NO GENTLEMEN HERE - HALIFAX 1842 - fund appeal for new film

 

NO GENTLEMEN HERE – HALIFAX 1842

 

HALIFAX BORN SONGWRITER AND HISTORIAN CATHERINE HOWE BACKS THE FUND APPEAL FOR A FILM TO REVEAL THE FORGOTTEN EVENTS OF HALIFAX 1842. 

 

Ivor Novello Award Winner Catherine Howe, known for her 1971 album What A Beautiful Place and 1975 song Harry supports plans to make a 10-minute film revealing, through original source material, the events which took place in Halifax over two days in August 1842. 

 

Filming follows her book HALIFAX 1842: A Year of Crisis published in 2014 in which she describes a military attack upon workers in Halifax, West Yorkshire during Britain’s first national labour strike.   

 

Howe, who made a number of film and TV appearances in the 60s and 70s, will be donating her time to scripting the film which is to be co-produced by Dave Hackney of the film company Digital Cortex and journalist Mark Metcalf with backing from Calderdale Trades Union Council. 

 

£5,000 is required for this work which it is hoped will increase awareness of a period in British history that is highly significant and which has long deserved to be remembered and commemorated. 

 

Catherine and Mark are happy to speak at meetings about the project to raise awareness of the role northern county industrial operatives played in the political reform of Britain.   Already Calderdale Trades Union Council has organised the unveiling of a plaque at the Calderdale Industrial Museum to remember those who participated in these momentous events, as well as a half-hour filmed documentary ‘Bread Not Bayonets’ which associates events in Halifax 1842 with those at Peterloo Manchester in 1819.

 

‘Bread Not Bayonets’, directed and edited by Francesca Platt and produced by Mark Metcalf, has been viewed by more than one thousand people.  You can see it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0UxMadnIEA

 

Mark has since made films with Dave Hackney at https://www.youtube.com/@markmetcalf07

 

If you would like to help, funds however small can be donated via Calderdale TUC, Unity Trust Bank, Sort Code 60 83 01 Account number 20305688 Please reference donations as HX1842

 

Please also feel free to contact: 

Calderdale TUC. http://www.calderdaletuc.org.uk @calderdaletuc  info@calderdaletuc.org.uk  

Mark Metcalf: 07392 852561 

Catherine Howe: catherinehowe.contact@gmail.com