Kmflett's Blog

International Women’s Day: Still getting Hidden from History

This year’s International Women’s Day comes not long after the 50^th anniversary of the first women’s liberation conference held at Ruskin College, Oxford.

There have been various events to mark the anniversary  but rather underplayed as far as I can see was the link that conference had to socialist history.

A key impetus for the conference came from a women’s history strand organised in History Workshop events in the late 1960s (I’ll post further on that). A key figure in that was Sheila Rowbotham who has written a number of important books about women’s history including Hidden From History, a brief extract from which is below.

If historical memory is not refreshed what is known by activists in one generation can disappear in the next. Hence how many will recall that one of the key figures behind IWD was the German Communist Clara Zetkin. A link below provides a brief summary of a London Socialist Historians Seminar on her writings from 2016

https://kmflett.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/clara-zetkin-international-womens-day-historical-memory/

Likewise how well remembered currently is someone like Alexandra Kollontai a pioneering socialist feminist who served in the Bolshevik Government in Russia after 1917.

Much historical work as ever to be done.

The action of working-class women at work also forced trade unionists to take their predicament and determination seriously. From 1888 to around 1892 there was a considerable amount of spontaneous industrial action not only by men but also by women who had never organised before. The matchgirls’ strike is the best known because of the publicity the socialist Annie Besant gave it in papers and journals. However Commonweal, the paper of the Socialist League, reported several other incidents of female militancy in the same year. Blanket weavers in Heckmondwike, female cigarmakers in Nottingham, girls in a tin box manufactory in London, who pelted men who continued to work after they came out with red-ochre and flour, cotton workers, and jute workers in Dundee, took action spontaneously in 1888. The reasons for striking varied, from demands for increases to resistance to cuts, or opposition to fines. Again in 1889 mill girls in Kilmarnock came out over the bad quality of yam they were being given. At Alverthorpe, near Wakefield, woollen weavers, women and girls, rejected a reduced rate and marched in procession headed by girls with concertinas. This was broken up by the police, and the girls with concertinas-obviously regarded as ‘leaders’ -were fined for obstruction. Even waiters and waitresses demonstrated at Hyde Park in October 1889-though unfortunately they saw foreign. workers not their employers as their foes.

Sheila Rowbotham, Hidden From History 1973

Beard Liberation Front

PRESS RELEASE 7th March

Contact Keith Flett      07803 167266

FOOTBALL: BEARD WAGGLE SET TO REPLACE TRADITIONAL HANDSHAKES

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that following coronavirus precautions it expects the beard waggle to replace the traditional handshake at the start of weekend football matches.

Normally managers will shake hands before the match and referees and team captains will also shake hands.

This will now be replaced by beard waggling as a nominal sign of respect

The beard waggle, involves shaking the beard vigorously from side to side

BLF Organiser Keith Flett, a small minority of managers and players may struggle to engage in a start of play beard waggle owing to a lack of a beard and it may cause more issues for referees. However the present crisis will require adaptations and in this case it may mean growing a beard

Beard Liberation Front guide on how to carry out a start of match beard waggle

1] Ensure the beard is supple. This may be done by moistening is slightly with water or, if preferred, craft beer.

2] Choose a suitable spot to waggle, preferably in the sun rather than the shade

3] Move the beard vigorously from side to side and then up and down while otherwise standing still. Repeat several times

4]] Beard Wagglers may intone Om, Om, Om while waggling

Beard Liberation Front

PRESS RELEASE 7th March Keith Flett 07803 167266

BRITISH PIE WEEK POLL FOR THE MOST BEARD FRIENDLY PIE OF 2020: VOTE ENDS MIDNIGHT

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with British Pie Week running from 2-8^th March its annual poll on the most Beard Friendly Pie is live on-line. It will close at midnight on 7^th March

The hirsute campaign group say that as with many prepared foods the requirements of people with beards are often overlooked when it comes to pies. The outcome of the annual poll often reflects that with traditional pies designed for eating ‘on the go’ easily beat leading pie brands.

The BLF says that common issues with pies for those with beards are:

Excessive gravy

Puff or flaky pastry which ends up in the beard not the mouth

‘Deep filling’ making it difficult to avoid contact of the pie with the beard

The campaigners cite some types of the traditional steak and kidney pie as an example of pies which are made without thought for the requirements of the hirsute pie consumer. Such pies often have excessive gravy- and comparatively little steak and kidney- which ends up in the beard.

Unfortunately the same issues tend to apply to many vegetarian and vegan pies too

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, with an increase in vegetarian and vegan cuisine the range of pies available is now much greater than 5 years ago but the question of how beard friendly they are is key for the hirsute. So far meat focused pies lead but this poll is about how beard friendly pie is regardless of the contents

Beard Friendly Pie 2020

Steak & Kidney

Steak & Ale

Vegan Steak Bake

Chicken, Ham & Leek

Leek & Potato

Cheese & Potato

Macaroni

Mushroom & Asparagus

Salmon & Broccoli

Scotch Pie

Mrs Kings Pork Pie

Butter

Meat Pie with green liquor

Reverend Paul Nicholson (1932-2020): indefatigable campaigner & veteran Guardian letter writer

I was surprised and dismayed to read of the death of the Reverend Paul Nicholson this week. I had bumped into him just a couple of weeks ago (he was off to another protest) as I was leaving the City of London HQ of one of the UK’s largest companies (I was doing my job as a union officer-yes I do have a full-time job…) He looked, as I expect he thought the same of me, much the same as he had looked for as long as I remember.

I worked with Paul Nicholson over many years when I was President of Haringey TUC over many campaigns around poverty, racism and much else. We both lived in Tottenham after all.

I found him idiosyncratic- no doubt at best he thought the same about me, because his campaigning zeal was based on religion and morality while mine was more focused on materialism. Still I’m not religious and he was a vicar but that never stopped us working together. When you are fighting for people at the bottom of society who have been dumped on by authority you take your allies where you can, and often brilliant allies they are too.

He had a wry sense of humour, offbeat and perhaps not so different to my own though I was never able to persuade him to grow a beard.

He was anyway a model campaigner, resilient, still going well into his late 80s. Not either as someone who just lectured younger people about how things were done ‘in my day’ but always up to the minute campaigning focused on now.

Paul Nicholson was also a veteran writer of letters to the Guardian, a subject I should add I don’t recall ever discussing with him. His focus over many well informed, astute letters, was his campaigning work. It is just one of those coincidences I suppose that I came to know several of the regular Guardian letters contributors not just Paul but also Toby Wood (who is still very much alive).

One can only bid a sad farewell to a great campaigner and epistler. If only there were more vicars like the Reverend Paul Nicholson.

The owner and managers of The Bull held an official launch for the pubs ‘new’ name this week. A free Kenton Archer cocktail was the draw, apparently. The Ambridge Socialist held a well-attended and publicised protest outside and then went in for a drink, avoiding the cocktail. Inside we found several of the ReBulls drinking the cocktail despite the fact they were supposed to be boycotting the pub. Clearly the ReBulls have capitulated. The Ambridge Socialist campaign to keep The Bull as a community local continues

The more signatures we can get on the real Save The Bull petition the more pressure we can put on Lilian Bellamy so please encourage people to sign

http://chng.it/8gwW6Ysg

E P Thompson on Britain, Europe & a history of refugees & solidarity

I was looking through E P Thompson’s Peculiarities of the English for quite other reasons and came across the passage below which has interest in the context of 2020.

Thompson was no enthusiast for the structures of the EEC and the EU which he saw as imposing a corporate framework on ideas and practices of European solidarity which were distinctly un-corporate (see Going into Europe, Sunday Times,1975)

The passage below however is an argument about why Britain is not an exception to the rest of Europe (a debate he was having with Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn) and why links existed both in the realm of ideas and in practical solidarities of fighting fascism and welcoming refugees.

Certainly a message for our times from European history

Here is this island, and there, across a few wet miles, are Other Countries. Those waters have, on occasion, been crossed. That city, London, is not in the Antarctic but has been, alongside Paris, Vienna and Prague, a great European capital. In its East End there have been deposit after deposit of refugee and immigrant workers. In the universities there have been deposit after deposit of émigré intellectuals. Across that water there came, in the 1930s, wave after wave of refugees from Fascism; across that water there went, in the early 1940s, wave after wave of troops to assist in the liberation of Southern and Western Europe; and across that water there came, in the later 1940s and 1950s, a further wave of refugees from Eastern Europe.

Peculiarities of the English, 1965

Beard Liberation Front

March 6th

Contact Keith Flett      07803 167266

NUNO STYLE BEARD IS ONLY WAY FORWARD FOR MOURINHO NOW

Not resilient

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that if Jose Mourinho wants to redeem himself as manager of Spurs he needs to abandon his trademark Clint Eastwood style stubble and grow a beard.

Mourinho had a full beard briefly while managing Manchester United but it was not resilient

In Spurs two most recent defeats Mourinho lost to Wolves who have the definitive hirsute manager in Nuno and Norwich where the powerfully bearded Daniel Farke is manager. Even Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta looks set to make the Beard of Spring shortlist 2020 revealed on March 18th

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Mourinho must learn the lesson of Premiership football in 2020, its beard power or bust

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Alcohol Pricing in Wales was introduced on Monday. Some early thoughts are below. In Cardiff for a few days I stopped by Lidl in Splott to check the impact.

Lidl is only the drinks outlet that Ive seen actively mentioning the change. The pricing measure is not aimed at beer drinkers particularly but the price for a bottle of St Austell Proper Job still seems perfectly reasonable to me. Its not a label that will trouble the Portman Group either

The Welsh Government has introduced minimum alcohol pricing today, setting the minimum price of 50p a unit.

I’d choose E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class (1963 still in print) as my book for World Book Day. I’m conscious of the fact that the day is aimed at younger people and encouraging reading and Thompson’s book is a weighty tome, which might put some off.

That said it is full of characters who might spark interest and indeed passages that can be read allowed.

Take this brief piece about a Luddite letter writer, stuck in jail

Thompson notes that in the early nineteenth century working class there was a considerable span of articulateness from the fully articulate artisan to the barely literate.

He writes:

‘Besides this (an example of a wife writing to a journeyman tailor in jail) we may set the letter of the Sheffield joiner Wolstenholme, to his wife’

Our Minaster hath lent me four vollams of the Missionary Register witch give me grat satisfaction to se ou the Lord is carin on is work of grais in distant contres

Thompson goes on ‘the writing of this letter was attended with difficulties since ‘Have broke my spettacles’

In a footnote he suggests that since the prisoners knew their letters were read by the Governor they were inclined to include references to improving reading

John Baxter has provided the following very useful background to the writer of the above letter:

Beard Liberation Front

Press release 5th March

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

HIGH TURN-OUT IN EARLY VOTING FOR BEARD OF IRELAND 2020

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that there has been a high turn-out in early voting for the Beard of Ireland 2020 but there remains ample time left in the poll for all to have their say.

The vote will close at midnight on 15^th March with the winner announced on March 17^th, St Patrick’s Day

The 2017 winner was politician Colum Eastwood who bearded broadcaster William Crawley for the annual Award.

In 2018 the DUP’s Lee Reynolds shaved writer Dominic O’Reilly for the honour with Colum Eastwood in a steady third place.

In 2019 Lee Reynolds retained the title

The BLF says that while traditionally a land of predominantly clean-shaven cultures, Ireland has in recent times become something of a centre for stylish and trendy beards.

Contenders for the title in 2020 include a diverse range of the hirsute- actors, comedians, political activists, journalists and rugby players.

The campaigners say the poll is specifically about the impact the beard of an individual has made in Irish public life and no other factor.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, several previous winners of the title are currently well behind the two leaders, neither of whom has won the title before. However a lot could change In the next 10 days

Steve Agnew, Renewable Energy Administrator

Bundee Aki, rugby player

Gerry Carroll, politician

William Crawley, broadcaster

Stuart Dallas, footballer

Colum Eastwood, politician

Sam McBride, journalist

Damian Mackle, WWE performer

David Norris, politician

Lee Reynolds. Politician

Peter Coles, academic, Maynooth University

Shane Lowry, golfer

Aodhán Connolly, Businessman

Rob Herring, Rugby player