TO OUR GRANDFATHER dedication by two of Willie Layton's Australian granddaughters

 TO OUR GRANDFATHER

On 8th June 1912, nearly 112 years ago, and with his footballing career behind him, Willie Layton suddenly disappeared from his pub, The Butcher’s Arms in Whitwell, never to be seen again on English soil. The mystery of why he left remains with his two families on both sides of the world, to this day.

On that date, Willie sailed to Australia on the “Somerset” out of Liverpool, accompanied by his brother Edward. It was a sudden disappearance for those left behind, although the trip was clearly planned, tickets and passage booked. His brother was in on the secret, and Willie’s age was lowered by two years to enable emigration to Australia. By today’s standards it is staggering to think what he left behind - his wife Elizabeth, his three surviving English children, his livelihood. He also left behind his footballing career, his extensive fame, his memories, his parents, his two sisters and one other brother………indeed his whole life – with no forewarning and no explanation. Willie lived the next 32 years of his life in Australia, in obscurity and away from any hint of fame or attention. He never returned to his homeland and never saw his English wife and family again.

Upon arrival in Australia, he returned to mining in Sydney. It was a very dangerous mine with dreadful working conditions, and it must have meant a difficult life. He remarried in 1914 to Margaret, who bore him four children, and 7 years later he, his wife and young family moved to Lithgow, a coal mining town in regional NSW. He never played football again, and he forbade his two sons from playing the game.

He resumed his miner’s life until 1929, when he suffered a serious accident whilst driving a sulky, which rendered him unable to work again, in the mines or anywhere else. Sadly, Willie spent the last 15 years of his life in great pain, using alcohol as a pain killer. He died exactly 80 years ago today, on the 17th April 1944, at the age of 68 - an unhappy and unfulfilled man, in impoverished circumstances due to his health and the consequences of the Great Depression and World War 2.

At present, Willie Layton’s legacy in Australia consists of seven surviving grandchildren, thirteen great grandchildren, and seventeen great, great grandchildren. One of Willie’s great granddaughters, Alyssa Clark, toured England to play futsal for Australia in 2013. She still plays football in Sydney for Premier League women and for the Royal Australian Navy teams. Narelle (Alyssa’s Mum and one of Willie’s granddaughters) also came to the UK, attended a game at Sheffield Wednesday, and met with many of Willie’s UK descendants through the wonderful hospitality of Bill Layton, another of Willie’s great grandsons in the UK. Instrumental in this coming together of the two Layton families was John Brodie, the Sheffield Wednesday historian, to whom we also owe a debt of gratitude. The uniting of the two families from either side of the world, in such extraordinary circumstances, was a truly memorable moment.

Willie appears to have been an enigma – a man who lived a paradoxical life. Both the English and Australian families have speculated at length as to why Willie suddenly up and left. Survivor guilt perhaps? Inability to handle fame? Fleeing from debt? Unhappy marriage? Perhaps he had already met Margaret before he left England? Clearly the reason was Willie’s alone.

The Australian families were delighted to see a plaque recently being unveiled in Blackwell Colliery to honour him,

RIP Willie Layton – deservedly honoured but the enigma lives on.

Written by two of his granddaughters, on behalf of the extended Australian Layton family.

Charlie Hurley tribute podcast by A Love Supreme

RIP Charlie Hurley (04-10-1936: 22-04-2024) 

The 35 minute podcast on which I appear around 15 minutes is at:- 

https://www.a-love-supreme.com/single-post/charlie-hurley-tribute-podcast

The flowers of freedom: How a red carnation freed Portugal of tyranny – 50 years ago today

 

The flowers of freedom

News Feature

How a red carnation freed Portugal of tyranny – 50 years ago today

Thursday, April 25th, 2024

Reading time: 10 min

 

From Unite Live 

https://unitelive.org/portugal-carnation-revolution-50-years-ago-today/

April 25, 1974 – and the world witnessed a 48-year authoritarian reign of terror that had stunted industrial development being swept aside in Portugal by a coup led by middle ranking army officers.

Known as the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) they had become radicalised by the Iberian nations determination to retain its sprawling colonial empire, large parts of which in Africa were fighting back and winning. The MFA cut the head off the armed forces by getting rid of 100 generals.

The coup, mainly in Lisbon, unleashed a torrent of workers’ activity that, following a 19-month period when their existed the possibility of a socialist transformation, helped bring about a democratic revolution that dramatically raised Portuguese living standards, freedoms and horizons.

Portugal’s fascist dictator, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was a contemporary of Hitler, Franco and Mussolini and ruled one of Europe’s oldest countries, a key UK ally, from 1932 to 1968. He died in 1970. 

Sham elections had followed in which the government candidate ran virtually unopposed whilst other parties used the limited freedoms to protest. The secret police – the PIDE – which could arrest anyone considered to be plotting against the regime continued to harass, imprison and murder communists, socialists and trade unionists, forcing all of them to organise secretly.

Meanwhile, brutal colonial wars continued to be waged in Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau by the Portuguese state that, with Salazar keen to retain his title of Emperor, had, unlike other major colonial powers that had abandoned their colonies following WWII, chosen to continue to occupy.

Change was desperately needed. 

Yet hardly anyone was aware when they woke up on April 25, 1974 that it was already happening. A coup had started after rebel soldiers had heard their secretly agreed signal at 12.20am on Radio Renascence. This consisted of the playing of a song by Zeca Afonso ‘Grandola, Vila Morena.’ Following which troops immediately began occupying strategic points of power in the country. The song later became famous as the anthem of the revolution.

When the generals then found troops not involved in the plot were unwilling to follow orders to attack their comrades and were, in fact, desperate to participate in the revolt then it was clear that, despite the PIDE shooting dead four of the demonstrators, an unstoppable movement had begun.

It was one that with rebel troops taking to wearing red carnations in their gun barrels became known as the Carnation Revolution.

A spontaneous mass movement then exploded across the country. Factories were occupied and enormous demonstrations organised.

Now married to Unite Landworker photographer Peter Smith and happily living in Norfolk, the then 17-year-old João Zilanova (pictured in main photo) was a high school student living with her grandparents in the University town of Coimbra outside Lisbon.

She had spent her formative years in Mozambique. Her dad was an agronomist providing technical support to the white farmers, many of whom treated local people very badly, sent to populate the southeast African country occupied by the Portuguese following their arrival there in 1498.

“He was a secret socialist. The local people who worked for us were not treated as servants. My mother, a kindergarten teacher, began providing social services like weighing babies locally for everyone, black and white. We were unusual but being so far from Portugal meant the secret police were not everywhere. We had books from all the great socialist writers.”

The Mozambique War of Independence between the FRELIMO guerilla forces and Portugal had started in 1964. Despite driving everywhere in his Land Rover; João’s dad was never attacked. “The guerilla’s saw their enemy as the Portuguese military led by General Spinola. Dad was often told to stay away from areas that might prove to be dangerous.” João s dad was also in Lisbon on April 25, 1974.

“No one knew what was coming. My sister and I went to High School on the morning of the 25^th and at lunchtime they told us to go home. We caught the bus, when we saw a demo, we joined in. My father was delighted,” states Joao.

“The disastrous overseas wars had inspired the initial rebellion but then the workers came to play a big role. It was like the cork coming out of a bottle of Champagne. Workers occupied factories and mass meetings discussed how to re-organise society. The atmosphere was electric, everything seemed possible. Women played a big role.”

Backed by the Catholic Church, Salazar’s reactionary family values had blocked women from working in many workplaces.

The Catholic radio station Renascensa, founded in 1936, was occupied. People tuned to hear what was happening. It told people, who for decades had feared talking openly to their neighbours in case it led to them being reported to the authorities, to come to protest in the streets or support occupations.

Searching for a new way of living was difficult.  In 1975, London born Carlos Guarita, a Unite Community member from Dorset, returned to the country where he had lived with his grandparents in the 1950s.

His Portuguese parents had fled to London to escape poverty and possible persecution after his dad participated in a tram strike that was defeated when his workplace was occupied by the PIDE and military.

Speaking from Lisbon, where he has joined the 50^th anniversary celebrations, Carlos, who was later a TGWU steward at Ford Dagenham before becoming a photographer who specialised in working in war zones, said: “It was a very confused situation in 1975. That was not too surprising especially as many people were illiterate plus there was no recent history of open political discussion. There were 13 parties of the left. Workers were left confused. Plus, change had not been initiated from below by the masses. There were no horizontal structures and state power remained.” This later allowed members of the Salazar government and his PIDE thugs to escape justice for their crimes.

A coalition government that included the Socialist Party and the Communist Party was established. Yet despite the fact that the elections in April 1975 took place in a period of revolutionary ferment, most Portuguese voted for parties committed to pluralistic democracy.

Meanwhile, new forms of trade unions had been established. It is estimated that around 380 self-managed factories and 500 co-ops were in operation by the summer of 1975. Empty housing properties too were occupied. Banks were nationalised.

By August 1975 official statistics showed that over 330 different land collectives were operating.

“This was because landless farmworkers seized land allowing them to secure production of crops from their land that were collectively organised and controlled by the workers not the government. This allowed farmworkers to provide themselves with regular employment, lifting themselves out of poverty but also increasing agricultural products to be exported,” explains Bev Clarkson, Unite National Officer for Food, Drink and Agriculture (FDA). “This is the power workers have if they work collectively together, in short this is grass roots trade unionism.”

By September 1975, Guinea-Bissau had gained independence and talks were underway on the liberation of the other colonies. According to retired farmworker John Burbidge, who chairs the Tolpuddle Unite FDA branch, these developments helped create revolutionary change across Southern Africa.  “Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and the Apartheid regime in South Africa could no longer rely on Portuguese military backing and Mozambique became a base for guerilla raids into South Africa by the APLA. This forced De Klerk to release Nelson Mandela and negotiate the end of Apartheid.”

In Portugal in November 1975 an attempted coup by far-left activists keen to establish communism was supressed in favour of more democratic means of running the country.

A new constitution, followed by elections, was accepted in April 1976. By declaring the extensive nationalisations and land seizures of 1975 irreversible meant, even though the co-ops, collectives and workers’ committee had to negotiate on capitalist terms for the price of the labour, a much brighter future lay ahead for the Portuguese people. 

Such has proved to be the case.  “Electrification of the whole country has facilitated a stronger industrial base. There have been massive improvements in the education and health systems,” states Carlos, who is also proud that after 1974, Portuguese exiles in Britain established the International Workers’ Branch in the TGWU. 

João too recognises how life for ordinary Portuguese has improved in the last 50 years.

“When my granddad died, my grandmother did not even have a pension to exist on. People worked till they died. And there were no social services.  That changed after the mid-70s. Life has improved as a result of the April 25, 1974 Revolution that was so exciting to be a part of and that ended fascism in Portugal and brought about a form of social democracy. I am delighted to be here today in Lisbon on the 50^th anniversary.”

Sue Longley, general secretary of the International Food, Farm and Hotel workers told UNITElive, “The 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution is a timely reminder that we can never take democracy for granted.

“It brought an end Europe’s longest-lasting dictatorship and was the beginning of the end of Portugal’s colonial empire.

“Looking around the world today we see the rise of the right and the increasing attacks on democracy. As in 1974 so now, trade unions around the world must fight to protect democracy. This should be our way to honour the Carnation Revolution.”

FIND OUT MORE

João recommended the novel A Small Death in Lisbon by Robert Wilson for readers keen to find out more about the historical context of the 1974 Revolution and its aftermath.

By Mark Metcalf

Photos by Peter Everard-Smith

 

Former Derbyshire mining community celebrates its football heritage and commemorates colliery workers as three plaques unveiled: Derbyshire Times

Great day. 

Former Derbyshire mining community celebrates its football heritage and commemorates colliery workers as three plaques unveiled

Three plaques have been unveiled in Blackwell commemorating the village's colliery workers as well as two FA footballers who played for the local football team - Willie Layton and Billy ‘Fatty’ Foulke.

https://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/news/people/former-derbyshire-mining-community-celebrates-its-football-heritage-and-commemorates-colliery-workers-as-three-plaques-unveiled-4602425

Delighted to help open Hackney Art Activism Festival

 It was great to play a role in opening the 10 day Hackney Art Activism Festival on Saturday 27 April. 

My role was to speak about the work of the Colin Roach Centre between 1993 and 1999 and I followed Graham Smith who spoke of the work of the Hackney Community Defence Association.

Times article justifies my decision to challenge Charlie Hurley on the title of his authorised biography

Charlie Hurley died on 22 April 2024.  

Back in 2006 when I met my dad's favourite footballer Charlie Hurley to discuss getting his backing for the book I was writing on him the meeting went well and Charlie agreed for it to become an authorised biography. It came out in October 2008 and was a big success. A series of public speaking events went, especially in the North East, very well. 

As we moved towards publication date one issue that did concern Charlie was the title "The Greatest Centre Half the World has ever seen" and which was taken from the chant by Sunderland fans "Whose the Greatest Centre Half the World has ever seen?" Charlie felt it might lead to some of his ex team mates, as footballers do, having a joke at his expense and alsoseem a bit big headed. 

I was insistent that was the title, stating "it is your legacy this book and that is what the fans who loved you thought" and so it stayed as the title. Amidst the many articles written following his death relatively few have done Charlie justice in terms of his ball control and ability to direct the play. So it was great to read The Times obituary, clearly written using the book, that does the great man justice. 

RIP Charlie. 

RURAL REBELS AT HEART

 

RURAL REBELS AT HEART

From the Peasants’ Revolt to defending local services, there’s a Unite rural member at the heart of it

Slightly longer version of article from Spring 2024 edition of a Unite Landworker article, which is below. 

 

The National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers (NUAW), which lives on as part of Unite, features prominently in the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) online exhibition on The Evolution of English Rural Life that also incorporates earlier rural protests plus Joseph Arch’s National Agricultural Labourers’ Union (NALU) of the 19^th century.

The countryside has always been marked by class struggle. The 1381 Peasants’ Revolt that had numerous causes was triggered by the ruling class attempting to pay for an expensive war in France by collecting unpaid poll taxes.

Brought on by the prospect of starvation, the Captain Swing riots of 1830 across southern and eastern England saw barns set alight and the smashing of threshing machines that had replaced flails, which feature in the exhibition.

Four years later an attempt by landless labourers at Tolpuddle to form a trade union led to persecution and the deportation of six men that in the aftermath resulted in such massive protests that the men were eventually allowed to return home.

And so it goes on. Rural resentment continued to simmer. Labourers needed a voice. That was found in the figure of Joseph Arch, a hedger and ditcher from Bedford whose natural talent for speaking drew enormous crowds. He was able to form NALU in 1872. Within two years 86,000 labourers – around a tenth of the rural workforce - had joined and wages had been improved.

However, when the farmers imposed a lock out and drove conditions back down it forced some of the best militants to seek work overseas and the union collapsed in 1895, by which time Arch had become a Liberal MP.

With poverty causing real countryside hardship the NUAW saw rural workers re-organise. The new union began in 1906 in Norfolk where major strikes broke out in three villages in 1910-11. Pay was upped and a Saturday half-day won. The NUAW’s first banner from 1913 is displayed online.

Victoria Cross

William Holmes had worked closely with George Edwards to establish the NUAW. He became its General Secretary and later told American trade unionists: "In many of our villages, a man who joins a trade union is worthy of the Victoria Cross that's won on a battlefield. In many villages he dare not be known to be a member of the union. But to be a branch secretary! That is to risk one's livelihood every day in the week".

Which brings us to today. We meet three of our own ‘rural rebels.’

It is a belief echoed decades later by NUAW activists in Tony Gould and Barry Leathwood who alongside Chris Kaufmann also subsequently worked for the union and who together in the mid-80s contributed heavily to the book SKILLED AT ALL TRADES – The History of the farmworkers’ union 1947-1984, at which point the NUAW amalgamated with the Transport and General Workers Union (UNITE) that also had its own agricultural sector.

The only voice of dissent

Tony Gould had gone to grammar school but enjoyed working with animals, so began as a general farm boy before progressing  to becoming a pig herd manager. He was 28 when, unimpressed by the inequalities he witnessed on a large Cornwall estate, he joined the NUAW as they “were the only voice of dissent… I saw farmworkers who lived blameless lives, yet they were very poor”.

As a Labour Party member, Gould was unimpressed by farmers that went around talking about honesty but who were engaging in tax evasive activities.

He knew the NUAW were represented on the Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) and would stick up for them if they were sacked and being forced to leave the tied accommodation which came with their job. Around two-thirds of Gould’s fellow workers on a relatively large farm were NUAW members but which, nevertheless, the employer refused to recognise.

His employer, who three months earlier had told him that  his job and trade union activities were incompatible, showed Tony no mercy and sacked him. Fortunately, the NUAW then stepped in with a favourable grant to allow him to study at Ruskin College, Oxford. Just before completing his degree, he became the Kent NUAW District Officer in June 1975. He remained a union official for 30 years and even today is active as the branch secretary of the Tolpuddle Unite branch.

“I was delighted to represent farm and rural workers. One of the major struggles was opposing tied cottages that led to numerous cases of workers who’d lost their jobs, often for no real reason, who were then summarily evicted from their homes. We’d try, occasionally successfully, to stop this by mounting immediate protests, which generally attracted press coverage, or by helping find new accommodation.

“But it also required political action. Thanks, in a large part to the tireless, heroic efforts of Joan Maynard, helped by the fact she subsequently became an MP in 1974. She was from a rural background. We managed to see past the Rent (Agricultural) Act 1977 that meant from then on workers in tied cottages assumed the status of “protected occupants”.

This meant that those in tied cottages had security of tenure until they were re-housed by the local council.

Like Tony, Barry Leathwood was delighted by the passing of the 1977 Act, especially “as it was something the NUAW campaigned for over many decades”.

Leathwood was born on a farm and thrust as a youngster into helping out his dad, a Cheshire NUAW district official, collect members subs by cycling round to local farms. Even after he qualified as a mechanical engineer and became active within the AEU, Barry, with help from his wife Ann, retained his involvement by assisting NUAW members after his father suffered a heart attack.

In October 1973 Barry became the NUAW District Officer in Somerset which had a few large farms that included one large mushroom farm of 1,200 employees. “This meant we could create a traditional bargaining unit of shop stewards and win wages and conditions way above the norm across the industry. It was the forerunner to the TGWU and Unite being able to organise within poultry processing plants”.

Barry was also able to recruit farm workers aware that their bosses would never give them a pay rise except for the AWB’s existence. “And they knew too that the NUAW had managed to establish pay increases for craft workers of 15% plus through the board.

“Later on, when the Tories sought to abolish the board in the 90s a successful campaign by our members forced them to back down”.

Barry subsequently became lead negotiator at the Forestry Commission where he came up against a number of managers who were ex-military. “They sought to treat workers as raw recruits but found themselves on a long learning curve. We had a lot of good able people as members and achieved decent pay, welfare and health and safety conditions”.

 

People’s ban

One highly successful health and safety struggle that won international support was led by Chris Kaufmann, who worked for the NUAW from 1974 onwards and became Landworker editor in 1980.

Employed in industrial agriculture when it was sprayed on fields to kill weeds, the herbicide 245-T, which contained dioxin, was known to be unsafe after it was used by the US military in Vietnam.

“We had many members complaining of the effects of 245-T. We took up their concerns vigorously and discovered we had support worldwide.

We sought to get the product officially banned. Although we did not get that agreed by Parliament here or in New Zealand, where the last factory manufacturing the product was based, the issue had become so toxic that everyone had stopped buying it. It was a People’s Ban and it became uneconomic to manufacture”.

Another successful NUAW safety campaign led to it being compulsory for tractor cabs to contain a heavy bar on the roof to prevent them tipping over.

“Dozens of workers, including farmers, who initially had a remit to ignore the new regulations, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of many of them, owe their lives to the NUAW, who, once again, campaigned for decades, “ explains Chris who also referenced how the establishment of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority in 2004 was a body  that the NUAW had sought as long ago as the 1930s.

All three men also believe the NUAW was key to keeping alive rural services by joining with others, including the Women’s Institute, in defending local bus services, post offices, GP surgeries and village halls. Landworker magazine gave members a means of highlighting rural issues in general.

“NUAW activists also got elected to local Parish Councils where they’d campaign to retain rural schools. They’d try to hold the line,” states Chris.

“Many NUAW members were brave to stand up for their rights and those of their fellow workers. They should be remembered,” states Tony Gould.

By joining in 1983 with the TGWU, NUAW members combined with TWGU agricultural workers in a new NISC trade group, obtained greater access to legal support and TGWU sponsored MPs and were able to call on drivers in the TGWU not to cross picket lines when there was a dispute on.

Today, our ‘rural rebels’ are happy to keep a watching brief and advise the rest of us when asked.