Ernie Bevin and a Leek Roundabout

On 4^th June 1944 Churchill asked the Minister of Labour Ernie Bevin to say farewell to the troops who were setting off to take part in the Normandy landings. One of the soldiers called out " When we do this job for you Ernie are we going back on the dole". Both Churchill and Bevin replied " No you are not"
Unemployment in the country reached a high of 2.5 million in the 1930s. In 1932 20% of the work force in Leek were without work. Townspeople pulled together to fund a centre in Shoobridge St for the unemployed many veterans of the First War

Unemployment dogged North Staffordshire right up to the outbreak of the Second World War. The soldiers who embarked for Europe, my father amongst them, had reason to fear the poverty of the 1930s and wanted to ensure that there families never had to endure it again. That postwar consensus has been betrayed by politicians.

September 2011 and unemployment is again at 2.5 million. This figure overlooks those who want to work, which pushes the figure up to 4.5 million. Locally 1200 people are workless. There are about 450,000 vacancies nationally. In other words 10 jobless people chasing every job. The number of young people without work is around 1 million. We see evidence of the desperate search for work in Leek when 200 people apply for 2 vacancies in Argos or over 700 for work at Pointons.

In short the world that the Normandy veterans fought to escape from has returned and is now handicapping the lives of many in the town.

I have been following the argument that has raged in the Post and Times about the roundabout. I was struck by one comment that the removal of a piece of traffic management would be an insult to the war dead. In my opinion this is wrong. The greater insult is to see a return to the world of poverty and unemployment they expended their blood and sweat to escape. Cllr Hart poised the question whether it was to be jobs or roundabout. The veterans of both world wars given their experiences would not hesitate to give an answer.

Miners- a family memory

The deaths of the South Wales miners were poignant reminder of how dangerous the industry is. Of course although it is hard to realise now the Staffordshire Moorlands had a number of pits and many local men and women have worked in the past in the mining industry. The last working pits closed in the 60s and the only trace of the industry are in pubs name.

I was thinking of the sad fate of the miners recently on a visit to Caverswall. In the churchyard lie the bones of three distant ancestors killed in the Mossfield Mining disaster in 1889. Mossfield Colliery- long gone- was situated at Adderley Green. Charles, Thomas and Samuel Sherwin three brothers who were to pay with their lives because profit motives, a s the inquiry later revealed, outweighed safety considerations. The youngest Sam was 13 his body was recovered from under his dead pit pony. In the disaster, caused by an explosion, 64 men and boys were killed, as were 16 ponies. It is said that the family used the compensation money to start up a bakery in Werrington. Another story states that a pair of the dead brother’s clogs was attached to the grave in Caverswall. They were not the first or last Sherwin's- my mothers maiden name- to die in a pit.


My great, great, great grandfather Thomas Sherwin was killed in a gunpowder explosion in one of the pits that existed on Wetley Moor in October 1840. And the last was a relative killed nearly a hundred years later at Hanley Deep Pit.

A local newspaper reported on the community response.
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"bodies were laid side by side on fresh straw to be identified and claimed by relatives. Day wore on into night but the crowd still remained and miners from other collieries were now standing by. A religious service was held near the mouth of the shaft. Mothers, fathers, wives, friends, neighbours, spectators and sightseers all stood bareheaded."

A similar scene was played out outside Gleision Colliery last week to tragically restore the poetic judgement that there is blood on the coal.
　

9/11 Thoughts

The 10^th anniversary of 9/11 has just passed. It’s one of those days in history when people can recall what they were doing. I certainly can. It was a beautiful early autumn day. I spent the morning carrying out my Councillor duties in Stafford and then working for a conflict resolution organisation at Longton High School. The news, which I listened to on the way back to Leek, was unbelievable. I initially thought it was a radio play, but the voices of the presenters and the terrible events they were describing were proof. I later spoke to a friend with whom I had visited New York in 1999. New York, it goes without saying, is a great place. I loved Central Park, the museums, China Town and Greenwich Village. It is a place of charm, vitality and diversity. It was as much these characteristic of the place that was brutally attacked a decade ago.
You may ask what is this to do with Leek? I would answer everything because we have all been changed by 9/11. Locals who have fought in the subsequent wars. I was recently talking to a mother who son was badly injured in a mine explosion in Helmand province. There were the polarising debates over Iraq in 2003. Many people, myself included, went to the largest rally in London that February. Other consequences have been an increase in distrust of Muslims. Stoke has seen an arson attack on a mosque and a general feeling of uncertainty has increased.

What is to be done? At the time I recalled a quote from the American monk Thomas Merton. Ten years after it serves as the only response to fanaticism.

"The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with a red hot iron. I have to pick up the incandescent metal and burn my own hand while burning the other person. Hate itself is the seed of death in my own heart while it seeks death of another. Love is the seed of life in my own heart while it seeks the good of another.".

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The age of plastic

I was in the north of Scotland for my holiday and spent a day visiting an Iron Age site on the coast. My 7-year-old nephew Henry volunteered that we lived in the age of plastic when we discussed the various ages of man. I think he was spot on, as a look on the beach was proof enough of this insight. On the beach were plastic bottles, netting, boxes, rope, cartons, bags and crates.

Plastic as a substance has been around for about a hundred years and the qualities that have made it so successful its durability and versatility also makes it deadly for wildlife.

Tens of thousands of whales, birds, seals and turtles are killed every year in the marine environment as they often mistake plastic bags for food. Its also been known to damage farm animals.

Plastic bags, once ingested, cannot be digested or passed by an animal so it stays in the gut. Plastic in an animal's gut can prevent food digestion and can lead to a very slow and painful death.

Plastic does not biodegrade because it is a combination of elements extracted from crude oil then re mixed up by men in white coats. Because these combinations are man made they are unknown to nature.
Plastic never really disappears. In effect it lasts forever.

A number of countries are taking measures to restrict the use of plastic bags.
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Ireland has instituted a steep tax on plastics. According to the country’s Ministry of Environment, use fell by 90 percent as a result, and the tax money that was generated funded a greatly expanded recycling program throughout the country.

Larger economies have joined the cause. French and Italian legislators imposed a ban on all non-biodegradable plastic bags, to go into effect in 2010.

I feel that the UK should equally move in the direction of a ban.

At the current rate of environmental depredation it is likely that humankind will become extinct in the next few hundred years. It would be pathetic if the plastic bag is the proof for any future custodians of the planet of our existence.


　

The Labour Party and I- the end of a 47 year relationship

I got back from holiday to discover a letter from the Labour party rejecting my readmission. I had attended an appeal a few weeks ago and the tenor of the meeting was such that it suggested to me that the outcome was a foregone conclusion. I really regret allowing myself to be gulled into re applying and allowing myself to be angered by the attitude of some people in the Staffordshire Moorlands Labour party who used this process to discredit me. No one likes words and phrases like " unstable", "not a team player" or "untrustworthy" banded around but they were. I disliked it because I don’t believe it to be true.

 I do regard myself, as being a good team player as I hope my colleagues on the Leek Co-operative Emporium will testify. I am particularly good at coming up with ideas. This might be a problem for the Labour party. The whole exercise of the appeal was bizarre and perhaps the apogee or nadir, dependent on your position, was reached when I was asked whether it was on my "conscious" to have worked and stood against the Labour party. I obviously led the more spineless and weak willed into voting green and depriving them of their chance to be part of the Socialist Commonwealth offered by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. I was asked the question on conscious with a straight face. For a second I thought it was a joke but obviously it wasn’t and I said "no".

How could I not stand against a party that supported the 90 day detention, was keen on ID cards and most heinous of all for a left wing party carried out the 10p tax fiasco in June 2008. What was going through the heads of people to tax the lowest paid workers at a higher rate. Such a policy seems to me a lack of a moral compass, if one existed in the first place.

Now I know many good people in the Labour party. I also know or have been told of a fair number of crooks, lechers and thoroughly disreputable types who are or have been Labour party members. Some have flourished as well. I was told by a fellow Councillor that one other Councillor was the most corrupt politician operating in North Staffs. The person was returned to an authority last spring. I presume that his loyalty and unthinking commitment to the Labour Party overweighed the lesser virtues of integrity, honesty and public service.


No I think that "conscience" is not an issue there.


I suspect what doomed me in some quarters was that I have an independent streak and I’m not easily controlled. Being thought of as intelligent also does not help. And I have the proof. Somewhere I have in my possession two copies of applications that were made for a chairmanship in the County Council. The documents are about a decade old. I filled in my application seriously as if I was applying for a job giving many examples of my interest in cultural and conservation issues. My form was densely written. My opponent submitted the same form leaving large areas blank. Reader, who won the contest? Well, it was not I. In any other walk of life the winning application would have been just tossed in the bin but because this particular Councillor was highly thought of by the leadership then there will prevailed. Independence and probably having a little intelligence have always been a barrier as far as my relationship with the Labour party is concerned.

I had thought that with the emergence of Ed Milliband then all that would have changed and that a welcoming hand was being proffered to former members of the party, but this was illusionary. There are elements in the Labour party who cannot help themselves. I read of the recent vote taken of the Bentilee community facility where pressure was applied to difficult councillors who represented the area. I recognised the scenario as the same had happened to me in 1999/2000 over the closure of a local nursery. I ended up being disciplined by the County Group for my apparent failing in standing up for a community interest in the ward I was representing. The sane response would be to let the ward representatives speak out and let them vote the way that their constituents would want them rather than applying group discipline.


Again I reiterate there are some good people in the Labour party, but there are others where meeting the electorate especially the disadvantaged is an exotic experience. I can recall an occasion on Election Day 2010 when I was in the back of a candidate’s car when another party member and subsequent Councillor openly mocked the poorly dressed people of Stoke as we drove down London Road. I was open mouthed at the sheer arrogance of this woman. I hope that in the intervening time she has acquired empathy because the display of snobbery I witnessed does not sit comfortably with the "peoples party".


It is my intention never to have anything to do with the party. I will recognise positive policies when they come out with them as well as criticising them if they are in error but I cannot get away from the thought that politics is changing, the old certainties are breaking down, as are the old voting loyalties. A Labour Party that is closed to ideas and demand unquestioning loyalty is doomed.

The plight of Brett Taylor and the unemployed of Leek

I have every sympathy with the plight of Brett Taylor reported as having applied for over 100 jobs without success. Many thousands of people in North Staffordshire will recognise that experience. It is important that people are not reliant on welfare and that they spend their time in useful endeavour, but the present Government policy of "welfare to work" which attempts to address the dependency culture is deeply flawed and deserves closer scrutiny. Firstly, long term full time jobs are as rare as hen’s teeth. I will go further any permanent job is a rarity that is if you believe the Job Centre Plus which advertised just three jobs in Leek last week and they were all temporary and part time. Even jobs, which are historically associated with North Staffordshire no longer, exist - leastways on government websites. Out of curiosity I sought to see if there were any pottery worker posts available and the only one I could see was for a worker needed in Warwickshire. The jobs that many people in North Staffordshire would have done years ago have all but disappeared. It has been calculated that since the 1960s we have lost in excess of 100,000 in the staple industries of pottery, textiles, mining and steel that loss of many long term and stable jobs has not adequately been replaced. As an experiment I looked at what sorts of jobs were advertised in the local Leek papers during the two big recessions of the last 30 years. I researched those jobs advertised in the autumn of 1981 and 1992. In the first recession of Mrs Thatcher’s government between 1980-6 over 3 million people lost their jobs and North Staffs was especially badly hit. Yet even in the months of rapid increase of worklessness jobs in the staple industries of textiles and potteries jobs were still being advertised. The mills of Leek still wanted machinists, winders, over lockers and fitters. There were also jobs in engineering going in the many small companies often looking for young and willing staff to learn a trade in a "hands on " way. Potbanks were still recruiting. In the early 80s we still made things and that was still true albeit in a reduced way at the time of the next recession in 1992 where again 3 million people were without work. In a full-page advert in August Halle Models, for example, were undergoing an expansion and were looking for workers. It was true that there were job losses at the time most notably at Britannia Building Society and at Peri Lusta in Mill St. The local newspaper reported in 1992 that there were 2,300 people of working age who were unemployed and around 160 vacancies. These seemed varied and there was even a job as a trainee journalist which required 2 A levels and 5 O levels from likely candidates. I would imagine that the basic requirement now as far as entry qualification is now a post graduate journalism qualification. In the Post and Times last week there were a number of jobs advertised; but many were part time, temporary and agency based work. Jobs existed in retail, cleaning, catering, security and nursing and also in the public sector including the local schools and universities usually requiring a degree. There was one job advertised in engineering. This was the only job that actually resulted in something being made- the decline of the manufacturing sectors is one consequence of government policy over the last 17 years. The growth of employment agencies is the most marked change from previous recessions and it is now to these organisations that the long term unemployed are directed to find them work. Such work is not guaranteed and usually temporary. As someone remarked leaving the security of the benefit system for such posts is like stepping on thin ice. In such circumstances the present benefit system has failed to move with the times because it is programmed to expect claimants to move into steady jobs instead of the reality of the insecurity of "zero hours contracts" or commission based work that face the unskilled. The system is designed for predictability when work patterns are anything but. Individuals who return to benefit after their short-term contract has ended often face weeks of waiting before benefits are re activated and in that time they build up rent arrears and debts. The poor bear no responsibility for the present economic crisis, the blame for that lies at the feet of bankers and politicians, yet as elsewhere the most vulnerable have to bear the brunt of the hardship while those who are guilty get away scot-free feather bedded by taxpayers money. The reliance of financiers on state handouts is one form of dependency culture that is rarely spoken of. The answer? Well, to take up Brett’s point more could be done by the big employers in the area including Councils to employ local people through " community benefit " clauses in contracts rather than exporting work to Derbyshire might be a start. We should reflect how the community can create work in Leek especially for the young and how morally justifiable to the comfortably off is the increase of unemployment and the poverty that inevitably follows. However, what is probably required is a root and branch reform of the welfare system if the future of employment for the poorest in society continues to be so vulnerable and doubtful. The idea of a basic liveable income, which everyone receives, has been kicking around now for 200 years- perhaps its time has come.

　
　

Frankie Howerd at Blackshaw Moor- Titter Ye Not

The contestant who won the semi final of the Mastermind programme that I appeared in earlier this year went on to take Frankie Howerd as his final subject Ah Frankie, the double entendres, the verbal tics, the pout and rolling eye. Growing up in the 70s Frankie along with Benny Hill, Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper and Les Dawson were part of my TV experience. They had in common a craft acquired following long years of struggle in smokey clubs and draughty halls.

I was somewhat surprised to read that things were not always easy for him. I was carrying out some research and came across an advert promoting Howerd’s appearance at the Three Horseshoes on Blackshaw Moor in March 1969. Titter ye not! I have nothing against that pub or Blackshaw Moor, but the combination of these factors suggests to me that the comic must have been hard pressed .It seems his career was not a smooth one.

In fact one biographer described Howerd’s career as series of comebacks. After he left the army he was a regular feature on radio and TV but his career took a nosedive. He had begun to lose self-esteem, which culminated in a nervous breakdown. He entered into a lengthy period of psychoanalysis aided by taking LSD
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A revival of interest lead to the appearance at the Three Horseshoes in 1969.

His greatest achievement was just around the corner. Someone had the brainwave of setting a comedy in the days of Ancient Rome. Frankie was a natural for the lead role of the slave Lucio. The pilot was first broadcast in September 1969. Up Pompeii re-established Howerd’s celebrity a position that never left him
His great secret only revealed after his death was his long-term relationship with Dennis Heymer. Being gay in the 1950s carried with it a possible criminal conviction. Heymer stayed loyal to the memory of Howerd’s who died in 1993 and on his own death 2 years ago was buried in a replica of Tutankhamun's sarcophagus, taking with him 18 personal items belonging to Howerd - including his chestnut-brown toupee.

 Please yourselves!!