The Barnsby Blog

BENAZIR BHUTTO.
A dreadful crime was committed yesterday in the name of religion in Pakistan with the murder of Benazir Bhutto. Her death makes almost inevitable civil war in that vast country.  Washington, meddlesome as ever, says that al Qaeda  had claimed responsibility for the act , but that she was the target of all militant groups in Pakistan including the Taliban and militant sympathisers in the government of the president, Pervez Musharraf.
Our thoughts must be with local Muslims, many of whom have spoken out today. Muslim leader Muhammad Rashid, imam of the Madina Masjid and Islamic Centre in Wolverhampton says he fears her death will lead to mass demonstrations and even civil war. He was leading prayers today for the dead at the Newhampton Road East mosque. He said that we don’t agree completely with her politics but she was like a national leader and he feared a very big reaction to her death. It is unusual to get a public statement from a Wolverhampton figure and I have urged the Wolverhampton Inter-faith Group to take some public action to protect our Muslim fellow citizens from the Islamophobia which is liable to bring attacks on them or even death. So far without avail.
Fortunately Muslims are more active elsewhere. Councillor Kurshid Ahmed of the Dudley Muslim Association predicted more bloodshed and serious consequences. Oldbury Councillor Mahboob Hussain with relatives in Pakistan said the serious consequence was liable to be that innocent Muslims are caught up in it and get hurt. And Birmingham City Cabinet member for local services Lib Dem Ayoub Khan said he was in a state of misbelief. He had shared a platform with  Benazir at the Aston Villa Leisure Centre last year where they spoke about the value of democracy and allowing the people free elections in Pakistan.
We can only await with considerable alarm further developments from what is basically the actions of British and American imperialisms past and present..

THE FINAL DISAPPEARANCE OF THE BRITISH CAR INDUSTRY.
A £500million transformation of the former MG Rover site at Longbridge once the economic powerhouse of the British car industry, is set to be turned into a mixed development with 1,400 homes to fill the massive void left behind since the demise of Rover in 2005.
Who can one turn to protest at this final betrayal of Britain’s industrial power?  Certainly not to the New Labour governments which have connived at the betrayal of our industrial base. To search for the culprits one must turn to Harold Wilson’s governments in the 1970s, his half hearted attempts at nationalising the industry. The bringing in of Michael Edwardes from South Africa in 1977 with the task of destroying Red Robbo and the trade union movement in the car industry which he mistakenly believed was destroying the industry when its actions were directed at saving it. That Edwardes himself was sacked five years later by Margaret Thatcher who completed the destruction of Britain’s industrial base.
Today in protesting at this latest betrayal, we can turn to Derek Robinson, still alive and kicking, and also Tony Benn who Harold Wilson had removed from his post of Industry Minister just as nationalisation was succeeding.
We will also have the support of all those who have fought to retain our basic industries against the discriminatory policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the equally discriminatory policies of the European Union and its Common Agricultural Policy which discriminates against the poorer members of the EU and means that both their industries and their agriculture fall under the control of the richer members.  This is particularly true as the EU is enlarged to include East Europe and Turkey and creates social problems of unlimited immigration.
If our industrial base is to be restored, it must be protected against being transferred to countries of cheap labour such as China and India, and such protection is likely to reap its own reward as the Longbridge plan envisages as well as homes a business park for cutting edge industries.  This is the sort of industry which has never left the Black Country with its superlative engineers such as those who have restored steam engines, rebuilt old cars, cycles, motor cycles, engines which still power such sites as the Bratch water pumping station at Wombourne and all those who have created with the Director, Ian Walden, the Black Country Living Museum. This is our past, our present and our future.We dare not have it destroyed by the idle, the indifferent and those hostile to our traditions.

NEW YEAR’S DISHONOUR LIST.
This is the time of the year when both the worthy and the unworthy line up to take the honours of a British Empire that ceased to exist, thankfully after about 1950 , and was then replaced with a less obnoxious object, The British Commonwealth. Unfortunately its honours system remained obsolete and offensive, and various Orders of the British Empire on which the sun never set and the blood never ceased to flow are accepted without thought by white people and much worse, also by black people when they should  know better.
It was always the policy of the British Empire to reward those who collaborated with it and there have been too few people such as the Rastafarian rap man, Benjamin Zephaniah who have refused to be dishonoured in this way.
Two of the most abject figures who should have known better are Sir Trevor Phillips, the man who said that the war in Iraq was ‘not within his remit ‘ when he was chair of the Race Equality Council and now as chief executive of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights refuses to answer questions on his present attitude to that war. The other notable has been Salman Rushdie who should have understood that his acceptance would have created mayhem among those who wanted his life for the Satanic Verses and others more reasonable who think that Rushdie should have refused the award.
Today we learn of those in the Black Country who have accepted these outdated baubles.  The most worthy of a better fate is probably Rachael Heyhoe Flint. Not only is she the face of women’s cricket; member of the English women’s cricket team from 1960 to 1982, captain between 1966 to 1978  unbeaten in six test series. Captain of England as they won the first Women’s World Cup sponsored by Sir Jack Hayward in England in 1973. Since 2000 she has been president of the Lady Taverners which has raised over £6million pounds for sports charities, particularly for disabled youngsters with such projects as adapted minibuses. She also played a large part in making the former male only institutions of cricket open to women.
She has always been prepared to speak her mind and says she feels very sad about the demise of cricket as a team game in our schools and sport in general in our schools and adds rather cryptically that until we recover these facilities, cricket is very much a minor consideration.
Rachael is very much a national treasure well aware of the needs of a modern multicultural society. Perhaps she can be persuaded to use her campaigning capabilities to modernise our present ‘dishonours’ list, and, as a last resort, she could always follow another honourable tradition and return her Order of the British Empire.
The only other well-known name in the Black Country list is Julie Walters of Smethwick who has given us so much pleasure in the past but who is well capable of reflecting on what she has accepted.
Of the others who have accepted, little can be said and no doubt their services to the community have been as described, although on the education side there seems to be a preponderance of those from Educational Academies which promote inequality rather than equality.
There are, however, ethnic minority people for whom there is no excuse that they should accept the awards of Empire.They include Amir Kabal of Staffordshire, member of the Learning and Skills Council, itself considered racist by many. Also Gurbachan Singh Dhinsa for services to the community in Sandwell. Both should have known better.

ARSENAL ON TOP.
Arsene Wenger and his team of youngsters sit on top of the Premiership at the beginning of year 2008 . The significance of this is that Arsenal stand for the ownership of clubs by the local community and rejection of the idea that a team can only exist in the top four if it has billions of pounds and is owned by a foreign potentate. Long may their success be a beacon of light to the whole football world.

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE BLACK COUNTRY.
An extraordinary sequence of articles in the Blackcountryman Winter 2007 sets the scene. The first is the ‘Descriptions of Birmingham and the Black Country’  in  James Woodhouse’s, The Life and Lucubration’s of Crispinus Scribulus by Stephen Van-Hagen. It begins with the poetry of Woodhouse, notably heroic couplets for which Alexander Pope was famous: ‘Deep in the dale Industrious Stourbridge stands/Alert with shuttles, looms and neighbouring hands.
Van-Hagen observes that many labouring-class poets wrote in heroic couplets well into the nineteenth century. He then quotes six works by Woodhouse the others being Poems on Sundry Occasions; two vols of Poems on Several Occasions; Norbury Park and other Poems; and Love Letters to my Wife,  all published between 1764 and 1804. It seems that Woodhouse was born in the Black Country and returns to this area in his writings particularly in describing his visits to Shenstone’s, ‘The Leasowes’. Sven-Hagen ends his article by suggesting that both Woodhouse’s reputation and that of his creator are at last growing and seems are destined to continue to grow as scholars interrogate this vast and rich work. Sven-Hagen also appends a secondary bibliography of considerable interest to those of us who are interested labouring class authors. In particular Cafarelli AW - Romantic Peasant Poets and their Patrons; Klaus HG - The Literature of Labour, Two Hundred Years of Working Class Writing (1985); and Robert Southey’s, Lives of the Uneducated Poets.
An author’s note tells us that he is doing research for a full length study and would be interested in hearing from any one locally with an interest, particularly from anyone who thinks they might be descendents of Woodhouse. His e-mail address is svenhagen@hotmail.co.uk and his address Dept.of English & History, Edge Hill University St.Helens Rd. Ormskirk, Lancs L39 4QP

KANYA WACKETT’S OBSERVATIONS.
The second article on Black Country history had the above title and the author was Brian Dakin or to use his real name Billy Spake Mon. Billy is a well-known Black Country personality. He begins his article by saying that he would think few people had ever heard of Kanya Wackett, but in his opinion he is an important contributor to our to our working class culture and literature. ‘His acute observations jump from the page to capture the worldliness of his position and the earthiness of the men who were the steel mill workers of Accles and Pollock in Oldbury’. This piece will not delve into Wackett’s history; this is a project being undertaken by Rooster Spake, himself (Billy Spake Mon) and Lozz Hippkiss of Rooster Studios and Black Country podcasting. In this account he deals primarily with one book, ‘Little Bigguns and Big Littluns’. To many it will be a mystery, but 5000 people once worked at Accles and Pollocks mills and it is part of folk law that at one time you could tour the world and find something made in the factories of Broadwell and Paddocks. The factory was perhaps the starting point of our new and developing multicultural society, with workers from all nations mixing with local men and women in the draw tube sheds, the furnaces and the long lines of machine filled mills. The conversation would always come round to Kanya  Wackett or WC Hackett as his workforce knew him.  The affection and respect in which they held this man was second to none.  When Accles and Pollocks moved from Perry Barr to Oldbury early in the twentieth century Hackett became its driving force. He saw the importance of the steel industry to the region. His objective was to build a workforce proud of every piece manufactured in his works. He understood the duties of one human being to another and his greatest treasure was always his workforce. He and his wife set up welfare organisations such as the Sons of Rest. His pride in his business and workforce often brought challenges. One such challenge was ‘The Smallest Tube in the World’. One day some Americans were visiting the works and presented him with a tube finer than that of the finest needle and claimed that it was the smallest tube in the world. When the men left Wackett showed it to his workforce who said, ‘Leeve it wi we, sair’.  The needle was eventually sent back to America with an A&P tube inside it!
No one knows why he began to use the name Kanya Wackett, but it was probably due to the fact that he hated being pretentious and elitist and if he used another name the work would stand on its own. He might also have though that it would appear more Black Country.
How did these volumes come into the hands of Billy Spake Mon? His uncle Eric who had worked at Accles and Pollock told him that his neighbour was going through her late husband’s tool box, which it was customary to bring home when a man retired. In the box was three small books in pristine condition. They were personal accounts and observations of Wackett’s travels and experiences of enormous importance as an extension of his known works, but which requires more than a simple reprint because all his works encapture the spirit of the Black Country and its dialects. None more so than Littul Big Uns and Big Littluns.
The factory was moving from Perry Barr to Oldbury by the only know transport, ‘oss un cart’. The tubes were all mixed together, so Hackett gave the job of sorting to an Oldbury man. Although the tubes were of various sizes such as 2″, 1 and 3/4″, 1/ and 1/2″ etc.the man had not sorted them using these sizes, but mixed them all together, so that when he was asked how he was getting on he replied. ‘Well, sair, them’s the big uns, them’s the littluns, them’s the littul big ‘uns and them’s the big littluns”.  Such are a few of the treasures to be found in Kanya Wackett’s books.
Lozz Hipkiss and Billy Spake Mon make clear that if anyone has stories of their own about working for Wackett at Accles and Pollocks at Oldbury they would be most grateful and they can be contacted at, Lozz Hipkiss 01384 231013 or lozz@roostersstudio.com and Bill Spake Mon 0121 552 4201 or dakinbrian @hotmail.com
Clearly there are masses of material to be collected for our archives, universities, colleges and schools and the items are as significant as the recent work also first discussed in the Blackcountryman of  ‘Tales of Tumble Fold’ by  Joseph Whittaker, the story of a Wolverhampton man born into the worst slums in Wolverhampton whose book, poetry and other writings made him a considerable literary celebrity of the 19th century.

A HAPPY YULE TIDE TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND FOES EXCEPT THE NASTY ONES SPECIFICALLY NAMED IN BLOG 331
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A FAMILY TIME
How nice to have a loving family to take care of you at Yuletide.
It began last week-end when our two sons, Rob and Will took the family presents to London staying at Margaret’s my Arsenal supporting north London family and then at Sidney, my brother’s house and taking in, quite unknown to me, a visit to South London at Earlsfield in Wandsworth, London, a visit to identify my father’s grave. This they think they have accomplished, but are not quite sure.
Unfortunately things are liable to change as Sid (my junior by sixteen months) is no longer going to be able to put up his two nephews and they will either have to do the round trip in a single day, or put up in a South London hotel, which would suit Rob because he might be able to catch a Chelsea match of which team he is a fervent supporter.
My own time today has been spent attending to last minute Xmas cards that I hope will reach the people concerned. They were to George Frith the totally disabled fellow Arsenal supporter who might have played for England at cricket or football or both had he not been overtaken by this dreadful wasting disease, which he however bears with great fortitude, believing that others are worse off than himself. George will be among the people we will toast over the Xmas dinner as ‘absent friends’ another being my German soldier comrade Rudi Achtelstetter as we celebrate the Xmas 1914 truce of German and British soldiers as they came out of the trenches to embrace each other and play the legendary game of football in No-Mans-Land. I have still not yet been able to persuade the BBC or ITV that this was an event important enough to celebrate annually as it shows the moment when military and political leaders lost what they thought was their god-given right to declare war and set their working class citizens slaughtering their
comrades from other lands.
This, of course, has modern resonance as Bush, Blair and Gordon Brown continue to sanction the illegal, racist and unwinnable wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and elsewhere. So many ‘absent friends’ alas.

FAITH AGAINST NON-FAITH.
In a week when Polly Toynbee has had to assert that we atheists are not planning to abolish Xmas I have had the pleasure renewing my acquaintance with my electrician, Ian Kenney. Ian is one of the new aristocrats of labour - the artisan - much more useful than aristocrats or other members of the ruling class. Ian has the happy knack of telling us that he will send us a bill for work done and then ‘forgetting’ to send it. Ian is also a fellow bibliophile who used to attend the great bookfair at Hay-on-Wye, but tells me that now he hasn’t the spare time and it is too commercialised any way. The thing that makes things tick with Ian is that he is religious, although not in an organised way that I could enlist him into the united front of religious and non-religious in my crusade to make Wolverhampton the greatest city of Culture, Education, Sport and Business in Britain.  Nevertheless we have always sparred good naturedly on this question of religion and this year I could not resist sending him one of my Irish Democrat  Yuletide cards which philosophises on the age old question of whether there is any connection between godliness and wisdom to which George Bernard Shaw’s classic riposte was that there was no happier person than one drunk out of his mind, but the morning after would bring neither godliness nor wisdom.

OTHER XMAS BLESSINGS
One thing I much admired about Harry Pollitt was that at Yuletide he remembered the veterans of the movement and saw that they received both a card and something special for the occasion. Perhaps there is less need for such attention these days, but many will spend the ‘festive season’ alone and the community has the duty to care for the elderly and infirm, even if they can look forward to a decent Xmas dinner from Meals on Wheels as my son Robert’s partner’s wife and her husband have opted to receive. I’m told that was a joke, but I’ll let it stand.  Others will be totally dependent on the goodwill of the emergency welfare services none the less including my friend Mushtaq Shafi, the Tourette’s Syndrome sufferer.
Lastly in a different category, I almost forgot Pete Carter, Black Country born who has opted to return to his roots to be near to his daughter while living independently on a canal barge in the Wednesbury district.  Pete was the Communist prospective candidate who was chucked out of a meeting at W’ton Grammar School with me his agent standing against Enoch Powell.  But he was also the building trades union official who used to fill up the boot of his car with copies of the building trades classic by Robert Tressell, ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ I have found him one of my Irish Democrat greetings cards summarising the life of Tressell which I am sure he will appreciate.

BERNARD TRAFFORD
I go to bed with the tones of one of the best Xmas presents I have ever received ringing in my ears. It takes the form of warmest choral wishes for a very happy Xmas 2007 and a peaceful new year from Bernard, Katherine (his wife), Eleanor and Rachel (his two daughters) It is a disk that starts with the traditional, ‘Away in a Manger’ and continues to the ‘Lute Book Lullaby’ by Bernard Trafford 2006, to Gaudete (Piae Cantiones) arranged by Trafford on to,  ‘Gabriel’s Message original 3 part version reconstructed by Bernard Trafford (1995) What a lovely gift! What a talented family! This I will replay over the years.

MANCHESTER UNITED
No one can put it better than our own caustic Express and Star columnist, Peter Rhodes. He wrote yesterday, “You are a twentysomething female ‘model’ in Manchester with bleached hair and a skirt barely covering you bum. You and 88 other girls are invited to a Xmas party of Manchester United footballers whose wives and girlfriends are specifically excluded. It all ends horribly with one player accused of rape. ‘The players were treating girls like pieces of meat’ you complain to the waiting press afterwards. So tell us, chuck, what were you expecting - pass the parcel?”
In the meantime let’s turn to the Manchester United Football Trust (MUST) the oldest and most powerful Football Trust in the world.  The purpose of Trusts are to see that Clubs are owned and controlled by their supporters.  Indeed the government set up an organisation called Supporters Direct funded with public money to encourage supporter ownership of clubs at every level.
MUST has opposed the takeover of Man.U by the Glazers ever since this occurred in 2005 and particularly the financial position the club is now in with the Glazers debt of £650 millions which is growing, because of the high rates of interest involved, by something like £300.000 a DAY. In other words Glazers borrowed the money  they did not possess and it is possible that the club could become bankrupt and disappear, especially if there is a slump on the scale of the 1930s which seems increasingly likely.
There was a previous attempt to take over the club. This was by Rupert Murdoch but the government itself legislated to prevent that occurring.  During this period MUST has been officially recognised by the club and it is only now when it will need to flog the crest of Man.U. on every shirt, hat, mortgage and credit card that they are ‘monetarising the brand’. So the present management now want to dissociate MUST from the club. But is that possible? The club exists apart from any particular owners and MUST will remain the key organisation of club supporters past and present and for the future.
There appear to be certain parallels with the situation in Wolverhampton where we are asking who controls the club, the City council which owns both the pitch and the ground on which the stands are built or the Liverpool multimillionaire, Steve Morgan, who paid something like £30million to purchase the club.

THE CITY CARER.
There are at least two new papers, circulating in Wolverhampton of which I am not receiving copies. The second I picked up at my doctor’s surgery, ‘The City Carer’. This is Issue 19 Winter 2007 of the paper.  Each year it holds a Carers’ Rights Day. There are three main acts dealing with Carers.  The Carers (Recognition and Services) Act which defines a Carer and ensures they are consulted on the level of support that is needed. Then there is the Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000 giving Carers the right to an assessment independently of the person they are caring for. Finally The Carers (Equal Opportunities) Act which seeks to give Carers more choice and better opportunities to lead a fulfilling life. There is a list of the six Adult Social Work Teams as well as Community Mental Health Teams and the Emergency Duty Team. Surely enough people here to ensure a reasonable Xmas for my friend Mushtaq Shafi who has just been returned to Wolverhampton from Birmingham where he was serving a period in a police hostel but has now been allowed to return to Wolverhampton and faces a Xmas staring at the four walls of his house in Wolverhampton unless he can find suitable support for his condition. This is Tourette’s Syndrome which subjects him to involuntary spasms of involuntary violence and for which there is no known cure.  Perhaps it is to these teams we should apply for a reasonable solution to Mushtaq’s Xmas instead of Ms.Hossack, the acknowledged expert in this field of care for those with incurable diseases and hope they will not just dose him up like a zombie with unsuitable drugs.

YET MORE XMAS FARE.
Mid Winter’s day. The shortest day of the year. Things can only
get
better from today on. But confusion reigns on the W’ton city council as
Conservative Councillor Alan Hart is awarded the honour of being an
honorary
alderman of the city. Mind you aldermen disappeared from the local
government scene years and years ago. That Hart should become a freeman
of
the city would be explicable, and no doubt deserved. But not an
alderman!
And how did Roger Lawrence, the leader of the council, find an
agenda
for the meeting when he failed to find one for the council’s AGM last
May
and cancelled it.
Nor is that the only oddity of the Council meeting agenda. A
government cash boost of £288 million was criticised by Conservative
and
other opposition leaders for not having been made available earlier.
And I
would agree with Phil Bateman the Labour spokesman who said that this
was
the biggest dollop of cash that the city has had in a long time and the

opposition councillors are being ungracious and downright destructive
in not
welcoming it. I would also agree with that. Catch it while you can,
knowing
that Gordon Brown hasn’t a penny to his name and his promises are like
pie
crusts - grab it if we can.
It all rather reminds me of the city’s Millennial plans which
envisaged a march through the City black and white together which would
have
been unique, but foundered on the objection of an African-Caribbean
organisation that our Carnival Committee was usurping their
organisations.
After the millennium passed I wrote that the two organisations I was
most
proud of recruiting were the police who were ready to march with us and
not
against us and the Conservative Party because it meant that they had
finally
rejected the racism of Enoch Powell. To my astonishment he replied that
he
still supported Enoch Powell, I think his name was Macmillan but I must

check with my friend Wendy Thompson. Of course, everything is quite
different now. There’s no Conservative councillor now in the city that
I
know of who is anything but Anti-Racist and also support the
proposition
that Wolverhampton is the most important city in Britain for Culture,
Education, Sport and Business.
We ought to use the Wolverhampton Two Day Festival next May to
proclaim  our multiculturalism and still be the first city in Britain
to do
so by organising a united march against Racism.

POLLY TOYNBEE - SORRY TO DISAPPOINT YOU BUT WE ARE NOT IN FAVOUR OF
BANNING
CHRISTMAS.
Polly is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society
and
president of the British Humanist Association. She quotes an address
from
the chaplain of the Trinity College of Music, Rev.Jules Gomes; ‘More
Christians have been martyred for their faith in this century than at
any
other period. Yesterday’s Herod is today’s Richard Dawkings and Polly
Toynbee seeking the total extermination of all forms of Christianity’.
Not so, says Polly. People have been badgering her to reject Xmas
for a
Wintereval , but she refuses. The loss of Xian mythology would make
most
European history and art unintelligible and we are in no mood to
exchange
ignorance for lack of faith
More than this, the seasonal attack  of Xians harbours a
poisonous
suggestion that our way of life is threatened by foreigners. But we are

innocent . It is the Xians who are stirring this dangerous pot,
inventing
non-stories, yearning for martyrdom. As more faith trouble brews it is
even
more important to retain religious opinion, so that we differentiate
ourselves sharply from the BNP view that our traditions are under
threat
from Muslims. It is also time to remove religious bodies from any
financing
and fundamentalist influencing of the minds of our children in our
schools.
I have informed Polly Toynbee of  my preference for using the
X-word
to annoy some religionists, although I would ultimately  prefer to use
the
expression Happy Yuletide which is the oldest known term covering both
the
religious festival and the Winter Solstice.

SURFING THE WEB IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH.
In the Guardian today is an article called Mapping Britain’s Blogosphere. It purports to be a review of all those Bloggers who have used the media to promote the cities they live in. Unfortunately, they have discovered nothing about Wolverhampton, or this Blog of mine which supports the claims of Wolverhampton with the following epigram: Wolverhampton raised by its own Bootstraps from declared Racist Capital of Britain in the days of Enoch Powell to Britain’s Cultural, Education, Sport and Business Centre in 2007′.
This message was sent to Guy Clapperton of the Guardian who undertook the survey and also ‘Readers’ at the Guardian as well as commentisfree@guardian.co.uk and haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk,
Locally it has gone to Roger Lawrence the W’ton leader of the council and also those responsible for publicising the City such as Mel Whyatt and to others such as Wolverhampton Business Link who have been steadfast in supporting Wolverhampton’s claims to be the foremost city in Britain .

MARIE PALMER AND THE LIGHTHOUSE.
Marie is in charge of publicity at the Lighthouse and sends me many messages not only connected with the latest events at the Lighthouse, but events elsewhere including the very important One in Three a publication celebrating Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion for Children and Young People in Wolverhampton. It sponsors such events as a Black Country annual event for children and young people who are looked after in foster care. It also gives details of BE-ME the Black and Ethnic Minority Experience with its extensive archive of video recordings etc. of those who migrated to Wolverhampton from the West Indies, India etc. after the first world war.
Another initiative was Wolves Grand ‘Kick it Out’ in October when 150 youngsters from Wolverhampton enjoyed a taste of stardom by parading Molineux at half time on a match day. Ten and eleven year olds had battled it out in an anti-racist tournament the final of which had been played at Wolves training ground eventually won by Eastfield Primary School.
From September 2007 schools have had a new duty placed on them to promote community cohesion. Yet another conference took place at W’ton Science Park in June called, ‘Making the Difference’. This covered four areas of significance in Race Relations, Race, Culture, Gender and Sexual Orientation. All very worthy topics, but I have not received a report from any of these activities which does not speak well for the new racial equality unit in Wolverhampton, Race Equality Partnership Wolverhampton (REPW), which is at the moment understaffed, under-financed and inexperienced.
Nor is this all that Marie Palmer does for she also serves CONNECTING HISTORIES which is a consortium of Midlands Universities, Libraries of Colleges and Schools, Archives such as those of Wolverhampton and Birmingham and my BLOG and anyone else who is concerned with the history of the West Midlands. A very worthy project.
Now a word about my health. Many of you will know that I describe myself as a cripple from the neck down, but with my brain still functioning reasonably well although tending to be inarticulate and easily tired. Until recently I also boasted that I could sleep at the drop of a hat and also had regular bowel movements. All this changed this week when the non-performance of the former led to serious loss of sleep. However, I hope that has changed now with a super-charged pill and that both these functions will return to normal.
In the meantime I say goodnight to all those I am sending Xmas cards to this year but renewed curses to those Nasties who I shall not send a card mainly because they will not reply to me.

MBEKI AND JACOB ZUMA.
To those of my generation nothing was so important as the  struggle of Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress against the supporters  both world wide and in South Africa of the Apartheidists from Malan to de  Klerk The whites monopolised the cricket team and continued to dominate the country through their majority possession of land and capital,  while  black South Africans despite the struggles of such as Archbishop Tutu, Steve  Biko and others continued to live in shanty towns and saw little improvement  in their economic and social conditions.
But democracy seems to be coming to South Africa at last.  Thousands queued to vote for Jacob Zuma against President Thabo Mbeki, thus  virtually ensuring that he will replace Mbeki after elections next year. Mbeki  once immensely popular as a leader of the struggle against Apartheid has  become unpopular from his belief that the dreadful prevalence of Aids has no connection with its treatment by a cocktail of drugs which world wide  is seen as the only answer to a disease still incurable. Mbeki has also become increasingly authoritarian exercising arbitrary power in what is  virtually a single power state, not from legal enactment, but because of the popularity of the ANC government. Jacob Zuma is a typical black African having taken part in the liberation struggles and learned to read and  write in those days.
It is now being said that the conflict between the two men is  likely to lead to the break-up of the ANC. I think it is too early for such a prediction, but it seems to remove the fear of a Zimbabwe situation  where the ANC leadership has sided with Mugabe  to the consternation of progressives in S.Africa and the rest of the world.

MY MEETING WITH BERNARD TRAFFORD.
A long awaited meeting has now at last taken place with the head I  so much admire. Some of the most important points of agreement with him  are:
His school is open, democratic and pupils have an important say in the running of the school. This is in direct contrast with state secondary schools where none (with the exception of  Peter Coates at Wednesfield  and he has inexplicably gone cold on me) display any of these characteristics as  far as I know and are certainly not willing to enter into a dialogue with me.
The same applies to the leader of the city Council, Roger  Lawrence, and the chief executive of Wolverhampton, Richard Carr,  who will not  explain to me the intricacies of several layers of so-called  ‘regenerative’  regimes  which overlap and his own role stripped of  traditional powers and he now virtually a spectator.
And now even Rachael Heyhoe Flint and Sir Jack Hayward are not  speaking to me, although a real point of difference arises over the ownership of the Wolves and whether it is  owned by the local authority who own both the pitch and the buildings of  Molineux, or the Liverpool builder who has paid umpteen millions for the club and  believes that he owns it.
We will test both  Bernard Trafford on the extent to which his  school is a democratically run institution and we will wring out of state  secondary schools in Wolverhampton their true state of affairs by finding out who controls the schools, their budget for the last school year, who  provides that money, what the ethnicity of their staff is as well as their  pupils.
As the Express and Star says, we are the people of Wolverhampton.  And no one will save us but ourselves.

MORE GEORGE BARNSBY XMAS FARE.
There seems to be little chance of the BBC or ITV screening the  famous Xmas 1914 Truce when German and British soldiers came out of the  trenches to embrace each other and to play that celebrated football match in No-Man’s-Land.
That is a great pity, because that event is not only an example of good will to all men, but also an event of great political significance as soldiers deprived their military and political masters  of what they have always conceived of their god given natural right to  declare war and pit ‘their own’ soldiers against their working class comrades  of other lands. This event has long-lasting significance which binds me  even closer together with my good German comrade Rudi Achtelstetter of World  War II as we both come nearer to our natural end of having fought against a third world war since 1946 of those who would again use MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) on mankind. Also, that such madmen are still at  large as they plan even greater carnage against the human race.
On Xmas Day as we toast ‘Absent Friends’ My thoughts will be with  my friend Rudi as well as those who have died in the in the racist,  illegal and unwinnable wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere of George Bush, Tony Blair and now Gordon Brown.

THE BIG EU CON TRICK
Bob Crow  of the railway  trade union supports TUAEUC  (Trade Unionists against the EU Constitution) which both French and Dutch  voters have endorsed refusing to allow unelected EU institutions the power to privatise any industry and force public services to be put out to ‘competition’ without any right to strike, or vote to be in the EU or  not.
This total denial of democratic choice has been challenged by  John McDonnell MP in an Early Day Motion 1584 to demand that the government  does not sign up to the EU constitution without a referendum. The public are  invited to support this demand by emailing info@tuaeuc.org  or write to  PO Box 46295, London W5 2UG.

MORE MERRY XMAS GREETING TO SOME.
The particular failure of the chief executive of Wolverhampton  city council to explain to me the multiplicity of organisations which  control the city council, plus Roger Lawrence’s  refusal to contact me has led to  my questioning sources of information on Black Country history as the new valued Blackcountryman wishes a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year on the occasion of its 41st year of existence.
One of its most useful features is its listing of websites  dealing with Black Country history, but which refuses to list my website  despite its being the source of  being probably the largest source of history  available. In particular it is almost the sole source of working class history in  the Black Country and uniquely the source of Communist history. Mike  Pearson, the editor, has been challenged on this before and has declared that he  is not frightened of the word ‘Communist’ but is in fact very much shying  away from it. I have also suggested that the title of the journal the BlackCountryMAN is sexist and ought to be changed. We shall see what  his response is and whether changes will be made.

NICK CLEGG AND THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS.
The Liberal Democrats are the only party which has opposed the  war in Iraq from the beginning, but now seems to be playing down this  advantage by cultivating the cult of youth whereas its most effective advocates have  been Ming the Warrior who knows what  war is about and the quite elderly  interim leader of the post. If David Cameron aspires to be the next Prime  Minister he will have to repudiate the war in Iraq which once he did must but  since has  changed his mind and if Nick aspires to be the greatest Liberal  leader since Lloyd George he will need to press both Gordon Brown and David  Cameron to renounce the war as either might need his support in a coalition government which is still likely to be the result of the next general election, even though this might now not take place until 2010. Also he  might be spared the meaningless chatter about health and education in Britain when the only source of available finance would come from  ending the ruinous war in Iraq.

FABIO CAPELLO CAN ONLY WATCH.
Arsenal have shown their support for clubs to be owned by their  local communities by once again demonstrating tonight that you don’t need  oodles of money to remain the most successful club in Britain. Chelsea eat  your heart out. Capello will have to wait to demonstrate how his huffing and  puffing can change England’s prospect and by that time his far right political stance will have us once again looking for an English  manager.

THE GEORGE BARNSBY XMAS FARE.
First. a curse on all religions fundamentalists who would either consider me a heretic and would want to have my hands chopped off (at  the very least) or hang me on a cross for using the X-word and taking their lord’s name in vain, while others might regard me as a prophet without honour in his own country.
Two. I wish a rotten Xmas to all those Nasties I will not be  sending Xmas cards to this year.
Three. May all those who closed the first multicultural college in Britain, Bilston Community College, particularly the three bad apples  at Wolverhampton University which the Vice-Chancellor now supports even  though she had no hand in the vile deed of those who tried to sue me if I  didn’t stop supporting BCC. May they rest uneasy in their beds as they see the phoenix rising from the ashes and BCC restored.
Four. May all those who were diddled into supporting two  educational Academies in Wolverhampton now be consigned to monasteries and ordered  to do penance for their foolishness as it becomes clear there will be no  crock of gold at the end of the rainbow, but the harsh reality of cuts  in the  city’s education programmes as Gordon Brown is shown not to be a financial  wizard but a shabby illusionist who is stony broke without a penny to his  name. Ant there’s worse to come.
Five. May all those who fail to reply to my communications locally despite the testimony of the leading figure in Wolverhampton, Roger  Lawrence that they are constitutionally bound to do so find that in getting  their knickers in a twist, they do themselves some injury.
Six. May the dwindling band who now support Gordon Brown see that  the only solution to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere is for all Western interlopers to withdraw and allow their citizens to try to put together the Humptydumpty that westerners with a belief in the  superiority of ‘western culture’ so cynically  knocked down.
Seven. May we wish Hugo Chavez and Evo Mores a happy Xmas and an adventurous New Year as they demonstrate Socialism, pioneered by Fidel Castro on their sub-continent is not only possible but absolutely  necessary if capitalism is to be prevented from creating ever greater extremes of poverty and wealth and end up destroying us all in a nuclear holocaust.

BOOKS FOR US ALL.
As a Bibliophile first and foremost may I be permitted to put  forward the list of books which I find most useful in our present struggles.
1. The African, The interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah  Equiano by Himself:  The classic account of the first black man to rise from  slavery to adventure.
2. Buckra Massa Pickney by Enrico A Stennet: The story of an  anti-racist activist still with us who himself experienced slavery in his early  life.
3. The Trader, the Owner, the Slave by James Walvin:  Yet another  important book by this most eminent writer on Slavery.
4. After Abolition by Marika Sherwood: The key text of how slavery  continued to exist after 1807 when it was supposed to have been abolished.
5. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins: Us atheists’  best selling  modern bible.
6. Comrades on the Kwai by Stan Henderson:  The story of the only man  who survived the Japans death camps and held a May Day meeting.

CANCEL THE APPOINTMENT OF FABIO CAPELLO AS ENGLAND MANAGER.
The naivety of  Brian Barwick chief of the Football Association appointing as manager of England a non-Englishman, Fabio Capello, one  who speaks virtually no English and one associated with far right-wing  politics in Italy is an appointment that must be resisted at all costs. There  has been considerable concern, but with the appointment now all but certain  to go through there is confusion and unwillingness to press such  criticism.
Take today’s Observer. Jaspar Gerard turns the question into semantics arguing ‘that the biggest job in football’ would be managing in Brazil  or Russia. It really means ‘the highest paid’ and that tells its own  story. That the job is so dreadful that we have to pay over the odds to tempt Capello to take it and that there is no other country in the world  where such a gulf exists between expectations of fans and the ability of the players to  fulfil them. Perhaps we shouldn’t be too critical of Jasper, who is a  political rather than a sports correspondent.
David James, the discarded letter-in of soft goals England  goalkeeper who now is still playing at a very advanced age some brilliant football for Portsmouth delves into the psychology  of the job. He says that masters of the game such as Arsene Wenger or Sir Alex Ferguson are psychologists of a sort, and he claims that he has used a psychologist for many years and greatly benefited from his advice. When playing for Liverpool he advocated the use of a psychologist only to be  met with derision, the management’s attitude being that if you couldn’t  sort out your own problems you had no right to be a footballer. For this  reason he welcomes Capillo’s desire to bring in his own backroom staff. He wouldn’t, however, like Sir Trevor Brooking to go; the FA are lucky to  have him as  Director of Football Development . But we live in an age when the  loss of one match can cost millions of pounds. He tells of his meeting with Eileen Drury who once told Robbie Fowler that he had seven demons to conquer. What conclusions David James draws from that I am not at all  sure. But since we are not in involved in either European or World Cup  matches for some years, Capello will have to weave any magic he has on ‘friendly’ matches. Mourinho had more sense than Capello, he walked away from the  job.
All this without a word or a thought for the real issue, that the politics of Capillo will destroy  both England and himself unless he  goes.

MUSHTAQ SHAFI AND THE PSYCHOLOGISTS.
Regular readers of the BLOG will know about Mushtaq. He suffers  from Tourettes Syndrome which involves involuntary violent behaviour. It is incurable and a recent escapade found him arrested and sentenced to a  term in a police hostel in Birmingham. However he has been reassessed and  sent back to his own home in Wolverhampton with nothing to do over Xmas but  to stare at the four walls of his home. He is contemptuous, indeed rude,  about treatment that he gets in Wolverhampton, but there are many people in Wolverhampton in similar circumstances. He once attended a hostel in Wolverhampton which he was not at all impressed with and believes that  the only medical help he had was to be drugged to the eyebrows with  unsuitable drugs which reduced him to a zombie.
Ms Hossack is the most experienced person in the treatment of such disorders and I have emailed to ask her what facilities will be  available for such people, but so far she qualifies as one of the ‘Nasty People  who will not get a Xmas Card from me this Year’, by not replying to me, but  she is not among the worst of the Nasties, so I’ll give her another  reminder tomorrow.

WORKING CLASS HISTORY.
Graham Stevenson an organiser in the Transport and Workers Union already has a rare collection of labour biographies on the web. He has  now gone even further and put on line the journal of the CPB Our History  No7.
This includes not only local history, but national history such as  the formation of the CPGB from 1919. I’m not sure how much of an advance  this is, but it seems to be an improvement on the Socialist History people  who do not store any original material and more in line with  the Working  Class Movement Library which is no longer financed by the Salford Council and  is now almost entirely financed by the labour movement. Their newsletter  Shelf Life I shall mention later, but the mass of material from Our History 7  if it can be repeated for subsequent issues will rapidly become a major  source for Labour History.  I’ve got no reference but just type in ‘Graham Stevenson’.
One thing that cannot be put on the web are intangible items such  as medals and cups. This is where the WCML comes into its own. Its latest  Bulletin tells of badges and rule books, but also new events such as  participating in an exhibition  as part of Archives Awareness Month together with the People’s History Museum, the  National Co-operative Archive and  Bishopsgate Institute. Links with the Salford Film Society has led to links with  Salford University with visits of students to view the library’s early and mid nineteenth century collection of journals connected with the unstamped  press of the time. The Library is also being utilised by trade unions which included a Japanese trade union delegation who were much impressed with  the Library. The Library also organised a very successful conference on the  Manchester Martyrs jointly with the University of Central Lancashire.  Its good to know that the Library, on which my own was modelled, continues  to be successful. Details WCML 51 The Crescent, Salford, M5 4WX. Tele 0161 736 3601. Web: www.wcml.org.uk

THE BOMB STOPS HERE.
This is CND’s 50th. Anniversary  and Kate Hudson  tells of actions  past and present in its journal Campaign. For instance the historic summit  in Scotland in October when the Trident Summit was called by the Scottish government to explore ways of building the campaign against Trident.  Also, plans for next Easter’s 50th Anniversary Aldermaston March where it is proposed to build a human wall around the site saying ‘The Bomb Stops  Here’.
A bulletin from LIBERTY tells of the astonishing research which revealed that far from being the land of liberty Britain has the most draconian detention powers in the western world. The campaign to  prevent its extension started with LIBERTY’S first comedy event, the Bonfire of the  Liberties and what we can learn from Charlie Chaplin of the fight for freedom.

OTHER MATTERS NOT DEALT WITH.
This includes the British Humanist Association News Letter which  is becoming increasingly significant as fundamentalist religionists  attempt turn us into a faith based society instead of a rational secular  society. I wish I had more time to review its content. But visit its website at www.humanism.org.uk
Further material from the British Pensioner and its Midlands  brother British Pensioners and Trade Union Action Association, Coventry and Warwickshire Branch. Militant in both defending pensioners rights and opposing the war in Iraq. For either organisation  contact  George Ttouli on ttouli@warwich.ac.uk

THE CUP SEMI-FINALS.
Today I’ve given myself the luxury of watching (on the tele) that  which was once famously described as more important than life or death. I  would amend that to say that football is a matter of life and death because  the likes of Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson are intelligent enough to understand that the clubs they run are political animals which can  influence their fans not only in the multiculturalism of the modern world, but in  preventing the world being blown apart by such things as Trident and  nuclear weapons.
As Arsenal won I go to bed happy, but acutely aware that Arsenal  play a progressive role in Britain as against those who wish to use nuclear weapons.