In 1970, I met, at peace activist Dennis Gould's home in Cornwall, an unassuming musician and writer of, it seemed to me, indisputable talent and originality. He'd just had his first LP Bill Fay released and I was so impressed, I wrote a piece about him in the rock magazine Zigzag.
This launched a valued friendship with Bill which was marked last month, by the release of his third commissioned studio album, Life is People, to a set of rave reviews unequalled in my…
On paper this book should have a lot to offer PN readers. It begins in 1911 with the introduction of Connie Calloway, a fledgling suffragette, to Will Maitland, a cricketer, and traces their relationship through her increasing involvement in politics and his eventual path to war. This is a fascinating historical period, and a fictional account of a young woman moving from talk to action, whilst drawn to a man who despises her values, should have engaged and involved me.
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There are not so many anarchist pacifist poets in print that we can afford to overlook any one of them. In John Rety’s case he was – what ever else – a hard man to overlook or ignore. He was by nature a (nonviolent) combatant and faced with an empty room he’d have had an argument with himself. A cliché, I know but its truth suited him to the ground. So, this posthumous collection of new and selected poems is a welcome arrival and worthy of attention.
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Many PN readers will remember these critically acclaimed books, charting events in the final years of the First World War, from when they first appeared in the early 1990s. The first was later made into a film and the third won the Man Booker prize.
The two main characters are the fictional Billy Prior and the non-fictional William Rivers, an army doctor who treated victims of war trauma. In the first book, two of Rivers’ patients are the war poets Siegfried Sassoon and…
Munich 1972. I am seven, enthralled by Korbut’s gymnastics, Spitz’s seven golds for swimming. This is the first time I’m old enough to get the Olympics. I am vaguely aware something bad has happened to some Israeli athletes, but too young to realise that politics and the Olympics go hand in hand.
Moscow 1980. I am 15, old enough to understand the US is asking us to join their boycott (because of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan) but young enough not to know what I think. I do…
We’re guessing that PN readers divide roughly 50/50 on the Olympics. Half of us are blissfully ignorant of the whole thing. Half of us know varying amounts about what happened. (At a UK level, 90% of the population watched at least 15 minutes of coverage, according to the BBC.)
If you want to take the most positive, Colin Ward-ish perspective, you can cherish the fact that ‘the British nation’ has taken a black man (an immigrant from Somaliland) and a mixed-race woman to its heart, as…
PHOTO: Emily Johns
“This banner is one of many that I and Lorna Vahey have made for the peace movement. Our first banner was made when Hastings Against War was formed ten years ago. We have also made ones for International Women’s Day and against domestic violence. They are all used for demos, conferences and stalls in the High Street. Our speciality is making banners for individuals at times of celebration marking their lives as peace makers. There is one we gave to Connie Mager (see BBC…
‘Writing is a lonely business and the theatre is a collaborative art. Adrian was a social animal and a political one. He believed in the power of poetry and theatre to change the world. This was a deeply-held belief, not naive. He knew the limits but he never lo#st the faith. He had a passionate belief in music/theatre, in the use of song. He worked with musicians and composers of all kinds, both classical and popular. He loved working with groups of people.’ – Celia Mitchell, Introduction…
The Olympic Shenanigans reminds me of an Olympic year in the 1970s when an alternative olympics was held one afternoon on Clapham Common in London.
Events included the Short Jump, (the winner of this event I recall successfully jumped over a human hair), the 100 yards (yes - yards in those days) metaphysical analysis in which contestants had to walk - slowly - 100 yards, thinking very deeply - the winner being decided not only on the slowness of the walk but by the quality of the…
A rich record of creative intervening, interfering and interpreting the physical and psychic destruction of East London by the Olympic monster. The contributions to this book speak in a language verbal and visual that poignantly describes the true, felt experience of state-sport-sponsored obliteration of communities and personal worlds.
The book is also an important reminder of 1000 people evicted from homes and businesses in 2005 to make way for bigger business.
A powerful and…
Today’s corporate Olympics is a far cry from the movement’s original vision of ‘a potent… factor in securing universal peace’. Perryman believes a better Games is possible, proposing a combination of decentralisation, ditching “rich men’s” sports, and banning commercial use of the Olympics symbol. Worth reading even if you hate sport.
In the weeks before the London Olympics, a sense of foreboding descended on many of the people who, like me, live and work in Newham in east London, one of the poorest and most ethnically-diverse parts of the capital.
This anxiety, shared even by those who are enthusiastic about the spectacle of the Games, was heightened by the stories about snipers in helicopters, missile-launchers on tower blocks and RAF fighters in the skies and predictions that it might become almost impossible to…
In November 1950, 52 delegates arrived in Dover, bound for the third congress of the (Communist-inspired) World Peace Council in Sheffield. All but one were denied entry.
Whether the Foreign Office considered modern art too esoteric to have much propaganda value (across the pond the CIA took a different tack, covertly promoting Abstract Expressionism as a Cold War weapon) or it was simply too embarassing to turn back the world’s most famous living artist, Picasso was admitted.
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Piano accompaniment by Michael Conliffe. Directed by Olusola Oyelele. Designed by Phil Newman. 4th-20th May 2012. Warehouse Theatre, Dingwall Road, Croydon CR0 2NF. £12/£11. Box office 020 8680 4060. Further performances: 26, 27 August, Greenbelt Festival, Cheltenham Racecourse.
If you get off a train at East Croydon, you may well gaze around and wonder which of the towering office…
