened on every day except 25th December. Hutton notes that between 1790 and 1840 ‘employers, led by the Government, carried out a ruthless pruning of the Christmas holidays..’ The 1833 Factory Act had decreed that, Sundays aside, the only days when a worker should not attend work were Christmas Day and Good Friday. The 1871 Bank Holiday Act added a few Mondays into the equation as well as St Stephens Day (Boxing Day)
However from the early 1840s, led by Charles Dickens, efforts to reclaim and promote Christmas as a popular festival of harmony and social peace, certainly for the middle classes were well underway. Hutton notes that in 1847 the Poor Law Commission allowed a Christmas dinner in all Workhouses. The modern Christmas was under development.
The point being that time taken off work at Christmas (or not) although dictated to an extent by the 12 days of the traditional calendar has also been about the promotion or denial of people to take time off work.
The modern retail Christmas, as shopworkers union USDAW underlined again this year, seems to consist of Christmas Day (if you are lucky).
Others may take time from 24th December to 4th January, 11 days but not 12.
However long you do or do not take in 2020 things are guaranteed to be better ordered and regulated if you are in a trade union.
