More Mining Memories

Here is a notice of a significant meeting

Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Labour History Society

Miners at University

The Derbyshire Area NUM day-release course 1952-94

Saturday 21 November
Hurst House, Abercrombie Street, Chesterfield (see this map)
2 pm (Doors open 1.30)

John Halstead, one of the course tutors, will explain briefly
- How and why the course began
- Its main features
- Impact of the day-release programme

Then those present who attended the programme will be able to share their experiences.

All welcome

Please note that there is parking for disabled people only at Hurst House.
Long-stay parking is available nearby at Holywell Cross surface car park or the multi-storey car park.


From : NDLHS 22 Boythorpe Avenue Chesterfield

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This is a group of Derbyshire Miners who completed their three year Day Release Course in 1960. The photograph appeared in the Derbyshire Times on 7 May, 1960. They are presenting Miners' lamps to two of their tutors, who are the men wearing glasses. On the left is Noel Williams of the Workers Education Association who taught economics and on the right is the politics tutor Royden Harrison from Sheffield University Extramural Department who was a leading Labour Historian and whose final book was to be "The Life and Times of Sidney and Beatrice Webb : 1858 to 1905 the Formative Years". From left to right the students on the course are (1) Les Ralley who became a leading figure on the Chesterfield Rural District Council, the North East Derbyshire District Council and the North Wingfield Parish Council, (2) a 27 year old Eric Varley who four years later was to embark upon his parliamentary career, (3) W. Whitaker, (4) E. Lawrence presenting the lamps, (5) E. Bradbury and (6) N. Wade. Further information about Whitaker, Bradbury, Lawrence and Wade would be welcome.

25 Years Ago

Here is a worthwhile follow up to our discussion meeting on 8 November as shown in our right hand column -

Get your tickets now – if you can’t attend, let others know – this will be the only other 25th anniversary event in Derbyshire !

BOLSOVER WOMEN’S ACTION GROUP

25 Anniversary of the Strike Celebration

Saturday 28 November 2009

Speakers -

NUM National President - Ian Lavery

Notts Area NUM Secretary - Keith Stanley

Dennis Skinner MP .

Venue .....
The Arkwright Community Centre
Hardwick Drive
Arkwright Town
Chesterfield
Derbyshire
S445BS

19.30 – to midnight

Tickets £5 (includes Pie and Pea Supper)

No ticket – no entry.

All proceeds from ticket sales and the raffle to

The National Justice for Mineworkers Campaign

and

the NSPCC.

For tickets, please contact Toni Bennett:

Toni’s contact details are:

E-mail: TBDB8@aol.com
Phone: 01246 826 032

SOLIDARITY IS STRENGTH

For directions etc, see: http://www.thearkwrightcentre.co.uk/default.aspx?tabid=786

First impressions of a Labour Party Conference

At our regular meeting on Sunday 11th October Rosie Smith gave us her first impressions of this year's Labour Party Conference. This was Rosie's first visit to a Labour Party Conference.

Rosie is a Sheffield University Undergraduate Studying Politics, Youth Officer to both the NE Derbyshire Constituency and the Dronfield Labour Party Branch and Constituency Delegate to the 2009 Labour Party Conference.

After the meeting Rosie was presented with a birthday cake.

What Did You Do On Your 20th Birthday?

Rosie Smith is a Sheffield University Undergraduate studying Politics. She is Youth Officer to both the North East Derbyshire Constituency Labour Party and its Dronfield Branch. She is attending the current Labour Party Conference as the Constituency's delegate.

She will then address the next meeting of our Discussion Group on Sunday, 11th October to give her "First Impressions Of A Labour Party Conference".

If you think that following up her Conference visit with a talk is dedication beyond the call of duty, then what about the fact that she is to give her talk on her 20th birthday? Think of what you did on your 20th birthday?

I was in Basra with the RAF doing my National Service and at least had a celebratory drink in the NAFFI. 4 years later I was due to attend the 1960 Labour Party Conference for the first time as a delegate. But I dropped out as it clashed with my starting full time study at Ruskin College in Politics and Economics. It meant that I missed Hugh Gaitskell's dramatic claim that he would "Fight, fight, fight and fight again to save the Party I love" over the Labour Conference adopting a unilateral policy which he was opposed to.

Gaitskell's response was raised during our last Discussion Meeting so I thought that as it was so long ago, I had better explain what had happened to Rosie and Caroline her sister who were present. For it was the equivalent to someone making a passing comment about a speech by Keir Hardie at the time when I was a young Labour activist! Except of course Rosie, Caroline and their mother Christine are all so steeped in Labour Party activity that they probably all know more than I do about both Hugh Gaitskell and Keir Hardie.

UPDATE - On the Labour Conference, this Austin Mitchell's piece in The Times on Monday 28 September is a recommended read.

Labour : What Is To Be Done?

1931 Labour Poster
The next discussion meeting of the Dronfield Labour Party on September 13th will be an open debate with the above title.

Below I give my own contribution to this topic as a means of opening up the debate. It is, of course, my personal viewpoint and emerges from a democratic socialist perspective; although many fellow democratic socialists are likely to disagree with me.

To join in the debate via our comment box, you don't have to be a visitor to our discussion meetings. Contributions will be both worthwhile in their own right and as preparation for our eventual discussions.

MY ANALYSIS.

1. Labour is heading for a drubbing at the General Election.

2. There is no way to avoid this via a change of leadership, for there can be no smooth change of leader in the current circumstances.

3. We, therefore, need to prepare our minds now for the dramatic situation which will emerge immediately after the General Election. Remembering that New Labour will still hold a firm majority of the remaining Labour seats.

4. In the meantime we should work via the Labour Party to try to limit the scope of the coming electoral defeat, so that democratic socialists have a base to work through for the future.

5. This requires democratic socialists to be inside the Labour Party, working to hold onto whatever they can of Labour's traditional working class support.

6. We need to press for feasible programmes which are directed to tackling unemployment, poverty and communal deprivation. This involves stressing the importance of matters which the Labour Government are already pursuing in these areas.

7. Whilst such an approach is both correct in moral and economic terms, it is also necessary in electoral terms to enable Labour to hold onto as many seats as possible. It is, therefore, a position which is also likely to have a short-term appeal to elements of New Labour.

8. The moral and economic relevance of such an approach will also have significance after the coming electoral defeat as New Labour will be on the back foot after the election, as its overall approach will be in tatters.

9. The development of further feasible proposals for democratic and social advance will be easier in the above circumstances.

10. Democratic socialists need to operate in the above ways or we will be subject to the following judgement which was made about our predecessors from the time of the 1931 slump - "Socialism explained the past and promised the future; it had nothing of consequence to offer the present". The fact that the quote comes from Robert Skidelsky, does not mean that it is an an incorrect assessment of what occurred. It is imperative that we do not repeat past failures. Although on the plus side, it must be remembered that it only took 14 years from Labour's collapse in 1931 for it to achieve the triumph of 1945 for the best Labour Government in our history. So perhaps I can look forward to my 87th birthday.

Gordon Brown at his best

See the video here - http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/07/22/brown-and-the-worried-wired-world/

It lasts 15 minutes and reveals an impressive Gordon Brown.

From Venezuela To Dronfield

Colin Burgon addresses the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign with Hugo Chavez and Ken Livingstone alongside.


At a packed discussion group meeting on Sunday, Colin Burgon the Labour MP for Elmet gave a talk on the impact of Neo-Liberalism on Venezuela and the socialist response to this under the Presidency of Hugo Chavez. This has led to public ownership in the oil industry, banking, the food industry and elsewhere. With resources being redistributed to the poor. Oil being the keystone to the Venezuelan economy.

Colin extended his analysis to relate to the impact of neo-liberalism on both politics throughout South America and our own experiences of it as initially shaped by Thatcherism.

His talk stimulated a particularly keen discussion which continued when we moved to socialising in the lounge bar of the Dronfield Contact Club. For further details on Colin's analysis see this speech that he made in the Commons in March.

After the first election of Chavez in 1999 a Military Coup temporarily removed him from office in 2002, but within 2 days his supporters re-established him back into the Presidential Palace without a shot being fired. Thanks to the presence of an Irish TV crew the events were filmed and appear on the DVD "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". As Colin said this is highly dramatic, rather as if a film had been made of the storming of the Winter Palace in 1917 which led to the triumph of the Bolsheviks. Copies of the DVD can be obtained from here.

Chavez (left) signing copies of the DVD.

The extent to which Venezuela can be a model for reshaping democratic socialist objectives will depend to a large extent on how democratic its political system, its nationalised industries and the internal arrangements within its major political parties are - especially in the newly established and leading
United Socialist Party of Venezuela. It is a good sign as Colin pointed out that under the Constitution the President can be subject to a recall election by 10% of the voters and that the new Constitution is widely read and studied by Venezuela's working people.