Stop,Look,Listen…my weekly selection of favourite films, books and events to get you out of the house

Watch…Manchester Film Co-operative – in association with the IF Campaign –have put together two films about the real economic crisis. It’s a double billing of We’re Not Broke and the award-winning Secret City.
6.30pm – 8.pm: We’re Not Broke, the story of how American corporations have been able to hide over a trillion dollars from Uncle Sam, and how seven fed-up Americans from across the country, take their frustration to the streets and vow to make the corporations pay their fair share. And at 8.30pm Secret City, not London but the finance sector in the City of London. This award-winning film exposes the Corporation‘s anti-democratic constitution, the ancient laws which allow it function as a state within a state, and what happens to those who oppose it. It’s followed at 10pm: Q&A session with Secret City director Lee Salter.
Date: Tuesday, 14th of May.

Time: Doors open at 6pm, the event will finish by around 11pm.

Admission: £5 waged, £4 unwaged for the double bill (or £3 waged, £2 unwaged for single film).

Look at….The exhibition Burning Bright: William Blake and Art of the Book which runs at The John Rylands Library from 8 February 8 – 23 June. Admission is free. Blake ( 1757 – 1827) was a poet, painter, and engraver. Ignored during his lifetime, and seen as mad by some people, he produced what are now seen as iconic images in his drawings and poetry. In this exhibition there are thirty of Blakes’ etchings and engravings as well as works by artists and designers who were influenced by him. What makes this exhibition unique is seeing so many of his engravings in one place and in the wonderful setting of the John Rylands Library. Further details see

Celebrate…The Smiths On Screen. Screen Stockport Film Festival is declaring Monday 13th May 2013 officially #SmithsDay in Stockport. It’s exactly thirty years to the day since The Smiths released their debut single Hand in Glove, which was recorded at Strawberry Studios in Stockport. There will be speakers discussing the cultural influence of the Smiths, as well as a showing of the film A Taste of Honey written by Morrisey’s favourite playwright Sheila Delaney. See

Get involved…..Derby Peoples History Group are organising a Peace and Justice Festival on 14 September. They have a planning meeting on Thursday 16 May and are looking for people to get involved. See

Join….. Greater Manchester Keep the NHS Public and be inspired by the dedication of people to challenge the privatisation of the NHS. …next organising meeting on Wed 15th May 7pm, Lounge Room, Methodist Central Hall, 1 Central Buildings Oldham Street Manchester M1 1 JQ. The room room is booked as Keep Our NHS Public. See

Listen to…. The making of a protest album (in 5 easy steps) by Quiet Loner who made a protest album called Greedy Magicians in 2012. He made it on one evening in a Salford Church and the artwork was created using 19 Century machines. On 18 May from 3-5pm he will be playing songs from the CD and explaining why he wanted to make a protest album. Free. Further info see

Stop,Look,Listen…my weekly selection of favourite films, books and events to get you out of the house

Watch…….William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe(DVD) You may have heard of Chartist journalist and lawyer Ernest Jones who went to prison for his politics in the 19th Century or Gareth Pierce and Michael Mansfield who have taken a rigorous political view of their trade as lawyers. William Kunstler, In the United States in the 1960s, took an equally political view of his role as a lawyer. In this film made by his daughters they examine why he took a path that led to him and his family facing their own trial by the media and the public. Kunstler came from a respectable middle-class Jewish family, became a major in the American army during the Second World War and then followed the usual middle-class path of becoming a lawyer, marrying and having two children, and living in a wealthy suburb of New York state. By the 1960s, however, he had abandoned this life style and became a radical civil rights lawyer. He represented civil rights activists in the South of America, the Chicago 10, who were on trial for protesting against the Vietnam War, and prisoners in the notorious Attica Prison. The film-makers are the daughters from his second marriage, who were on the frontline of Kunstler’s life as he moved his legal practice to the basement of their family home in central New York. It is fascinating to see the mixture of home movies and family films interspersed with TV news of Kunstlers’ legal cases and the reaction of the media and politicians to his work. During the Chicago trial he was himself sentenced to prison for contempt (although it was overturned on appeal ). It is hard to imagine that today any lawyer would put themselves on the line for their politics in the same way. The New York Times is quoted about Kunstler as “the most hated and most loved lawyer in America.” Watch the DVD and you will understand why.

Read..…When The Sky Rained White With Fire by Musheir El-Farrar (Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign, £8.99) Musheir is from Gaza and his book tells the true story of the 21 days of the Israeli Operation Cast Lead in 2008. Musheir interviewed 17 families who describe their horrific experience, an experience that makes you want to stop reading as the details are so awful. The launch of this important book is on Wednesday 30th January 2013 at 7.00pm in Friends Meeting House (behind Central Library) Manchester.

Listen to …some Lancashire dialect…From Tum Fowt to Windmill Land: Allen Clarke, Bolton’s literary champion of the working classes. Bolton Library and Museums Services are marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of local dialect author Allen Clarke with an event at Bolton Central Library on Saturday 23 February from 11am to 1pm. Speakers include Paul Salveson, MBE, author of a book on Clarke, and Clarke’s grand-daughter Shirley Matthews Clarke. Admission free.

Celebrate….. Lancashire Archives is hosting its celebration of LGBT History Month, Outing the Past 3!, on Saturday 2 February, from 11am to 4pm.The day will be free, including lunch. Speakers include Teresa Nixon, West Yorkshire Archives Service on the Diaries of Anne Lister; Robert Thompson, Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive, on the press treatment of homosexuality in the 1950s and 1960s; and Kaye Mitchell, University of Manchester, on 1950s lesbian pulp fiction.
Further information from Kathryn Rooke, Lancashire Record Office, Bow Lane, Preston PR1 2RE; email record.office@lancashire.gov.uk; tel 01772 533032.

See a play………. for today…on Fri 25th, Sat 26th, Mon 28th & Wed 30th January, & Fri 1st February – Burjesta Theatre: The Pied Piper of Liverpool 7.30pm at The Casa, Hope Street, L1 9BQ - Sometime in the near future, Liverpool is a city in crisis. As the Mayor closes down hospitals, schools and libraries, a plague of rats overruns the city. Come from ‘afar’ the Pied Piper soon realises that all is not as it seems at the Town Hall. Look forward to seeing the dastardly ‘Lord Rug’, the villainous ‘Runcorn Local’, the seductive ‘Dame Hoodless’ and lovelorn Jennifer whose hearts pounds in vain for the Pied Piper. Will the noble Queen Rat rally ‘Ratkind’ to avoid a dreadful end? Will troubled 16 year-old Anthony come to the fore to save the day? And what does the Pied Piper’s Sparrow have to teach us about the meaning of life?
Not suitable for children! Tickets £5 – pay on the door or reserve on 07913 449 396

More info on Burjesta Theatre see

Look…….one of my favourite poets and artists William Blake is the subject of a new exhibition at John Rylands Library (a fascinating building) Burning Bright Focusing on his achievements in the art of books, this exhibition features designs and prints by the artist and poet William Blake, whilst also examining the creative impact of his works. You can visit the exhibition from 8 February until 23 June, but if you can’t wait until then, there is a programme launch event on Thursday 31 January at 6pm, where you are invited to celebrate forthcoming events and exhibitions over a glass of wine and nibbles.

Book review; Behind the Lines by Michael Crowley

Behind the Lines; Creative Writing with Offenders and People at Risk – Michael Crowley Waterside Press
ISBN 978-1-904380-78-8

There is a treasure in the heart of every person if only you can find it (Winston Churchill)

Micheal Crowley has been working with young offenders and people at risk for 15 years. This book he says; “is a book about getting people to write and writing with them, and what that teaches us both.” Written for professionals who work with offenders and people at risk, it shows the process of oral and writing warm ups from writing exercises through to text and from rehearsal through to performance.

He has worked with teenagers in a variety of settings in the education service, the criminal justice system and as a writer. He was interested in writing drama and used some of the characters and scenarios he came across in his job as an education worker. It was when he became a youth offending officer that ; “I decided I wanted to use young peoples’ writing to get to know the individual under my supervision, and as ambitious as it might seem, as a basis for making the changes I was supposed to.” He is now a writer in residence at a Youth Offenders Institution which is funded through the Writers in Prison Network.

Mike explains how the book started. He was working with a girl from a violent background and her response to his role as a YOT officer was to present him with a poem. As he says; “Giving me the poem was the greater act of trust. So I decided to ask for more and from other youngsters.” This led to him producing four collections of young people’s writing at the YOT and “many of the pieces, the best pieces are monologues in the voices of imaginary and detailed characters, a gestation,a gender away”.

It is not just a practice book, running through it is a discourse about the prison system and the way in which this society criminalises, largely poor, largely working class young people from many backgrounds. Michael challenges the very negative stereotypes that domainate about these young people and in this book and through his work makes us, the person outside the criminal justice system, listen to their voices. “I will often begin a session by asking “Why are you in jail? Many will instinctively reach back years into their upbringing…The current swing away from social determinism towards individual responsibility does not have to be at the cost of insight…there can be little possibility of a different future without it”.

Michael is not unaware of his role in the prison system; “I am into my fifth year now and, like many of the young men I see come and go, I’m convinced it will definitely be my last stretch”. And the future for the valuable work he does is not certain as public spending cuts bite and there is less opportunity for working with individuals and small group work with offenders. Funding for the Writers in Prisons network has been cut and there is now a campaign to continue its work.

The riots of 2011 were not a surprise to many people working with young people. Michael believes that “working or living in a jail you require a sense of an ever increasing volume of young men habituated to crime, schooled in a dog eat dog Britain”.

In his work with the young people jailed for taking part in the riots he says that they are easier to work with and better educated. And their reason for being in the riots; “as a form of anarchic protest and went along out of fascination, to take photos or otherwise support some kind of inchoate rebellion.” He doesnt believe that their motives were purely politicial but that the riots could have happened under any government at any time over the last years.
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Michael believes that his work can have many results. By encouraging young people to write it can “be a means to address not only literacy but therapeutic needs, moral reasoning,offence-focussed thinking and all at the same time.”
He feels that creative writing should be encouraged and built upon to address offending.

In Beyond the Lines he addresses some of the major problems affecting our society particularly as the government chooses to cut the public services and gets all of us to pay for the criminality of the bankers.

Read Michael’s new poetry book Close to Home published by prolebooks
Contact Michael via his website
His new play The Cell, catch at the 24/7 Theatre Festival on 27 July at 6pm  and it then goes to The Unity Theatre Liverpool for 4th and 5th September.

Stop, Look,Listen…my weekly selection of favourite films, books and events to get you out of the house..

Watch...Breaking Bad (DVD series 1-3) Walt is a chemistry teacher in New Mexico. USA. He is diagnosed with cancer, his wife is pregnant and his son is disabled. With no medical insurance to pay for his cancer treatment he uses his chemistry background to make crystal meths for the drug trade. The series (which is now in series 4 in the US) explores the moral dilemmas for Walt as he gets deeper into the drug trade and the way in which this effects him, his family and friends. It is gruesome, hilairious and thought provoking.

Look…Oldham Gallery have a retrospective on the work of Liam Spencer. Liam is a local artist who concentrates on city scapes with an emphasis on light and colour. See new paintings of Salford,Rochdale, Oldham and Saddleworth,  as well as his early work from the 1980s. Support Oldham town centre as it takes the blows from the austerity agenda.

Read…The Kindly Ones by Jonathon Littell. It took Jonathon over 5 years to research and write this 900 page novel. It is the terrifying  story of a man who was an SS Intelligence officer during the Second World Warand his  involvement with the hol0caust from the Caucuses to Poland, Stalingrad and finally the fall of Berlin. The main character, Max, is an educated man who enjoys philosphy, classical music and literature but is also a bloodthirsty murderer. The novel  is a   mediation on why ordinary people become mass murderers. It is set during the Second World War,  but the Nazis were not alone in history in condmening peoples to such mass inhumanity.

Go..for a walk around Radical Salford on Saturday 14 July at 11am.
The walk will explore Salford’s rich,radical history including the Flat Iron market, the General Strike of 1842,vegetarian Christians, Salford’s first birth control clinic etc..Meet at the Black Lion Pub, Blackfriars St at 11am.
Fees £5/6. The walk will last 2 hours. Advance booking recommended. Email; redflagwalks@gmail.com. More information go here

See.. Salford in a new light Paul Verlaine , famous French poet of the 1890s, wrote this long forgotten poem about Salford…

Souvenir of Manchester
To Theodore C, London

No I haven’t seen Manchester
- all that I have seen is one little corner
of Salford but badly narrowly
in spite of fog and streets with no cabs – dirty
streets that didn’t help my bad leg
and my two club feet – but my spirits don’t sag
under the weight of the memories
- happy memories – I now carry
of this town they call industrial
and despite that so very intellectual
niche I occupy maybe it would’ve been better
if I’d really strutted my stuff – this letter’s
naïve sure but picture the elite of Manchester
below me as I lean on the lectern
and they applaud in Paul Verlaine
our rigorous Racine
even while I make it clear
that the true God is Shakespeare
· From The Road to Inver, collected translations by Tom Paulin, published by Faber price £12.99.

Eva Gore- Booth: Irish feminist, political activist, poet..

Eva Gore- Booth An Image of such politics by Sonja Tiernan (Manchester University Press) ISBN 978-0-7190-8232-0

Ruth and Eddie Frow were the first people to tell me about Eva Gore- Booth and her companion and fellow activist Esther Roper. They had researched and written about them in the 1980s and felt that, because I was involved in trade union and Irish politics, I should know about two women who had played a significant, if forgotten, role in the history of working class and the Irish on both sides of the Irish sea.

They would be very pleased with Sonja’s book. Not only is it well researched but it is written in an interesting and accessible way. The story of Eva is not just her own history, but also that of her lifetime companion, Esther Roper, and Eva’s sister, Constance Markievicz. Her life was played out in an era that was exciting and a time of massive changes: historically, economically and politically.

Eva was born in Sligo, Ireland on 22 May 1870. Her family were landowning aristocrats and she enjoyed an idyllic life as a child, for her and her sister, spending their time reading, writing poetry and painting, and, like many young women of her class they travelled extensively. However on reaching young adultdood it was a stultifying and limited future that was on offer for her. It was when she was in Italy, in 1896, recuperating from an illness that she met Esther Roper, a meeting that would complete change her life. Esther commented that Eva “..seems to have been haunted by the suffering of the world, and to have had a curious feeling of responsibility for its inequalities and injustices”.

Esther Roper was of Irish descent, born in Chorley Lancashire in 1868. Her parents were working class. “Roper held a unique insight into class structure. She was an educated woman named after an aunt who had worked as a cotton weaver from the age of twelve”. Her parents were missionaries abroad which meant that Esther was one of the first women to get access to an education. By the time she was 20 both her parents were dead and she was responsible for her 13 year old brother. A year later she gained a first class degree at the University of Manchester, and decided to campaign for womens’ equality. In 1893 Esther became the paid secretary of the Manchester National Society for Women’s Suffrage.

Esther told Eva of her work and she moved to Manchester in 1897. It must have been a shock to go from the beauty of rural Ireland, and a rich lifestyle, to a smokey, overpopulated city. Ironically there were more Irish people living there than in Sligo. “In the early 1860s 860,000 Irish were living in England and over half of this population were living in Lancashire and Cheshire”.

Manchester was the first industrial city and was also the cradle of the women’s movement. Thousands of women worked in the mills and factories. Esther and Eva decided to campaign to ensure that these women who were affected most by the industial in which world they lived and worked would gain representation and equality. Influenced by ideas from the French Revolution, they sought equality for women in all areas of their lives. Crucially they saw that thousands of women workers were paying taxes but had no political representation. They also believed that it was the organisation of women into trade unions that would lead to them gaining the vote. Their work in the Manchester and Salford Women’s Trades Union Council led to the creation of many unions specifically for women. By 1904 the labour movement officially supported suffrage for working class women.

Eva shared her love of poetry and drama with working class women in inner city Manchester. Unknown to them she was a talented poet and dramatist and part of the Celtic revival of the early 1900s.

Eva was a pacifist but, being Irish, she was aware of the injustices going on in Ireland. Ireland was still occupied by the British, and from the 1890s to 1920s her sister, Constance Markievicz, was involved in the political and military campaign to gain independence. Eva, whilst opposing physical force politics, supported her sister and her comrades, not just in publicising the barbarity of the British response to the Easter Rising of 1916, but in providing material support to the families of whose husbands had been executed or imprisoned.

During the First World War Eva opposed the war, a stance which was very unpopular to begin with, and worked tirelessly to support conscientious objectors and their families.

Eva and Esther lived during a period of history that saw massive changes in this country. They were active in many of the campaigns that led to the growth of democracy in Britain. For Eva it meant she went against her upbringing and family, but with Esther she found a relationship that allowed her to flourish as a woman and political activist. As Sonja says “Roper was a remarkable character and was clearly the greatest influence on Gore-Booth’s personal, literary and political life.”

Sonja’s book is important in profiling two significant women who understood clearly that class matters. They were at the forefront of not just the women’s campaign for the vote but understood that working class women could be significant figures in their own struggle. Eva and Esther, from their own personal experience, saw that women needed practical support to become political activists. I think there are still lessons today that we can learn from women such as Eva and Esther and that is why this is an important and interesting book for all political activists; women and men. As Sonja says “The story of her (Eva) revolutionary life shows a person devoted to the ideal of a free and independent Ireland and a woman with a deep sense of how class and gender equality can transform lives and legislation”.

Stop! Look! Listen! a weekly selection of some of my favourite films/books/people…

Watch…Caramel, (2007) set in Beirut in a beauty salon, this film concentrates on women’s lives, rather than the politics of the Middle East. In beauty salons across the world women gather together to chat, exchange secrets and seek support from one’s sisters. (My sister was a hairdresser in a salon (or “shop” as they said in East Manchester) and the only man allowed across the threshold during opening times was the gay bartender and he was there to get his hair dyed!) The director of Caramel, Nadine Labaki, also starred in the film. Her latest film, Where Do We Go Now?, will be shown at the Cornerhouse next month as part of their Arab and Lebanese film season.

Read….Resolution (1986) Maeve Kelly is not just an incredible writer of fiction, but also a poet who directly addresses the politics of being a woman. In this collection she takes on many issues; love for a man, love for her children,  as well as the bigger issues of the war in Ireland. She has written three poems about being a feminist and looking back (she is now aged 82) at her life as an activist she says ; Lucky to have made that leap/out of the dark of youth’s complacence (from Feminist I). I had to buy this from a secondhand book website,  it’s a shame that Maeve Kelly isn’t up there with the likes of Seamus Heaney.

Listen to….The Liberty Tree (CD) by Leon Rosselson and Robb Johnson. Originally a show commissioned by the Labour Party (that won’t happen again!) in 1987 to commemorate the 250th birthday of Thomas Paine. It tells the story of an incredible man, a radical, who didn’t just write about what was wrong with the world, but went out there and did something about it! Leon and Robb have used Tom’s words and their music to show how important he is to us today. To quote the man, “My country is the world, my religion is to do good.” Buy it from Fuse Records

follow ….new blog and a fun way of learning about the radical history of Manchester in the places where it happened, Red Flag Walks

Stop! Look! Listen! a weekly selection of some of my favourite films/books/people…

Watch…..Las Acacias (2011 Argentina) A lorry driver, a road journey from Paraguay to Buenos Aires and a woman with a child who joins him on the trip. There is little script and the baby plays a big role in bringing together two people who are struggling to find happiness. Like so many good films, it’s not about the script, but the unspoken relationship between the two main characters. Also the wonderful landscape as the trip takes us through South America.

Read……Burning Bright(2007) by Tracy Chevalier. Set in London in 1791, an exciting if dangerous time, it’s the story of a family who move from rural Dorset to the urban madness of London. The son,Jem, meets a young woman, Maggie, and together they get to know the political radical, poet and artist, William Blake. The children become swept up in the lives of the Blakes and the political turmoil going on in the city. Beautifully written and illustrated, it shows how Blake had much to say that we can relate to today, including his stance against the corruption of government and the importance of opposing tyranny.

Visit….Albert Adams (1929-2006) exhibition at Working Class Movement Library and University of Salford. The latter was given a collection of Albert’s paintings and prints. Albert was born in Johannesburg in 1929 but due to apartheid he was forced to leave the country in 1953 to pursue his art. Influenced by Goya and Durer many of his paintings are about suffering and war. Although he lived most of his life outside South Africa he never lost his identity. “I have never regarded myself as an exile, although South Afican born and raised. I was a secondclass citizen who never felt South African.” One of his paintings,South Africa 1959, was likened to Picasso’s Guernica. A political artist to the end, even in his later years he was depicting the suffering of prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq. Sadly there is little publicity about the exhiibiton and, although its easy to access at the WCML the Salford University part is at the Clifford Whitworth Library, so you have to sign in and make your way through a busy study centre. But it is well worth the effort!

Listen to…for all the Au Pairs fans…just got this. ..Sense and Sensuality...their  second and final album..issued in 1982, remixed in 2002.   Enjoy!

Book review: This Slavery by Ethel Carnie Holdsworth

Original cover of This Slavery published 1925

This Slavery by  Ethel Carnie Holdsworth (Trent Editions, 2011)  ISBN 9781842331415

What do you think about when the words “working class family” is mentioned? Ricky Tomlinson in “The Royle Family”?  Or a scene from “Coronation Street”. There are very few positive images of what it means to be working class and perhaps this  is due to the fact that there is still  little written, either in books or in the media, by people from that background.

The recent republication of This Slavery by Ethel Carnie Holdsworth shows a different world to the usual portrayal of somebody who didn’t get an education beyond the school leaving age, works in a factory  and lives with their family in rented  housing.  Written in 1925,  and set in her home town amongst  the cotton mills in Lancashire, the author  shows that working class people can be political, can be feminist, can  be active in campaigning for  a better world and can  enjoy  classical music and  poetry

Ethel Carnie was born in 1886  in Oswaldtwistle near Blackburn. Like her family and friends she went to work in a mill at aged 11 years, whilst going to school on a half-time basis. At 13 years she went into the mill full-time as a winder. Working ten hours shifts she was self taught through using the local Co-operative library, her reading ranging  from Dickens to the Persian poet Omar Khayyam.  She started to write  poetry and eventually had some  published in the local paper. Spotted by socialist author Robert Blatchford she eventually left the mill and took up a writing career. She wanted to write  books about her own class; “What I feel is that literature up till now has been lopsided, dealing with life only from the standpoint of one class.”

In This Slavery  Ethel wrote from her own experience of the factory system and the specific viewpoint (although not the only one) of the lives of women.  Set before the First World War it’s the story of a family of women cotton workers (the Martins)  and it is    through their story, and the effects of poverty  and unemployment that Ethel educates the reader in the historical traditions of why there was a vibrant labour movement during this period.  It is not a story of victims but  of real  people: women and men who took militant action against the factory system.

What I like about the book is the anger felt by the Martin sisters; Hester and Rachel. Rachel becomes active in the fight against the factory owners; “So long as this system remains as it is I’ll attack it.” Her sister, Hester, on the other hand,  decides to marry a factory owner to escape poverty; “I am tired of being a slave. I don’t want to spend my life like my mother has spent hers” Although the sisters then end up on different sides during the dispute the story shows how they both struggle in their own ways against two systems of slavery; the factory and prostitution (ie marrying a man to escape poverty).

This Slavery is very much a polemic. Ethel spent her life campaigning for justice and specifically the rights of working women.  Some of the language seems old-fashioned and reads like a political tract but running through the book is a sense of anger at a system that makes slaves of people who are denied not just bread but any  roses. In many ways it’s a story for 2012, showing that even the poorest people can make changes to the lives they live,  not just as individuals but also  in society generally.

Dr Nicola Wilson (post-doctoral researcher at the University of Reading) has written an introduction to this edition. She will be speaking about Ethel at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford for International Women’s Day on 10 March  at 2pm. Further details go here
Please also note the following events.

Sunday 4 March 2012 IWD March against the Cuts  1pm Assemble All Saints  Park, For more information please go here.

Sunday 11 March 2012. “Votes For women” history walk led by Michael Herbert. Meet outside the Town Hall in Albert Square at 2pm. £6/£5. This will include both the  suffragist and suffragette campaigns 1868-1918. More information, redflagwalks@gmail.com

Please circulate to other people who may be interested in these events.LSx

Stop! Look! Listen! a weekly selection of some of my favourite films/books/people…

Watch…..
Saturday Night Fever is my favourite film. Set in Brooklyn it’s the story of many young working class people across the world, music and dancing being the passport from a boring life. In the late 70’s me and my friends would go and see the film and then head straight to the local disco. Brilliant dancing/brilliant music/brilliant John Travolta – shame that the BeeGees turned out to be Tories!

Listen…
to the music of Kathleen Ferrier (1912-53). A Lancashire lass, she worked as a telephone operator and sang in local choirs. Spotted by Malcolm Sargent, she went onto become one of the greatest British classical singers of her day. She is still remembered by local people because she sang at so many local halls across Lancashire. Due to her early death she has not been given as high a profile of some of her contemporaries such as Maria Callas. The Bridgewater Hall is having an event to celebrate her birthday.

Read…
the poems of Pablo Neruda – poet and political activist. Born in Chile, he was a lifelong Communist who believed poetry and political activity were two sides of a coin. The film Il Postino stirred many people to discover his work (including me) but you need to read his true life story in biographies such as Pablo Neruda; a passion for life by Adam Feinstein (Bloomsbury) to see why his poetry and political activity still has meaning in 2012.

The Hard Way Up by Hannah Mitchell. (1871-1956) She lived most of her life in Manchester working in clothing sweat shops but educated herself and became a local leader of the Suffragette and Labour movements. This book is unique being one of the few histories written by a working class woman. In 1905 she summed up her life “No cause can be won between dinner and tea, and most of who were married had to work with one hand tied behind us.”

Visit….
The Working Class Movement Library in Salford. Founded by trade unionists and Communists Ruth and Eddie Frow, it’s much more than a library, more an alternative to the education system. Attend a talk, watch a play, hear a choir…it’s all going on there. Check out the website for details