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Autobiography of Ken Tarbuck to 1964

This draft was never corrected by the author who died shortly after completing it.

 

EVER HOPEFUL - NEVER SURE

Reminiscences of a Some-time Trotskyist

by Ken Tarbuck

 

Part 1: Down Hill All the Way 1930-1955

 

             1         Childhood

             2         Early Adolescence and the Dangers of Library Tickets

             3         Work and New Horizons

             4         Joining the RCP

             5         The Split in the RCP and Service in the Air Force

             6         Fusion and Fission

             7         Expulsion From the ‘Club’ and Founding a New Group

             8         Attrition and Its Casualties

 

Part 2: A Glimmer of Hope

             9         1956 Suez and Hungary

            10        On the Political Roller-Coaster Again

            11        New Beginnings — Old Problems

            12        There’s One Born Every Minute

            13        1962 A Year of Decisions

            14        A Change of Direction

            © copyright K.J.Tarbuck 1995

NOT TO BE QUOTED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

NB. The author died in late 1995, the copyright inheres therefore in Marion Tarbuck, his widow who can be contacted via Ted Crawford. His runs of left papers and IBs of the various groups went into Richardson’s archive and are now in the University of London Library, his correspondence is held by his widow Marion and the rest of his papers are held at Warwick University.

 

INTRODUCTION

It is not the purpose of these memoirs to either give a history of the Trotskyist movement nor a history of the times covered. I am writing only about those matters that I was personally involved in and/or had knowledge of. Even then it is not possible to always give the detail which some might like, the events I cover span nearly fifty years and it is not possible include everything from such a long time period. I should also point out that these are essentially political reminiscences, my personal life is only impinges upon these pages insofar as it has a direct bearing upon the political aspects. There is also the question of memory, and this is not merely attempting to recall events of a long time ago, it also involves unconscious selection. However, it is true that certain events do stand out in one’s memory, since they have played a significant part in one’s life or threw light on others. No matter how one tries to correct ones own biases they will inevitable show through. I therefore do not pretend to be an impartial witness, I have merely tried to be an honest one within the parameters of my own self-imposed remit. Where possible I have consulted documents, letters and books to check information, and on occasion have quoted from them. My own letter files go back to 1956, the year I first obtained my first typewriter and thus began attempting to keep some sort of record. But even here there are gaps, and I have had to rely upon memory or secondary materials.

As to the worth of my memoirs, that is for other people to judge. I do see them however, as a part of a jigsaw which others may use to compose their own picture of the events under consideration. I know that my friend Harry Ratner sees some of the events recounted here in quite a different light to me. I do not doubt in any way the veracity of Harry’s account, I merely point out that we experienced some events differently. Such differences usually arise not from any dispute as to what happened, rather how we experienced what happened and our opinions as to why they happened.

There is another consideration which must be addressed in setting down such memoirs: Namely, are they worth reading and do they have any lessons to offer? As to the worth, I would say that although the events under consideration were usually marginal to the main stream of history, they were not always so. There were times when the activities of quite small groups of people have had considerable impact upon the course of events. The numbers of people involved in the Trotskyist movement in Britain, and internationally, has never been large — and often very small — yet they represented a thread of continuity maintaining revolutionary socialist ideas, often against great odds and in some cases against physical repression which culminated in death for many. Such a movement does not survive unless it has an historical validity that transcends all of the sectarianism and downright daftness by many who took part and in isolation from the class it sought to influence, i.e. the working class.

In writing my memoirs it has not been my purpose to present any historical justification for Trotskyism, nor yet an historical analysis of that movement, such work belongs in another place. What I will say however, is that I set down these memoirs as a Marxist, as a revolutionary and a communist despite the filth which has been heaped on all these names by Stalinism and bourgeois ideological boot-boys. I make no apology for my political beliefs or activities. Despite all the triumphalism of the bourgeoisie after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites, and the disintegration of the ‘Communist Parties’, I see nothing for them to be crowing about. The ideals and needs which have animated socialists for over 150 years or more still remain. The ideals of brotherhood and sisterhood still remain as a beacon for all humanity. The poverty and misery of millions around the globe still attest to the need for an egalitarian and humane society to be built. It will be around such ideals that a new revolutionary socialist movement will be built. And it is to the future generations who will carry this work forward that I dedicate these writings.

 

Chapter One

CHILDHOOD

I am not sure if I was actually born at home or in a maternity hospital, births and deaths were not matters which were greatly discussed in my family. I do know for sure, however, that I was born on the 5th February 1930. My mother and father were, respectively, Elsie Elizabeth Tarbuck (nee Cully) and Thomas James Tarbuck. On my mother’s side of the family there were Irish connections, my maternal grandfather coming originally from County Meath, just outside of Dublin. He had settled in Birmingham some years before the end of the last century and my mother was born in Birmingham. My paternal grandfather was a regular soldier, and ended his army service as a colour sergeant in a Hussar regiment nick-named the ‘Cherry-Pickers’ or ‘Cherry-Bums’. My father had been born somewhere on Salisbury Plain and the family only came to Birmingham after his father had completed his service. This must have been in the years between the end of the South African or Boer War, in which he served, and the start of the first World War. Of both my grandmothers I knew nothing, since they had both died before I was born and they were rarely mentioned within the family.

Originally I had three older brothers, Bernard, Leonard and Dennis; but Len died whilst I was very young and again I have no memory of him. Therefore I grew up with, to all intents, with two older brothers. Bernard was considerably older than me, being born in 1915 about twelve months after my parents were married. There was quite a gap between Bernard and Len. My father had served the whole of the war 1914-1918 in the army, and there seemed to have been some problems between my mother and him when he returned home. One of the dark secrets of the family was only revealed to me after they were both dead, this being that my parents had been separated at some point. The full circumstances of this separation I never did learn, but it is obvious that the marriage was resumed some time in the early 1920s, and it was after that that we three younger boys were born.

I was the last child, and being the youngest tended to be spoiled. I think the death of my brother Len, from peritonitis, must have had something to do with the way I was cosseted by my mother. Given the five year gap between myself and Dennis it meant that we were never close as children. We had a cousin, Donald, who was almost exactly Dennis’s age and they became inseparable through childhood and into early adulthood. Effectively this meant that I grew up on my own, making my own friends outside of the family. Bernard always appeared as an adult in my eyes, the fifteen year gap being magnified in my childhood. He was always something of a glamourous figure to me as a child, being apparently independent, able to afford to buy racing cycles, go on holidays on his own or with friends, and definitely not under the thumb of our father.

During the 1930s my father was, first, a stoker-handy man at a photo-engraving factory in the centre of Birmingham and later was promoted to being in charge of the goods inwards and despatch department. My mother did the office cleaning at the same factory and also cleaned at a private house two afternoons each week. Bernard had been apprenticed at this factory as a ‘router and mounter’, which entailed the finishing of photographic plates by hand and mounting them on printing blocks. In those days this was a highly skilled trade and could command a high wage. Unfortunately, as was common in those days, when Bernard completed his apprenticeship when 21 he was sacked and new apprentices taken on. The result was that he had to find other work and when he married in 1939 he was working as a bedding salesman in Lewis’s Department Store in Birmingham city centre. He didn’t return to his trade until 1946 after he was demobilised from the army.

We were a Roman Catholic family. But surprisingly, given the Irish connections, my mother was not received into the church until after I was born. She had all the zeal of a convert and this left its imprint upon my childhood. I attended the Oratory Infants and Boys Schools in Ladywood, Birmingham until 1944 when I left school at the age of 14. Both of these schools were unremarkable, given the times, and I emerged from them reasonably literate, semi-numerate and with little else by way of formal education. Of the infants school my most enduring memory is that of the head teacher, she was a Sister of Charity and administered punishment — to infants — with a slender block of wood to the hand. She was a fearsome sight when in full fury, sweeping along the school corridor, full-length blue skirt billowing and her great white head-covering like the sails of ship bobbing around her pinched face, red with anger. I was quite glad to leave and move on to the junior school, until I was faced by my first class class teacher there. She turned out to be an envenomed harridan who could literally make the windows shake when she gave us a tongue lashing, often to be followed by an assault with the cane on some chosen victim. All the teachers made use of the cane, some more than others, and some with obvious relish. There was only one teacher at the school who I have any feeling of warmth for, he was the headmaster Mr. Holland, who in my last year taught me and instilled a taste for reading and books which has endured.

Most of the teachers seemed to regard their pupils as alien savages to be subdued, disciplined and prepared for work with little or no nonsense about education for life. I suppose in some ways we were aliens to our teachers, since we were working class, they were middle class and the gulf between us was immense since we inhabited different worlds. I am not suggesting that my school days were terribly unhappy, rather they were looked upon as a period to be endured and got over as quickly as possible. One did not look to teachers for friendship, mutual interests or respect. The main feeling that animated most of the boys was fear, you kept your head down and hoped you would not be noticed when the shit hit the fan, as it frequently did. If this sounds more like a penal institution than a school it is because that is how is seemed to us inmates. The school was surrounded by high walls and fences, and the gates were locked when we arrived, so it may be imagined how we felt when released! School, in the culture I grew up in, was not seen as a means of expanding ones personality, nor even as means of furthering oneself. As an institution it was seen as an alien intrusion into ‘real life’. My brother Dennis was asked to sit an examination for a scholarship to a Grammar school, and had to get our parents permission. I well remember seeing my father throwing the slip away and saying to Dennis ‘You don’t want to go to that toffy-nosed place do you son’ and Dennis agreeing with him. It was not that our parents did not care for us or our welfare, it was that the world of books, education and everything associated with them seemed to belong to a different world that had no relevance to getting a ‘good job’.

Lest I give the wrong idea, let me say that contrary to many, if not most, working class children in the 1930s I did not have a deprived upbringing. Both parents worked and I think we probably had a slightly higher standard of living than the majority of those around us. Certainly, regular holidays at the seaside or in the country each summer were a feature of family life. We were certainly never short of food, clothes, heating, gifts for birthdays or Christmas. My father had a new suit each year, paid for ‘on the never-never’, but still he had them. Both parents drank, my father to excess at times and parties were a regular feature of home life.

The parties remain in my memory because as I got beyond the infant stage Dennis and I would creep down stairs to listen and observe. Sometimes we would go amongst the revellers, when Dennis deemed it safe to do so. No doubt he had learned to judge the point at which my parents had reached in the consumption of drink. Often, on a Saturday night a part of the band from a local dance hall (The Palais de Dance) would appear after they had finished work, bringing some instruments with them, drums, saxophone or clarinet which with our piano would provide music for the party. At the same time a publican friend of the family and his wife (the Bradley’s) would arrive after closing time, bringing crates of bottled ale to help the party along. The Bradley’s ‘party piece’, when sufficiently uninhibited, was that he would strip down to his long-Johns, she would tuck her dress into her knickers, and they would perform a ‘cabaret act’. My mother provided a buffet supper, so altogether our house took on a carnival atmosphere on these occasions.

However, despite the Saturday night revels the whole family would be at 9-30 mass every Sunday morning. My mother was most insistent in this matter, although I suspect my father was not always so keen. These two strands drink and church seemed to be the two dominant strands in my childhood. Sunday mornings for church and Sunday evening for the pubs! Particularly in the summer it was a feature of our life that we went to pubs with gardens. My father and uncle Alf would prop up the bar inside, whilst my mother and aunt Moff would sit sipping drinks outside keeping their eye on Dennis, Donald and myself. In some respects this stood me in good stead, since I have never been over-fond of drinking in pubs and I gave up religion when I was about 13. I am not sure which was the worst, having to kneel in dark cold churches listening to priests droning on in Latin or sitting outside pubs until they closed, waiting for Dad.

I do remember that Christmas was usually a happy time when I was a child. Like most working class families, we kept our front room for special occasions, and Christmas was one of those, a fire would be lit in the grate, usually of coke which gave a lovely warm glow, and a Christmas tree with fairy lights was set up. The presents for us children were placed at the end of our beds in pillow cases, I knew from an early stage it was dad who put them there, but it made no difference to the excitement of opening those gifts. Then on Christmas morning it was breakfast in the living room and playing with presents in the front room until it was time to go to church. Our Christmas dinner was usually of the traditional kind, Turkey and Plum Pud to follow, with liberal helpings of drink for the adults. Then playing in the font room again in front of a glowing fire, with Dad nodding off to sleep in an armchair, and Mom putting the finishing touches to trifles and cakes in kitchen. It seemed a very safe world in those days.

One of the pre-Christmas treats was being taken to see Father Christmas. Mom usually took Dennis and me to one of the big department stores in the centre of Birmingham, and I still remember how I revelled in the sight of the Lewis’s windows. Lewis’s was the largest store in town, and devoted many of its windows to Christmas scene tableaux, often with mechanical moving figures. Mom usually had great difficulty in dragging me away from these sights, it was only the lure of actually seeing Father Christmas that eventually did the trick.

Politically, Birmingham, pre-1945, was overwhelmingly Tory or rather Unionist as they were then known in the city. This was a local legacy from Joe Chamberlain, who had led the Liberal Unionists into the Tory fold over Irish Home Rule when Gladstone had first attempted to introduce it. Both my parents were Tories and anti-Semitic to boot, with some rather derogatory views of the Irish thrown in! So, the influences I grew up with, to not put too fine a point on it, were zealous Catholicism, Toryism and racial bigotry. Yet I was not aware of any feeling that this was a repressive atmosphere, on the contrary it was rather relaxed, cheerful and definitely boozy. It was certainly not a positively political atmosphere. I doubt if my parents had ever been members of a political party, they belonged to what came to be know as the ‘silent majority’ (but not on Saturday nights!) or deferential working class. But, if I did not feel repressed neither was I stimulated intellectually, rather we children were left to our own devices in many respects. And so long as we conformed outwardly there were no problems. Not that we were neglected in the formal sense, far from it, as I have suggested, materially were above average. It was overall a cheerfully philistine ambience, laced with unthinking prejudices.

This, usually, happy childhood does not have many events that impressed themselves vividly on my conscious memory. A few events spring to mind, such as the death of my paternal grandfather whilst we were on holiday in Skegness. This entailed my father returning to Birmingham for the funeral, whilst the rest of us carried on our holiday. Grandfather had been living with us for a few years before he died but had always been a remote figure to me and his death hardly seemed to cause a ripple in our family life. Only one event that could be remotely called political in these years occurred for me. The house where we lived at the particular time was on a main road which led to the Birmingham reservoir in Edgbaston, which was used as a venue for outdoor and indoor meetings, sports events etc., and one day I heard a great deal of noise outside. I went to the front door and opened it to see a long column of men dressed in black marching by, there were police with them and many bystanders were shouting, swearing too! I couldn’t understand what was going on, but my mother came through from the back and pulled me back into the house, slamming the door. She seemed upset, but couldn’t explain why. In retrospect I now realise that what I witnessed was a march by Oswald Mosely’s Blackshirts. My mother was upset, not because of any political feelings but by the possibility of violence or trouble with the police that was associated with such events.

 

II

Two events wrought some radical changes in our life. The major one was the outbreak of the second world war and the second was a change in my fathers work. The war brought changes to me along with millions of others. The most important of these changes was the evacuation of our school out of Birmingham. Initially we went to a village called Catshill, near Bromsgrove in Worcestershire. Dennis and I were billeted with a childless couple, Maggie and Bill Hall, with whom — after a period of adjustment — we adapted quite well. Despite being away from home this was a happy period. We boys were looked after very well and for the first time in our lives we had access to open countryside in an unrestricted manner, which after grimy Birmingham was very welcome.

We were able to roam freely after school hours and learned to cope with animals at close quarters for the first time. We even learned, from the local boys, how to snare rabbits, with little real success since foxes usually got to the snare first. Our parents were able to visit us regularly, since the village was near enough to Birmingham to make day trips by coach possible. One of the most enduring memories of this period is the aroma of freshly baked bread. The Hall’s house had originally been the living accommodation of a shop that abutted on to it, but was now separated. Behind the shop was one of the two village bakeries. This meant that early mornings were filled by the delicious scent of freshly baked bread pervading the house. The actual bakery ran down one side of the garden, and on winter afternoons if Maggie was not at home when school finished Dennis and I would stand leaning against the wall warming ourselves, since the oven ran along the inside of the wall. Winter morning breakfast at Maggie and Bill’s was before a large coal fire with plates of bacon or sausage sandwiches. It was like home from home. This was very different to many experiences of children evacuees during the war, so once again I was lucky.

More generally, of course, such an event as this evacuation meant, for my brother and I, that we learned to cope with leaving home in a relatively painless manner. We were, on occasion, forced back on our own resources, rather than being able to rely upon our parents. Another aspect of this period, which must have sunk into my unconscious, was Bill Hall’s influence. Catshill was close enough to Longbridge, on the outer rim of Birmingham, for Bill to work at the Austin Aero Plant. He was a trade unionist and a Labour supporter. Although I cannot remember him ever discussing such matters directly with Dennis or I (I was only 9 or 10), it is clear that the general atmosphere in that household was different to that which we had previously been used to. We were provided with a somewhat different view of world to that of our parents. Bill was always ready to answer questions, if he could, and seemed to enjoy my quizzing him about many topics. My father had never been one for conversation. Maggie was a slightly plump, tender hearted woman who seemed more upset at having to scold me for any reason than by my actual transgressions, whereas both my mother and father were quite ready to clip us around the ear. The significance of this change in life style would be extremely hard to determine, since my brother Dennis has never shown any inclination to depart from the mores imbibed in our parents home. Nevertheless, the whole experience made an impact upon our lives. And as time went on the war began to intrude more and more until it dominated our existence.

 

III

At some time it must have been judged safe for our school to return to Birmingham, unwisely as it transpired. We now lived in a large house in Oliver Road, right opposite the school we attended. We had moved there some time just before the outbreak of war in 1939. Bernard had married on Boxing Day (December 26th) 1939 to Minnie Ford, and for a time they had lived with us. However, Bernard volunteered for the army and had joined the Worcestershire regiment. Minnie then moved back to live with her parents, and stayed there until Bernard returned home in 1946.

At this time men and women were being directed into war work, and moved around the country in the process. We had two Geordies billeted upon us through this process, again this was compulsory under war time regulations. The two men, Bill and Bob, had been unemployed for some years before being directed into work in a foundry in Birmingham. Both were men in their late thirties or early 40s and unmarried, and soon became a part of our family and social life. In fact Bob stayed on in Birmingham after the end of the war and hung around our family periphery for a number of years. If he had any family in the north it was not such as to attract him back, he was a lonely quiet man, and always seemed grateful to be accepted into our circle. Bill, on the other hand, returned north as soon as he was able.

Why I said it unwise for us to return to Birmingham is that shortly after Dennis and I returned home the bombing of the city began in earnest. Dennis had had to return anyway because he had turned 14 and left school. He went to work as a chippie on building sites, mainly making tea to start with. The bombing was long and severe, which entailed us spending nights in the ‘Anderson shelter’ in our back garden. Sometimes if it was too cold to stay in the shelter, or if it had flooded from rainwater, we would huddle under the stairs at the top of the cellar steps. Bombs would whistle down and explode with a great roar, shaking the house and rattling the windows until some of them fell out on occasion. I vividly recall one night when the raids had started early, Bill and Bob, had just purchased themselves new suits — their first new clothes for many years — and had been to the pub with Dad to celebrate. They had just returned home when incendiary bombs fell on our school opposite, they rushed out and helped to fight the ensuing fires. Bill had crawled onto the roof and probably had saved the whole school from destruction. However, in the process his new suit was very much the worse for wear and for some time afterwards he would bemoan his fate, having waited for years to afford a new suit of clothes they were ruined the first time he wore them.

It was eventually decided to evacuate the school again, and this time we went to a village called Oakthorpe in Leicestershire. For me this was not a happy period, Dennis was not with me and because of the distance my parents were not able to visit. Although the people I lived were kind hearted I could not settle, I felt isolated and alone. Eventually I returned home again.

By this time my father had changed his work and this meant a change of home for the whole family. He had obtained the post of caretaker of two large blocks of flats, which in those times were considered to be luxury flats. The tenants were obviously well-heeled, being doctors, solicitors, bank managers etc. Along with the job went a family flat, so for the first time in our lives we had the benefits of constant hot water, central heating, a bathroom and a refrigerator. Not luxuries today, but definitely so by the standards then obtaining.

More important than the new physical environment was the impact that the occupants of those flats had upon me. Almost without exception they treated my father and mother in a manner that implied we were inferior, they had attitudes ranging from the condescending to the downright rude. It hurt me to see my parents accepting such treatment. It must have been this experience that gave me my first glimmerings of class consciousness, since the line was clearly drawn between ‘them and us’. I cannot claim to have worked out a full-blown theory of class relationships and the problems associated with the private ownership of the means of production, such ideas came later. But when I came into contact with socialist ideas and theories of class struggle they seemed eminently reasonable to me on the basis of lived experiences at home and at work. One thing I certainly learned early in life was that there seemed to be those who gave the orders and those who actually did the work, and those who gave the orders usually ended up with the bulk of the ‘loot’.

I observed it was my father who stoked boilers to keep the flats warm and the water hot, mowed lawns, replaced washers, unplugged blocked sinks and drains and did a hundred other jobs that made life comfortable; but it was ‘them’ who seemed to have a much better life style, most had cars. It was my father who organised fire-fighting when bombs were dropped, whilst some of the most offensive creeps stayed behind in the air-raid shelter. It seemed to me that there was something wrong with the way the rewards in life were distributed. And, again, I must emphasise that as a family we were not subject to grinding poverty, we were relatively well off, compared with most working class families. But the comparison for me was not with such people but with those who seemed only too pleased to accept the labour of my mother and father while adopting, what we called, a ‘toffy-nosed’ attitude towards them.

What puzzled me at the time was that my parents accepted all this as though it were a part of the natural order of the world. They, my parents, would actually cringe before their ‘betters’, in a manner that I came to think of as repulsive. So, I kept most of my thoughts on such matters to myself. I also noted that my parents would complain to each other about the ‘bloody Yids’ who lived at the flats, yet they seemed to me to be no worse or no better than the other occupants. There seemed to be no logic to such complaints when the Gentiles acted in the same way. I think I eventually ‘sussed’ out that it was not racial or religious characteristics that were blame-worthy or the root of the problem but rather class relationships. Coming to terms with these problems was a part of the process of learning to cope with the fallibility of parents, who before had always seemed to be all-powerful and all-knowing.

On top of this the war dominated our lives. This was particularly so when the heavy bombing of Birmingham began in earnest again. We all lived with the dread of the wail of sirens (something that even now makes my stomach churn) that would herald another night in the shelter, listening to the throbbing drone of bombers as they circled over the city. The most terrifying sound was the whistle of the bombs as they were released, to be followed by roaring, shattering explosions or more subdued thumps if they fell further away. The nearer the explosion the greater the shudder that ran through the air raid shelter or house. Fortunately our flats were never hit directly by explosive bombs, but incendiary bombs spattered onto the roof a number of times, but were dealt with before they could take hold. Never the less many houses in the immediate vicinity were destroyed. At times the bombing went on night after night after night, until it seemed that they were a normal part of everyday life and it came as a surprise if we were missed one night. All this imposed an enormous strain upon everyone, the lack of proper sleep played havoc with nerves, people would look haggard and become irritable.

In February 1944 I left school to begin work full time. I had already been working part time since I was 13. I had decided to become a butcher, or rather my parents had decided, so I went to learn the trade. I worked at a number of shops, each move increasing my wages by a few shillings per week, there was after all a shortage of labour! I started work part time for 10 shilling (50 pence) per week and obtained £1-00 per week full time initially. Half my wages went to my mother, whilst I had the luxury of ten shillings a week to spend on myself. Because of the labour shortage I was taught how to cut and serve meat very quickly, so I did not have to endure the ‘apprenticeship’ of pedalling a delivery bike and endless shop cleaning. Within a few months I was cutting up whole sheep, sides of beef, making sausages and serving behind the counter.

So ended childhood, so I thought. In those years 1940 to 1944 I learned something about two types of war: the class war that has never ended, and the fighting variety in which the givers of orders get the rest of us to do the actual fighting when they make a cock-up of running the state.

 

GOING TO THE ‘FLICKS’

 

From an early age I was taken to the cinema, or flicks as we called them, by my mother. She was an ardent film fan, who like millions in the 1930s and 1940s made at least one visit to the cinema each week. In our case though, it was usually more frequent. Towards the end of the week, when money was getting short, I can well recall hurrying off to the local shops to take empty ‘pop’ bottles back to get the tuppence deposit back to make up the price of admission, for my mother, Dennis and myself.

In those days, before 1939, it was possible to gain admission to some local cinemas for as little as four-pence for the front seats. So for a few empty ‘pop’ bottles and the coppers left in the bottom of her purse my mother was able to give us all a night out, father almost never went to the flicks.

Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in the semi-darkness of a cinema, being alternately convulsed with laughter as such stars as Laurel and Hardy or being frightened witless by some evil ‘bady’ with the heroine in his clutches. With laughter there was always the danger of wetting my pants, since at the age of four or five my control was not yet perfect! And if the terror up there on the huge screen got too much for me, I could always bury my head in my mother’s ample bosom; peeping out between fingers to see if the danger had passed!

In those days, of course, most of the films were in black and white. Only in the later thirties did colour become available and then only for prestigious productions, such as Gone With The Wind. It was not uncommon at that time for a film to start off in black and white and then to switch to colour in the last reel, especially for the finale of a musical. This would be greeted by ooh’s and aah’s by the devoted clientele. There were even attempts to purvey as ‘colour’ movies shot on film that had an overall blue or magenta hue, which added a somewhat surrealist atmosphere to the story. Fortunately this did not last for very long as a vogue, since true colour drove them out. However, right up to the 1950s black and white films predominated. And it was still possible in the mid-forties to make ‘technicolour’ a special feature of the attraction in advertisements, ‘see Bing (Crosby) in COLOUR for the first time’ was one such blurb.

Nor, in those days, were we ever short of a cinema to go to. In Birmingham not only were there several central cinemas, but also numerous local ones. Within easy walking distance from our home there were three cinemas, and many more merely a short bus ride away. Moreover, at the local cinemas there would be a change of main feature and supporting film twice per week, with old films being shown on Sundays. For a really ardent fan it would have been possible to have gone to the cinema every day of the week to see different programmes. And there were full programmes. There was usually a ‘main attraction’, a short (Pete Smith Specialities), newsreels, adverts, and a supporting full length feature film. All for prices ranging from four-pence in the front seats to three shillings and six-pence for the circle seats at ‘posh’ cinemas.

Many of the ‘main attractions’ still turn up on our TV screens, but the supporting films less so. While many of the latter were shoddy, low-budget, movies, occasionally good films could be launched as supporting features. There seemed to be a major and minor league as far as films, actors and actresses were concerned. And if players got caught up in the minor league (the B movies) they seemed doomed to spend the rest of their professional lives in supporting features. Just as records had their A and B sides, so movies were also classified as A or B, and the B tended to be synonymous with bad!

There also gradations in cinemas. Near where we lived there was a cinema that boasted the name of The Regent, but locals called it the flea pit or Louse. It was a small building, packed in between back-to-back house and engineering factories. But it still sported a comissionaire in gold-braided uniform, who also doubled as bouncer, since it was not uncommon for sections of audience to get unruly if the projector broke down, a not uncommon event. Another of his functions was to walk up and down the aisles spraying scented water vapour over the audience. This was to keep the smell down on hot days. It was not so strange to do this as it may now appear. Few of the houses in the area had bathrooms, we had to use a tin bath in front of the living room fire once a week in our house, and some of the local population made even less frequent use of such facilities, even supposing they had them. Washing machines were just about unknown then, and certainly were in working class homes, so clothes were washed less frequently than is usual today, and changed less frequently. So, it was not surprising that on a hot summer day or evening when the cinema was packed to capacity a certain aroma was in evidence. The Louse was obviously a left-over from the silent film era of the 1920s, it had no balcony and was quite small; but it served its purpose and for the four-pence mentioned earlier it was accessible to the poorest of the employed. As for the unemployed and unaccompanied children they could sneak in through the exits if they were lucky.

There were, of course, many other cinemas built in the 1930s and some could truly be described as opulent. These ABC’s or Odeon’s were usually large, with capacious balconies, built in the rococo style lavish with gilt, soft carpets in the foyer and often with glass chandeliers ablaze, soft sprung seats and in the winter they were warm. Coming from homes, many of which were still lighted by gas, with heating — an open coal fire — only in one room, with little carpeting, it it no wonder that the cinemas were called ‘Picture Palaces’ in popular parlance. To go to one of these was to have a small taste of luxury. Some of the suburban cinemas, with mainly middle class clientele, even boasted tea-rooms, where waitresses in black uniforms and white aprons and caps skivvied around at ones beck and call.

And, of course, the cinemas clad their employees in house uniforms. The door was opened for one by a person dressed in a uniform with more gold braid on it than an admiral’s. One was shown to a seat by an usher or usherette, and all these minions were under the command of a Chief Commissionaire who’s uniform was even more ornate. Hovering in the background would be a dinner-jacketed manager, standing like the host of a country house welcoming his guests.

All this before one actually saw the film, so one was suitably prepared to be wafted along into never-never land, where all hero’s and heroines were handsome/beautiful, all had great gleaming teeth, were obviously well-fed and always ended up ‘happy ever after’. Given the drab lives most of us who came clutching our money, it was an almost sure-fire formula for success, since we came back time and time again.

If one was fortunate, one of the added attractions at these establishments was the organ. Half-way through the programme the house lights would dim once more and a spotlight would shine on the pit in front of the screen, slowly the organ — perhaps a Mighty Wurlizter — would rise, the organist clad in a white tailed suit, sitting there trilling away on the powerful instrument with a selection of the popular tunes of the moment. Some of the organists were real performers, in the literal sense of the word, they would stand and face us, bow, waive and then address the organ with hands and feet flashing on keys and foot-pedals in complicated dances as the music swelled louder and louder, more complex, long trills, all for our delight. Coloured lights played upon the scene from the projection box, adding to the kaleidoscope of sound and movement. Cinema organ playing is now one of the lost arts.

As mentioned earlier, I was introduced to this wonderland at a very early age. My mother would often slip us into a matinee, which meant that I must have been pre-school age. So I grew up as a regular film addict. Even today, when those old movies appear on TV I can usually not only name the stars but also the supporting players. This I do with glee and affection, they were all part of my childhood. Seeing these films today, I can now see how bad many of them were, and I must admit that they do evoke a feeling of nostalgic warmth that is quite unwarranted by their content.

With the coming of the war in 1939 things changed somewhat, ice-cream became a rare commodity, and the confectionary kiosks were closed, sweets and chocolates were rationed. But apart from that the flicks were booming. Not only was male unemployment eliminated, but women were also working outside the home in ever increasing numbers. This produced a relative affluence as compared with pre-war and much of this was reflected in cinema attendances which soared. It then became common that one had to queue to go in, and long lines of people patiently waiting outside cinemas became an everyday sight.

One of the special treats for children before the war was the ‘tuppenny-crush’, that is the special Saturday morning children’s shows. The price of admission, as the name implies, was tuppence. These were always boisterous affairs, with long snakes of children waiting for the doors to open and a real rugby scrum once they did. On Saturday mornings one rushed to get the best seats available on the ground floor, since there was no restriction about where one could sit. Each week we go along all agog to find out what had happened to our current hero or heroine of the serial, Flash Gordon, Gene Autrey, Hopalong Cassidy, Tom Mix, Rin-tin-tin (a dog), Our Gang etc. etc. Each episode of these serials was avidly devoured, evoking absolute devotion and participation. We all joined in the show, with shouts of advice and warning, ‘look out he’s behind you’ or hisses and jeers for the villains (in black hats in the cowboy movies or speaking foreign accents!). Oddly, it is the memory of these serials that survives, rather than the main feature films that were shown at these sessions. And some of these serials are still shown on TV 40 or 50 years later, still delighting the young viewer (and some not so young)!

As I became older, especially after I left school to start work when I was 14, I became independent of my mother for my cinema outings. That sometimes presented a problem when an A Certificate film was being shown, since those under 16 were supposed to be accompanied by an adult. However, I soon learned which cinemas enforced the law and which ones turned a blind eye. Sometimes one could hang around outside a cinema looking for an unaccompanied adult and ask them to take you in. But soon I was able to stroll into practically any cinema of my choice, especially as I began to look 16. This meant that I was able to go further afield, sometimes right across the city to partake my chosen films. With a packet of Embassy cigarettes tucked in my pocket, I could ease down into a soft seat and wallow in escapism.

One thing, however, despite the folklore about young people doing their courting in the semi-darkness of the cinema, I never did. When I went to the flicks, even with a girlfriend, it was to see the show, not put one on of my own. For me snogging was for after the cinema, I didn’t spend twice 1/9d to waste it in frivolity of that kind, I had my own priorities. I think I lost one or two girlfriends that way.

But all in all, the cinema played quite an important part in my early life, and as I got older into my teens, I began to absorb much of the newsreels. Despite their obvious propaganda intentions, they still conveyed something of what what going on in the world.

The full horror of the Nazi death camps was revealed when newsreels of them were shown very soon after the end of the war in Europe. They can only be described as revolting, and I think speeded up my own political education.

 

Chapter Two

EARLY ADOLESCENCE AND THE DANGERS OF LIBRARY TICKETS

It is odd how certain phrases stay with one, even after the original context has become blurred through the passage of time. One such phrase, for me, was a quip made by Elliot Gould — or rather the character he was playing — in the film Getting Straight which appeared in the early 1970s. The quip was made to an elderly professor, who was appalled at his students going on the rampage against the Vietnam war. It ran ‘if you didn’t want them to think, you shouldn’t have given them library tickets’.

At the time that I heard it I thought it reasonably funny and indicated a certain insight; but it can hardly be classed as one of the worlds most profound statements. Yet it stuck. Perhaps it rang a bell within me, but if it had I was not conscious of it at the time. However, many years afterwards if came to mind again to be immediately followed by memories of my first library tickets and what they meant for me.

As I have mentioned the home I grew up in was totally bereft of books, unless one counts a couple of Catholic prayer books. Now, when I say bereft I mean it. There was not even the usual Family Doctor or Household Hints lurking in a cupboard. I have no recollection of ever seeing either of my parents reading a book. Newspapers we had, The Daily Mirror, Sunday Empire News, News Of The World and the Sporting Buff, yes all of these, books definitely not. Of course I knew what books were, and had even read parts of books at school, but outside of that the nearest I ever got to reading solid chunks of print was in the pages of such literary gems as The Wizard, Adventure or sometimes The Magnet where Billy Bunter and his ‘chums’ cavorted through their eternal upper class youth. Anything that smacked of intellectual pretensions, i.e. classical music, art, ballet or books were rubbished in our house. The attitude being that the important thing in life was to get out ‘into the world’, get a a job, get ‘good money’ etc. Education? That was strictly a waste of time. Dennis had had the chance of attending a grammar school but had left school at 14 to enter building trade as a chippies mate.

It wasn’t that our parents wanted to deprive us of any opportunities, rather they took, what seemed to them, a very practical attitude. And they had the experience of our eldest brother to guide them. After scrimping and saving to pay for his apprenticeship premium and accepting the low wages during its term, they had seen him thrown out at 21. The sacrifice and effort did not seem worth it for them or us.

You may imagine then just how perverse I must have seemed to my parents when at the age of 13 I wanted to join a public library. How did such an extraordinary - for our family — event come about?

In so far as memory serves, there were two main influences on my desire to join a library. The first was, that for some inexplicable reason, despite the best efforts of my teachers, I developed a liking and interest in history and geography. Some time between eleven and twelve years of age I began to view these two subjects in a romantic light; romantic in the sense that I could lose myself in stories about distant places and times. I was fascinated and absorbed by the Greek myths, and even the Lowestoft herring fleet, that we learned about in geography lessons, seemed infinitely more appealing than living in landlocked, smokey and dirty Birmingham.

The second influence was again at school. In my last year I had the good fortune to have as class teacher a man who was himself, I now see, addicted to books. He began to read to the whole class, for the last 15 minutes of each school day, such stories as R.L.Stevenson’s Kidnapped or Treasure Island. Moreover, he was a natural story teller, able to give life to all the characters that paraded before us as the stories unfolded. There was little or no pretence that this story reading was anything other than for pure enjoyment. A novel concept to all us boys at that time. We used to sit in rapt silence hanging onto every word and groaning when it was time for the finishing bell to ring. This was a most unusual situation since normally we boys would have been straining at the leash waiting for that bell of release.

I don’t know what the motive of our teacher was with his story sessions, but they became a much more effective means of maintaining discipline than his cane ever was, and he was no mean caner. The merest hint that there would be no story that day if we were unruly was sufficient to reduce us to silence and assiduous application to the task in hand.

For me these story times were a journey into new worlds, and I began to read such books myself. I even discovered that I could take books home with me from school. Soon I was whizzing through authors such as Ballentyne and Henty, The Coral Island, The Dog Crusoe, The Bravest of the Brave and even Biggles books, in short all the usual patriotic daring do.

My parents became a little concerned at this point. It seemed almost unnatural to them that I should now be spending so much time reading books. My mother used to chide me about this apparently unhealthy habit, saying that I should be out playing games or sports. In fact, when a few years later, it was found that I needed glasses she swore it was because of ‘all that reading’!

The problem was that once my appetite for reading was aroused I had a lot of catching up to do. In the process I became somewhat omnivorous, mopping up the rather meagre store of books that interested me at school very smartly. Our class library consisted of three or four window ledgefuls of books. There was no such thing as a school library.

Fortunately help was at hand. Near the school I attended there was bakers shop which sold bags of broken biscuits for one penny (1d) or bags of yesterdays cakes for tuppence. And, as a growing lad, I was an habitué of this establishment. Now, right next door to this shop was another and this was a member of that now extinct species the tuppenny lending library. I was standing idly chewing broken biscuits one day looking at the books on offer in the tuppenny library window when this great idea came to me. St. Paul on the road to Damascus could not have been more excited. I had pocket money, having been pushed into a Saturday job, if I cut down my consumption of broken biscuits and fags I could pay my tuppence and borrow such books.

That’s how I got into P.C. Wren and Zane Grey. The only trouble was that my, by now, insatiable appetite for reading soon outstripped my cash. It was turning out to be rather expensive to indulge my taste for romantic escape. It was when my very first cash flow crisis hit me that I remembered ‘The Public Library’. This was a solid, red brick mock Gothic structure that I had passed innumerable times with my parents on the way to the cemetery to visit my brother’s grave. But I had never been inside this place. After all, with its corner clock tower and stained leaded windows it looked more like a church than a den of delight. I had never been one to visit church willingly, having had the catechism rammed down my throat at school and been dragged relentlessly to church twice on Sunday since my infancy I had developed a healthy dislike of religion and all its mummeries. So this large slab of redbrick had never seemed particularly appealing to me, until then that is.

I made some enquiries about the place with my teacher. I think at first he thought I was taking the mickey, since I was not noted for my scholarly activities. Eventually I convinced him that I was serious and he explained that it was indeed a free library (the salient point for me) and that anyone could join.

As soon as school was over that day I headed for the library. The door were heavy, dark, wooden, half-glassed with shiny brass plates. The floor of the vestibule was stone and my metal tipped heels clanked as I walked, making me very self conscious. When I got inside I was immediately aware of the peculiar hush that libraries have, or used to have. It definitely reminded me of church, with its waxed wooden floors, high vaulted beamed ceiling and the rather musty smell that books develop with age. But my need for reading material combined with my lack of cash drove on.

I found the reception counter, behind which there was installed a rather formidable old lady. At least she looked old to me, since at that point in my life anyone over the age of 25 seemed positively ancient. When I eventually plucked up courage to speak to her — in a whisper naturally — she looked at me as though I was an offensive smell. Her nose wrinkled under her steel-rimmed specs and she had a stony look in her eyes. She answered my questions as briefly as possible, in a posh voice that implied I was somewhat cretinous for not knowing every detail of the public library system. The loan of books might be free, but her time was not to be dispensed on demand to the likes of me, or so her manner implied. I almost told her to put her books where the sun don’t shine, but I was eager for another fix of my dope, so I swallowed my pride and rode the petty insults she dripped over me and eventually prised an application card from her.

I was most disappointed. It seemed that I couldn’t take any books home with me that day. Procedures had to be followed, there was no way around them. I was not even allowed through the wooden gate to look at the books. Worst of all I had to get my parents to counter-sign the application and after seven days — if everything was in order — I would be allowed into the book borrowing fraternity.

Reluctantly I accepted the situation and took the application card back home to my parents. They were most disturbed. I was subjected to some pretty tough cross-examination as to why I should need such things as library tickets. After all, generations of our family had survived without such tickets, and I was made to feel in some mysterious manner that I was breaking a hallowed family tradition. Moreover, I had been to the library on my own, it seemed like a declaration of independence. What seemed to worry my father in particular was the fact that he had to counter-sign the application card to guarantee my trustworthiness. It wasn’t that he doubted me (I think), rather he was highly suspicious, worried even, at having to put his name to any official form. It was as though he feared that a part of his soul would be trapped in the toils of public bureaucracy by the mere act of putting his name on that card.

It took some considerable pleading on my part, but eventually the deed was done. My father gave in to the combined pressure of my mother and myself. I duly delivered that precious card to the library after school the following day. The toffy-nosed old biddy behind the desk looked somewhat surprised at my prompt reappearance. I think she assumed that either I would not be able to find my way back to her shrine unaided or my first visit had been a practical joke. She certainly subjected my application to the most minute scrutiny before, rather reluctantly, accepting it. I was told to present myself after seven days to collect my readers tickets.

They were the longest seven days of my life up to then. But eventually they passed and I was allowed loose amongst the book stacks clutching my bright new cards. I felt like a donkey turned out to graze in a strawberry field. I would not say that I actually cantered along the aisles between the shelves, but I was certainly nippy on my feet.

I had been directed towards the children’s shelves, which occupied one corner of the ground floor. On close inspection however I found the collection to be rather dog-eared and heavily biased towards Angela Brazil and her ilk. Not at all to my tastes. Somewhat disappointed I made way to the shelves labelled ‘History’, there I found, what for me, was a veritable treasure house. I could hardly contain my excitement. In serried ranks there were hundreds and hundreds of books, each one, so I thought, a doorway to another world.

Eventually I made my selection of books and presented them to be stamped. At first I thought ‘old toffy-nose’ was not going to let me have those books. She seemed rather affronted that I had had the temerity to select adult books. She looked at me, turned the books over, looked at me again, riffled through the pages and then with obvious reluctance she stamped them, handed them over with. I am sure that she thought ‘no good will come of this’ or ‘that is the last we shall see of those’. And I suppose it depends upon one’s definition of ‘good’, but life was never the quite same again for me. I could indulge my passion for reading, history and geography, to my hearts content, taking flight in my imagination to the four corners of the world and to different times. Opening one of those books in those days was for me rather like unfurling a magic carpet and away I would go. Greatly, I might add, to the worry of my mother, who often had to speak to me several times before bringing me back to earth.

What is certain however is that those first library tickets helped me to learn to think. It is true I was unselective and uncritical to begin with, but gradually I began to compare books on the same subject and to form opinions as to the relative merit of their accounts. Unfortunately I was not able to discuss my reading with anyone, at least not for several years to come, since I seemed to be the only person in my family or class at school who read the type of books I was consuming with such relish.

So there I was, a thirteen year old working class boy who led this rather schizophrenic life. Outwardly I led the usual humdrum life, but inside my head all sorts of ideas were buzzing around and each time I tried to talk to anyone about them I was met with incomprehension. How could any of them know that as I lay in bed at night I was at the same time marching with Pizzaro as he conquered Peru (Prescot’s The Conquest of Peru) or watched the Vandals as they sacked Rome (Gibbon’s Decline and Fall). But such was the haphazard nature of my reading I had waded through these and many more by the time I was fourteen. And then I progressed to modern history and politics. There was a large supply of books about Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany and the Russian revolution plus many books on the Spanish civil war. Sometime between my fourteenth and fifteenth birthday I had come to some opinions about the role of the Spanish Stalinist Party and its part in the defeat of Republican Spain, along with the Spanish revolution, this was clinched for me by reading Trotsky’s Revolution Betrayed. However, this heavy intellectual diet was leavened by Edgar Wallace, Zane Grey and Edgar Rise Burrows and some odd copies of Lilliput magazine. The latter had pictures of naked women in it, and it did turn my thoughts to girls to the point where I began to comb my hair, but that is another story.

Those first library tickets have a lot to answer for. If a few more impediments had been placed in my way I may have been discouraged. Perhaps having been thwarted I might have been content with the family pastimes of booze, football, horse racing and the News of the World. But once you get your library tickets there is a chance to learn to think for yourself. Once that happens discontent sets in. Perhaps there should be a government health warning on those library tickets! It is true, of course, that my autodidactic methods of education left a lot to be desired, but it at least greatly supplemented the meagre intellectual diet provided by home, church and school. There is a silly old saw that says ‘a little learning is dangerous’, dangerous for whom I wonder? Certainly not for the person imbibing it, for a little learning can be the basis for building on. And that is what I did many years later.

 

Chapter Three

WORK AND NEW HORIZONS

Some time in the last year at school I had come to a conscious decision to reject religion. This had been my private thought for some time when one day, whilst eating dinner with some other boys, I voiced it to others for the first time. Those of us who did not go home for dinner or go to school dinners used to eat our sandwiches in a disused classroom. We were unsupervised and there were probably only six or seven of us who regularly used this room for this purpose. As happens with such small groups of boys our topics of conversation were usually flippant and not given to much serious talk. However, this particular day we had been having a general moan about the excessive time we spent at church, it must be remembered that this was a Roman Catholic school so we were all subjected to the twice Sunday visits to church and regular harangues from one or other of the priests who came to the school plus enforced participation in many religious ceremonies. I am not sure exactly who it was who first voiced the thought, I cannot swear it was me, but at some point someone said ‘I think all this religion is lies’ and we all agreed. I was most surprised to learn that the others had been having much the same thoughts on this topic as myself, since none of them had indicated any interest in my other preoccupations. However, what this revelation did was provide moral support for me in my own beliefs, even though we could not take any active or open steps about them. We all continued to play the parts allocated to us by the adults who controlled our lives, one of the other boys in particular carried on serving as an altar boy whilst having these private thoughts. Perhaps this is some indication how little adults really know about the private world of children.

However, I left school shortly after this particular event thus losing contact with these fellow non-believers and was thrust back into my own private thoughts. This meant that for at least 12 or 18 months after this I continued to attend church and outwardly conform.

As I have mentioned I began work as a butcher, this was early in 1944 and this gave me more personal freedom that I had enjoyed hitherto. One of the benefits of starting work was that I now had considerably more money than previously, another was that my parents also began treating me somewhat differently. The precise manner of this latter aspect is difficult to determine, but I suppose it was a part of the transition from childhood to being an adult. I now worked six days a week (with Monday and Wednesday afternoons free), cycling each day back and forth to work, being given some responsibility at work and at home for my own life.

Some time in 1944 I began attending a mixed youth club at the YWCA Centre in Broad Street Birmingham. This was to provide some useful experiences for me. The YWCA was quite close to the centre of Birmingham and functioned not merely as a youth club but also ran many types of activities, including a canteen which was open seven days per week and was open to all members of the armed forces. Dances were held each Saturday night, with a live band, and were very well attended by civilians and members of the forces. One of the advantages for me of this place was that it was on a direct bus route from my home, this meant that I could hop on a bus and arrive within ten minutes. The Centre ran various educational activities, these included talks on current affairs, gramophone music recitals etc. On top of this there was the canteen with cheap tea, cakes etc. plus the usual range of table tennis, billiards, darts. The biggest bonus for me at that stage was the fact that it was a mixed club. Having attended an all boys school, and having no sisters, girls were still very much a mystery to me, and the club provided the opportunity to mix with the opposite sex in a manner not open to me before.

I was tall for my age and looked slightly older than I was, this was useful when it came to girls, since because of the war young men were in short supply. However, my height did not endow me with the confidence needed for smooth social interaction with the opposite sex. I was painfully shy and rather tongue-tied, my first few weeks at the club were spent very much on the side lines observing the activities of the other members. It was not me who made the first contact with people, it was usually others who initiated any talking. But eventually as I began to know people I developed a little more self-confidence to the point where I could participate in some of the activities.

Apart from the youth club there were a number of other social activities that I now indulged in. The cinema was booming in those days, and there were cinemas all over the city, many changing programmes twice per week, plus special Sunday programmes. It was possible to see many films every week, with British and US films vying for one’s attention. Music clubs flourished, with resident musicians, who were mostly part-time, plus visits from professional bands. A cinema near to where I lived mounted band sessions on Sunday evenings instead of films, for the price of a cinema seat it was possible to listen to some of the top British bands in this way. The RAF Bomber Command band was a definite favourite, as was Jack Jackson, Sid Dean, Felix Mendelsohn. So, leaving school meant for me a widening of my horizons in many ways, the contact with the adult world of work, visits to the youth club, cinema, music clubs and contact with girls.

But if I was to make any headway in my social life there was one essential thing I had to do, learn to dance! I signed up at a local dance studio, and was soon being initiated into the mysteries of the Foxtrot, Tango, Quickstep and Waltz. Although I was still very shy when it came to actually asking a girl to dance, I at least knew the theory now, the practice took a little longer! I suppose my essay into dancing lessons brought me my first ‘girl friend’. I was working in a small butchers shop in Ladywood, which stood among many other shops, one of these was a small tobacconists and sweet shop. The couple who ran the shop were customers of my employer, and I often used to pop in with some package for them, sent by Len Lane — my employer — I didn’t enquire too closely what was in these packages, but they were a part of the ‘under the counter’ trade that was rampant amongst the small shopkeepers during the period of rationing. The tobacconists had a daughter about the same age as myself, and one day when I was in their shop the girl’s mother asked me if I was prepared to accompany her daughter to the dance studio. I was rather taken aback, but agreed. The girl, it turned out, was as shy of boys as I was with girls. A couple of nights each week I would put on my best suit and solemnly collect the girl and escort her to the dance studio. There we would be given our lessons and then I would walk her back home. If I remember correctly, she used to hold my arm, but that was the extent of our contact. We were both rather tongue-tied when we were alone together, and never did get to know each other. However, whilst I was doing this ‘escort work’ I was never short of bar of chocolate! It didn’t last long, since I moved on to another shop which was in another district, I was offered more money, and the dance lessons stopped.

Not all of these new experiences were pleasant. One of my tasks at the shop I worked at was to go to the central meat market and pay the bill for the owner. I used to cycle down into the centre of Birmingham each Monday to carry out this chore. There had been a particularly heavy bombing raid one Sunday night which lasted almost until dawn and as I cycled down Holloway Head I noticed smoke still rising from a street to my left. As I got nearer I saw water running down the gutter of this side street into the main road, it was red. I stopped my bicycle and looked up the side street, Firemen, faces black and looking very weary were still directing water hoses onto several smouldering houses. Water was flowing out of the wreck of one house and this was the sources of the red water, it was mixed with the blood of victims underneath the blackened ruins. I had experienced many air raids by then, and seen one or two small injuries caused by flying glass etc. but they had been nothing compared to what I witnessed that early morning. That was the true nature of war, mangled bodies bleeding under a mound of rubble. It seemed a world away from the false glory portrayed on film and in books which attempted to stir up patriotic fervour. Without actually seeing the bodies under that rubble I well understood what had gone on, the blooded water flowing past my feet was eloquent testimony to the realities of war. When it was announced over the radio that on any particular night there had been a 1000 bomber raid over some German city I knew full well just what that meant.

The ending of the war in Europe in May 1945 brought an immense change to everyone’s life. I remember the day that the news came through, someone came rushing along the street shouting ‘It’s over, It’s over’. We all knew what they meant, we had been expecting the news for some days. We immediately closed the shop, I wrote in the biggest letters possible on the shop window ‘Closed VE day’. Then we all went home, but I was felt so excited that I went to the centre of Birmingham to Victoria Square, it was packed tight with crowds, the pubs were still open, and music was blaring from public address speakers. People were laughing, dancing, a few crying, kissing each other, climbing lampposts, and in general letting out all the pent-up feelings that they had felt over the years of the war. As I walked back home I found street parties being held, pianos standing in the middle of the street, being thumped on with great gusto, beer flowing, and again dancing in the streets. The relief was enormous and could almost be felt. The newsreels of the period only give a faint picture of what was felt that day and night, you had to be there to taste that wonderful feeling of relief which bordered on hysteria. But it was back to work the next day.

As the general election of 1945 drew near there was a series of forums mounted at the youth club, to which the main political parties were invited to state their case. I remember Labour, Conservative and Commonwealth sending speakers, but I cannot recall the Communist Party having an opportunity. Just what the latter would have said cannot be known for certain, for the CP started the election campaign calling for the return of a new Coalition Government made up of all ‘progressives’! Fortunately the electorate had much more sense and returned Labour with its biggest ever majority. It was just after the general election that I began to be active in politics, I joined the Ladywood Labour League of Youth.

After a period as a member of the Ladywood Ward LLOY I transferred to the the Rotten Park Ward LLOY, there I associated with Bob Scott, Sylivia Murray and Rhoda Guest and gradually we four became the inner core of the branch. The election of the Labour Government had raised expectations, it was as though people were waiting for some dramatic change in their life. This was particularly so amongst members of the Labour Party and Youth League. For many members the election had been the culmination of many years of work and struggle and they really did look forward to a ‘New Jerusalem’ being built. At the same time there had been a small revival of fortune for Independent Labour Party in our locality, and we four came in contact with Jimmie McKie who was a leading member of the ILP in Birmingham. We met Jimmie several times for discussions and although we did not join the ILP we certainly did get a taste for political discussion of a somewhat higher level than was available from the Labour Party.

It was my friendship with Bob Scott that enabled me to stop attending church on Sunday mornings. Instead of going to church I got into the habit of sloping off down to Bob’s house each Sunday morning. There instead of listening to the drone of Latin mass and kneeling on hard forms I spent a much more pleasant and profitable few hours. Bob’s mother had died some years before and there was only Bob and his father living at home. Bob would emerge bleary eyed when I banged the door, tousled haired, still in his pyjamas and dressing gown, make some tea and we would sit either side of the fire talking about all the things that interested us. Later on Mr. Scott would arise and there might be some cooked breakfast on offer if I was lucky, but the breakfast didn’t matter, what did was the company. Bob’s father was a very pleasant, intelligent person who took part in our talk when the mood took him, always to our benefit if not always to our liking. I was always struck by the friendship between Bob and his father, a relationship that was non-existent between me and my own father. At some point my mother must have realised that I was not going to church on Sunday mornings, and became quite concerned about this. I clashed with my father about this, but stood my ground and the matter seemed to have been dropped. However, one day when I returned home from work on one of my half-days I found a young priest sitting in the kitchen/living room with my mother. My mother left me alone with the priest who began nervously asking me about ‘my faith’. Finally he asked me ‘do you have any problems?’, I looked him straight in the eye and replied ‘No’. Of course, I meant that I didn’t have any problems because I had made my mind up to reject ‘the faith’ some considerable time before. I think the priest knew what I meant, since he looked slightly baffled but could not find a way of pursuing the matter. As I have said, he was quite young, and no doubt rather inexperienced and must have been nonplussed by my rather elliptical replies to his questions. He left and I never did hear any more about the matter. My parents obviously decided not to press the matter, and I certainly was not going to raise it. It became something that was not referred, I still got up on Sunday mornings and went out and we all pretended that I was going to church! But none us actually believed this any more. I suppose in this respect I was fortunate, my parents obviously did not feel up to any tussles about ‘the faith’, and having brought in the heavies (the priest) felt they had done their duty. I was no longer a child who could be forced to do exactly what they wanted, and so long as I did not flaunt my own ideas or act in a blatant manner which would offend them, I was left to my own devices.

Arising from the feelings of expectation induced by the election of the Labour Government and our contacts with the ILP we four in the Rotten Park LLOY began to feel somewhat disappointed at what we thought of as the slow way in which changes were being brought about in society. We expected far more involvement of the Labour Party in the such changes as were going on, yet all that seemed to be happening was that the Party did not concern itself with anything but raising money for elections and the preparation for local elections. In those days there were local elections every year, in November. At some point we began publishing a small duplicated LLOY paper entitled Socialist. Gradually we began to sell copies to other branches of the LLOY in Birmingham, although the circulation was never very high. The paper was certainly critical of the Labour Government but was tolerated by the adult Party since it was seen as juvenile ‘high spirits’.

It was in Bob Scott’s front room that we ‘plotted’ each issue of Socialist. Rhoda, Sylvia, Bob and myself would gather and toss back and forth ideas for articles. Our efforts were amateurish but we found it all exciting and fulfilling. We had the feeling of ‘doing something’. But it was not all sitting and talking, as young healthy people we were always roped in for electioneering work, canvassing, folding leaflets, then delivering them, ‘knocking up’ on polling day etc. Rotten Park Ward in those days was a mass of back to back houses in terraces reached via dark entries, these had outside toilets and usually had two rooms on the ground-floor and two bedrooms. These houses were interspersed with factories, mainly engineering works, so the whole neighbourhood had a depressing industrial atmosphere, this was in the days before the Clean Air Act or anyone thought about industrial pollution, the whole area had been thrown up during the boom times of the Victorian era.

One would have thought that such an area was ideal Labour territory, but actually the Ward was a marginal one, because there were large areas of pleasant middle class houses on the edges of the area. This meant that the struggle for the Labour Party was always to get their voters out in sufficient strength to achieve a victory. We knew where our supporters were, so polling day was one of the maximum mobilisation of party members, who were sent out in posses to ‘get the vote out’. Sometimes this took the form of standing in the middle of housing close, ringing a handbell, and then our members rushing around asking the people who came to the door if they had voted. Elections in those days were quite hectic. They were also very often fought very hard and not always scrupulously, pasting one’s own posters over an opponents posters was one of the favourite methods of ‘dishing’ the opposition. This, of course, was in the days before party political broadcasts, so that electioneering was carried on in the streets, and by real house to house canvassing, plus public meetings which were usually well attended.

Rotten Park Ward was fortunate in that it had as its election agent someone who was particularly gifted, Tom Macintosh. Tom planned each election like a military campaign, knowing when to make a push here and there and when to abandon some areas. He drew up a street plan with each house marked on it, and these in turn were marked red or blue according to the declared voting intentions, this was so that we did not waste our time trying to get Tories out to vote. The cards were very useful, since one could tell at a glance which houses to call on and which ones to miss. Liberals, by the way, were not considered worth recording they were so few!

This was quite a hectic period in my life, there now seemed so much to do, so many things that I could devote my energies and small income to. I seemed to have many avenues which I could explore, each one beckoned me, promising excitement and even adventure, who knew what was just over the horizon?

 

Chapter Four

JOINING THE RCP

At some point in the winter of 1946/47 I attended a meeting held by the Revolutionary Communist Party which was held in the ILP meeting room in John Bright Street in the centre of Birmingham. Bill Hunter was the speaker, but I cannot recall just what he was speaking about. What I do know however is that I as listened to Bill I began to feel that this party, the RCP, was more in tune with my own thoughts and feelings on many issues than anything that I had heard before. It felt to me as though I had been a Trotskyist for some time but had not known it. And with the arrogance of youth I thought to myself ‘These people have the same ideas as me’, not ‘I have some of the same ideas as these people’. At the end of the meeting I approached Bill Hunter and asked him for more information about Trotskyism and the RCP. We had a short discussion and he noted down my name and address. A few days later I had a bundle of papers and pamphlets arrive by post, amongst them was Trotsky’s Copenhagen speech The Russian Revolution and J.P.Cannon’s speech at his trial in 1941 which had been printed in this country by the then Workers International League (forerunner of the RCP) under the title of The A B C of Trotskyism. I read all the material that Bill sent me quite avidly, I felt a certain excitement as I read the two above pamphlets, since they seemed to sum up and answer many questions that I had been formulating in my own mind. I passed the material around the LLOY, Bob Scott who was older than the rest of us had been reading Anarchist works by then and was not so taken with the Trotskyists, but Rhoda became quite interested.

After this I met Bill Hunter and his wife Rae several times over the next few weeks for discussions. The culmination of this process was a meeting at Bill Ainsworth’s house one evening at which Karl Westwood was present. I remember I sat one side of the fireplace and Karl sat on the other side, and the whole evening was spent in quite detailed discussion with Karl and Bill, I had many questions to ask before I was satisfied. The upshot was that I applied to join the RCP, this must have been in February or March of 1947, I cannot now recall the exact date but it was certainly still winter when I joined.

This was to be one of the most exciting and stimulating periods of my life. The branch of the RCP in Birmingham at that time consisted of Bill and Gwen Ainsworth, Percy and Marjorie Downey, Gerry Curran, Bert Atkins, George Lane, Bill Picket and Bill and Rae Hunter. Bill Hunter was a full time worker for the Party and was paid two pound ten shillings per week (if the money was available). Later on Rhoda was to join the Party. Later still, Peter Morgan joined the branch, although he was already a member of the Party, he had been in a sanatorium for TB and was still not very strong. Antibiotics, which eventually helped to wipe out the scourge of TB, were not then widely available, and Peter had been given the usual treatment of rest and plenty of fresh air.

Apart from the obvious excitement of being a member of a revolutionary party, what my membership did was open up some quite new horizons. When I joined I was obviously the youngest member of the branch and the other members went out of their way to ensure that I was made to feel welcome and a valued addition. Bill Ainsworth had an excellent library of books, mostly political but not exclusively so. The books covered the walls of the front room of Bill and Gwen’s house, and by anyone’s standards was an impressive collection. I had access to these books, so that my political education was now greatly extended and in a more systematic manner than hitherto. I am not suggesting that I was told what to read, rather the two Bill’s made suggestions and pointed me in various directions and above all there was now the opportunity to discuss what I read. Instead of my reading in isolation as I had done until I joined the LLOY I now had experienced adult people to discuss with, who shared the same concerns as myself and treated my questions as sensible (even though I am sure not all of them were!). In this milieu I was treated as an equal, as someone who had independent opinions and had something to add to discussions. However, it was some time before I actually contributed to discussions at branch meetings, I was far too shy at first preferring to sit, listen and learn. In fact it took some considerable time for me speak in public. The first time got to my feet to intervene at a public meeting I almost fainted, to this day I still find public speaking an ordeal.

I should point out that at this time Marxist books of most kinds were very difficult to obtain. When I joined the movement it was not possible to obtain new copies of Capital, my own first acquisitions had to be made by buying second-hand copies, none of them of uniform translation or editions. My first copy of volume one of Capital was a Modern Library (Random House USA) edition of a reprint of the 1906 Charles H.Kerr & Co. version, and this cost me eleven shillings, which given that my wages at that time were about £3 per week meant a hefty slice of my income. I then obtained a copy of volume three, this was an Indian edition published in 1946 and that cost me £1-10/-0d, I finally obtained a copy of volume two printed in 1933 for 25 shillings. The only material being published at the time by Moscow — who had all the Marx manuscripts — were small pamphlets, very selected editions etc. mostly geared to bolstering the current ‘Party Line’. And some of the texts were suspect, if they had not actually been tampered with there were often introductions or footnotes which attempted to give a Stalinist twist to them.

As far as Trotsky’s writings were concerned we were not in much better condition. The only people who were printing any of Trotsky’s writings at that time were the Socialist Workers Party of the USA. Although they had their own printing press the money and expertise for translations was very limited. This meant that there was only a small dribble of such works available, and even those were extremely hard to come by in this country, this was because of the exchange controls then in force which meant that all the material imported had to be paid for in dollars and the RCP had very few resources to invest in such imports. We used to have the occasional small parcel of books from the centre in London, and these were practically fought over when it came to deciding who would be allowed to purchase copies! The RCP/WIL did in fact produce a duplicated edition of Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution and this too was a highly prized acquisition for those of us who obtained a copy. (I eventually swapped my copy with Sam Bornstein, many years later, for an Indian edition of the book, since Sam had had a hand in the production of the duplicated version but had lost his own copy!) Duplicated pamphlets were the most common form of production and at times one had to be content with carbon copies of typewritten versions of some works.

It was only in the late 1960s that Marxist books, including Trotsky’s, began to be widely available. Why I mention these problems is to highlight the nature of the ‘Marxism’ that was then current, and the incredibly meagre resources available. Those of us who considered ourselves to be Marxists were in fact very extremely limited in our access to the original Marx, and thereby our understanding was also limited. Roman Rosdolsky in his Preface to The Making of Marx’s Capital mentions that in 1948 when he first came across Marx’s Grundrisse there were only three or four copies of it in Western libraries. It was to be 1973 before an English translation of the Grundrisse was to be published. The reader will therefore appreciate just how valuable Bill Ainsworth’s collection of books was to me as a source of political education.

But it was not only my political education that extended, for the first time I began to mix with people who actually considered serious music to be enjoyable, I attended concerts, went to the ballet and theatre, I was introduced to serious literature. I was taken into the family life of the Downey’s and Ainsworth’s and quite unconsciously they demonstrated concepts of family relationships quite different to that which I had grown up with. This small group of people that I had joined demonstrated just what was meant by the term comrade, and during that time I learned to value solidarity. In all, joining the RCP Birmingham branch was rather akin to being taken into an extended family and if I developed any virtues it was because of that family.

I am not suggesting that I joined a group of angels without blemish, far from it, like any group each member had their own personality, good points and bad. What I am saying however is that for several years to come I was to operate in a usually harmonious group which set itself tasks and mostly achieved them.

Percy Downey was originally from Wales, although his ancestors had come over from Ireland in the 1840s, driven out by the great famine of that period. Before joining the Trotskyists Percy had been in the ILP, and was active in the shop workers union USDAW. Percy was a rather heavy set person with a round face adorned by specs, he had a rather short temper at times and this made for very lively discussions at branch meetings on occasions! On the other hand he was also quick to calm down, and he would then grin in such a way that one had to forgive him. Although in some ways rather ponderous in speech, he was an essentially kind person and often generous. He and his wife Marjorie ran a hairdressing business on Beeches Estate Perry Barr. They both gave generously to the party, and I know that for a time — before I joined the branch — they had maintained a full time worker for the organisation out of their own pocket. Marjorie, although not so directly active as Percy, was someone who was always available for help and advice, she had a very engaging personality. Both Rhoda and I benefited from our association with Marjorie. One of the important side benefits of our association with Percy and Marjorie was our introduction to ‘healthy eating’. They were ‘heavily into’ wholesome foods, wholemeal bread, fresh vegetables, fruit etc. They were, in fact, the first people I ever heard talk about the dangers of aluminium cooking utensils. At that time such an idea was considered ‘crankish’ but time has proven them correct. They introduced us to the idea of concern for ones diet, seeing food as something much more important than merely filling oneself up.

Bill Ainsworth was an interesting person from a number of angles. Originally in the CP, he had a twin brother also in the party. When the war broke out in 1939 Bill’s brother had volunteered for the navy, because of the party line against the war, so that he could carry out political work. Bill’s brother lost his life when the battleship Hood was sunk, but then the party changed its line on the war, turning a full 180 degrees to all out patriotism when the Soviet Union was attacked. Bill found this very hard to swallow, especially in view of the sacrifice of his brother, and began looking for alternatives. He told me that he was very suspicious of the Trotskyists at first, but eventually came to accept their ideas and became a very active member. He worked at the Rover Car company, and was a shop steward there. Bill was a good public speaker, with a very agile mind. He was also a good teacher, and I was to benefit from his abilities many times over in the next few years. His wife Gwen, was a tall dark haired, very handsome women. She too had been in the CP/YCL before the war, travelling the road to Trotskyism along with Bill. Although, like Marjorie, Gwen did not participate in branch activities to any great extent, I always found that Gwen had her own ideas on most political issues.

Gerry Curran had moved from Coventry to Birmingham, although he had originally come from Liverpool. Gerry was a tall taciturn person. He did not speak much at branch meetings, at least he did not speak at length. Gerry always seemed to be slightly withdrawn, and not an easy person to get close too. This remoteness meant that I never did get on close and easy terms with Gerry, but he stayed on with the Birmingham group for a number of years right into the early days of the Cliff group, but that is running ahead.

Another member of the branch at that time was George Lane. George was undoubtedly mentally handicapped. How he had joined the RCP I never did find out. However, despite his obvious limitations George was treated like any other member of the group, he was an assiduous attendee of branch meetings and would always have an opinion on anything up for discussion. He was always listened to attentively and no one ever, by word or gesture, suggested that he was anything other than an ordinary comrade. George was always drifting from one menial job to another, sweeping up, portering, etc. and seemed to have little life apart from the RCP. He was out in all weathers in the centre of the city selling Socialist Appeal.

The branch secretary when I joined was Bert Atkins. Bert was a man in his mid-40s, an engineering worker at the Austin Motor Company. He was a rather quiet person, who always seemed to melt into the background. Bert carried out his work as secretary quite efficiently, but was not very active otherwise, apart from his trade union activities.

The one minority supporter in the branch was Bill Pickett. He was of medium build, sharp featured with dark hair. Bill was also rather quiet sort of person, but was quite able to hold his own corner in discussions, which he had to do frequently being isolated among the supporters of the majority. However, there was no animosity between the rest of us and Bill and our relations were quite amicable. Bill was an engineer by trade, a member of the AEU and the LP.

A short time after I joined the branch Peter Morgan joined us. Peter was already a member, but had been ill for some time with TB and had been in a sanatorium. He obtained work with the Birmingham City Council in some clerical capacity and joined NALGO and was soon a delegate to the Birmingham Trades Council. Peter was a supporter of the majority faction but worked in the Labour Party. Despite this he was very active as far as possible with many of the branch activities.

I suppose the person who had the most influence upon me, and upon Rhoda, was Bill Hunter. As I have mentioned he was the person who I had initially contacted and he continued to guide me for some considerable time after I joined the party. Rhoda and I would often go to Bill and Rae’s lodgings for discussions, socialising and the occasional meal. It had to be the occasional meal since Bill and Rae were so poor. Bill as a professional for the RCP was paid £2-10/- per week, so they relied upon Rae’s money to make this up to a subsistence level. Like all those who worked for the RCP Bill had to make many sacrifices, even at best his clothes were shabby and his shoes were always in a terrible state. Rae was not much better dressed. Nevertheless, both Bill and Rae carried with them an air of cheerful confidence, and this transmitted itself to those around them. When the Birmingham branch decided to rent a small room at the Peace Pledge Union HQ in Birmingham for Bill to use as an office I well remember that I went one bitterly cold day to find that Bill was sitting in his overcoat because there was no money for heating. It took a particular type of dedication to be a ‘professional revolutionary’ in those circumstances.

The branch met every week, and set the tasks for the coming week, discussed the local and national political situation. This meant that we had a fairly hectic life. The Ainsworth’s and Downey’s lived on the opposite side of the city to me and this entailed long bus journeys each time we met. Eventually, as I have mentioned, we rented a room at the Peace Pledge Union headquarters in Holloway Head and operated from there. Being such a small party meant that we all had to play an active role to make our presence felt, and we did. I had joined the shopworkers union USDAW to which Percy and Marjorie belonged and we were in the same branch. Sometime in 1947 I was delegated by the branch to attend the Birmingham Trades Council. Percy, Bill Ainsworth and Gerry Curran were already delegates and when Peter Morgan joined us he rapidly became a delegate, as did Rhoda when she joined. This meant that we could act as a faction on the Birmingham Trades Council, which played a significant role in the labour movement in those days. Apart from us as actual members there were a number of other delegates who often looked to our faction for guidance on particular issues. The Stalinists were also very well represented and we were on the receiving end of their consistent hostility, to the extent that sometimes they would oppose a motion if any of us spoke in favour.

Obviously we all attended our trade union branch meetings, the unions being AEU, USDAW and NALGO. Apart from such activity we also sold our paper Socialist Appeal regularly, having selling rounds on Sunday mornings and making sure that we covered all and every political meeting that took place in Birmingham, of which there were there quite a number in those days. Initially Rhoda and I maintained our membership of the Labour League of Youth and Labour Party. We continued to produce Socialist and distributed it throughout Birmingham. We attended meeting of the West Midlands Council of LLOY, yet despite this we were never able to recruit any more young people to the RCP. It was at this time that I first met Walter Kendall, we must have been put in touch via the RCP’s Labour Party Fraction. Walter came to my parents home and we spent some considerable time in discussion, but Walter never did join the Trotskyists, although he and I maintained friendly relations since that time.

It was in this same period that the fascists began putting up their heads again, their leader was Geoffrey Ham, and there were several clashes between the fascists and members of the RCP in London, and members of the Jewish ex-servicemen’s association. The RCP launched a national campaign against the fascists, producing a pamphlet and leaflets for this. In Birmingham we had no public activity by fascists, but we nevertheless went ahead with the campaign. One of the methods we used was painting anti-fascist slogans on prominent places. This was, of course strictly illegal, and so we had to carry it out late at night. The problem was that we had to use public transport if we wanted to carry out this activity in parts of the city in which we did not live. This meant that we had to paint our slogans before public transport finished running for the night, there was no all-night transport in those days. This meant that we had to carry buckets of whitewash in shopping bags, hoping that no one would notice! Late one night Bill Hunter and I were going to paint slogans in Birmingham Bull Ring. Bill was some way off from me looking for a suitable wall, but I was the one with the bucket, out of the darkness loomed two policeman, who nabbed me. Since I had not actually painted anything at that point they could not book me for anything. However, they demanded my identity card, which everyone was supposed to carry even thought the war was over (I believe they were abolished in 1950). Since I did not have my card on me they took my name and address and told me to attend the Steel House Lane Police Station the following day and produce my card. This I did and the desk Sergeant gave me a ticking off, and attempted to see the ‘error of my ways’, but there was little else that he could legally do, so my first brush with the law ended rather like a damp squib, I am glad to say!

I recall that Rhoda and I and became friendly with two leading members of the Birmingham Young Communist League during 1948, just how and why I am not sure since the adult Stalinists still treated Trotskyists as fascists, in fact it was during the period that the notorious book by James Klugmann was produced by the CP. The book, From Trotsky to Tito, must have been one of the most disgraceful farrago of lies ever collected together under one cover. It purported to tell how the Trotskyists and Titoists were agents of the Gestapo, the British Secret Service and the American CIA! One of the things that Joe and Nan told us was that people in other political groups assumed that we had many more members than we actually had because of the number of us that turned out to sell our paper at meetings. The assumption was that if we were able to get six or seven people selling papers this must mean that we had many more members, the reality being that practically every member of the branch would turn out for some meetings! Apparently what had really impressed the local CP was the number of people we had selling papers outside Birmingham Town Hall when Harry Pollitt came to speak on his new book The Way Ahead, not only had the Birmingham branch of the RCP turned out in full force, we had asked comrades from Coventry to come over to help out. This meant that we had about 10 or 12 people all selling Socialist Appeal outside the meeting.

When I first joined the RCP branch in Birmingham the only supporter of the Healy minority faction in the branch was Bill Pickett. This meant that the branch was fairly harmonious. The branch, apart from Bill Pickett, were staunch supporters of the majority leadership of Haston/Grant/Lee. I immediately became a supporter of the majority faction, since its policy was for the open party as the main activity, with only a small fraction working inside the Labour Party, the Healy minority argued for total entry into the Labour Party. My youth and inexperience had directed me towards the majority position, having come from the Labour Party I was fired with the vision of building the revolutionary party, and the prospect of entry work did not attract me at all.

I had been given most of the documents of both factions for several years back when I joined and I had dutifully ploughed my way through them. I read nothing of the minority that convinced me to join them. However, it should be noted that whilst the majority had an economic perspective of a boom developing after the war, which indeed happened; the minority had an economic perspective of slump, mass unemployment etc. The details of this dispute can be found in War and the International: A History of the Trotskyist Movement in Britain 1937-1949, by Sam Bornstein & Al Richardson, so I do not intend to retail here. However, at the time few people seemed to notice the incongruous political conclusions drawn from these perspectives, i.e. that if there was indeed going to be a boom then the prospects for quickly building a revolutionary party were slim and perhaps the best place to work was in the Labour Party. Conversely, the minority’s perspective of imminent slump and mass unemployment should have suggested the need for open work making direct appeals to workers. Charlie Van Gelderen did draw some conclusions at the time, i.e. supported the majority’s economic perspectives but called for work within the Labour Party.[1]

Looking back it seems to me that the political perspectives adopted by both factions had little or nothing to do with their economic perspectives. In truth it could be suggested that most of the rank and file supporters for either faction followed their inclinations based upon instinct, gut feelings, etc. rather than any rational analysis of the arguments.

Yet the faction fight which raged inside the organisation from 1945 through to 1947 was such as to embitter relations within the organisation. There can be no doubt that a large part of the responsibility for these embittered relations must be placed on the shoulders of Gerry Healy and his clique of supporters. Very few political questions were discussed on their merits, each and every question that came before the organisation was dealt with on a factional basis, i.e. if the majority said A Healy would immediately say Z. Whether this was done consciously or not I do not know, but the net result was that every issue became a test of factional loyalty. This meant that even those comrades, in either faction, who had reservations on any point felt forced to toe the faction line. The virulence of the factional dispute ensured that little real free thought was possible in such an atmosphere. However, I must admit that I never had any doubts myself at that time, I unswervingly supported the Haston leadership. And, although I say there was little real free thought, this must not be taken to imply that the RCP was undemocratic or did not allow a wide range of debate, on the contrary the organisation was one of the few genuinely democratic organisations that I have been a member of. During 1948 the RCP organised a British tour for Max Shachtman of the American Workers Party. Shachtman had broken with Trotsky in 1940 over the issue of the nature of the Soviet Union, this after many years as a close collaborator of Trotsky. That the RCP should organise such a tour indicates the relatively open nature of the organisation. The lack of free thought was something that went much deeper, something that we all imposed on ourselves without knowing it.

During this period also we began to hold public discussion forums in Birmingham. These were never as successful as we hoped for, it being I suppose a symptom of the changing political climate in late 1947 and early 1948. However, we continued our meetings for some considerable time. All of these activities meant that our lives were pretty full, yet we still found time to attend the theatre, concerts etc. and for Rhoda and I to have time together on our own. An amusing incident occurred at one of our meetings during 1947. At this time we were holding public discussion meetings in a small room rented from the Peace Pledge Union in the centre of the city. These were held on a Sunday afternoon (!), one day we turned up for the meeting to find only one none-member present. We went ahead with the meeting, Bill Ainsworth delivering his lecture and then it was thrown open to discussion. One or two of us made contributions, hoping to draw in this new contact who no one had seen before. However, he remained silent, so the meeting was brought to a close. It was then that the new ‘contact’ introduced himself, he was Gerry Healy! Apparently no one in the Birmingham majority had ever met Healy before and since the minority comrade was excused attending such public meetings (because he was in the Labour Party), so there was no one present who could have recognised Healy. After an initial surprise we fell about laughing, since we had just gone through the charade of a public meeting only to find our new ‘contact’ was the leader of the minority!! Healy was an unprepossessing figure, short in stature, balding, and wearing a rather grubby raincoat. He was not amused, I think he felt slighted because no one had recognised him. However, we all settled down to let him address us on the minority position on entry, this did not move any of us to join him in his faction.

In 1947 the Ministry of Information organised a train to travel around the country touting the benefits of atomic energy. The RCP nationally had produced material warning of the dangers of atomic weapons, articles on the subject appearing in Socialist Appeal. When we learned that the ‘Atomic Train’ was coming to Birmingham we asked the national office to produce a leaflet for us. This we distributed outside Snow Hill Station, where the train was located. So, ten years before CND was formed the British Trotskyists were campaigning against atomic weapons, of course at that time this had little or no impact, yet it does indicate that far from being solely interested in ‘sectarian’ questions the movement attempted to address very real problems facing the world.

Another aspect of the work carried out by the Birmingham branch at that time relates to German Prisoners of War (POW’s). Although the war had been over for two or more years there were still large numbers of POW’s in the country. A small German language newspaper was being produced with the help of the RCP. Bill Ainsworth had been in the army during the war and had been stationed in Germany immediately following the end of the war. There he had picked up a smattering of German. The German POW’s were kept in this country after the war to provide cheap labour, but some of the restrictions upon them had been relaxed. At week-ends they were allowed out of their camps, and were often to be seen in Birmingham in their odd coloured uniforms with diamond patches on them. Bill used to take copies of Solidaritat with him and mingle with these POW’s distributing the paper to those interested. As it turned out a number of them were interested, many of the older ones had been members of the SPD or KPD before Hitler seized power in 1933, and were thus interested in reviving their political activities when they returned to Germany. However, Bill had been spotted by members of Special Branch whilst distributing the paper. This happened after a meeting in the Bull Ring at which Rhoda had been speaking, and whilst I was in the Air Force. Bill was hauled up before the courts and fined.

However, this did not end the contacts with the German POW’s. A member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), Mrs. Jones, organised gatherings at her home for the POW’s. We members of the RCP were invited to participate, which we did, and so were able to continue passing on copies of the paper. This gives an indication of the comradely relations which existing between the various left-wing groups at that time. The fact that Mrs. Jones was in the ILP did not prevent her from inviting us to participate in her gatherings.

This collaboration was demonstrated in another way. The Birmingham Branch of the RCP had passed onto them a young German by the name of Johnny, he was in the country illegally, for what reason or purpose I never did find out. However, he had to be fed, housed and found work. A member of the ILP, Doug Kepper, gave us his National Insurance cards for Johnny to use, since Doug was self-employed as a stall holder in Birmingham market. A member of the SPGB, Lou Vine, found Johnny work in a small factory whose owner was sympathetic, and we were able to find lodgings for him with someone who did not ask questions. So, between the various small left-wing groups we were able to fix Johnny up, and he stayed with us for over a year. What became of him when he left Birmingham I do not know, nothing was heard of him after he left. He was a rather odd character to say the least, rather short but muscular, dark complexion and rather intense. He must have been in his very early twenties, but seemed to have travelled quite a bit around Europe, or at least he hinted at this. We were never quite sure what he would get up to, since he was given to rather flamboyant behaviour at times. Despite the fact that he was supposed to be living in the country illegally he always carried a copy of Lenin’s State and Revolution in his back pocket, and was forever plucking it out to find a quotation to back any line of argument he was pursuing!! We did our duty by him, but I don’t think anyone was too sorry when he moved on.

Another aspect of life in the Birmingham labour movement at that time was ‘Dan’s Cafe’. This was a small establishment in the centre of the city, located up a very narrow alley. It was a gathering place for the left, where one could buy cups of tea and toast at very reasonable prices. It had two rooms, the one at the front was where general discussion took place, everyone joining in as they thought fit. The back room was for private talks. The cafe stayed open quite late at night, so that after a meeting once could go there for tea and toast, even if the pubs had closed. I remember seeing such people as Woodrow Wyatt (now Lord Wyatt) and Denis Howell in Dan’s very often, being quizzed by various people. At that time Wyatt was an MP, but Howell was only a Councillor, but he went on to sit in Parliament and became a minister, I would have hardly thought he would at the time. And even Roy Jenkins made a few appearances at Dan’s Cafe at that time, since he was an MP for a Birmingham constituency. Most left-wing journals were on sale at Dan’s, and you could always read them whilst drinking your tea. I do not think Dan’s Cafe was unique to Birmingham, most large towns seemed to have such an establishment at that time, they seemed to be a part of the labour movement.

Late in 1947 I decided that I wanted to change my work, and I wanted to work in an engineering factory. Being a butcher no longer appealed to me, but I realised that I would have to learn something minimal about engineering before I could attempt to work in it. Fortunately, Bob Scott was an apprentice engineering tool-maker, and he taught me how to read a micrometer, use a slide rule and a few other simple things. Thus armed I applied for work at the Austin Motor Company at Longbridge. At the time in question — 1947 — there was a labour shortage in Birmingham, and after a short interview, during which I demonstrated the few tricks Bob had taught me, I was told to present myself the following Monday for work.

I was allocated to work in an annexe to the auto-shop, and I was taught how to operate gear-cutting machines and milling machines, plus capstans. Soon I was operating two gear cutters and a milling machine on my own, and shortly afterwards I was changing my own tools and re-setting the machines, which saved me time since I did not have to wait for the tool-setter to do this for me.

The annexe I worked in was long and narrow, with machines running down both walls and two lines of machines down the centre. One side of the shop were women operators and the side men. And it soon became clear that even when women did identical work they were paid less than the men. My new work-mates were a mixed bag, but the shop steward Phil came and joined me to the AEU on my first day, it was a 100% TU shop, and he intended to keep it that way — he didn’t get any argument from me about that. However, he did get arguments from me on other matters, since I soon found out he was a CP sympathiser! I began taking in copies of Socialist Appeal, and Phil and one or two more began to buy it.

There was one man who I became quite friendly with, Fred. Fred had worked at the Austin for many years and was nearing retirement age. He was very canny, and knew how to pace himself very well. Fred worked on a semi-automatic capstan, and one Friday afternoon I went to have a word with him about something and as I stood talking to him he continued operating his machine. But then I noticed that the bushes in the two trays he was using were identical, he took one from one tray put it into the machine worked it and then transferred it to another tray. However, the bushes looked exactly the same when they came off the machine as when they went on. I mentioned this to Fred, he glanced around the shop, winked at me and said ‘I’ve done my quota for this week, no need to spoil a decent rate’. After this Fred instructed me further in the arcane arts of dodging the rate fixers, and soon I found that so long as everything had gone well during the rest of the week I too could doodle along on Friday afternoons! This way we took a ‘reasonable’ wage home, but allowed ourselves time to make up for any stoppages due to tool changes, breakdown etc.

There were a least two short strikes within the time I worked in the auto-annexe, and both were originated by the women in the shop. There seemed to be a continual state of warfare between the women in the shop and the rate-fixers, and this boiled over into two