Haringey Local History Fair: Saturday February 23, 2013

Saturday February 23, 2013
11am to 4:30pm
Bruce Castle Museum, Lordship Lane N17
Tottenham

Find out more about Haringey’s history

•  Stalls
•  Experts
•  Speakers
•  Childrens Activities

Want to find out more about Haringey’s history but don’t know where to start? Well, this is the Fair for you.

Talks programme (each lasts 20 – 30 minutes):
11.15am The Discovery of a Harringay Estate Map by Bethany Burrow Atherton, (Harringay Online)
11.55am The Chinese Workforce Heritage Project by Robert Waite, Deputy Curator (on behalf of Ming-Ai, Institute, Bounds Green)
12.35pm Famous Sons & Daughters of Tottenham By Alan Swain (Summerhill Road website)
1 - 2pm Lunch break
2pm Alexandra Palace Theatre - a history by Marlene McAndrew (Friends of Bruce Castle)
2.40pm As Alan Saw It: Alan Woodward – An Appreciation of his Life and Work by members of Radical History Network for North East London
3.10pm Tea break
3.30pm The Moselle and Other Watery History by Albert Pinching & David Dell, Hornsey Historical Soc
4.10pm Picture This! The Public Catalogue Foundation by Deborah Hedgecock, Curator

The Search Room will be open 11am - 4pm
See a special small display of archives celebrating 100 years of Risley Primary School of Tottenham. Ask our staff about researching local history and family history. Please note: this is an introduction to the service and a chance to ask questions, and not a time for research.

New publications from Past Tense

Last week's Radical History Network of NE London discussion on the past, present and future of radical pamphleteering was packed out (20+ people) and riveting! Full report to follow soon....   Meanwhile, past tense press on with some new and exciting agitational publications. See below.

Dave
Dobro vecer.

Past Tense have been busy... staying indoors with the telly off, (to avoid
screwbilees and that poncy olympic ballroom horse ballet), we actually got
some writing and layout done... after some hot slaving over melting
hardware and glitchy software, we have put together a couple of books and
two free pamphlets, which are now available, from us direct, and soon from
select retail outlets.

TWO BOOKS:

• POOR MAN’S HEAVEN
The Land of Cokaygne and Other Utopian Visions
Omasius Gorgut.
Price: £7.00
ISBN: 978-0-9565984-3-1

“We’ll eat all we please from ham and egg trees
that grow by a lake full of beer…
The landlord well take and tie to a stake
and we won’t have to work like a slave...

In the face of a life defined by exploitation and suffering, the poor of
the Middle Ages dreamed up a fantastical land where their sufferings were
reversed; where people lived in idleness and plenty ­ and the rich were
barred. This myth of a free earthly paradise emerged in a popular song,
The Land of Cokaygne, in which rivers ran with wine and milk, the houses
were made of pasties and tarts, and animals ran around cooked and ready to
eat.
From fourteenth century Europe to the twentieth century USA, Poor Man’s
Heaven traces this popular fantasy, its links to the culture & customs of
the times ­ and the rebels who tried to turn dream into reality...

• “...TO DELIGHTFUL MEASURES CHANGED..”
Reflections on the 1978-79 Winter of Discontent
Price: £4.00
ISBN 978-0-9565984-6-2

The 1978-79 Winter of Discontent, forgotten and repressed as it may be,
nevertheless still haunts the memory of this society. The last great mass
success of the class struggle for the employed section of the working
class in the UK, it also marked the beginning of the new epoch - the
Thatcherite counter-revolution, a decisive change of strategy for British
capital.
The only time politicians and the media can bring themselves to mention it
is as their
ultimate horror scenario, one that must never be allowed to happen again.

“To Delightful Measures Changed” (compiled from two texts written by Dave
Wise and Henri Simon, then shaped into a killer text by endangered
phoenix) recounts the build-up to the the events of 1978-79, details (and
celebrates) some of the crucial struggles, and analyses them in their
economic and political context. It also asks searching questions about the
past, present and future role of autonomous workers’ movements and trade
unionism

and then there's
TWO FREE PAMPHLETS

• BOLD DEFIANCE
The Spitalfields Silkweavers: London’s Luddites?

For centuries, silkweaving was one of London’s biggest industries,
employing thousands in the East End. Through the 18th century, the
silkweavers fought to defend their wages & conditions: their tactics
included strikes, riots, sabotage and more. In some ways the issues they
faced, and the methods they used, anticipate those of the later Luddite
movement; but with crucial differences.
Past Tense's oblique contribution to the debate and commemoration around
the 200th anniversary of the Luddite uprising.

• WE REMEMBER THE ROTUNDA
...to coincide with the 2012 Cuts Cafe squat in South London’s Blackfriars
Road,  a short account of the groundbreaking 19th century radical space
that once stood opposite.

SO... HOW DO YOU GET YOUR HANDS ON THESE PUBLICATIONS...?

write to

past tense
c/o 56a Info Shop
56 Crampton Street,
London
SE17 3AE

For the books: enclose a cheque for the required amount, plus £1.00
Postage/Packing for the first item and 50p for each one on top.
For the free pamphlets, send two first class stamps per item.

BULK ORDERS: If you would like a few copies to sell/give away to your
mates, your local bookshop or for a book stall, let us know what you'd
like, and we’ll do you a discount deal.

please make cheques payable to Past Tense Publications.


We are in the process of putting together a past tense catalogue,
detailing all of our old and new publications that are still in print.
Watch this space...

Next discussion meeting: Radical Self-Publishing

Radical Self-Publishing
Wed 6th February 2013, 7.30pm
Wood Green Social Club. 3 Stuart Crescent, (off the High Road) Wood Green, London N22 5NJ (Not far from Wood Green tube station/end of White Hart Lane/Civic Centre) http://radicalhistorynetwork.blogspot.co.uk/

The past year has been a bit quiet for the Radical History Network of NE London, however, a few of us have got together who want to try and initiate a series of discussions for 2013. In order to make that happen we have organised a discussion on the subject of 'Radical Self-Publishing' for Wed 6th February 2013 at 7.30pm.

We have invited some speakers to kick off the discussion which will include some 'wanderings in the past present and future of the political pamphlet',  local examples of self-publishing, reference to local activist Alan Woodward, long-time convenor of RaHN and who self-published as Gorter Press, and current issues with technological forms of self-publishing, but anyone who attends can contribute their own ideas and the discussion will be led by the interests of those present, or just come and maybe learn something you didn't already know.

If you have any themes you would like covered in 2013 please come along and let's make them happen.

The meeting on 6th Feb will be divided into three parts:
1. Main discussion on the theme of Radical Self-Publishing
2. General discussion about the Radical History Network and what people would like to see in 2013, ideas for future meetings, how to extend the network, stay with same venue or somewhere different? Does anyone wish to take on various aspects of the practical side to RaHN? RaHN stall at Haringey Local History Fair (Sat 23rd Feb)
3. Updates on republishing of local activist and long-time RaHN convenor Alan Woodward's work, plus how to get involved in the archiving process, and ideas for a permanent home for the archives

New Kid on the Blog: Another radical historian turns to self-publishing

Pete Grafton, author of YOU, YOU & YOU!  The People Out of Step with World War II (Pluto Press, 1981)  has recently started his own blog at <http://petegrafton.wordpress.com >. He intends to publish the original, longer version of the book online in late Spring, and to follow it with an interesting new project resulting from his work on letters written in the late 1940s to and from Glasgow, Cairo, and Porton Down.

YOU, YOU & YOU!  pioneered a type of historical method which is now much more generally accepted, even in mainstream academic circles, as both valid and important: encouraging non-famous, non-line-toeing people who were there to speak in their own words about what it was like. Among other writers who have referred to it, Alan Woodward used Pete’s interview cassette and transcripts in After Cable Street – Joe Jacobs 1940 to 1977 (Socialist Libertarians, 2011, reviewed on this blog*) as his main source along with Joe’s papers  for the section on Joe and the war.

L.W.

* By the way, Alan seemed pleased with this review and said it made valid points. He suggested that it should be published in Black Flag, as it has been.

As Alan Saw It: Radical History, why it matters

The study of radical ideas and events is the ultimate in “hidden history”, perhaps the final stage in the movement for the examination of the unofficial, the informal, the less well recorded side of the past. There is a tendency to accept the institutions and procedures of modern society as if they have always been there, pre-formed, in a pristine condition, but the reality is more like a struggle between those in power, anxious to hold onto it at any price, and insurrectionary forces, plus direct action, from  those below, challenging that power. Radical history aims to correct the illusion of accepted wisdom.

But does all this matter, many would ask? As well as the pursuit of truth, a more pressing reason concerns future development. The authorities within what has been described as representative capitalist society today will naturally wish to promote concepts of continuity, planned change and other conventional concepts that the school curriculum holds dear. Hence dissent and resistance to the powers-that-be are usually relegated to sanitised explanations, or nominal appearances.  

In the present “War against terror” the government have gone beyond traditional and customary bias. Today dissent is trampled on in an unprecedented way. Say a word out of place at a political conference, display placards opposing government policy, demonstrate without  police permission, try to give out leaflets on the streets of Haringey and you run the risk of prosecution under Terror Laws or similar repression. So the need for celebration of our past in all its diversity is even greater now.  

Risking repetition, it is worth examining briefly the extent to which modern society is indebted to  the informal, unofficial, un-sponsored activities of past dissenters. The right to vote was violently opposed for centuries by the autocrats in charge of Britain. The first recorded demands came from the common soldiers in Oliver Cromwell’s New Army, as expressed by  their “agitators” [shop stewards]. Their demands are in the Putney Debates. Centuries of repression and killings followed before the modern system was finally conceded. Thus it can be said that modern “democracy “ had its origin in  dissenting movements, and labour organisations like unions.        

The National Health Service - collective clinical provision for all without payment at the point of treatment - can be traced back to the pioneering mineworkers of the last century, who hired doctors, set up clinics, etc., in their locality. There was none of the charity, petty accounting or condescension that was characteristic of the age. The capacity of ordinary people to create bodies to meet their own needs, without the paid experts, cannot be better exemplified.

Even  “the beautiful game” came from the non-official working class practice. Despite recent attempts to hijack football  history by Lord Melvyn Bragg and co., close examination of their case reveals that the role of the bureaucrats came only in the regulation by Rule, a function that  they were very familiar with. Without so much as a penny of government or corporate funding, and beyond the care of a protective Board, the game was adapted, expanded and applied, all over the world. Not even a vanguard party in sight!! We can see the results on our televisions.

So to sum up: within the ranks of the unofficial, the dissenter and the “threats to society as we know it”,  may be found the ideas of  future improvements. History is still being made. Ignoring radical history is to be short sighted indeed and the local Radical History Network of NE London, or RaHN, caters for those with a stronger sense of perspective.

Extract (slightly edited) from Alan Woodward’s March 2009 draft entitled  No gods, no masters, no wars - an interim history of the Radical History Network of North East London.