‘Bread not Bayonets’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0UxMadnIEA
The story of Halifax in August 1842 when local workers downed tools to join a nationwide general strike for better pay and extended voting rights and found themselves ruthlessly suppressed with many killed and injured.
32 minutes long
Directed and edited by Francesca Platt and produced by Mark Metcalf.
Two famous footballers who worked at Blackwell Colliery, Derbyshire and 7 miners who were killed there in a pit disaster in 1895 are to be remembered at a special plaque unveiling on April 18th
https://markwritecouk.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/blackwell-plaques-cc.mp4
FIND OUT HOW TO HELP BLACKWELL COLLIERY COMMEMORATE ITS MINERS’ AND TWO OF ITS
FINEST FOOTBALLERS BY ATTENDING THE COMMUNITY HALL AT MIDDAY ON FEBRUARY 25TH
Two famous footballers who worked at Blackwell Colliery, Derbyshire and 7 miners who were killed there in a pit disaster in 1895 are to be remembered at a special plaque unveiling on April 18th
Bolsover TV coverage
https://markwritecouk.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/blackwell-plaques-cc.mp4
On the afternoon of Thursday 18 April there will be unveiled three plaques in Blackwell Colliery that will commemorate two of its greatest footballers and seven miners who lost their lives in a mining disaster in 1895.
You can find out more & get involved by coming to
Blackwell Community Hall at 12 noon onwards till 3pm on Sunday 25 February.
Especially welcome would be any descendants of the miners killed.
Billy
Foulke, Willie Layton, James Fryer, John Gibson, John Jones, James Mee, Joseph
Penshaw, Thomas Shaw and William Martin.
Blackwell
colliers Billy ‘Fatty’ Foulke (1874-1916), a pupil at the local school,
and Willie Layton (1875-1944) played for Blackwell Colliery Welfare FC
and both won the top flight title and FA Cup with Sheffield United and
Sheffield Wednesday respectively with Foulke playing for England and Layton for
the Football League. Foulke also represented Derbyshire County Cricket Club.
(DCCC)
Willie
Layton was fortunate in that his football duties meant he took the night of
10/11th November off work at the colliery and avoided being caught
up in an explosion that killed: James Fryer, John Gibson, John Jones, James
Mee, Joseph Penshaw, Thomas Shaw and William Martin.
Plaques to the two footballers and the seven men are now to
be mounted at the community hall and pit wheel respectively. Blackwell primary
school children are to help out on this special occasion.
Come along on 25 February to discover more
Are you a
descendant of any of the seven miners? If so then we would welcome you getting in touch and hope you
can come along on 25 February.
Are you a
former miner at the colliery that closed in 1969? If so then we would welcome you
getting in touch and hope you can come along on 25 February.
Are you a
relative of a former footballer who lived in Blackwell Colliery and can tell us more as the Greater
Creative Home Truths Heritage Project would like to interview you for its oral
history project.
Two short
documentary films on Foulke and Layton at:-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k1fcY5vtPo Layton
– a tale of tragedy and triumph https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zei3KpirqW0 The
Biggest and Best: Billy Foulke
For more
details contact football historian Mark Metcalf 07392 852561 metcalfmc@outlook.com and/or Cllr Tony
Gascoyne on 07968 971015 gazzaddr@hotmail.co.uk
BLACKWELL COLLIERY COMMEMORATION OF ITS MINERS
AND TWO OF ITS FINEST FOOTBALLERS
On the afternoon of Thursday 18 April at 1.30pm, Blackwell
Colliery will, by unveiling three plaques, be commemorating two of its greatest
footballers and seven miners who lost their lives in a mining disaster in 1895.
Blackwell colliers
Billy ‘Fatty’ Foulke (1874-1916), a pupil at the local school, and Willie Layton
(1875-1944) played for Blackwell Colliery Welfare FC and both later won the top
flight title (Division One) and FA Cup with Sheffield United and Sheffield
Wednesday respectively with Foulke playing for England and Layton for the
Football League. Foulke also represented Derbyshire County Cricket Club. (DCCC)
Plaques in honour of both men will be unveiled at
Blackwell Community Centre. Family members will be centrally involved in the
ceremony. David Griffin from DCCC also be speaking.
A plaque will also be unveiled at the nearby pit wheel
in memory of the 71 colliers known to
have been killed at Blackwell Colliery (1872 -1969) and listing the following
seven who died very early on Monday 11th November 1895 in an
explosion.
James Fryer
John Gibson
John Jones
James Mee
Joseph Penshaw
Thomas Shaw
William Martin
Attempts are
being made to find descendants of these men so as to involve them in the
ceremony.
Willie
Layton himself was due to be at work on Sunday 10th/ Monday 11th
but absented himself in order to play a big football match the following day. Layton
is the great grandfather of artist Michael Knighton, a Manchester United
director between 1989 and 1992, who is paying for the plaques.
A number of events
and activities are being organised in the lead up to 17 April.
Two short
documentary films have been made on Foulke and Layton and can be viewed at:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k1fcY5vtPo
Layton – a tale of tragedy and triumph
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zei3KpirqW0 Foulke
It is hoped
to make a third on the seven miners.
More details
can be provided by football historian Mark Metcalf
07392 852561
metcalfmc@outlook.com
The Biggest and Best: Billy Foulke
View at:-
MAXINE
PEAKE BACKS BOLTON TRADES COUNCIL FUND
RAISING APPEAL FOR A DOCUMENTARY FILM ON THE REMARKABLE BETTY TEBBS
Following the publication by Unite of a booklet on Betty
Tebbs remarkable life, Bolton Trades Council are raising up to £6,000 to make
a 30-minute documentary film on BETTY TEBBS – A radical working class hero.
Maxine Peake is backing the appeal – listen to what she
has to say at:- https://markwritecouk.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/betty-tebbs-funding-appeal.m4a
“I’d like to appeal to the trade union and labour
movement to donate up to £6,000 towards a documentary film about the life of my
great friend Betty Tebbs.
Betty was a life-long socialist of 98 years who’s
indomitable fighting spirit and trade union organisational abilities helped to
win improvements in pay and conditions everywhere – particularly at the East
Lancashire Paper Mill – that she worked across the printing and retail sector.
Following the drop of nuclear bombs in Japan in 1945 she
dedicated her life to Peace by
campaigning with CND. She was resolved
to improving women’s rights through organisations such as the National Assembly
for Women.
In her later years, Betty, whose first husband Ernest,
joined the war effort “to fight fascism” and laid down his life doing so, took up the cause
of the Palestinian people.
It was great that four years ago Unite published a biography
on Betty compiled by Mark Metcalf who is now combining with film maker
Francesca Platt to make a 30-minute documentary film on her life.
Funds are needed - £1500 has already been donated – and can
be sent to Bolton and District United Trades Council, Account number 59020222
Sort code 089018
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Production
of the film will be undertaken by Francesca Platt, production manager of
the Bolton arts project The Videobox at https://www.thevideobox.tv/contact-us/
alongside writer Mark Metcalf.
The pair recently collaborated on a well-received 30-minute documentary
film BREAD NOT BAYONETS – Halifax 1842 on the uprising, part of the 1842
General Strike, in the West Yorkshire town in 1842. This can be viewed at: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0UxMadnIEAt
Funds for this work were donated by a number of trade union
branches.
The work will consist of additional research, on screen
interviews, site visits, sourcing music, photography, editing and production.
There will be a number of costs associated with the work.
There will be a public screening of the completed works and
it will be available free to labour movement organisations & community
groups. The work will go online.
Copies of the Unite publication on Betty Tebbs at:- https://markwritecouk.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/6328-betty-tebbs-web.pdf Hard copies from Mark Metcalf on 07392 852561
or metcalfmc@outlook.com
Draft resolution This branch agrees to support the
appeal by Bolton Trades Council towards the costs of a documentary film on
Betty Tebbs. We agree to donate……………..
Donations to:- Bolton
and District United Trades Council, Account no 59020222 Sort code 089018
Charlie
Clutterbuck has “warmly welcomed” news that Hull is set to become the first UK
city to give people the "right to grow" their own food on public land,
and now wants “the idea adopting nationally.”
Labour
councillor Gill Kennett acted after a local resident’s vegetable patch, which
provided wholesome food for neighbours on public land had to be dug up
following a complaint by a newly-arrived householder. Working closely with Hull
Food Partnership (HFP), Kennett proposed a motion that won unanimous support at
the September full City council meeting backing the right to grow vegetables on
land owned by the authority.
“I feel strongly that this ticks so many boxes for
Hull. We are a deprived city and having access to good fresh food, enabling
people to get together to grow it and encouraging skilled growers to pass on
their skills to the less experienced can bring communities together, make
places look better, help tackle social isolation and potentially improve the
mental health of some people,” said Kennett. “Plus, at a time of a
cost-of-living crisis it can help reduce food bills.”
Council officers are now working to bring to life
Kennett’s proposal with a report to go before the Communities, Culture and
Leisure Scrutiny Committee in January outlining possible locations, providing access
to water at them and examining the finance required to relieve pressure on
insurance costs. “It might take a few months to get officially started, but I
am excited at what we are trying to achieve,” said Kennett, who for many years
worked in children’s services and on retirement became a councillor in 2012.
“It is great to see what they are planning in Hull,”
said Clutterbuck who has mapped many parts of the NW to show food can be extensively
grown on wasteland and who was central to the establishment of the Incredible
Edible Project, Todmorden, formed in 2008 by Pam Warhurst who has been passing
on her experiences to HFP.
“Rubbish land in a valley in the middle of the
Pennines, producing salad crops nearly all year round, several thousand pounds
worth of fruit-tree cuttings, and supporting bees, ducks and cows shows we
could stop transporting food half way around the world by better using our
public realm and reconnecting people to growing food, which includes vegetables
and fruits, often not stocked by supermarkets, for diverse communities,” says
Charlie.
HFP development officer Anna Route is keen for communities
to get the official go-ahead to grow food on disused public land. “There are
people want to do so now. It will take time to attract others but the more
sites there are across the city will mean they’ll get noticed and attract new
people. It needs to be viewed as a long-term thing as that is how growing works.
It takes determination and effort, trial and error and to keep trying. But the
rewards are worth it.”
Unpublished article for uniteLANDWORKER Winter 2023/24
A coalition of charities led by the League Against Cruel
Sports (LACS) are campaigning to push National Park Authorities (NPA) in
England and Wales to do all in their power to end fox hunting on our national
parks.
When Labour did finally sweep away hunting with dogs in 2005
it needed the Commons Speaker Michael Martin to invoke the Parliament Act for
only the fourth time since 1949, after Conservative peers in the Lords
constantly refused to pass the legislation despite MPs support for it on a free
vote.
As the trade union for rural workers, the TGWU (now Unite)
welcomed the legislation viewing fox hunting as unnecessary and cruel with
foxes dying terrible deaths after being pursued over lengthy distances before
being caught and ripped to death by the chasing pack.
The Countryside Alliance (CA) was predictably hostile,
predicted that the legislation would be unenforceable and threatened
defiance.
In the first two years there were just eight successful
prosecutions under the Act but, thankfully, the numbers have risen consistently
ever since. However, there is an overwhelming body of evidence – LACS recorded
nearly 1,000 incidents in the last hunting season - showing fox hunting with
dogs is still being pursued under the smokescreen of ‘trail hunting’, which
involves a pack of hounds following an artificially laid scent.
LACS is calling on NPA to follow in the footsteps of the
National Trust and Natural Resource Wales in banning trail hunting on their
land. A petition to this effect is being handed into the NPA soon and other
activities will follow.
Karen (*), (not her real name) a farmer with her husband in
North Yorkshire who lives close to the North Yorkshire Moors and Yorkshire
Dales National Parks. (NPs) supports LACS campaign.
“Fox hunting takes place regularly locally and this disturbs
lots of wildlife. There have been prosecutions but anyone speaking up takes a
serious risk of being harassed.
“Older farmers hunt because they see it as a tradition and a
social event. But others are quite vile and enjoy witnessing a fox or a minx,
as they also hunt those defenceless animals, being ripped apart.
“I am pleased LACS and other bodies have a campaign to get
NPs to do everything in their power to end fox hunting across their regions.
This won’t be easy as they don’t own the land and there are some big, powerful
landowners within these areas.”
Only 4% of land in the Lake District (LD) Park is owned by
the LD National Park Authority.
The Duchy of Cornwall – now Prince William - is one of the
largest private landowners in England with an estate of 135,000 acres of which
13% is in Cornwall and half of which is on Exmoor National Park in Devon and
where animal rights campaigners are seeking to have the law vigorously upheld.
The future King and his wife are keen hunters and William
has spoken out in support of trophy hunting in Africa.
It is apparent therefore that it is not going to be an easy
task to push the NP Authorities, which are legal bodies charged with
maintaining a National Park, to act to help finally end fox hunting.
To take action go to: -
https://takeaction.league.org.uk/page/131959/petition/1?locale=en-GB
MORE RURAL
SOCIAL HOMES CALL
Wait list
length is just plain wrong says Defend Council Housing
UniteLANDWORKER
Winter 2023/24
Housing campaigners
Defend Council Housing (DCH) wishes to speak to rural households stuck on the
ever-growing rural social housing waiting lists that has now reached 197,894/ The
testimonies gathered would be fed into an All-Party Parliamentary Group enquiry
into the need for council housing.
Lord Best, who led the Joseph Rowntree
Foundation for many years, has written extensively and chaired many commissions
on housing. “As the National Housing Federation (NHF) has revealed the national
position for rural housing has worsened quite dramatically in recent years………….trends
(include) pricing out locals… (and) a fall in availability of private rented
accommodation. In Devon the County notes a 50% decline and in North Devon alone
a 67% fall in just 2-3 years.”
The NHF
figures show that 46,318 additional households were added to the national
social housing waiting list in rural areas between 2019-2022. And with just
5,953 new social rent houses constructed rurally over the same period then the
crisis is growing at a rate 10 times that of towns and cities.
Best sees
the answers lying in national and local government action. “We need to enable
councils to stop the loss of longer-term lettings to Airbnb-style lets through
a planning consent requirement and we need to embark on a major programme of
social housing, not least for rural communities where so much council housing
has been sold under Right to Buy.”
Best chairs
the Devon Housing Commission that has already had 170 submissions, mainly from
rural and coastal communities, from those facing severe housing difficulties.
A similar national
enquiry is now being organised by Best’s parliamentary colleagues that comprise
the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) Housing and Social Mobility whose
purpose is ‘to champion social housing providers that support communities to secure
sustainable livelihoods’ by ‘examining evidence led insights.’
DCH is providing
secretariat (administrative) support to the APPG that is co-chaired by MPs
Peter Aldous (Tory) and Liz Twist. (Labour)
DCH is keen
to collate the experiences of rural households stuck on long waiting lists for social
housing and would welcome the assistance of Unite members in rural communities to
make this possible. The group has already set up meetings in urban areas
including Rochdale but wants to reach out into countryside communities.
According to
Eileen Short, “we are seeing the return to the slum, overcrowded,
insecure living conditions of the 19th century that drove the mass council
housing movement in the first place.
“Whether you
are in housing need yourself or deeply concerned for future generations, help
build a movement to address the housing crisis.
“This
initiative could help reveal the facts about the present state of housing and
detail how to mend the housing crisis. Please make contact if you can assist,” she
added.
In
conjunction with Homes for All, DCH has put forward a 5 Point Plan which
aims to provide concrete proposals to help solve the housing crisis.
1.
Government investment in a mass council housing building programme, including
requisitioning of empty homes and abolition of ‘right to buy’
2. Rent controls and secure tenancies in the private rental sector. Robust
regulation of housing associations
3. New funding to repair and refurbish existing council housing – do not
demolish
4. Adequate funding for fire safety, and for retrofitting and thermal
insulation
5. Planning for the people and the planet, and not for developers’ profits
To contact
Defend Council Housing ring 07342 098440 and at info@defendcouncilhousing.org
See also
Homes for All website at www.axethehousingact.org.uk
