The challenge to the right, mentioned in my last posting, is that while Colin Ward may have advocated slimming down the state's role in our lives this has no connection to that of the current coalition as they wish to hand life over to an unregulated market, putting profit at the centre of our lives rather than community. Colin described mutual aid as the central point in political change. Many of his points echo Richard Titmuss's social policy classic The Gift Relationship, which focuses on blood donors, the ultimate in people offering something of themselves ("an armful" as Tony Hancock pointed out) for no gain, and outside of any notion of trade or profit. I was reminded of this the day after the memorial meeting when, on the tube, having been hopelessly lost near Wembley we faced being hopelessly lost in Kilburn as our badly photocopied maps had all the relevant streets themselves lost on the overlap between pages. Someone elsewhere in the carriage, listening in, offered us her A-Z, not to borrow, but to have as she "had another one at home", and maybe we would do the same to some other lost stranger sometime. Random acts of kindness may never appear in a party political manifesto but it saved us an hour on a hot day, and linked neatly back to Colin Ward the day before.
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Colin Ward again
The challenge to the right, mentioned in my last posting, is that while Colin Ward may have advocated slimming down the state's role in our lives this has no connection to that of the current coalition as they wish to hand life over to an unregulated market, putting profit at the centre of our lives rather than community. Colin described mutual aid as the central point in political change. Many of his points echo Richard Titmuss's social policy classic The Gift Relationship, which focuses on blood donors, the ultimate in people offering something of themselves ("an armful" as Tony Hancock pointed out) for no gain, and outside of any notion of trade or profit. I was reminded of this the day after the memorial meeting when, on the tube, having been hopelessly lost near Wembley we faced being hopelessly lost in Kilburn as our badly photocopied maps had all the relevant streets themselves lost on the overlap between pages. Someone elsewhere in the carriage, listening in, offered us her A-Z, not to borrow, but to have as she "had another one at home", and maybe we would do the same to some other lost stranger sometime. Random acts of kindness may never appear in a party political manifesto but it saved us an hour on a hot day, and linked neatly back to Colin Ward the day before.
Monday, 12 July 2010
Colin Ward memorial meeting
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About 200 people attended the Colin Ward memorial/celebration meeting at Conway Hall last Saturday. The audience comprised a mixture of grizzled activists (but enough about me), former New Society hacks, professional colleagues of Colin's from his assorted planning and environmental education jobs and people once press-ganged into writing articles for Anarchy. There were even some young people.Ken Worpole - organiser in chief - ran things smoothly, subtly dropping a note on the podium when speakers began to go on a bit. Worpole himself described Colin's message as a challenge for the political right and the left, and all described his positive thinking, his humour, his knowledge across so many disciplines and his ability to be the first to write about issues before the public even realised they were issues. An example here might be his writing on the international water crisis of which we are now all aware. Not bad for someone who left school at 15 with no qualifications.
The star of the show was Harriet Ward, wittily describing how she set out to win Colin's affections some 45 years ago, including offering him lifts home since she was "going that way", while noting that she lived in the exact opposite direction. Strangely she also happened to pass his door when he was coming out in the mornings to offer a lift again (having, she confessed, parked up the road waiting on him to appear).
The other star of the show was Colin himself, an extract from a two hour interview with the late Roger Deakin being shown. Colin talked about the early days of his involvement with the Freedom group. The whole DVD is available from Housmans bookshop.
Five Leaves - opportunists that we are - brought forward the release of a new edition of Colin Ward and Dennis Hardy's Goodnight Campers! A History of the British Holiday Camp and we made good inroads into the copies on sale. Copies are available from www.inpressbooks.co.uk/goodnight_campers_the_history_of_the_british_holiday_camp_dennis_hardy_colin_ward_i022041.asp
Thanks to all who spoke, attended, or donated to cover the cost of hiring Conway Hall for the afternoon.
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Welcome to the New Hull...
...says the hoarding at the train station. What can it mean? "We now have arcades with the same shops that you have at home, even Greggs?" "Hull Pride is on July 31st"? Still, this cafe has wifi, and a croissant, fresh orange juice and excellent coffee for £3.60. My Hull friends say that Hull people do like a bargain (see also Larkin's phrase in his poem "Here" about the "cut price crowd"). Actually it is the old Hull I wanted to see. The Wilberforce House and Museum for starters (though I hope that when Desmond Tutu dropped by he was not on 
his lonesome, as I was), which also contained a small but fascinating exhibition on Philip Larkin. I wanted also to find the spot on the river Hull where James Booth took the photograph gracing the cover of our Old City, New Rumours. Rather than make a call I wandered until I found the spot, in fact just behind the Wilberforce House, though it took me three hours to find it. I also wandered to find the street called The Land of Green Ginger, the best street name in the world.
Last night saw an event linked to the book, part of the Humber Mouth Book Festival, with Andrew Motion reading from his new poems (some of which feature in the collection). The tickets described him as ex-Poet Laureate, while "former" sounds kinder, but he does seem to have been liberated by leaving the Laureateship behind him, and it was a good reading. Various other contributors to the book were around, Ian Parks, Tony Griffin, Douglas Houston and others, and it was good to finally make it to Hull and to meet some of them. I'd been unable to attend the launch due to a family crisis. Sorry not to meet Maurice Rutherford though, but pleased to hear that his New and Selected will be out from Shoestring soon. Maurice is in his 90s. Is he the oldest poet still publishing?
Good also to meet Maggie Hannan, who's been involved with Humber Mouth these past twenty years or so. She said she was a poet herself until about fifteen years ago, but was cured..
his lonesome, as I was), which also contained a small but fascinating exhibition on Philip Larkin. I wanted also to find the spot on the river Hull where James Booth took the photograph gracing the cover of our Old City, New Rumours. Rather than make a call I wandered until I found the spot, in fact just behind the Wilberforce House, though it took me three hours to find it. I also wandered to find the street called The Land of Green Ginger, the best street name in the world.Last night saw an event linked to the book, part of the Humber Mouth Book Festival, with Andrew Motion reading from his new poems (some of which feature in the collection). The tickets described him as ex-Poet Laureate, while "former" sounds kinder, but he does seem to have been liberated by leaving the Laureateship behind him, and it was a good reading. Various other contributors to the book were around, Ian Parks, Tony Griffin, Douglas Houston and others, and it was good to finally make it to Hull and to meet some of them. I'd been unable to attend the launch due to a family crisis. Sorry not to meet Maurice Rutherford though, but pleased to hear that his New and Selected will be out from Shoestring soon. Maurice is in his 90s. Is he the oldest poet still publishing?
Good also to meet Maggie Hannan, who's been involved with Humber Mouth these past twenty years or so. She said she was a poet herself until about fifteen years ago, but was cured..
Saturday, 3 July 2010
Twiglets
If you read this early enough you'll just have time to scoot along to some of the last events of the inaugural Manchester Children's Book Festival, www.manchesterchildrensbookfestival.co.uk. A couple of us went up last night to join Sherry Ashworth's table at the gala dinner. Sherry - whose recent book with Five Leaves is Revolution - was pretty high profile over the Festival, today chairing a discussion on teenage fiction with Kevin Brooks and Keith Grey, and Adele Geras depping for Jenny Valentine. Tomorrow she will be hosting an afternoon tea with Frank Cottrell Boyce. Keith was phlegmatic about sales of good young adult books not being brilliant right now, but excited about the amount of good material out there. Kevin put the blame on publishers (we always get it in the neck) because teenage books should be where teenagers go, in Topshop for example. Good point, anyone got a contact for them? He also referred to the current fashion for twiglet books. Everyone else knew what he meant, and laughed. 34 minutes later I did too.
Carol Ann Duffy was pretty much in evidence, the Festival being one of her products, and organised by Manchester Met University Creative Writing team, where she is based. At the gala dinner a couple of her new handwritten poems, one called "Shirt" (Wayne Rooney's England shirt) was particularly good, were auctioned off for about £800 each for the NSPCC, though attention began to wonder when the auction got on to an old copy of the Hello, Hello annual.
Jeanette Winterson, in her after dinner speech, told us about her battle with her adopted mother to read, Mrs Winterson believing that "books are bad for you because by the time you have found out how they end it is too late" (that may not be an exact quote). Her mother burnt Jeanette's hidden book collection. As Keith Grey said today, "books are dangerous". But then he also said that the "twiglet" books are all about how to avoid having sex, so they are not written for the likes of him, because he is a bloke...
Finally, Mary Hoffman was encouraging us all to read the great American young adult writer John Green, who is all but unknown here. Disconcertingly, since he is an American, his website is awash with stuff on the World Cup. Is there no escape?
Carol Ann Duffy was pretty much in evidence, the Festival being one of her products, and organised by Manchester Met University Creative Writing team, where she is based. At the gala dinner a couple of her new handwritten poems, one called "Shirt" (Wayne Rooney's England shirt) was particularly good, were auctioned off for about £800 each for the NSPCC, though attention began to wonder when the auction got on to an old copy of the Hello, Hello annual.
Jeanette Winterson, in her after dinner speech, told us about her battle with her adopted mother to read, Mrs Winterson believing that "books are bad for you because by the time you have found out how they end it is too late" (that may not be an exact quote). Her mother burnt Jeanette's hidden book collection. As Keith Grey said today, "books are dangerous". But then he also said that the "twiglet" books are all about how to avoid having sex, so they are not written for the likes of him, because he is a bloke...
Finally, Mary Hoffman was encouraging us all to read the great American young adult writer John Green, who is all but unknown here. Disconcertingly, since he is an American, his website is awash with stuff on the World Cup. Is there no escape?
Monday, 28 June 2010
Ken Coates
Ken Coates died on Sunday. This came as something of a shock as I had received a request for a review copy of one of our books for his excellent journal The Spokesman on Friday. The last few times we spoke he railed against the Blairite destruction of the Labour Party, not seeing a great deal of hope. Indeed Ken spoke at Lowdham two or three years back, a rare public meeting, and he was mobbed. It was a bit like an old time socialist revivalist meeting. Ken said he was steadily losing his eyesight. I replied that it must be difficult, given his life in books. He replied that the biggest problem was that he could not cross the fucking road on his own any more.Broadsheet and labour movement obituaries will cover his life fully, but in Nottinghamshire he was responsible for Spokesman Books, Russell Press and the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, all of which will continue as important parts of the left. Ken plays more than a walk on part in our forthcoming re-issue of Ray Gosling's Personal Copy at a time when there was all to play for in the Labour Party in Nottingham.
Lowdham again
The big day at Lowdham was on Saturday. We managed to achieve our lowest attendance ever at one particular event, three, but we had to put up the House Full signs at more events than ever. These included Clare Dudman talking about her novel set in the Welsh community in Patagonia and forty people had to be turned away from a talk on the sandstone caves of Nottingham (a talk based on a book that first came out about twenty years ago!), so people voted for internationalism and parochialism. At the end of a baking day, in even more baking tents, one of the last sessions ran over, a packed house discussing ethics and philosophy while saner mortals were drinking shandies or eating cold grapes. During the odd quiet moment I helped clear tables in the cafe. An elderly person of my acquaintance, passing by, quietly said "So, it has come to this." At least it is a job.
Bright sunshine on the day helped, though it did produce some challenging results for those attempting to show pictures in the marquees - "if you could see this slide, it would show that..."
This was our first year without Arts Council funding. This was a challenge but we were still able to run a festival with 50 events over a two week period.
Bright sunshine on the day helped, though it did produce some challenging results for those attempting to show pictures in the marquees - "if you could see this slide, it would show that..."
This was our first year without Arts Council funding. This was a challenge but we were still able to run a festival with 50 events over a two week period.
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