ISSUE 4

This is "Voices" No. 4. It comes in a new experimental format which may cause raised eyebrows. We cannot here go into details but the financial and economic factors involved in producing a periodical of this kind compel us to look into all possible economies. The continued existence of "Voices" is by no means assured. Our aim is a four times a year production. But this requires considerably wider support than we so far enjoy. We need more readers. We need more writers. We need more money. Please do not misunderstand this. Our support is increasing in all these respects, and we are grateful for this. But we need much more. The question is: do we deserve more? Does the poetry and prose in this issue justify a call for support from the progressive left? We think it does. But you are the people who must decide. If you think there is room for a committed publication which thinks of writing as a weapon in the hands of the Labour and Socialist and Communist movement help us. Make us known. write for us. Write to us. Ask your branch or district Committee to make a bulk order of "Voices" to distribute to your members. Introduce "Voices" to friends.

All enquiries to Ted Morrison, 110 Edge Lane, Stretford, Manchester. (061 865 5862).

REDUNDANT IRON WORKS : MILLOM

Strange they were across the bay,

Mystic spires of a forgotten religion,

Standing awkward at the edge of a moorland.

Facing the sea in sombre austerity.

Where once smoke filled a town with grimy streets

And noise and heat aged many men,

Where slag splashed brilliance at dark nights,

Streaming down unseen paths.

But as the sun slips behind the spires,

Blazing streams melt the sand,

Curving in deep gulleyed moulds,

Sweeping carelessly across the bay,

The sun's fiery setting splashing the sand with steel.

THE DAWN CHORUS

The death of a river choked by the phlegm of detergent,

Panic of oil glued seagulls, with only a reflex flapping,

As black pitted oblongs smudge the skyline,

Dry faces cough their way to morning monotony.

Confusion grabs an old man's hands, as he stammers between the buses,

And the poster shouts, 'Oozo washes whiter'.

What am I?

A push the other way in the soccer crowd

A belly flop in the public baths

580/3, a ping in the time machine.

Disturbed by the tragedy of Vietnam

Horrified at the sight of a Biafra child.

I remain the eleventh best snooker player in Barrow-in-Furness.

A.M. Horne

It is most frustrating at times when one is trying to find information about a particular person and all ends seem to be blocked. We first became acquainted with Benjamin Stott through his poems. We found the little volume, 'Songs for the Millions' in a bookshop in Stockport. We have never seen another copy. The poems are not only of a high literary standard, they also tell us quite a lot about the political opinions of the man.

Fitting the loose threads together, the picture looks rather like this. Stott was born in Manchester on 24th November, 1813. His father was a hairdresser and later an auctioneer and came from a respectable Rochdale family. His mother came from one of the ancient families in the vicinity of Hope and Bradwell in the High Peak. Possibly they may have been miners and sheep farmers. Benjamin was the youngest of thirteen children and when he was under six years old both his parents died. He was brought up by a maiden Aunt, his mother's sister who worked as a fustian cutter and managed to keep him until he was nine. He was then admitted to Cheetham's Hospital. Friends of his father exorted influence to secure this admission. His education before that had been at the National Free School in Granby Row where he had learnt to read and write. Although he attended Cheetham's from 1822 to 1827, he apparently made little educational progress although he must have begun to develop a facility in the use of the English language of which he made good use in his poetry.

When he left school at 14, he was apprenticed to a bookbinder for seven years and he remained a journeyman in that trade until he died in 1850 at the early age of thirty seven.

We can only sketch in the blanks in his political life. He dedicated his poems to Thomas Slingsby Duncombe. He wrote of the "disinterested patriotism and eloquent advocacy of the rights of suffering humanity" which he said would "be cherished by, and live in the hearts of, generations yet unborn". Slingsby Duncombe was a well known Radical Member of Parliament.

Benjamin Stott apparently only left his native Manchester once in his life and that was to go to a conference in the Isle of Man. He went there representing a society to which he belonged. We know that he was a prominent member of the OddFellows Friendly Society. He wrote a long poem extolling the virtues of that Society:

There was, however, in December 1829, a Spinners' Conference on the Isle of Man at which an attempt was made to form one "grand General Union" of all spinners. John Doherty, the leader of the Manchester Spinners returned to Manchester imbued with the idea of forming a much wider movement. It is not impossible to conjecture that Stott as a well known radical poet, attended the Spinners' Conference. His interest in the Trade Union Movement is shown by

the poem that he wrote in memory of John Roach, a Manchester boiler maker. The verses were printed and sold to Union members. Stott called John Roach "A son of labour - a true democrat - a firm friend - a determined advocate - an unpaid patriot - a pure philanthropist and an honest man."

During the 1830s, the Bookbinders' Consolidated Union was passing through formative struggles and the Manchester Branch took the lead in attempting to coordinate the activities of the different Lodges. It is possible that Stott, having attended the Spinners' Conference and accepted the ideas of general union, played no small part in these Union affairs. In one poem, "Beware ye white Slaves of England" he tells the people to

Much of Benjamin Stott's writing echoes the stirring calls of the French Revolution - the demands for natural rights that were voiced by Thomas Paine. His poetry was obviously influenced by Shelley and Byron and it reflects his deep sympathy with suffering, injustice and oppression in their manifold expressions.

At the Sun Inn in Long Millgate, the Manchester and district literary circle held meetings to exchange views and appraise each others writing. The poems read at one of these meetings held on Thursday, 24th March, 1842 were published in a slight volume called "The Festive Wreath". Benjamin Stott contributed a poem in memory of William Grant, one of Dicken Cheeryble Brothers who had recently died. One of the circle, William Axon, thought sufficiently highly of Stott to walk to Northenden Churchyard soon after his death in 1850 and copy the inscription on the tombstone. It read:- "Here resteth the body of Benjamin Stott, of Manchester, who died July 26th 1850, aged thirty six years. He was an influential member of the National Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and by them much esteemed.

Gaunt Famine Rides Rampant

Gaunt famine rides rampant o'er all the land,

And none but the drones can his power withstand;

The industrious bees that produce the wealth

Are his victims alone and he kills by stealth;

For the wounds which he makes they never bleed,

Although they are painful and piercing indeed;

But the wasted form, when the soul is dead,

Tells the tale that it died for want of bread.

Oh, gracious God, that governs all,

Thy attributes are wise and good;

Arise, and make the tyrants fall,

That rob the poor of life and food.

How hard is the fate of the suffering poor,

What toil and privation, and pain they endure;

And yet they are patient, forbearing, and kind,

Though the drones of the earth are against them combined;

Humanity shudders with grief and despair;

When it thinks and reflects on their woes and their care;

And the heart of the patriot burns with desire,

That the days of their thraldom may quickly expire.

Oh, gracious God, that governs all,

Thy attributes are wise and good;

Arise, and make the tyrants fall,

That rob the poor of life and food.

It Comes! It Comes!

It comes! It comes the glorious day,

When holy freedom shall prevail,

When battle strife and bloody fray

Shall be as a forgotten tale -

When virtue shall triumphant rise,

And vice be swept from off the earth,

When man shall look up to the skies,

And bless the God that gave him birth -

When joy, and charity, and peace,

And love, shall cheer the human heart.

Odd Fellowship

Blessed Odd Fellowship! thy aim and end

Is to promote the peace of man on earth,

The sick to cheer, the friendless to befriend.

Oh! that my yearning heart could speak thy worth;

Thrice happy they who unto thee gave birth;

A glorious reward is theirs to gain

In that immortal life where neither dearth,

Disease, nor famine ever more shall reign,

Nor grief nor misery shall be, nor aught of pain.

Benjamin Stott

Ruth and Eddie Frow

ON AN ABANDONED GARDEN

Against the pallette of evening and ungracious

Shadows of the lamp, flickering with flirtatious,

Crack-squeezed, wintry gusto, I see her shape; slightly bent,

With pinned-back hair, savouring every name and scent

Of gay-paged, lustrous-catalogued bulb and seed.

Child-implanted, she waits the barren winter

For those other, ordered seeds; emerging into

Life once planted, tended, nurtured by Mother earth;

Coinciding with her natural fledglings birth;

Satisfying her every creative need.

He, the proud, expectant father, quietly musing

On her fruitfulness, encouraged her, by choosing

Delights remembered from her Mother's old home-place;

Sweet-William, lemon-lies, peonies; her face,

Tear-suffused, recaptured even happier days.

She sees each garden as another friendly farm,

Joining, branched from the road's narrow, brown-ribboned arm,

Valley-dissecting, to the town. Her bonds growing

In her new home-place, tending her gardens knowing

Both are miracles of Natures many ways.

Though grave-unknown, these many-long years departed,

The legacy left by her small garden, started

In joyful years, is shown on hillsides all around;

Confines burst, spreading, colour-carpets now abound.

If she were here to see her mind's eye picture,

She'd see the bounty wrought by half-a-hundred years;

Would know her presence lingers; would shed joyful tears

That fruitfulness, whose too-brief joys she'd tasted;

And careful-plantings of those years were not wasted;

Would know her valley's sojourn made it richer.

Yes, it's lovely to be quiet ... Warm, wellfed, comfortable, almost as if you'd never been born

Some babies are born wanted, some unwanted, some are just born, and some, like us, are born too soon

Yes, but we stand a good chance of surviving don't we? They've made great advances in the treatment of premature infants they say don't they?

That's quite true. They can create conditions that are almost perfect, almost like those of our mothers before we're born. They can give us the right degree of warmth, piped oxygen, injection, blood exchange transfusions, tube feeding, everything necessary to make up for our premature births ...

And when our weight is satisfactory and general condition is good, they can discharge us to our homes

And that's the rub ... Here we're kind of prisoners, but happy prisoners Home is another kind of prison for some of us, cold, grimy, airless, sunless, a twilight area

Oh yes, they do that, but the report has to be pretty bad to keep you here, and even then, you have to go "into care". They leave it largely to your parents to make the conditions suitable ... And sometimes that's impossible...

Oh, I don't know anything about mine... Do you know anything about your home conditions?

None of us know anything. It's called an accident of birth ... Some go home to a basement flat, some to a semidetached.

But if it's an accident why doesn't somebody do something to prevent it? What about the doctors and nurses? Their work will be wasted

Some don't even think that far Some do, but haven't the vision to tackle such a huge problem. A few, very few try to work in co-operation with all the other folk interested in environment, housing, education, to make it less of an accident and more of an opportunity

Somebody said children are the flowers of life ... but many a flower will never bloom if it's like you say

That's true. Lots of babies are deformed or stunted, mentally and physically. Never expand, never reach their full height, never enrich the earth, are never unreservedly glad they were born ... Yet they could be, all of them, if only

If only the weeds of poverty and ignorance, exploitation and greed were wrenched from the soil of our environment ... Then every baby born could flourish ...

(Softly very softly the strains of music are heard. It grows in volume, and the words become clear

"These things shall be; A loftier race than e'r the world hath known shall rise...

A GREEK TRAGEDY

It yawns there making me giddy, this huge hole

I blink my eyes and the strange unmoving figures, grotesquely dead; move again.

Personifying death, Matrantonis kills his soldier, personally flattens with

his tank the student, and the gates.

Inside; the Polytechnic runs with blood;

Rape and death and mutilation skip with torture through the streets,

Assemble in the World Cup Stadium, and refereed by F.I.F.A. enjoy the game

with the captured brave.

U.S.A. and C.I.A. bland British F.C. and special branch, spectate and cheer.

In Kraticon, the colonels emissaries burst in,

Chase and club the wounded through the bandages, who with democracy, die.

In the name of N.A.T.O. and world re-action, fascism solemnly seals in

blood again, its firm resolve to enslave first Greece

And then you, and you, and brother you, and sister you.

Oh mighty Zeus bless these true sons lying murdered here,

And my comrade who Matrantonis killed, and with your bolts protect those

who remain.

Frank Parker

He was polishing his shoes with fierce concentration, with short sharp light strokes, of the brush, his interest in this nightly ritual was so intense as to render him deaf to his child's repeated cry for attention.

The woman sitting by the fire looked up. For a moment she gazed in silence, watching the arm moving backwards and forwards over the shining, well-worn leather. Her eyes were inscrutable. Her voice, when she spoke was tinged with a hint of scorn.

"What son? What do you want?" but the little boy had already vanished, his incessant questioning forgotten by the magic cry of "Cartoon" from the front room, where his two sisters were watching the television.

He decided on retreat as the best strategy, and walked out into the back kitchen. He whistled as he filled the kettle. "Where's the coffee luv?"

She raised exasperated eyes to the ceiling as she heard him open the door into the yard. "It's on the shelf, where it usually is, stupid". "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, my love", he replied as he shut the door again. He hadn't really believed her. He was just playing along. He recognised the signs of battle, and he was a coward. It suited him to play this role tonight. Last night's repartee had upset him, so much that he had a whisky as soon as he entered the "Club", instead of leading up to it with five or six pints. Women, there was no understanding them. He worked hard, was always ready to lend her a few bob when she was stuck, took her out on Saturday night, yet she still pulled her face when he went out for a pint through the week.

The boiling of the kettle interrupted his indignant thoughts. "Do you want a cup luv?"

"No", her answer was short, but said more than it implied. Stick your rotten coffee, and don't come trying to get round me, you won't get a pat on the head. These thoughts chased bitterly round in her head. He came back into the room and sat down opposite her. He placed his mug of coffee onto the mantlepiece, and reached for his cigarettes.

"No thanks, I've got my own." She had transferred three of his to her own packet, while he had been busy making the coffee. "There's a good turn on at the club on Saturday."

"Is there?" She conveyed her lack of interest by not raising her eyes from the book she was reading.

He regarded her through narrowed eyes, and blew out clouds of smoke. He didn't speak. He recognised defeat. He decided to ignore her, but knew she wouldn't let him.

She didn't, for long. After a few minutes of silence on her part, and tuneless whistling on his, she raised her eyes and looked at the clock. "You'll be late won't you, it's seven o'clock." She spoke dryly; she knew he didn't go out quite as early as this. What she meant was - Don't dare, and he knew it. If she had ventured to say this out loud, he would have retaliated, and dared, to prove that he was a man, and not ruled by his wife. She knew this, and thrust home her ironical comments, with a thinly veiled sarcasm, which didn't help the situation, but nevertheless made her feel better.

He didn't answer this comment. Hew was a shrewd man, and knew the value of silence at a loaded moment. Like so many women, she couldn't keep her mouth shut, even when she knew she was beaten. She would go down fighting. She justified acts of dishonesty - like the secret pilfering of his cigarettes with the fact that he had more than her, and if he could afford to go out drinking most nights, and she had to juggle with her housekeeping then this was justice. It was the class struggle, on a smaller scale. He was the party in power. Politics a wage war in most working class homes -money, struggle for survival, conflict of personalities, the don't do as I do, do as I say, policy of most parents (on a level with the Capitalists towards the workers). We are told money isn't everything, from those who have it, but this is a great asset, and would help bridge a gap, between classes. The bridging of this gap is feared by Capitalists. Children, unfortunately stand as the main, conflict between man and wife. How many women have said - Wait till the children are grown up - just watch me. Perhaps men secretly fear this, and while they hold the whip hand, however lightly the reigns are held, it will be a drop in status - once the birds have flown, and one should feel a certain amount of pity for the floundering party, who has brought about his own downfall.

After a considerable silence in which she escaped into her book of poems, and he smoked and watched her. Keeping an eye on the enemy, he decided it was safe to move. He rose from his chair and stretched. "What's up that you didn't have your usual after tea sleep tonight?" she asked.

"Oh for god's sake, shut up", he threw caution to the winds. She was secretly delighted at this retaliation. It was what she wanted. She couldn't change him, so she goaded him into displaying the worse side of his character. She was intelligent enough to see that these tactics lowered her own behaviour, but was past caring. She was developing into a nagging wife - an expression invented by men to hide their own selfishness.

Having delivered his parting shot he went upstairs for a bath, or thought he did. He bellowed from the upper regions of the house. "Who's had a bloody bath? The bloody water's stone cold, Christ it's four days since I had one, I'm supposed to have one every day y'know, of course I don't count, I only bring the money in - Jesus."

His disapproval was given greater emphasis by his feet stamping around the bathroom.

His wife, feeling that round one had been won, shouted sweetly up the stairs. "Mrs Jones next door said she's sorry you haven't been able to get a bath."

The bathroom door slammed. The front door opened, a head peeped round enquiringly.

FRANCES THOMAS, now aged 9. Used to live in Walmer Street, Rusholme which is being knocked down. Now lives in Wythenshawe. These words are exactly what she dictated to me in answer to the question, "What do you want this story to be about then?" I have not added or changed anything, but perhaps two points could be explained:

"Ten bob winders" refers to a window shaped like a 5Op. piece "Stashun dogs" = Alsation dogs.

CONTENTS

Redundant Iron Works: Millom	A.M Horne
Dawn Chorus	A.M Horne
Me	A.M Horne
Benjamin Stott 1813-1850	Ruth & Eddie Frow
On An Abandoned Garden	Alfred Edwards
Being an Improbable Conversation overheard through the half-open door to a Premature Baby Unit	W Froom
A Greek Tragedy	Frank Parker
Passing Through	Jean Sutton
Walmer Street	Frances Thomas
"Children" and Children	Vivien Leslie
Poem for a Girl from Africa	Rick Gwilt
Clean-up Job	Gareth Thomas
Agitpoem No. 8 - Bromley	Bob Dixon
Leave Me Alone.	Bob Dixon
Portrait of an Economy	Bob Dixon
Ideas	Bob Dixon
A Matter of Form	Ian E Reed
Struggle Identified	Barabra Smith
The Building Workers Song	Rod O Connor
Now I'll Sharpen My Pencil	John Smith"
Green Toilet Rolls to Match my Bathroom Tiles	Rose Friedman
The Lost, the Losers and the Lame	Ian E Reed
Feel the Need	J.E.Sutton
Whatcha Mean	Colin Frame
I am Sorry for Them	Colin Frame
New Sounds from Motown	Rick Gwilt
Glass is Dynamite	David Kessell
Chile	David Kessell
Random Thoughts of a Telefan	Maurice M Wiles
Solid Gleaming Coal	Mick Jenkins
Chile	Sol Garson