Bookish

The Guardian's corrections column remarked (21/12/2009) that an obituary of Leonora Kay-Kreizman said "she had worked hard as the literary secretary for the Nottingham East branch of the Young Communist League; she was the literature secretary, charged with organising the sale of Communist party and YCL publications". This is rather a shame. I rather liked the notion that a YCL branch would have a literary secretary, and, possibly, a music correspondent, an arts organiser and a theatrical commission. And why not? The old Communist Party had writers by the library load, a relationship with the Workers' Music Association, the Artists' International Association and Unity theatre.

The original obituary mentioned that the Nottingham Communist Party was one of the only places in town where you could hear jazz and where men could kiss one another. So I think the Guardian was wrong to correct, and that Leonora must have organised the branch book group, reviewed the latest fiction in the branch bulletin and was probably assistant secretary of the YCL poetry circle. After all, the current Morning Star has a weekly poetry column and a monthly round up of poetry books. As CLR James almost said "What does he or she know of politics who only knows of politics?"