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In 1954 they were accused of intimidating passengers on the Cheddleton Bus, vandalising municipal flowerbeds and engaging in a mass punch up in Haywood St over the Easter weekend.
In 2011 they are accused of laziness, lacking a work ethic, according to local businessman, drunkenness, illiteracy and being ignorant.
In the three instances the accused are young people as portrayed by older people.
Its time for a defence to be launched.
I work with young people; I know of them and in the course of an ordinary day will come in contact with young people. Most I know in these settings are perfectly fine, courteous, hard working, amusing and to use the jargon of the time" customer focused". I am sure that some young people behave badly as I know that there are some old people act outrageously. The old man last summer who swore vilely at a bus driver and thumped the side of the bus in Longsdon is one side of the equation as is the skinhead who helped me with a buggy in which lay my sleeping baby daughter in Lime St the other.
Could it be that young people today, as they were yesterday, are being deliberately misunderstood by politicians and journalists who wish to use them to suit their own ends? Do the young serve a useful function as a scapegoat for the inadequacies of their elders?
I am sure that if we consider the question of the alleged uselessness of the British teenager we can all think of individual acts of kindness carried out by them. I don’t envy the young today in a country which has burdened them with debt and in which over a million find themselves unemployed. And they are being written off. Yet they had nothing to do with this crisis and the young will picking up the bill for a long time.
This crisis is caused by the uselessness of the old.
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The Levenson Inquiry into the British press is daily producing outrageous examples of the brutal intrusiveness of some journalists. The most forceful and excoriating of the celebrities called to give evidence is probably Hugh Grant who gave a grim catalogue of incidents where his family’s privacy had been violated. Grant has been part of the celebrity scene for some time. In fact a friend of mine saw him and the recently deceased director Ken Russell in the Izaac Walton Hotel in Ilam when they were making the film " Lair of the White Worm" in 1988. It’s not Russell’s greatest work it has to be said. Of course Russell himself later achieved a dubious distinction by being in the 2007 Celebrity Big Brother.
I have only occasionally been in the presence of a celebrity. I sat opposite Francis Rossi in a Manchester hotel and saw Joe McGann in "Coffee Beans" in Leek. On both times I gave them a wide berth. I suspect my stance is untypical. The usual response it seems is like that I witnessed on a train on the Wirral when Dean Sullivan aka Jimmy Corkhill of Brookside sat next to me- his after shave smelled nice it has to be said. The attitude of the other travellers on an overcrowded train was if a God from Olympus had descended. I was staggered by how awe-struck people seemed to be.
My apathy towards celebrity is even more amplified when it comes to royalty. In this I wear a plain republican coat. I did not come out in the street when Princess Diana visited Wigan when I worked there. Several years later I saw many paparazzi besiege a restaurant in Soho where she was dining. I cannot help but think that if everyone took my attitude to her then she would have had a happier and longer life. My indifference to the whole cult of celebrity is so marked that I cannot think of anything more hellish than Hello magazine. And I believe that the popular obsession with stars and stardom is corrosive to public life as the Levenson Inquiry is revealing.
I occasionally attend a Tuesday night discussion held in the Blue Mugge. It’s usually very interesting although on this night the atmosphere was particularly charged. We were discussing "Marxism" and someone mentioning modern poverty said that it did not exist locally. As proof he cited the sale of champagne in a local supermarket as an indicator of affluence. Some one else agreed with him giving as an example of time he had spent in South Africa where real poverty did exist.
But is poverty in Leek easier to bear in 2011 with a welfare state than poverty in Johannesburg? Well, poverty is poverty wherever its experienced. And having no money or support in whatever society is a bitter thing to bear. The only thing that makes it possibly easier to bear is the existence of social support networks and the make do and mend skills needed to survive. If that is the criteria then who is better placed a member of an extended family in a Joburg township or a isolated pensioner shivering and lonely on a wintry council estate? The number of deaths from hypothermia nationally around 25,000 would suggest a problem.
Beside I know that there are people experiencing hardship in Leek now. I witnessed an example the other day when I was on an organised walk in the town centre. A homeless man sleeping in the churchyard approached the group, as he did not want to scare people. He told me of his predicament and that he was grateful to the Church for allowing him to sleep there. So to answer the modern day " Jellyby" the availability of cheap champagne suggests a restricted social awareness and yes poverty and hardship is out there
Its Thanksgiving Day today and a time to say what I am thankful for in living and knowing the communities I have lived and worked in. In Leek it would be the pubs especially the Roebuck, the independent book shop, the charity shops, Pronto, All Saints Church, the Co-operative Emporium, the Sugden houses in Queen St, Foxlowe the Nicholson Institute and War Memorial, the characters and the open spaces and the Market Place. And further afield the walk around Rudyard Lake
For Stoke- on Trent my home town I would say the Mitchell Memorial, Winton Square and Railway Station, staff in the Archive section of the Hanley Library, Webberley bookshop, the greenery esp the reclamation areas such a Forest park, and the pubs of Burslem and the people generally
I have been involved in the Leek Co-operative for the Benefit of All since its inception in February. The driver behind the Leek group has been to develop the Co-operative Emporium the 100th anniversary is celebrated this year. A group was established at the beginning of the year with the aim of developing co-operatives in the town around the umbrella organisation of the Emporium. We opened the ground floor of the three stories building last August and we have held a number of events to inform the business planning process. For instance one event that I was involved in was the Enterprise Day on the 14th October which attracted a number of individuals interested in setting up a business. We are developing the co-operative on a piecemeal basis and we are having a formal opening next year. But why this approach?
The global economic crisis is the most recent and potent factor in changing the bigger picture. And Leek as other towns in North Staffs the impact has been deep. The crisis has resulted in a fundamental change in attitude to the traditional business model of investor ownership. Prior to that, since the collapse of communism, investor ownership had not just been the dominant business model; it really was the only show in town. It was the idea and questioning its validity – or suggesting that it was inherently flawed – was unthinkable. Those doubts have re surfaced with the Occupy movement posing searching questions of "crony" capitalism
Intellectually, the previously unquestioned assumptions are now open for discussion. The old ‘certainties’ have gone. At grass roots level, the change from a general feeling of prosperity and security to a feeling of worrying uncertainty has been dramatic and profound in all communities. More difficult circumstances and anxiety about the future undoubtedly affect how people think and behave. There is a natural tendency to band together, to look for and talk about ways of addressing immediate difficulties, and finding common solutions, which help individuals and others in need. Self-help revives in the face of adversity when other sources of help seem to be failing. The example of the USA in the 1930s is a good historical example
The context today is therefore very different from that of ten or even five years ago. Perhaps it gives rise to a more sober and reflective mood. The resurgence of interest in mutual models of ownership, both in terms of existing and of new organisations, suggest that the self-help business model may have a contemporary relevance which is growing in importance.
The recent economic difficulties have damaged the credibility of investor-ownership. Damage has been caused because of the perception that the loss of thousands of jobs and the collapse in the value of shares – affecting the savings and pensions of many people on modest incomes – are at least in part caused by greed and the pursuit of private interests. The profit motive is not a popular concept at the moment. The pursuit of huge gains by some prominent individuals in the commercial world, and the apparent failure of a significant number of politicians to understand how their behaviour in optimising personal private gain is unacceptable, have made this even worse. And this feeling gained further impetus with the publication of the High Pay Commission this week
So, given the social context, recent developments in mutuality and the prevailing economic circumstances, the self-help model seems to be both relevant and appealing. But how will it meet today’s needs? That is the question we are posing in Leek
The response of authority was a panicky one. They called out the local Yeomanry under the command of Lieutenant Copeland fearful of the possibility of violence. The vicar of Leek and magistrate Edward Powys ordered the detention of the Blanketeers and many were arrested. Local newspapers reported on the marchers describing them as " subservient to the all too evident design of disorganising society and destroying the constitution. They were dismissed as " gaping gulls who surround the altar of sedition made dupes by artful and wilful men".
What struck me about the accounts was the condescending language used about the Blanketeers is now used about the anti capitalist protestors at St Paul’s. Melanie Phillips wrote "The idea that this supremely self-indulgent exercise is a spontaneous protest by ordinary people is wide of the mark. The similarity of these worldwide tent cities suggests that a high degree of co-ordination is involved".
That comment tells me that the St Paul protestors are regarded as the Blanketeers were as "gaping gulls made dupes by the artful", unable to make their own analysis or come up with solutions. Something should not be forgotten that the Blanketeers were the beginning of a long campaign that ultimately achieved much of what they wanted. The right to vote, a welfare state, work reform and the ability to hold governments to account were all gained. We should recall this when today’s St Paul protestors are mocked.
