Colin Ward and Five Leaves

I started reading Colin Ward in, I think, 1973, at Aberdeen People's Press. APP was a magazine with its own print-shop, one of many such papers throughout the country such as Leeds Other Paper and Rochdale Alternative Paper. One table at APP was devoted to “swaps”, magazines exchanged with APP, and some national magazines for sale or reference. It was there I came across Peace News, which I hooked up with for many years, and Freedom. The latter listed many local anarchist groups across the country and, tantalisingly, its appeal fund often listed significant donations collected at anarchist picnics in America, sometimes from groups with foreign language names. For a young man living in the north east of Scotland in those pre-internet days this was heady stuff.

Freedom was respected (and criticised) for being the journal of record of the anarchist movement, the paper of “official anarchism”. There were brasher papers, with more exciting layout, but often with only brief lives. With Freedom you got tradition and continuity and you had access to the work of Vernon Richards, the scarily pedantic historian Nicolas Walter and, the subject of this magazine, Colin Ward. I found some copies of Colin Ward's Anarchy which, though it closed in 1970, was still thought relevant, certainly more so than the second series produced by the group that succeeded him as editor. I've spent years trying to complete the set of 116 issues he edited.

Over the years I got to know Colin's work, starting with a wonderful series of books on work, on vandalism and on utopia for Penguin Education and of course his Anarchy in Action. This is still the book I recommend to people wanting to understand what anarchism is all about. Anarchy in Action remains in print from Freedom Press, even if the Freedom empire no longer really reflects Colin's view of anarchism.

I got to know Colin – he spoke at one or two meetings in my later and current hometown in Nottingham - and found him as good company in person as his books were to read. The long defunct Old Hammond Press published pamphlets by him on housing and on William Morris and, in 1995, I became a “proper” publisher when Mushroom Bookshop published his Allotment: its landscape and culture (jointly written with David Crouch), buying paperback rights from Faber. Typically, Colin said he did not want any royalties, simply being glad the book was again available. The Allotment kept Five Leaves Publications afloat for many years after we took over Mushroom's publishing side. We reissued several of his other books including Arcadia for All, a new title Cotters and Squatters and a selection of his essays, Talking Green. Colin preferred to emphasise the positive, with no time for “tittle tattle” about the anarchist movement. The nearest he came to that was the extended interview with David Goodway, Talking Anarchy, which we published and is now with PM Press.

Unfortunately the last few years of Colin's life were not kind to him. He was unable to complete his last commission, to edit a set of essays by other writers whose ideas chimed with his. I last saw Colin at the relaunch of Anarchy in Action at Housmans Bookshop in London. I'd been asked to speak and was proud to do so. My guess is that everyone at the launch already had the book, but everyone wanted to see Colin again and to honour one of British anarchism's most influential figures. It was, I think, his last public appearance.

Our last Colin Ward publication was Colin Ward Remembered, a collection of the speeches given at his memorial meeting – funded by those who generously chipped in to hire Conway Hall for the event. People sent so much money we were able to publish the memorial volume from the surplus.

The meeting was attended by hundreds of people Colin had influenced. In my own case the Five Leaves publishing firm and the more recent Five Leaves Bookshop would not have happened without his early encouragement and his infectious belief in doing positive things, not just damning what is wrong with the world.

This article first appeared in Anarchist Voices Volume 9 number 1

Damned fools in utopia

Or to give the new book of Nicolas Walter's essays its full title, Damned Fools in Utopia and Other Writings on Anarchism and War Resistance edited by David Goodway. Nicolas Walter died in 2000, having been one of the most consistent writers for Freedom and its offshoots Anarchy and The Raven, as well as the atheist/freethought press. He was famed as a fierce reviewer and a stickler for details (he was, after all, the chief sub-ed at the TLS for a period). He also wrote a stream of letters the broadsheet press. His published output beyond the many magazines he contributed to was, however, sadly limited. On his death it was widely assumed that Freedom Press would publish a selection of his essays but they had "moved on". Other attempts to secure a publisher in the mainstream of the anarchist movement failed. Five Leaves stepped in eventually and a book of his historic essays, The Anarchist Past, appeared in 2007, edited by David Goodway. Too late, sadly, as, perhaps, there had been something of a generational change in the anarchist movement and Nicolas - perhaps also because he had little book-published work - was no longer well known. How quickly people forget. There were always two volumes of essays planned by David Goodway. I cannot now remember why I did not simply announce the second volume to appear under Five Leaves, especially as the content of that volume held more interest for me personally. Perhaps there were some issues, perhaps I was just too busy. Checking past emails I find that the editor asked our friends at PM Press in the USA to bring out an edition there. We discussed a joint edition but when PM opened a London office using the same trade reps as Five Leaves it seemed easier to leave the field to them with one edition for both countries. We're not short of books to publish.
Now that Damned Fools in Utopia has finally appeared with PM I regret not doing the sensible thing which was to have brought it out in 2008 or 2009 and let PM have American rights. It is - as it was then - a very good selection of essays, the heart being about Nicolas' work within the peace movement, and in particular the Spies for Peace. There are also very good essays on libertarian individuals - Orwell, Alan Sillitoe (who was an occasional contributor to the anarchist press), Herbert Read, the largely forgotten Guy Aldred and the "crank" publisher CW Daniel, the UK publisher of Tolstoy and health books (whose imprint ended up being owned by Random House!).
The selection ends with the short essay by Nicolas, "Facing Death" which was first heard on the World Service. Nicolas was, by then, indeed facing death, knowing, as an atheist, that there was nothing beyond. A fine essay which deserves a wide circulation.
Had we published the book I'd have argued with David Goodway about the title - I never liked it - but would probably have accepted defeat. But though I hope the volume is widely read I do regret that PM has set the price at £16.99 and used a white cover which is, after a brief skim through, already grubby. I've read the essays before, some in their original form and all in David Goodway's selection but there are many I will return to again and again, by which time the cover will be as grubby as the content shines.