WHO PUT THE MENTAL IN FUNDAMENTAL?

 

The British state and its political representatives have always been willing to work with Islamic Fundamentalists if it suits their objectives.

Thatcher cut funding to local government to support Afghan Fundamentalists – who were rebranded as Rebels for the British Market.

Cartoon from Tony Hall. More of his work can be viewed at:- https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/6328-tony-hall-booklet-2020.pdf

Then as Fundamentalism gained a grip here then Labour politicians such as Ken Livingstone were happy to ignore what was going on within the Asian community and even speaking alongside Antisemites calling for the death of Jews.

By 1996 the Colin Roach Centre in Hackney had developed links right across London and the RPM magazine was a popular read with each edition selling over 1,500 copies. Here is an article from the magazine and which is followed by another article on similar lines that was written nine years on in 2005.

The failure to take up these issues by ‘the left’ has been a disaster.

WHO PUT THE MENTAL IN FUNDAMENTAL?

The rise of ‘Clerico-Fascism’ in the South Asian Community.

Colin Roach Centre RPM magazine number 2 in the Summer 1996

By Indranil Ray

The names of Hizb-ut-tahrir, Al Muhajiroun, the BLP, the RSS, Shiv Sena and the Sikh-Youtir Federation are becoming increasingly prominent in British political life. They represent different strands of Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh fundamentalism which seeks to divide Asian communities on the basis of religion and are increasingly splintering opposition to ‘white racism.’ They can all be defined as theocratic ideologies which believe that all other religions must be outlawed and its followers either forcibly ‘converted’ or, in the final analysis, eliminated.

There is a political war taking place between the ideas of communism and the ideas of secularism. At present the followers of ‘Clerico-fascism’ are organised and vociferous – its opponents are not. With a few laudable exceptions such as the Indian Workers Association (Great Britain), organisations working in the Asian communities have been noticeable by their silence of the activities of the groups mentioned above, as have mainstream politicians.

At the height of the inter-communal conflict in India 4 years ago there were also violent incidents in Britian, including London. Working at the time for Camden Racial Equality Council, I decided that it was essential that we respond politically. Urgent meetings were held, local organisations were mailed, and press releases were issued. As part of the response I contacted an East London monitoring organisation to find out what their response was, their reply was stunning – “We are keeping our head down on this one.”

In some London boroughs fundamentalist organisations receive covert (and occasionally overt) support from religious and national centres. Temples, mosques and gurudwaras offer resource and meeting space. Some even invite them as guest speakers – witness Advani, the BJP (Hindu fundamentalism) leader from India speaking at the opening of the Hindu temple in Neasden. Some Indian and Pakistani community centres do likewise.

As recently as this year, while working for Brent Racial Equality Council, I advised Ken Livingstone, MP, that he was being conned into speaking at a ‘front’ meeting for Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Willesden. “Red Ken@ ignored my advice (along with pages of relevant documentation) and proceeded to speak on a platform with Omar Bakri (HUT/Al Muhajiroun), a man who openly calls for the “killing of Jews.” One can only summarise that his decision may have been determined by electoral considerations, rather silly when the vast majority of local Muslims despise the politics of HUT.

Civil Liberties groups and politicians have campaigned for fanatics like Masari (fundamentalist Saudi Arabian opposition leader) and Chohal (Khalistani leader); the Anti Racist Alliance invites Bakri and the Siddiqui (Muslim Parliament) to speak at its rally opposing the Asylum and Immigration Bill.  What is going on? Don’t they realise that fascism can have different faces with different traditions? Let’s be clear the fascism can be based on religion as well as race and class. Let’s be clear that the ‘Final Solution’ of Clerico-fascism is the persecution, slaughter and genocide of racial and religious minorities, the elimination of Communists, Socialists and Anarchists, the total oppression of women – witness the Taliban in Afghanistan, which has banned women from working and introduced summary execution for religious-based offences.

Local organisations (black and white) and politicians are mistakenly terrified of alienating potential supporters and voters. It is time they realised, not least those from the Asian communities, that ‘Clerico-Fascism’ will not go away by ignoring it or colluding with it. For all anti-fascists in Britain ideological and physical opposition to fascism must include ideological and physical opposition to a form of fascism that affects all of us.

 

Who put the mental in fundamental?  Imperialism ?

 

The struggle between Imperialism and Clerico fascism

 

By Ghana, a secular communist in an article dated August 5^th 2005.

 

Before the degeneration of Soviet socialism: Lets take a step back in time to the 1980s [1] when the global struggle was between the forces of reaction, imperialism, and the forces of progress, socialism. Afghanistan had the first progressive government in its history that was bringing education, health, and social progress, including the emancipation of women, to all its people.

 

The forces of reaction including the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] and the Pakistan Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI] agency are engaged in actively supporting the forces of clerico fascism in Afghanistan, soon to result in the world’s most barbaric theocracy under the Taliban. Osama Bin Laden is hailed as a freedom fighter and given technical and military support after the Soviet Union has been asked by the Afghan government to come to its assistance because of Imperialist aggression. The Taliban and al Qaeda are conceived by Wahabi Saudi Islamic feudalism, born in the arms of a Pakistani military dictatorship, and given sustenance by US led Western Imperialism.

 

After the fall of the Afghan government we see the emergence of Taliban rule with the support of al Qaeda. The West initially is not unhappy. It feels its economic, political and military interests in the region will be progressed.

 

The rest is recent history: The invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 gives the US the pretext to secure decades of oil and a strategic presence. The Taliban is toppled. Al Qaeda is severely injured but not fatally. Indeed globally support for the amorphous al Qaeda increases. From Afghanistan they disappear only to re-emerge fomenting terrorism in Kashmir and Chechnya.

 

The West wants a permanent military presence in the region. The invasion of oil rich Iraq results in an Iraqi based al Qaeda for the first time. Recruits are flooding across the borders to Iraq. The genie is now most definitely out of the bottle. The pandora’s box of fundamentalism has been opened and shows little sign of closing.

 

Those of us that warned about the consequences of Imperialist intervention and the consequent growth of Islamic fundamentalism have been proven correct. Al Qaeda, which has never been an organisation in the traditional sense of the word now has an ever increasing loose coalition of terrorist cells worldwide intent on the creation of the ‘Caliphate’ or the ‘Khilafah’.

 

Inaction and collusion in the United Kingdom:  Over the past decade we have seen the growth of Islamic fundamentalist organisations and ideas on our doorstep. Groups like Hizb-ut-tahrir [HUT] and Al Muhajiroun have openly called for the killing of Jews, Hindus and homosexuals; and violence against women. Anti Semitism has often been cloaked in the rhetoric of Anti Zionism. Over the period decisions not to prosecute have been based on ‘political’ rather than legal or moral consideration.

 

 Flirting with fundamentalism has become commonplace: Nationally the only organisation which has been willing to challenge and confront fundamentalism  consistently has been the Indian Workers Association (GB), primarily because of its communist secular tradition. In addition the London based Friends of Afghanistan and the Afro Asian Peoples Solidarity Organisation have also maintained principled opposition to the forces of Islamism because of its progressive secular leadership. Over the decade most of the organisations in the Asian and Black communities have been noticeable by their silence on the activities of fundamentalists, whether Muslim, Hindu or Sikh. The activities of the Nation of Islam, Shiv Sena and the Sikh Youth Federation have largely been met with a deafening silence.

 

There have been double standards on the issue of Zionism and Palestine. Many Zionists have been happy to condemn Islamic fundamentalist groups while tacitly condoning the protracted genocide against the Palestinians. Islamists condemn Israeli genocide while supporting Islamist theocracy everywhere on the planet.

 

Some of my own personal memories of collusion in the not too distant past highlight what I am talking about:- 

 

·                     At the height of the inter communal conflict in India in the 1992 after the Ayodhya temple incident which led to the worst religious riots in decades and the killing of at least 3000 mainly Indian Muslims, there were also violent incidents in Britain. As a member of a London voluntary sector organisation at the time it was decided that we should respond politically. Urgent meetings were held, local organisations were called and mailed, and press releases were issued. I personally contacted an East London monitoring organisation whose response was stunning – ‘We’re keeping our heads down on this one’.

·                     Working for a different London community organisation in the mid 1990’s I advised the present Mayor of London (Ken Livingstone) that he was being conned into speaking at a ‘front’ meeting for HUT. He rejected my advice and supporting documentation and proceeded to speak on the same platform as Omar Bakri Mohammed who was the leader of HUT (later leader of Al Muhajiroun). Bakri had already called the Holocaust ‘a fabrication’. HUT had already regularly called for the killing of Jews and homosexuals and the beating of women. Decisions in the past not to prosecute have been based on political rather than legal or moral considerations.

·                     Around the same time as the above Civil Liberties groups and politicians were campaigning for fanatics like Masari (Saudi fundamentalist), the Anti Racist Alliance invited Bakri to speak at a rally on the Asylum and Immigration Bill.

·                     Collusion was not limited to Islamic fundamentalist groups. Similar succour was given to Hindu and Sikh fundamentalists. Advani, the BJP Hindu fundamentalist leader, recently charged with offences relating to the massacre of Muslims in 1992, was guest speaker with Michael Howard, then Home Secretary, at the opening of the Hindu Temple in Neasden. Chohal (Sikh fundamendalist leader) was also supported by civil liberties campaigners and politicians.

 

Undoubtedly there was the simple European (including the most of the left) ignorance of the issues around Communalism, Fundamentalism and Clerico Fascism. Europeans were, and still largely are largely ill educated when it comes to this issue. If they were not ignorant they either didn’t have the balls to confront this phenomenon and/or they were petrified at being labelled racist in some way because most of the fundamentalists were ‘people of colour’.  Didn’t they realise that fascism (not in the classical Marxist definition of the term) can have different faces and traditions. Let’s be clear that fascism can be based on religion as well as race and class. The ‘Final Solution’ of Clerico Fascism is the persecution, slaughter and genocide of racial and religious minorities, the elimination of liberals, socialists and communists, and the total oppression of women. In this country politicians by and large have looked to short term electoral considerations first without any real longer term view of Clerico Fascism.

 

The Muslim Communities: If we just look at the development of Islamic fundamentalism in this country we need to look at the role of many Mosques and Islamic centres in turning a blind eye to the activities of fundamentalists whether leafleting or publicising meetings and other activities. There has been a lack of political will at best in confronting this cancer, leaving many of their young people vulnerable to these predators. Children have been sent back to Pakistan for ‘education’ in Madrassas. Many Madrassas, as now acknowledged by even the Pakistani military dictatorship, have been turning impressionable young men into fanatics, ready to terrorise from Kashmir to Kennington. In addition, how many young men have been Talibanised by their visits to Afghanistan? 

 

Since the bombings in London we have seen Blair meet with Muslim ‘leaders’, the same Muslim leaders who have dismally failed to provide any leadership against fundamentalism and are totally disconnected and alienated from their young people. Many of these characters have historically been involved in the divisive, sectarian politics of religion. This was a totally cosmetic exercise.

 

Education: The government continues to approve the dramatic increase in religion-based schools. What sort of message is this sending out? Instead of pandering to religious bigotry and the fact that Jews and Christians already had state funded schools, by approving Muslim, Sikh and Hindu Schools, the response should have been to send a clear message out by ceasing state assistance to all religion based schools. We are looking at the development of the new Madrassas and religious apartheid. This will be a particularly pernicious development in areas where housing apartheid has already ghettoised different communities. This is playing into the hands of the far right and state racism.

 

Perhaps this is motivated by Blair’s Catholic beliefs [2], as evidenced by his wholly inappropriate appointment of Ruth Kelly a Catholic fundamentalist as Education Secretary. The issue of Christian fundamentalism in secularist clothing is perhaps an issue for another day and a discussion on ‘Bush, Blair and Berlusconi and the clash of civilisations’.

 

You reap what you sow. Imperialism sowed the seeds of the multi headed amorphous hydra al Qaeda with their support for Bin Laden against the only progressive government in Afghanistan’s history. Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan again now are acting as recruiting agents for Al Qaeda. I’m sure many of us on the secular left would like to stand on the sidelines and watch Imperialism and Fundamentalism attempt to destroy each other. The British state will become increasingly oppressive. There will be more innocent victims; of the fundamentalists and the state. Unfortunately we are now caught in the crossfire. We have to take stand against both.      

 

1. The People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan [PDPA] in December 1978 signed a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union leading to support from the USSR. Resistance to the USSR was led by the Mujahadeen; with massive financial, military and political support from the USA and to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom. [see article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Afghanistan] and [The Anglo-American support apparatus behind the Afghan Mujahideen at http://www.juancole.com/2005/08/fisking-war-on-terror-once-upon-time.html and http://farmrunoff.blogspot.com/2005/08/afghanistan-spectral-apparitions.html ] A ten year ended in February 1989 with a victory for the Mujahadeen and its western backed supporters.
2. Although Blair regularly attends Catholic Mass with his wife Cherie and their four children, all of whom are Catholics, it is worth pointing out that Blair remains an Anglican.

 

 

 

6 June 1944: SOCIALIST ERNEST WHEWELL BRAVELY GOES OFF TO FIGHT FASCISM

 

 

JUNE 6 1944 ‘ D DAY’

SOCIALIST ERNEST WHEWELL BRAVELY GOES OFF TO FIGHT FASCISM

Taken from BETTY TEBBS – A radical working class hero booklet and accompanying film by Mark Metcalf

The primary motivation for Britain fighting a war between 1939-1945 was not anti-fascist. Indeed, many of Britain’s leaders had looked favourably on the policies being adopted by Hitler right up until he threatened Britain’s imperial interests by looking to take over its African colonies.

However, many British people fully understood that fascism was an ideology that crushes the working class of their rights and destroys all forms of political opposition to their policies. Thousands had gone off to fight fascism when Franco sought to take power in Spain in 1936. Many were killed.

So, when war was declared, lots of anti-fascists signed up to fight fascism. Lancashire factory worker Ernest Whewell was one. He was married to Betty Tebbs and they had a baby daughter, Pat.

On 6 June 1944, he was part of the Allied Landing in France on ‘D-Day.’

Soon after returning to work, (he had suffered an injury when falling down some steel steps – ed) Ernest announced he felt that fascism had to be fought and had asked his employers to remove him from his ‘reserved occupation status’ and they had agreed. “I was upset at his decision, but his mind was made up.” His papers came in June 1940 and Ernest was required to join the Royal Artillery and report to Hereford where his training went well and he came home on leave looking much better physically.

After Ernest departed, Betty felt happier at work than being alone at home. She swapped jobs to work at a firm making ground sheets for soldiers. The pay was much better and with the additional seven shillings (35p) she was receiving from Ernest’s pay she was able to buy many things for the home.

Betty then received a government form to complete in order to work in the Mather and Platt engineering and munitions factory just outside Bolton. She began working continuous 12-hour shifts as a crane driver. There was only one week for the annual holiday and the desperate need for anti-tank guns meant that at one point there was not even any dinner time. The war in general was going badly for Britain, with many cities pounded by German bombers in the Blitz of 1940 and 1941.

When Ernest was able to get leave he persuaded his wife to abandon the earlier decision not to have a child. Betty was warned by her doctor about having a child in such difficult times but she later became pregnant. Knowing that if she informed her employers that she was expecting they would terminate her contract, Betty soldiered on. Her situation was helped by the fact she could hide her condition thanks to the large overalls she wore. It also helped that Betty could work alone high up on the crane, which she used to lift the guns and breach-blocks away.

Climbing the ladder upwards was difficult but not impossible. In the months leading up to the arrival date of her first child, Betty was transferred to a ground based job where she continued to hide her pregnancy until she had saved £50 and was only a month away from giving birth when she quit in August 1942.

Labour began on a Saturday night and lasted until 4.10am on Monday when a baby girl, Pat, was born suffering from a number of complications.

Ernest was given 24 hours’ leave and returned to see his daughter who was christened Patricia Anne. He was to see Pat just three times. Mother and baby were allowed to leave hospital after a week but it soon became apparent that the newly arrived remained in poor health and would require radiation treatment on a quarterly basis at the Christie Cancer Hospital for a chronic skin lesion at her neck base. On her visits, which lasted for eighteen months, Pat had her head clamped when the ray was administered to her damaged throat area. The infant was the first to undergo such treatment at Christie’s.

Now that she was no longer working, Betty was struggling financially. Nevertheless, she refused payment for cleaning and cooking for Ernest’s two sisters and his father. Betty saw this as repaying the family for having bought Pat’s winter clothes.

In the meantime, Ernest had been transferred to the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, a crack infantry regiment, which led to be him moving to Scotland. The couple kept in contact by regularly sending letters to each other. Betty then learned from her husband that he had gone over to France on ‘D-Day’, 6 June 1944, which started the Allied landings in Normandy in Operation Overlord. Because he did not entirely trust French farmers, some of whom had done well under German occupation, Ernest was now warily advancing through French countryside.

 The lukewarm reception received from the farmers was at odds with that which Ernest and Allied Forces found when they reached the major towns and cities where the welcome was overwhelming. In one of his letters home, Ernest said that when he had helped capture Paris, gone through Germany and helped win the war, he would be back home for a holiday of a lifetime.

Betty then began to fear the worst when Ernest’s letters stopped arriving. She dreamt he was shot running up a hill and was not comforted by crass remarks such as “No news is good news.” She was right to be worried as on returning from a visit to the doctor’s with Pat, Betty turned the corner to see that her letterbox flap was up. When she saw the On His Majesty’s Service (OHMS) letter she initially thought Ernest had been wounded.

It was much worse.

 “KILLED IN ACTION.”

Pushing her daughter in the pushchair, Betty, accompanied by her faithful black spaniel, ran all the way to Ernest’s father’s house to tell him and Ernest’s two sisters the tragic news.

She could hardly speak when she got there. She was overcome when Ernest’s family showed their own distress, which Pat quickly picked up on to become distressed herself. Ernest’s father, who was a big quiet and kindly man, never spoke for a long time afterwards and died suddenly a few months later.

After staying at her parents’ house for two weeks after Ernest’s death, Betty returned with Pat to their own home. She refused offers to go and live rent free with two elderly spinsters whom she had lived next to when she was young.

It was difficult enough coming to terms with the loss of her husband when Betty, who had already determined to work for peace from then on, received a second OHMS letter informing her that as a single woman she would receive a much reduced allowance. “This was a bitter blow. At the stage of coping with Ernest’s loss I was being virtually told by the state that they had no more use for us and could dispense with real responsibility for us.”

This injustice ignited in Betty a resentment and heightened her political interests. “Prior to the War I had not seen any connections between my work in the trade union movement and party politics.”

What Ernest feared is now emerging. DEATH TO FASCISM.

                           Cartoon by Tony Hall - copyright. 

                     Read BETTY TEBBS – A radical working class hero

https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/6328-betty-tebbs-web.pdf

View Who’s Betty Tebbs? Produced by Francesca Platt, Tracy Hindley & Mark Metcalf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrWBJZr3I68

Listen to the children signing a song about Betty on six minutes. It is beautiful.

Tony Hall booklet at:- https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/6328-tony-hall-booklet-2020.pdf

A plaque to Betty Tebbs is located on what was the gates to the East Lancashire Paper Mill, Radcliffe.

. Photograph is copyright Mark Harvey of ID8 photography, Sheffield 

Peter Oborne to speak at a Calderdale Trades Union Council public meeting on 19 June at Arden Road social club

The Kinder Scout Mass Trespass - Benny Rothman

 It was 115 years ago on Monday that Benny Rothman was born and to celebrate a blog piece on his Anti-Fascist work was published at:- 

https://writemark.blogspot.com/2026/06/born-115-years-ago-today-kinder-scout.html

This was taken from the booklet BENNY ROTHMAN –a fighter for the right to roam, workers’ rights and socialism.

Read at:- https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/6328-benny-rothman.pdf

Today it is a chance to recall the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass and for which Benny is best known, 

 For more on this watch https://markwrite.co.uk/2018/11/29/mass-trespass/

The Kinder Scout Mass Trespass

The Kinder Scout Mass Trespass of 1932 is for what Benny Rothman is internationally known and which he covered in his The 1932 Kinder Scout Mass Trespass book first published in 1982.

The protest played a significant part in the ultimately successful campaign for public access to moors and mountains. To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the trespass, writer Roly Smith, who is the current Vice President of the Outdoor Writers' and Photographers' Guild, wrote the following piece in 2002 and which Unite is grateful for allowing to be republished here.

William Clough, the site of the conflict between ramblers, police and land owners on 24th April 1932 - Photograph is copyright Mark Harvey 

Forgive us our trespasses

Sunday, April 24, 1932 dawned fine and clear: a perfect day for enjoying that away-from-it-all, top-of-the-world feeling uniquely and so easily available to ramblers on the high moorland of Kinder Scout. But 70 years ago, the highest and wildest moorland of the Peak remained frustratingly out of bounds to the growing army of walkers who had joined the huge rambling craze in the surrounding cities.

Only a dozen footpaths of two miles or more crossed the open moorland of the Peak District, and not one crossed the 15 square miles of the ramblers’ Holy Grail, the 2,000-foot summit of the Kinder Scout plateau. Britain was then “bumping along the bottom” of the depths of an abysmal depression, and nothing that Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour Government could do seemed to help. Dole queues stretched in the streets of Manchester and Sheffield, and the newspapers were full of reports of demonstrations by the unemployed, as the jobless total topped three million. The Great Escape offered by the misty, inviting moors of the Peak, just a sixpenny (2.5p) bus ride away from the grimy, back-to-back terraces, was a magnetic temptation; a chance to recreate in the true sense of the word.

Many were prepared to risk an encounter with the burly gamekeepers who jealously guarded the moors for their grouse-shooting masters. Trespassing had become a popular sport, adding an extra frisson of excitement to a moorland ramble. G.H.B.Ward, the King of the Sheffield Clarion Ramblers, had dubbed the pastime, “the gentle art of trespass,” and gained the dubious distinction in 1923 of having a writ served on him making him apologise for past trespasses on Kinder, and promise not to trespass again. “But the gamekeepers are not always there,” he gleefully reported in the 1952-53 Clarion Handbook, “and after a while, the amount of general trespassing did not decrease.” He regarded the writ as “a greater honour than any OBE,” and added: “May Kinder be ‘free’ in 1953, and may those who never knew this fight for Liberty deserve the Victory by their use of, and behaviour on, Kinder Scout.”

It was against this kind of background that the famous Mass Trespass on Kinder Scout took place. There can be no doubt now that the trespass was politically motivated. But it was born out of a mounting sense of frustration felt by many young outdoor people at the apparent lack of progress made by the rambling establishment towards the long standing goal of obtaining free access to Britain’s mountains and moorland – a goal now within sight after the recent passing of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act. Intellectuals like Prof. C.E.M. Joad and Prof. G.M.Trevelyan appeared to support the idea of trespass. Joad, addressing a ramblers’ rally in The Winnats, Castleton, had told his audience: “If you want the moors to be free, you must free them for yourselves.” Most interpreted that as an invitation to trespass, although Joad later denied this.

The rambling federations of Manchester and Sheffield were opposed to the use of direct action. Both Harold Wild of the Manchester federation and Stephen Morton of the Sheffield group went on record as saying that they believed the trespass had put back the access campaign by 20 years. It came at a time when they genuinely believed they were at last beginning to break the power of the landowners by getting them to agree to meet around the conference table.

Access campaigner Tom Stephenson, while opposing the tactic of mass trespass, thought this was nonsense. The cynical emasculation in Parliament of the 1939 Creech Jones Access to Mountains Bill showed how little reasonable hope there was for access legislation at the time. Stephenson acknowledged that the 1932 Mass Trespass was the most dramatic incident in the long access campaign. “Yet it contributed little, if anything, to it,” he claimed. Edward Royce, access secretary of the Manchester federation and a leading champion of the access cause, was equally dismissive. “The year 1932 will not be remembered as a red letter year for the rambler,” he wrote soon afterwards. “It has been a period of more than the usual froth and bubble.”

Royce’s successor as access secretary was Philip Daley, later to become national chairman of the Ramblers’ Association and chairman of the Access and Footpaths Committee of the Peak District National Park authority for 19 years. As such, he was closely involved in the negotiations for the first access agreements with the landowners in the Peak, and said he found the mass trespass was invariably used as an argument against public access. “Such access as we have gained,” he wrote, “owes nothing whatever to the mass trespass….and I can say quite categorically without fear of contradiction that the mass trespass was a positive hinderance and deterrent to the discussion and negotiations to secure the freedom of the hills.”

The idea of a mass trespass originated during the Easter 1932 weekend camp of the Communist-inspired British Workers’ Sports Federation held at Rowarth, on the western edge of Kinder Scout. A visiting group of London based BWSF walkers had been turned back by abusive and threatening gamekeepers at Yellowslacks, on the western approach to Bleaklow from Glossop. Back at the campsite, it was agreed that if enough ramblers had been there, no number of keepers could have turned them back. “We decided then and there to prove the point,” recalled Benny Rothman, then secretary of the Lancashire district of the BWSF. 

Which was why that sunny Sunday morning found Rothman, then a 20-year-old unemployed motor mechanic, and his best friend Woolfie Winnick, cycling out of Manchester to the friendly village of Hayfield, which shelters under the western ramparts of Kinder Scout. They were already wanted men, having used their bikes to avoid police waiting at Manchester’s London Road station with a restraining injunction against the event, which had been deliberately well-publicised by Rothman in the Manchester newspapers. The bells of St. Matthews Georgian parish church were ringing out as Benny and Woolfie planned the event which was to change the course of rambling history over a cup of tea in the village tearoom.

What happened next is now firmly established as part of rambling folklore. The march of about 400 ramblers from Hayfield Recreation Ground to Bowden Bridge quarry, (where a plaque unveiled on the 50th anniversary now commemorates the event); the impromptu speech by Rothman when the main speaker failed to arrive; the joyful, arm-in-arm, singing procession up the Kinder Road by Nab Brow above the reservoir and into Wiliam Clough; and the sudden break-out onto the forbidden ground of Sandy Heys at the prearranged signal of three blasts on Woolfie’s whistle.

 Tom Stephenson always insisted that the trespassers never reached the summit of Kinder Scout, which is two miles away and about 400 feet higher, and the available evidence seems to bear him out. Rothman himself said that the body of ramblers was about halfway up William Clough on the Hayfield to Snake Inn public footpath, which had been negotiated by the Hayfield and Kinder Scout Ancient Footpaths Association as long ago as 1897, when the trespass actually began.

At Woolfie’s signal, they started to scramble up the steep slopes of Sandy Heys in open formation. A line of between 20 and 30 keepers was waiting for them on the brow of the hil. The few, undistinguished scuffles which fo lowed resulted in one temporary keeper, Edward Beevers, being knocked to the ground, injuring an ankle. Press photographs taken at the time actua ly show concerned ramblers coming to his assistance. John Watson, one of the group of stick-wielding keepers waiting on Sandy Heys said afterwards: “We could hear them cheering and yeling as if they had achieved something, when they had achieved nothing at al. They had only trespassed about 100 yards – they never got halfway up the clough.”

Rothman later agreed with Stephenson that the so-called “victory meeting,” when the Hayfield group met up with others from Sheffield, who had come by the much more difficult route across Kinder’s peaty plateau from Edale, was held near Ashop Head, at least two miles north west of Kinder’s hard-to-find summit. But in the end, what was more important was that they had trespassed in such a public and positive way, rather than how far they had trespassed.

The trespassers agreed that they would march back to Hayfield “with their heads held high” and not disperse like a band of criminals. “It was a demonstration for the rights of ordinary people to walk on land stolen from them in earlier times,” Rothman was to write later. “We were proud of our effort and proudly marched back the way we had come.”

The police, who had declined to take part in the scramble up Kinder’s steep flanks, were waiting in a line across Kinder Road when the trespassers returned. Five people were arrested, in addition to John Anderson, a rambler actually opposed to the trespass who had just come along to see what would happen, but was apparently arrested when he went to assist the injured Beevers. They were variously charged with public order offences such as riotous assembly, but significantly, not with trespass.

 The story of the trial of the trespassers at Derby Assizes is as riddled with the same kind of class prejudice as the rest of the event. The judge, Sir Edward Acton, was true to the best traditions of English justice. When it was revealed that a copy of a book by Lenin had been found in the possession of one of the accused (Tona Gilett) when arrested, he innocently enquired, to the merriment of the court: “Isn’t that the Russian gentleman?”

Rothman’s self-conducted defence, prepared in the darkness of a Leicester prison cell, was a masterpiece of open-air, working-class rhetoric. “We ramblers, after a hard week’s work in smoky towns and cities, go out rambling for relaxation, a breath of fresh air, a little sun shine,” he told the court. “But we find when we go out that the finest rambling country is closed to us, just because certain individuals wish to shoot for about ten days a year.”

Ironically, it was the severity of the sentences handed down by the judge on the five young defendants – ranging between two and six (*) months’ imprisonment – which was to unite the ramblers’ cause. Even those implacably opposed to the trespass were appalled by the “savage” sentences, and the Manchester federation were among many who appealed to the Home Secretary for a remission. A writer in the Manchester Guardian compared the affair to a university student rag, pointing out that people arrested during rags were not usually sent to prison. The Clarion Handbook of 1933-34, reported that the stiff sentences handed out “did not bring laurels to the other side” and thousands of ramblers were reported to have gone to view the scene of the trespass immediately after the event.

The annual ramblers access demonstration in The Winnats a few weeks later drew a record 10,000 people, and further mass trespasses followed at Abbey Brook in the Upper Derwent, and on Stanage Edge, but significantly, no arrests were made. Indisputably, the mass trespass on Kinder in 1932 bought the access issue to a head, and acted as an important catalyst to the whole National Parks and access to the countryside campaign which eventually led to legislation in 1949. When the Peak District National Park authority came into being in April, 1951, it lost no time in addressing the access problem, and it was no accident that the first-ever access agreement allowing walkers the freedom to roam was signed just a year later, covering 5,780 acres of Kinder Scout and Broadlee Bank Tor. Today, more than 80 square miles of moorland are covered by such agreements.

The “Right to Roam” Countryside and Rights of Way Act of 2000 can be seen as the crowning culmination of the efforts of those brave pioneering trespassers, though few will live to see its enactment. There can be little doubt either, that the Kinder trespass has entered the realms of the mythology of the outdoor movement, giving its few survivors a totally unsought aura of martyrdom.

Roly Smith

* John Anderson received the longest sentence for assaulting the gamekeeper, a charge he disputed to the end of his life and one which Derbyshire’s Chief Constable publicly stated in 1994 he was innocent of.

Who else attended the Trespass?

Jimmie Miller was there. He is better known as Ewan MacColl, the singer who wrote and recorded The Manchester Rambler. MacColl later married Peggy Seeger.

AJP Taylor, who in 1932 was a Manchester University lecturer, later became a distinguished historian.

Clem Beckett Clem ‘Dare Devil’ Beckett, the man who rode the Wall of Death on his motorbike.

Benny Rothman is, of course best, and widely known, for the mass trespass. Yet according to Harry Rothman “my Dad barely mentioned it as he always had too much on. He knew it was important but he was engaged in things that were immediately important such as trade union and Communist Party work.”

Although Benny had not chosen to go to prison he did utilise his time there productively by learning shorthand. This was to prove a very useful skill when he became a workplace union representative, allowing him to constantly challenge management when they changed their attitudes during negotiations and sought to dispute they had previously concluded an agreement. 

Born 115 years ago today: KINDER SCOUT HERO BENNY ROTHMAN ON FIGHTING FASCISM

 

 Born 115 years ago today

KINDER SCOUT HERO BENNY ROTHMAN – FIGHTING FASCISM

This work and many others can be accessed at:- https://markwrite.co.uk/home-2/

Any readers wanting to help fund this expanding site is welcome to do so. M C Metcalf sort code 60-09-27 77358244

Born on 1 June 1911, Benny Rothman is best known for his major role in the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass of April 1932 that paved the way for the 1949 National Parks & Access to the Countryside Act that ultimately led to the ‘Right to Roam’ Countryside and Rights of Way Act of 2000.

For more on this watch https://markwrite.co.uk/2018/11/29/mass-trespass/

Benny though was much more than just the Trespass.

So on the 115^th anniversary of his birth then on my blog at https://writemark.blogspot.com there will be  a number of articles from my 2016 booklet on Benny and which will be republished later this year in a new format.  It can be read at:- https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/6328-benny-rothman.pdf

Readers can listen to the book at:- https://markwrite.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/benny-rothman.mp3

We start with his fight against fascism across Manchester in the 1930s when he particularly successfully organised Jewish working class youth.

Blacklisted

When Benny came out of prison in 1933 following the Kinder Scout Trespass the continuing high levels of unemployment meant he could not find work locally as the negative publicity also meant he was blacklisted. The Young Communist League (YCL) proposed and he agreed to go to Burnley with Ernie Regan, an Openshaw lad of Irish extraction, where the pair would be involved in the struggle across North East Lancashire by clothing workers who were on a prolonged strike against the “more-loom system.” The aim was to build a YCL group but this proved almost impossible as any previous organisation had become defunct.

Benny found the poverty in Burnley to be much worse than in the Manchester area. Interviewed years later he recalled a young married man in his early 20s. The couple were living in a little terraced house and had a table but only one chair and a couple of boxes to sit on. They may have had one or two cups, but they were living in abject poverty. His wife was expecting a baby and he went to the hospital to arrange for her to go into hospital to have the baby. He was told she could only go in when she went into labour. At one point they thought she was going into labour and they rang for an ambulance but were told they had to make their way to hospital on their own. They set off to the hospital which was at the top of a long hill and as they were walking the last lap she collapsed on the pavement. A tram driver stopped his tram and took the couple as near as possible to the hospital. The baby was lost and the tram driver got into very serious trouble for doing what he did because he had breached regulations. “That was an indication of the atmosphere at the time," said Benny.

A sporting breakthrough

Attempts to get young people from the mills into a political movement floundered as meetings were very poorly attended. More successful was the establishment of a Sunday Football League but when the football authorities said they would exclude any football team who played in it from the ordinary normal competitions then this broke up. It was also possible to get a small rambling club started. But these were no consolation for the failure to build a political organisation. Benny returned to Cheetham after 4 to 5 months away, stating later “I wasn’t cut out for what I had been asked to do as I wasn’t previously that much involved directly in politics.”

Communist Branch revived

On his return home, he helped resurrect the Cheetham YCL branch in 1933 and became its first secretary. This was to become one of the two largest YCL branches in the country – the other being in another large Jewish area, Stepney. Later in the year, Benny helped set up the Challenge Club on Herbert Street, Cheetham. Challenge was the name of the YCL paper. The club, which eventually shared a healthy number of its 400-plus members and facilities with Cheetham YCL branch, offered an impressive range of activities including rambling, cycling, a boxing club, gymnastics and even Sunday evening dances that because of its amplified music became very popular with local young people. The club was to become the hub of anti-fascist activities in Manchester over the next few years.

Meanwhile the act of combining social with political activity meant the YCL branch grew to over 200 dwarfing the local CPGB membership itself which was less than double figures. Such growth failed to prevent Benny being criticised with his opponents fiercely arguing he was not engaging in political but social activity. Benny in 1933 at High Tor, Matlock. He was returning from the Clarion Cycling Club AGM in Nottingham.

Fighting MOSLEY

A former Conservative MP, Sir Oswald Mosley had been a minister in the Labour Government of 1929-31 but, inspired by Benito Mussolini in Italy, he helped found the BUF in October 1932. Taking advantage of the desperate economic climate right across Lancashire, Mosley aimed to make Manchester an important centre of his activities. He blamed the Depression on minorities, including Jews, and left-wing and communist movements, rather than on the capitalist system. Mosley was successful in obtaining the backing of the Daily Mail owner Lord Rothermere and at one point the BUF claimed to have 50,000 members, including a corps of black shirted paramilitary stewards, nicknamed the Blackshirts.

Fascism became visible in Britain at the same time as Adolf Hitler began to consolidate power in Germany after he became Chancellor on 30 January 1933. He then eliminated all political opposition prior to becoming dictator of Germany. Daily Worker reports on the battle against Nazi terror in Germany. In Manchester the BUF set up its headquarters in the Northumberland Street and Tyson Street areas where many Jewish people lived.

 According to Benny the BUF drew their membership from "lots of unemployed people who got a uniform and a club where they could box...there was a lot of antisemitism at the time." According to Manchester Chief Constable John Maxwell, the fascists adopted a "policy of deliberate provocation of the Jews...visiting the Jewish quarter to make insulting remarks which lead to outbreaks of disorder." The Jewish Chronicle of 24 July 1936 reported how fascists had appeared outside a Cheetham cinema that was frequented by many Jewish people and began selling their newspaper, Action, whilst shouting out “the only paper in the country not financed by Jews.”

Faced with such intimidation, Benny helped organise local opposition.

“The battles with Mosley’s Blackshirts started when they tried to go into Cheetham and were driven out by the YCL. We eventually made it impossible for them to hold an event. At one meeting we turned their van over and at any event they organised we turned up and heckled. On one occasion I was arrested but the charge was later dropped.”

However the fascists were able to hold weekly meetings in other parts of Manchester and they distributed literature door-to-door that sought to divide the working class on religious and ethnic lines. Eighteen new BUF branches were established locally in 1933 and 1934. The largest BUF activities were mass meetings and rallies, which were designed to demonstrate its invincibility to its opponents and potential supporters.

A large rally was held on 12 March 1933 at the Manchester Free Trade Hall and a further Manchester city centre BUF meeting was held on 29 October 1933. Benny Rothman was amongst the anti-fascists who physically opposed both meetings. At the former he was very fortunate when the event erupted into fighting between the fascist and anti-fascists, who were mainly Communists, and he was shoved over a balcony, only escaping serious injury when his fall was broken by a fascist sitting below.

Daily Mirror praises Mussolini & fascism

Fascism was meanwhile gaining significant political support and interest. The following day the Daily Mirror editorial was headed Eleven Years of (Italian) Fascism. It concluded “Rome was not built in a day, and Fascism, though nominally eleven years old, has its roots in the best of Italian civilisation. It is interesting that the Duce, (Benito Mussolini) in his message on Saturday emphasised the severity of his task before Fascism. Whether this revolution is the "world's word of command and hope " has yet to be proved. What will Europe be like at the end of the century?”

Then on 31 October 1933 the Daily Mirror carried an article reporting the comments of the Nottingham Lord Mayor Mr H Seeley Whitby headed “We need a Hitler” in which the Lord Mayor hoped for a man with “the energy and initiative” of Hitler and Mussolini.

At Belle Vue on 29 September 1934 Mosley picked up on Hitler's attacks on Jews by telling the audience that his opposition was "financed by Jewish financiers" who "had stabbed our men in the back when they were fighting in the last war." This event though proved to be a failure for the BUF.

‘Bye Bye Blackshirt: Oswald Mosley defeated at Belle Vue – Michael Wolf.

Reproduced thanks to Searchlight magazine.

 After the notorious brutality of the fascist meeting earlier in 1934 Mosley thought he would have a repeat performance in Manchester. To combat this threat an anti-fascist co-ordinating committee was created to counter the fascist thugs. A dynamic campaign of leafleting, fly posting and public meetings were organised to mobilise the opposition. Deputations were organised representing the broadest possible democratic coalition to demand the banning of the fascist meeting. In the face of all the protests the meeting was allowed, and to add insult to injury the Chief Constable banned all marches, a decision clearly taken to make anti fascist mobilisation more difficult.

However, the anti-fascists were determined that there would be no repeat of fascist violence and intimidation. Saturday 29th September the opposition mobilised.

Three marches from Openshaw, Miles Platting, and Cheetham marched to meet the hundreds already waiting to meet them at Ardwick Green to form a united demonstration of over 3,000 who would march along Hyde road to join the protest meeting outside Belle Vue. The contingent from Cheetham comprised in the main young working class Jewish activists from the Challenge Club, the Youth Front Against War & Fascism and the Young Communist League. Together they formed the backbone of the group that was to rout the fascists later in the day.

When the marchers arrived at Belle Vue they were greeted by the hundreds assembled for the protest meeting. The marchers however had not come to listen to speeches. They had come to stop Mosley.

At the agreed time they left the meeting, crossed the road and in orderly fashion queued up to pay their entrance fee for Belle Vue. Once inside the amusement park scouting parties tried to find the fascists. They had no success, as these examples of the “master race” were hiding in the halls hired for them.

Mosley was to speak from The Gallery which was protected by the lake, his supporters were to assemble on the open-air dance floor which was in front of the lake. Even so the fascist leader did not feel safe and in addition to the gang of thugs he called his bodyguard, there were wooden barriers and the police. In case this was not enough searchlights were available to be directed against the anti-fascists and fire engines with water cannon at the ready. The scene was set. 500 Blackshirts marched from a hall under The Gallery and formed up military style.

Mosley, aping Mussolini stepped forward to the microphone to speak. He was greeted by a wall of sound that completely drowned his speech. “Down with fascism”, “Down with the Blackshirt thugs!”, “The rats the rats clear out the rats!”, “One two three four five we want Mosley, dead or alive!” There were anti fascist songs, the Red Flag, and the Internationale. The sound never stopped for over an hour. In spite of the powerful amplifiers turned up to maximum Mosley could not be heard To quote The Manchester Guardian, “Sitting in the midst of Sir Oswald’s personal bodyguard within three yards of where he was speaking you could barely catch two consecutive sentences.”

Mosley tried all the theatrical tricks he knew to try and make an impression but without any effective sound he appeared like a demented marionette. Defeat stared him in the face and he knew it, as did his audience which slunk away as soon as the police bodyguard was removed. The humiliation of the fascists was complete. The only sound they could now hear was the singing of ‘bye bye Blackshirt’ to the tune ‘bye ’bye blackbird’, a popular song of the time.

With the fascists defeated and demoralised, the protesters raised their banners and posters high and proudly rejoined the meeting outside Bele Vue.

Mosley’s humiliation was complete, what was supposed to have been his most important meeting since Olympia was in fact the first of a series of defeats he was to suffer in Manchester.

DEATH TO FASCISM. 

 

Roly Gregoire - a night with Sunderland’s first black footballer

 

Roly Gregoire - a night with Sunderland’s first black footballer

Footballer Roland (Roly) Gregoire, the first black footballer to play for Sunderland AFC, and film maker Jeff Brown last night spoke to a 50-strong capacity crowd inside the Dominica Association on Worthington Street, Bradford, Roly’s hometown. They were warmly received and were later joined on stage by Bradford City heroes Cec Podd and Joe Cooke, the first black footballer at Oxford United.

Also in attendance was experienced striker Ray Entwistle, a team mate of Roly’s during his time at Roker Park. Johnny Meynell, historian for Halifax Town, from whom Sunderland signed Roly on Guy Fawkes Day 1977, was also present to show support and as was writer Bill Hern, co-author of Football’s Black Pioneers – the stories of the first black pioneers to represent the 92 league clubs.

The occasion helped highlight the launch of the Roly Gregoire Foundation and was the result of the release of Jeff Brown’s highly acclaimed BBC documentary film Whatever Happened to Roly Gregoire? Sunderland’s first black player.  This has already proved a major success with over 750,000 people having watched the footage as of Thursday (28^th May) evening.

It was Jeff’s determination to find Roly that made the film possible and it was clear at last night’s occasion that Roly – and his friends and family – are delighted he did so. Roly told the audience “He felt a lot happier in myself.” Well done to everyone concerned and especially Jeff, who said he had been inundated by an overwhelming number of positive comments on the release of his work.

I was personally delighted to tell the ex-player that I remember watching his single first team goal for Sunderland at the ramshackle Kenilworth Road in a 3-1 victory there in April 1978. It as a neat close-range finish to complete the scoring not long after he had come on as a substitute. He also played very well soon after in a 3-2 win at White Hart Lane where he did not look out of touch when up against stars such as Glenn Hoddle or Steve Perryman.

I was also present when Roly was very badly racially abused in the match against Blackburn Rovers a year later. Much of this abuse came from supporters in the Roker End and in the hours before I set off to Bradford last night I spoke to Alan, who amazingly is in the film footage of the crowd that attended the game at the Stadium of Light that Roly also attended, and told him I was attending. He spoke of how he, unlike myself, had been with his mates in the Roker End and found himself isolated on hearing the abuse as his mates would not also speak up. It appears the incident largely ended his relationship with these friends.

Roly had a bad game and was made the scapegoat for a defeat for promotion chasing Sunderland against relegation bound Blackburn Rovers. His record though with SAFC was a good one, six wins and four losses, one of which was at the Old Den where Millwall’s team contained one its first black players in Trevor Lee.

The ex-player spoke about this racist abuse in the film plus an incident during a club tour of Kenya where he was deliberately ignored by the hostess when the players visited the house of a wealthy couple. Leaving to sit on the bus outside he was forced to wait whilst the rest of the players enjoyed an evening of food and drink. The film also showed Roly visiting Sunderland AFC for the first time since the late 70s. He was, especially by FA Cup winning captain Bobby Kerr, warmly received and his daughter Akili also approached the SAFC club owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfuss to introduce her dad to him. Roly won’t be waiting over 46 years to revisit the club. Which is great.

Following a short presentation by Brown, the film was shown to the audience. On its conclusion Roly spoke about how proud he was about the work. He was also joined on stage by Cooke and Podd, who were cheered by those present. Disappointment was expressed at how few black footballers have gone on to be given the chance to manage top class teams.

Entwistle, Hern and Meynell all spoke briefly as did I to praise the film whilst I also pointed out that not so long ago, SAFC appointed a fascist as their manager in Di Canio. I suggested that once the Foundation was up and running it should consider erecting a plaque to Willie Clarke, Bradford City’s first black footballer and who, earlier during his time at Aston Villa became the first black footballer to score a goal in top flight football.

Roly did tell another few stories that are worth repeating. The first goes back to the end of season tour in Kenya in 1978 when he starred in the 5-0 victory against Mwenge, watched by 15,000 spectators.

The enthusiasm of the black youngsters present meant they dashed on to the pitch at the end to mob and shake hands with the Sunderland players. One of these was not best pleased and rubbed his hands on Roly as if that would mean he could ger rid of the stain of having been touched by black people. Roly did not name the player concerned. Roly was afterwards offered a lucrative contract to play in Kenya but was tied to playing for SAFC.

Then at the end of one game at Roker Park in which he was not playing he joined other players in a similar situation and entered the first team dressing room to congratulate the successful side. Amongst the victors one player was not best pleased to see him and refused his hand and called him a black b…..d. Roly pinned him up against the locker and then left straight after. But the incident made Roly look unhinged. The racist player was not named. Roly criticised the directors of SAFC from the time for doing little to challenge racism. His operation on his damaged leg that ultimately ended his promising career very early on was also badly performed by the SAFC doctor.

Then on one occasion when the squad was training on Seaburn Beach there was an incident when one player was picked out by the rest of the squad for some ‘banter’ and he started chasing Roly. “He started chasing me. Why was he chasing me, all the players and coaching staff were laughing.” He did not catch Roly, who was probably Sunderland’s fastest player at the time. “He knew he couldn’t catch me, if he’d chased another player he might have.”  

Although by no means putting aside his past experiences, Roly also spoke of how there were also many supporters who were supportive of him at Sunderland back in the 70s. “I did enjoy the supporters, they were very nice to me,” plus of how the film had given him some measure of comfort. “Three quarters of a million, maybe more than a million now. On me! I am overwhelmed, “ said a smiling Roly Gregoire.

The Roly Gregoire Foundation @RolyGregoireFoundation

https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Roly-Gregoire-Foundation/61590241798742/

Copyright – Mark Metcalf.