ISSUE 5 - 1975

cover size 296 x 210 mm

EDITORIAL NOTE

This is our fifth publication, made possible by the generosity of donors whose contributions we acknowledge elsewhere. A comment from the editors may not be out of place. we still receive twice as many contributions in verse as come to us in prose: and we welcome the chance of receiving whatever friends may send us: but we have on this occasion deliberately included a greater proportion of prose pieces. We have done this for a number of reasons: firstly because it is in prose that a critical note can be struck, and we have received some direct criticism of "Voices" and its aims, with which we do not agree, but which may well open a discussion. 

For reasons of economy we have been less generous with our spacing and margins, and hope to contain the same amount of material in the present 48 pages as filled 60 previously. 

At the bottom of this page we have given guidelines as to how future contributions should be sent to us. As contributions increase in number it is quite essential that writers co-operate in making our task manageable.

"The Record" organ of the Transport and General workers' Union, the "Morning Star" and "Comment" have all been helpful in noticing "Voices". We would welcome notices in all Trade Union publications and Labour movement papers. 

We think that the political stand of "Voices" is crystallising: we still want to make it as broad and catholic a publication as the Labour movement wants and requires: confident, critical, and reflecting the growing struggle of the movement fighting for socialism. we are primarily a literary publication: the ideas, the activities, the spirit of working class activity, pugnacious, unapologetic, but committed to inspiring people not sending them to sleep; and if we are a frankly propagandist organ, this does not mean that we compete with theoretical or pamphleteering writing. 

B.A. 

TO INTENDING CONTRIBUTORS 

We welcome poems, articles, stories, for consideration. We promise considerate and careful reading of them. We cannot possible acknowledge every piece we receive, but we will return unselected contributions provided a stamped addressed envelope is enclosed. 

Material should be sent to us written or typed on one side of the paper only. The writer's name should appear on the first sheet, and sheets should be numbered. Please keep a copy of your material.

Address material to "Voices", B.Ainley, 13 Victoria Way, Bramhall, Stockport. 

 

S.O.S  VOICES 5    Our Appeal in November

With an utterly empty purse to begin the publication of "Voices 5" we put out our appeal for £150. By December 18th we had received £139.50, and the issue of "Voices 5" is assured. We did not acknowledge every donation individually: it would have cost us a precious two pounds. This is a complete list of all donors (to December 18th) and we are very grateful to all of them. 

BROWN WINDSOR SOUP

Frank Parker

Heyhey trembled under the onslaught of chemical changes in his body provoked by the alarm signals from his brain triggered off by his assessment of the realities of what he was seeing.

Beebe, almost another self, beautiful, complementary Beebe stood very close, smoothing his suddenly hot forehead with her cool, practical hands.

On the computers screen was a visual impression of the data they had fed into it. They saw a man and a woman. The man looked like Heyhey, the woman like Bee.

'With our genetic structure, future humans will not show any physical difference", commented Heyhey.

"No", agreed Bee. "You disappointed?"

"I suppose I am", he admitted, relieved too.

"It's not conclusive", Bee pointed out.

"No", said Heyhey, "But it is logical. As we are now, do we want to be different? Does any human being apart from superficial changes like height, features, hair, mere fashions?"

"I know none , said Bee. "Yet we could choose to be different", said Heyhey."

"But what for?" said Bee.

"We could have wings", said Heyhey smiling.

"We got wings , said Bee, "We've got everything known in the universe. We can fly like birds, dig like moles, do everything, and better."

"Yes, said Heyhey. "This is the crux of the matter."

"You're on about progress again; about stagnation, aren't you?" asked Bee.

"Yes", said Heyhey thoughtfully, "So is the government.

"What will they make of this?" she asked.

"I don't know", he said, "But this could be a crisis. When new purposes are needed nothing inspires more confidence than new people to pursue them."

"And this is the old people?" she ventured.

"Precisely, he said, then added "Mugshots".

"Pardon?" she asked, puzzled.

"Mugshots", he repeated, his eyes showing amusement.

"You've been reading western books again", she accused.

"Mugshots", he laughed. "F.B.I. talk for pictures, press the button Bee and we'll send 'em a picture. Dutifully, she did.

"Blow 'em up?" she asked.

"Got your own back there", he said. Putting the four foot pictures between sheets of stiff thin chemical fibre, they left the centre.

This was the premier city, leading the way in anti-pollution measures, so the air was clear and clean, as were the buildings old and new, set out to give much space for gardens and wide pavements.

They were to give the photographs to Cea who would pass them along to interested people in the government. 

Bee thought her a nice old lady. She had old world charm, wasn't brash, as Bee was inclined to be and most modern youngsters. She had an air of sad tranquility, was very serious.

"Being born before the revolution probably made her that way", said Heyhey. "They had a bad time

"But they had purpose, aim - a whole new world of ideas to conquer as well as country", said Bee.

"You discontented Bee?" asked Heyhey.

"No", she said. "But it does get dull at times".

"You have your work", he said.

"Sterile.," she said.

"Sterile?" he echoed. "You can't say that. No modern state can exist without forward planning, and our work on need estimation and our fundamental research on the nature of change, especially in man, is real exciting stuff."

"All in the air", she scoffed. "It's philosophy. I'm not old enough to bother about it; I just want to live, excitingly".

Heyhey looked at her, very seriously. I didn't know you felt like this," he said.

"Well," she said equally seriously, "You've been busy."

"So have you," he said, 'With me on the same projects."

"There is a difference," she said. "When I go home I forget about work, you don't."

"Ideally there shouldn't be a difference," he said. "One phase should blend with the other."

"Be inter-connected?" she put in.

"Don't she believe it?" he asked.

She pouted, a new phenomena he noted. "Yes," she said discontentedly."But I don't feel it; my senses are not in the correlation."

"You're jaded Bee. What would you like to do tonight? Anything you like, you choose."

"Nothing appeals," she said."I'm depressed."

"Then we'll stay in and talk it out," he said.

"Nothing to talk about," she answered.

"There must be," he insisted. "There is no effect without a cause, work that out and we can find a cure."

"Let's get out," she said defiantly. "To the U.S.A. - somewhere like that."

Heyhey was shocked. "To live't" he asked.

"Yes," she said emphatically.

"You don't know what you're saying," he told her."No thing is predictable in these countries, anything can happen to you. You can be mugged or murdered. Find yourself unemployed. In prison for no reason at all. It's all dirt and filth."

"It's living," she replied. "Precisely what you said. It's unpredictable day by day, hour by hour. When did I last know fear or uncertainty? Relief or horror? All these are words to us. We never feel any of the natural animal emotions."

"Who wants to?" he said.

"I do," she said hotly.

"That's regression," said Heyhey. "I never thought you would put what is after all mere titillation before solid intellectual satisfaction."

"I don't," she protested. "But this life is too artificial, too regulated."

"You are arguing against civilization," he accused.

"I'm not," she replied. "Just too much of it."

"I don't know what to say," said Heyhey. "I thought we were alright. Obviously we are not. You'll have to work it out for yourself. All I can say is don't just suffer; at least use your training to solve your problem. For me? I stay and carry on as I am."

They journeyed the rest of the way in silence. At the super-stores, they bought their needs for the evening, on their salary not needing to count cost.

Their home was a spacious, five roomed apartment, the kitchen as modern as any in the west. 

Beebe set the table whilst Heyhey cooked; neither ate with much show of enjoyment.

Watching ballet on T.V. Beebe commented bitterly., "Why no alternative? Why only one channel? They have 20 or more in the U.S.A."

Heyhey made no answers, but his enjoyment was spoiled. He took a book and went to bed. Beebe came to see him, a little pensive, but the bug had bitten too deep. Her mood was not a passing one. Looking back he realised she had shown symptoms for some time now.

"We can take time off," he said. "Let's go to the cottage in the forest. That's back to nature. Re-charge your batteries. Might help you finalise your thoughts. Agreed?"

She nodded and got into bed beside him. "I'd be sorry to lose you," he said simply, holding her close. 

Zee looked at the picture dispassionately. "What's the time scale?" he asked.

Dee scanned the typescript that Heyhey had given Cee with the picture. "400 years," he said.

Zee looked disgusted. "Why do you bother me with this sort of thing?" He handed Dee back the picture. "The business of government is the present and foreseable future," he added. "And this is hardly in that category."

Dee felt anger. "I am not alone among scientists who are very concerned about this projection," he said.

"Well I'm not," said Zee, "But if it makes you happy I'll pass it on to the highest authority, perhaps he'll show more interest."

"That's all I want," said Dee, handing back the picture. 

Zee, as the deputy in charge of science in the federal government was answerable only to the president. He was surprised by his reaction, for he laughed.

"Mr. President?" he questioned.

"I don't believe it," said the president.

"I never even thought about it," said Zee. "It seemed so immaterial."

"I wouldn't say that," said the president."A bit academic, yes -interesting if you do think about it. The colour? what is their basis for that assumption?"

"The basis for it all,' said Zee, seems to be that the tendency for all nations to live in similar conditions, food, housing, general environment, will lead to a genetic similarity."

"Take longer than 400 years," said the president.

"They point to other factors," said Zee. "With the breakdown of racial prejudice, they believe that there will be a complete international integration."

"All races mix?" asked the president.

"Yes," said Zee.

"Like mixing paint," said the president. "I'd have thought the colour would have come out like a light brown Windsor soup."

"Like you Zee, I believe it all is pointless. Now is not the time to decide what mankind should look like. Some day perhaps. With a world government; with all man organised under socialism: perhaps then that sort of decision would be possible. Now? It's difficult to live in peace with your next door neighbour without trying to get world accord on what the next generation of humans should look like."

THE DUTTONS OF MARTHA STREET 

Jean Sutton 

Once upon a time, there lived a nice family. At least they were individually nice, but unfortunately they lived together, under the same roof, and that was bad.

Mr. Dutton was a nice, kind man, who loved his family, and hoped they loved him too. His motto was 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder', so every night he went out. He had a keen competitive spirit. Every night he entered a strange competition with a lot of other men, they drank glass after glass of liquid, which rotted their innards, caused double vision, and produced a visible effect on the stomach, and the end of the nose, but this was living, and without this stimulation, Mr. Dutton was a sad, sad man.

Sometimes, Mr. Dutton stayed at home. This was a great occasion, but bewildering, and the children rejoiced by being as noisy as possible, and Mrs. Dutton nagged by asking him if he was enjoying his night in. Occasionally there was great chaos, when Mr. Dutton shouted, and they all tried to jump onto the shovel at once.

Mrs. Dutton was a normal? happily married woman with no skin on her fingers - just bones. She wasn't born this way - it was a condition produced with hard work, and she was always telling her family this. Mrs. Dutton suffered from ill-health. Three or four times a day she felt sick, but, belonging to a large family, she did not have to suffer alone, so she told them all about it.

The Dutton children were normal children. At times-nice-nasty-loving-hateful-truthful-selfish-helpful and sneaky, etc. As Mr. and Mrs. Dutton also shared these characteristics it was one big, happy family, well interesting anyway. We will pick one of these traits at random - sneaky. When Mr. Dutton was sneaky, he would squeeze behind the wardrobe to count all his money, and could be heard laughing to himself. When Mrs. Dutton was sneaky, she would hide behind the washer scoffing all the fresh cream.

The eldest Dutton child was light-fingered, and was apt to swipe every comb and pen in sight, and also jump the queue in the fortnight waiting list for baths. The eldest boy liked to sneak off whenever there was a job to be done. He is allergic to work and the mention of a shovel of coal causes acute hysteria.

The three youngest indulge in group sneakiness, carried out mostly at night, one instance being reading Mr. and Mrs. Dutton's love letters. This pastime also induced hysterics. As you can see they are a very hysterical family, perhaps inherited from Mrs. Dutton who sometimes likes to throw a cup or a plate on to the floor, which she immediately sweeps up, showing an industrious and tidy streak, also a twisted enjoyment of self inflicted punishment. One night, Mrs. Dutton was left completely alone in the house. This was by way of a treat for her shattered nerves. Her system couldn't take the unusual silence, and she was almost driven mad.

Next day the family made it up to her, and gave her another treat. They took her for a nice drive in a car. They drove her to Winwick.

Which proved Mrs. Dutton a woman of great insight.

ALL AWRY IN PARADISE 
Winifred Froom

THE LONG NARROW AISLES MAKE ME THINK OF CATHEDRALS. Of course I know they are not, but there is the same absent look on the faces of the people, seeking for something they cannot see. Sweet music seeps from behind the towers of tins, like syrup from one that has lost its lid. From nooks and crannies, counters and shelves, even from the deep freeze it comes, hypnotising, paralysing, unless it is the martial kind inviting the customer to march, to waltz, to slide, or maybe drag the length of the avenue.

There's the ritual too.

Claim your wire basket from the portal, unless you have a toddler when you claim a kind of pram. Stroll between the towers of tins, peering from one pile to another. Stewed steak claims to give you satisfaction, detergents delivery from soul-destroying labour and monotony. All the joy of life, and ebullience of good health is ground up with the cereals. The sunbeams have been captured, fresh air harnessed, it is all here waiting for you. And it is instant, instant, now, at once, with no waiting

Somewhere, it is said, the hairs of your head are numbered, no sparrow falls to the ground unnoticed. Neither have your pets been overlooked on these terraces. Cats, dogs, goldfish or budgies are all remembered in these bright tins, where the smell of sea and farmyard are concentrated. No more hunting, no more grinding, no more crunching, everything is instant.

In the distance sit the cashiers, like goddesses, or perhaps priestesses at the high altar. The catechism is tapped out on their little machines. While you wait for the benediction on your perambulations up and down the aisles, the toddlers explore the display of lollipops and candies, thoughtfully displayed by the tills. No, nobody has been overlooked. The disciples of Market Research have been vigilant, the apostles of sales promotions and projects untiring.

But the queues, with their trolleys and baskets look neither serene nor satisfied. Seek and you shall find, come unto me all you that are heavy laden ... The labelled life around no longer stimulates, nor soothes They have a faraway look in their eyes. Surely there is more than a jar of cranberry sauce (2p off) to live for?

The soft sweet music is soporific, the cathedral changes into a supermarket, the ritual is concluded. The bill is paid.

A VERY SPECIAL BREW    
Ken Lilley

It was one of those bitterly cold hoary frosted mornins doon in the bowels of the vessel which waited alongside the quay ready for fitting out. The Tyneside fog even penetrated down into the yet skeleton-frazed engine room skylight; smothering everything in its downward path to the very engine room pad floor plates.

The gaunt rusty frost-coated bulkheads swept upwards into the mist in answer to querulous gaze of the beholder like some ghostly cathedral. The rather sombre scene was accompanied by the distant intermittent chorus of Souter Point fog-horn blowing its warning to any errant off-course vessels.

Almost as the half past sivvin buzzer blew, the ladder near me started to shudder merrily as the various trades started to descend to where I awaited shivering with cold, waiting for the gaffer to allot the day work. Soon, a pair of heavy boots reached eye level. I was greeted by a mature stubble faced worker in greasy overalls, and a heavily oiled cap... "Mornin Hinney, Rev yee jest started?"

"Aye," I rejoined.

"Rev yee not gorrah drink of tea?"

"Nor, not yit."

"Weel lad, warm yersell an git a drink oot oh that flask ower there." He pointed and then the grubby-faced friendly man waved cheerily and moved off into the mist of the engine room.

The hot, warm, sweet tea which I poured out of the flask which stood on a pedestal near me tasted like refreshing nectar. The hot liquid momentarily dispelled the icy gloom, at least from within to warm the very crutch of me overalls.

"Argh yee the new lad what started this mornin?" A heavy authoritative voice bellowed out from my rear. I turned, replacing the drained cup upon the flask.

"Aye, ah wus just warmin mesell up till the gaffer comes."

"Aye ah can see that," snarled the man cynically (obviously he was the gaffer). I was also aware of a number of nonchalant cheery faces chuckling sideways at the impromptu confrontation.

"Weel lad, when ye've satisfied yersell wif mah flask..." He snatched it up an placed it in his pocket. "Git yer tools and join that aud feller ower thor. He'll put yer reet."

My mate was the man who proffered that welcome cup of tea that mornin. He slapped me on the back and grinned cheerfully.

"Did yee injoy it lad?" he chuckled.

I nodded. I had to admit that was a very special brew.

THIS MAN CAN BE SUCCESSFUL AND JUST MAYBE THE CROWD IS LETTIN' HIM, NOT FORGETTING WE ARE PART OF THE CROWD THAT HAVE BECOME WORDS ON THIS PAGE.

M.G. Askell

 

What makes for communication, communication that has no necessity, communication that when completed leaves people wondering why, or maybe just me, wondering; yet sensing this particular human quality.

It is possible to create atmosphere, to arrange an event towards a certain ending, known only to me the narrator; so we are warned. Central to this arrangement of words are:

A rope strop lying tangled
on a concrete oil stained floor,
with several strands broken;
noise. An omission.

be careful situations are always in the process of becoming other situations. Those marks on the wall have a fascination, my eyes drift along each day, nothing registering particularly, until I reach this section and then the wall is no longer a wall. The surface, the marks, the colour, the distance between myself and this section of wall, this narrow funnel of space has become a journey between my imagination and my reason. Why this piece of wall? Why those marks? What particular problems of technique are involved in reproducing this encounter, in understanding; how much of the surrounding area is influencing ... "Hey! What about the lifting gear in this place; I've just picked up a rope strop, and we are short on rope strops, and some of the strands are cut through." .... directing attention towards this small section

"Well tell the foreman; if it's dangerous, we can't use it."

"I've always said we haven't enough rope strops, and besides they should have labels on them, stamped up, giving the safe lifting load an' that."

"O.K. destroy it. That's the usual practice; or someone in a hurry may not notice it, and we could have an accident if it breaks on the job."

"If I do that, I won't be able to lift my job."

"That's right! We'll get rope strops quick enough then."

"Well? What are you going to do?"

"I just said, for fucks sake! Anyhow it will make a change for that machine of yours to be switched off, the row it makes."

An outside influence is now affecting this communication; the words on this will name such an influence - a) experience, b) history, c) conflict of interests, d) bloody-mindedness.

"I ain't gonna use it."

"Right."

Pure black, glistening, the warmth, tenderness, that rich flood of life setting fire to a staircase of colours.

"Well what are you going to do?"

Metal coming away from the rim of the shell, feed just right, sometimes everything so easy ... so bloody easy

"Well ?"

"What?"

"What are we gonna do about it; where are you going? Hey!"

It's soaked in oil, tough too, I thought my knife was sharp...

"You've just cut my strop in half. Now I can't lift my job!"

"That's right."

Look from this page, push the page away, as far as is necessary for the words to go out of focus; look towards the window, beyond its frame, another view, in the last few seconds it has changed, is changing, what are you thinking?

"There was no need to do that! I can't get on with my job now. You're mad!"

"What's going on down there between them two?"

 "I dunno."

"Well it's owt to do with us anyways."

"Yeah, about that Cortina you had, how many..."

Moving away from the City Centre, no longer travelling within these confines, or absorbed into its regulations, deliberately, consciously and subconsciously pushing out from the hub, through all levels to its rim. With this momentum the City highways are abstracted; re-lit, intensely, such light is informing, demanding of whom? The photographer, the painter, the neon minded commercialiser, the inhabitants, whose unquestioning industry oil this City's generators. Such light demands attention, its speed forces inwards, sweeps towards the hub continually; burning the edges of buildings against an unmoving sky, exposing the armour that relentlessly crawls, howling, snapping, devouring along these thoroughfares; passing the street of the house of anarchists, night ideas and dog days. Silhouetting those inhabitants, queuing six deep outside the palace for bingo, bland faces, their artificial adornment the chain mail chance of a jackpot. Sirens ebb and flow, a million voices repeating, nothing ... nothing ... alright alright. This light informs by the sharpness in the edges it infinitely re-exposes. What are you thinking? The light also shines on her hair.

"I'm going to tell him, that you've cut the strop in half."

"That's right! Go ahead, you just tell him I cut the bloody strop in half."

"Right I will."

When a person walks away, intent on purpose that is out of sight (site), in receding becomes the backcloth of an everchanging situation, the eyes that follow such purpose, whose origins are incomprehensible within the time allowed by action; have, even in anger in bitterness or hopelessness, a flicker from evolutionary understanding, of remorse and regret. The emotional fire is tempered by sadness, perhaps at the temporary lose of unity.

"What's going on with you two?"

"The same old story, not enough gear and we end up arguing with each other, for all the wrong reasons."

"Yeah, all they care about is getting the job done in the least possible time at the least possible expense. Ay, what are you doing dinner time? Going over the park for a game of football; most of us are except, (this exception could be ... you ... me ... sometimes us?) who is going into town but he reckons he may be back in time. Ay! never mind, it probably won't happen."

"Just maybe you're right, but it won't be for want of trying."

"What."

"Where's that small crowbar?"

"Dunno I ain't seen it lately."

just then, figures on

a far golden shore

touch hands, fingertips first,

ice petals tumble through sun spray,

each fresh breeze tenderly tells

of islands that dwelt in the past.

No sound from smiling minds;

the sand moved gently as a rhythm suspended.

In darkness deep of ocean's floor

intangible something, moved for the first time.

"I've seen him, he said you were wrong to cut that strop in half."

"Oh yeah."

"Yeah, he says that what we should have done was to give the strop to him and he would have cut it in half. He's going to see if we can borrow some from the other shop; in the meantime I've got to hang about till he gets some. You know what; I was having a look at my mortgage papers the other night, I've increased the payments, what with all this overtime an' that."

THE CLOTHES PEG  
Gareth Thomas

A church clock struck three in the morning. Four dossers nodded and snored, sat in a tight circle around a dimly smouldering brazier. The fifth was awake and listening to the night. "That clock's fast," he mused, scratching at an itch beneath his faded once fawn-coloured duffle coat.

He looked at the brazier, the dull red glow a poor answer to the moon's bright message. Crossing his arms over his ribs, he rubbed his wheezing chest and arose from the blue plastic milk crate which served him for a seat. Turning slowly from the weak warmth of the brazier, shuffling on old unsteady legs - the same legs that had marched through France in his war-torn youth - he searched the rubbish duwp for more firewood.

A mouse crawled out from the tattered upholstery of a rusty car door. It crawled around the bent window frame, where a few chunks of laminated glass still stubbornly clung, and raised its whiskers to the stars.

In vain, the old tramp scanned the rubble, old tin cans, bricks, bottles and car tyres, discarded polythene kitchenware, and an old mattress which sprouted a forest of springs. No more wood on the dump. If only they had been more thoughtful when the night was young and the fire was bright. Now the embers that remained were poor armour against the frosty attack, the cold before the dawn.

He saw the mouse. A glint came into his eye, and he stooped to grab the nearest object to his feet. It was a clothes peg. The cold stiff fingers firmly gripped the missile and his arm drew back. He took aim, frowned, then slowly lowered his arm and looked at the clothes peg. Wood! Firewood.

He walked back to the brazier and ceremoniously dropped the new fuel into the embers. Sitting down once again on the milk crate, he studied the clothes peg and waited. A small flame began to lick around the peg, first green, then blue, finally yellow and bright.

The other four looked up from their drowsy shoulders and greeted the puny phoenix. Soon, five pairs of hands were reaching into the brazier and gathering the heat from the burning peg.

A second church clock struck three in the morning, and a barely audible mutter came from the hunched, duffle-coated figure. "Or maybe it's that one that's slow ..."

All five warmed their hands until the peg's flame died, and only a red hot steel spring-clip remained. Four heads nodded a salute to the remaining embers, nodded thanks to the bringer-of-firewood, and nodded back to sleep. The fifth remained awake and thinking in the night. "They could both be wrong.

He picked up an empty wine bottle lying by the side of the crate, and raised it to see if any dregs remained. Raising the bottle to his bearded mouth, he held it vertically and a single droplet of red liquid ran down the glass and into his throat.

"Anyway - they couldn't both be right," he decided, conclusively. Satisfied with this answer, he smiled, lobbed the bottle in the general direction of the mouse, spat into the embers and dozed off.

He had fought for this freedom in two world wars.    

CITY BOY/BROWN BABY    
John Gowling

Between the cast-iron pillars of the railway viaducts I go, searching for a love, looking for a love. Past the scrap-metal yards, hedged high with rusty motor bodies, there I go, searching for a love. In between the sewerage aqueducts that span the boneyard valleys and canals, there I go searching for a love, looking for a love. Mountain climbing on the slopes of ash and scree, could this be you and me? Could it be? In between the railway wagons and the coal marshalling yards, there I go, there I go. Some day soon you'll be where I go but when and where and who will you be? and who will you be? Do you think that love was meant to penetrate the traffic gantries and signal stanchions above the steps of the subways, and if it was, how would we know? Beyond the kiosk selling cigarettes I wait, up abeam the iron bridge I hope you won't be late when you walk by. On the ferry, side stepping with the slurry barge I tend to think I stand a chance, a quick romance with you on the fire escape would do me fine.

Their old world is slowly coming down, but mother of mine, don't you know that it needs a little more than poured concrete and a few flowers to let love grow. The housing department won't rehouse the lodgers and they evict those that stay. They fire condemned blocks where families still live. What do they care when Urban Renewal means another tenement block to last another 60 years? What do they care? Vincinette's baby looks up from the pram to read the spray-paint on the stairwell wall. Vincinette looks down the cold clinical corridor which says: Your mother is mad, we've taken her in; your father is tired he wants to go home to Barbados. Every day too, she prays to the Father that her trails get harder so she will go the Heaven, midnight prayers deny her the goodnight kiss she so desperately needs. Her baby was not conceived in the art-museum or the movie magazine. Not in the park or the public cemetery, but on a mattress, away on the roof, beneath the stars, to the marshalling freight, the shunting engines and the traffic below. An apprentice's wage bypassed the gas and electricity, replaced broken glass with cardboard, rode a bike without a licence, and paid no rent

I pull out a screwed up note, from my pocket, I didn't care to send:

I don't want a black or a communist, I have given all this for you, who are neither. I am in love with you and that over-rules everything else. Because I never found a black or a communist but I found you. I've tried to tell you that it's you I want, and you encouraged this, you made this happen. Tonight you didn't take me to Rigby's or some white joint croastown. You asked to meet me in O'Connors then suggested the Masonic or the Somalie where I looked at no one there but you, and showed everyone there how much I loved you. How can you be so cruel to say that it couldn't work out, does it not seem strong to you that I can still love and understand you above this and constantly I've been looking for you and trying to find you and know every little thing about you. I made the effort, I don't believe one person can ever make again in one lifetime, only to find you now uncompromising. And you flung in my face about being your child, and being black and a communist. Can you not conceive that there are blacks who are not for me, and blacks who don't like me, and whites who are racist, and all people who don't like communists, and people that don't like me? Don't you think I don't know? Why did you do this to me? What did you hope to use me for? After I loved you and dreamt about being with you all times. I still want that. I never met a communist or black who I loved, but I met and loved and lay with you.

Silently I walk the city streets. It is 4 a.m. and not my town. I wake at 6 a.m. in a foreign apartment, put the first comb of the day through my hair and make to leave.

---

WIN WITH LABOUR! 
Jone o'Broonlea

'Colours o' this rosette
Tell ruefu' tale o' ther need o' us:
Red's for us - an' yeller for ' leaders:
We'st ha' to larn 'em yet!

A BOOK AT BEDTIME
Mick Jenkins

Bill Baker was a miner working at Rufford Colliery in Nottinghamshire. He was elected the Union Branch President, and re-elected each following year, and in 1945 was re-elected unopposed. He was elected Workman's Inspector at the pit. He was an authority on mining safety. His work on mining safety was known throughout the area. Like many other militants he was victimised many times following 1926. Later in the fifties he was elected full time Miners Agent for the Nottinghamshire Area of the National Union of Mineworkers.

Bill was a friendly type of person, always had something to say. He was deeply immersed in the problems of the mining industry and the struggle to lift up the standards of the miners, to improve their working conditions. An idea as to the type of fellow he was can be gleaned from an incident that occurred whilst he was working at Ruf ford Colliery. One day he came to see me at the Party Office. It was late afternoon, he had worked the morning shift. We talked - I don't remember about what - and when it was obvious we had finished he said to me, "Got anything good to read?" I said, "What do you want to read?" As 'it' was getting near to teatime, and I was going home, I asked him to come home with me, have a cup of tea, and we'd have a look over my book shelves.

On the walk home we talked about books, what he had recently read, what I had, the difficulty of finding time to read whilst doing an arduous day's work, attending meetings, doing Party work. We also compared notes on interesting books we had read. In the course of this latter exchange, I asked him if he had read "Germinal" by Emil Zola. He said he hadn't, but knew about it, and wanted to read it. I said, "Right, that's one book you've borrowed." We arrived home, had a cup of tea, looked through my bookshelves, and off he went with two books under his arm.

He made his way back to his council estate house in Mansfield, had a meal, slept for an hour or so, washed and went to the 'local' for a pint. Came back home about half nine and began collecting his things for the shift the following morning; he had a sandwich and a pot of tea and was about to make his way upstairs to bed when he remembered the books. "Where did I put those books I brought home?' to as many of his six children as were present. They were produced, and with "I'll just have a glance at them" he sat on the sofa in front of the fire.

Naturally, it was "Germinal" that he opened up, flicked through the pages, read an odd sentence or two thinking at the same time as he turned back to the front page "Going to take a long time to reads" He glanced at the clock on the mantlepiece and decided he would pinch half an hour off his sleep - but "can't afford to lose a shift". The half hour stretched into an hour, and then two hours. At 1 a.m., he had now been reading for about three hours, he decided he would finish that chapter and go to bed -he had to be up around 5 a.m. he had managed shifts before on four hours sleep. At 7.30 in the morning one of his children woke him from deep slumber on the sofa in front of a dead fire. He finished "Germinal" that day. Next time we met he greeted me with "Your book cost me a bloody shift!"

RUE  
Jone o' Broonlea

 

      Cockchif ft at neet-fa',

      pisspreawd coom morn,

      'Days hoo's nooan reet, tho',

      mon tholes forlorn.

SURGEON WHO LOST SON INDICTS THE KILLERS 
Patrick Lane

ASSASSINS HAVE 'CENTRAL GUIDING HAND'

'Come let us make a muster
speedily:
Doomsday is near; die all
Die merrily."

The words of Hotspur in "Henry IV" are relevant to Northern Ireland today, although there is a total absence of any cause for merriment.

The words have their origin in a civil war power struggle, and the troubles here are basically about the maintenance of that same power and the overthrow of forces which tend to erode it.

In a previous paper I attempted to show where this power resides and reiterate briefly that it resides with the executive in England and not with the Legislature at Westminster. The latter has control of the laws and social changes and the general running of the national economy (the housekeeping budget) but the executive controls the power (the bank balance).

The course of history in these islands shows a central and continuous effort directed to maintenance of power and this is what rebellions, wars and diplomacy have been all about. From the nature of power, moral considerations do not enter its acquisition or maintenance. Diplomacy or ruthlessness, are used as the occasion demands, if they are deemed to be the appropriate weapon. This point is not made by way of condemnation specifically of British power. The argument is applicable to all power blocks and their struggle for continuance.

There is no reason to think that "enlightenment" or a change of heart have suddenly come about at any time during this century and that the theme mentioned above does not still run through contemporary affairs. Indeed, it would appear that from the point of view of the ordinary inhabitant of the globe, the world is a much crueller environment than it was some centuries ago, despite enormous advances in science and technology.

A brief look at the history of Northern Ireland over its half a century life, will show how the thread of power ran and still runs. Industrial effort here based largely on the linen, textile and ship building industries, changed gradually to an alternative dependance on such activities as the new man-made fibre production, of which Northern Ireland is now said to be fourth in position in world output. This is in no small measure due to the presence of a docile labour force.

There has scarcely been a strike of note and the trade unions are an impotent force.

A carefully set up Unionist Government was cossetted by a deliberate blind-eye approach to ensure that the working labour force remained dormant and rejected any liberal thinking that might be thrown out by an occasional Northerner like James Connolly.

Discrimination and sectarianism were necessary weapons as the nationalist minority community - Conveniently identifiable as Catholic -rejected the state and its institutions. Adverse comment from outside was avoided by making a convention that the affairs of Northern Ireland were not open for discussion at Westminster and this state of affairs existed until 1968.

The lid came off with the growth of the Civil Rights Movement in 1968/69. This should have been anticipated by the power-that-be as the movement was global and was making itself felt in the streets of France and in the campuses of American universities and elsewhere. Even though the case of discrimination and social injustice was accepted and proved, the movement was countered by a behind-the-scenes provocation of sectarian reaction. There is no doubt that this was deliberately aided if not instigated by British Power. 

There were many instances where local rabble-rousers, many of whom are by now prominent politicians could have been made subject to the law on charges of incitement or sedition but they seemed to be working under legal immunity. An attempt was made to blame the underground Republican Movement

- I.R.A. - an organization ticking over from the days of the Independence struggle in the South, and depending for its existence on the dedication of its members, who cannot have been many, and on ill defined sympathy among some of the minority chiefly in the Catholic ghettos. At about this time its strength, such as it was, was depicted by a split into two wings roughly republican separatist and republican socialist.

The early success of the civil rights movement was countered by the advent of sectarian clashes in 1969. There is little doubt but that the hidden power found a few local willing tools able to foment this outburst and bring it about. The people of Hooker Street and Palmer Street, having co-existed as neighbours for years, suddenly found themselves to be enemies.

As was foreseen at the time, the I.R.A. used the sectarian violence to further its own fortunes and did so successfully and an intangible force of "civil rights" ideas threatening power, was converted into a physical one which could be met by physical means. World opinion was assuaged by the sight and word of British forces laudibly keeping the peace in the streets of Ulster. To most of the minority, however, the reality is otherwise. After a brief honeymoon (the word of Gen. Freeland) the campaign began -the one sided harassment, one sided searching and seizure of arms and a one sided use of the courts and legal machinery, culminating in one sided interrogation and torture and internment.

It had the desired effect of increasing the strength of the I.R.A. and polarising the struggle to one that could be met with by well tried conventional methods. Two miscalculations were made. Firstly the resistance which guerilla forces will put up if they are motivated only by dedication to their cause and have little or nothing else to lose (a dedication which cannot be appreciated by those who have). Secondly the details of torture and interrogation have become public knowledge and are now the subject of charges against Britain at the European Commission of Human Rights.

Miscalculation has meant that Northern Ireland has now endured a horror about as long as each of the world wars with no end in sight. Tactics had had to change. It was felt that if the I.R.A. tactics caused sufficient horror their ultimate strength - the ghetto sympathy - would melt away. This did not happen even after the disastrous bloody Friday episode. I cannot explain why this and other horrors and intimidation have not caused this rejection. Perhaps, there is a rough decision in favour of the lesser of two evils or a more intelligent assessment of cause and effect among the people with very little to lose than among those whose judgment is influenced by position and privilege.

A large part of the horror has been a steady stream of sectarian killings coming in definite waves indicating a carefully planned pattern.

I do not believe that these are perpetrated as such by one community on the other. It is not in the nature of ordinary humanity even when banded into secret sectarian terrorist groups to act thus on such a scale. It is true that communities at each others throats can indulge in severe violence culminating in murder, as happened in 1969 and has happened recently on a wide scale in Cyprus. These episodes are invariably self limiting if only through exhaustion and no communities are capable of sustaining such hate to continue assassinations for several years.

There is no doubt that some psychopaths capable of an occasional killing may be on the loose, or some, motivated by a score to settle, may also strike. The steady and relentless stream, however, with peak waves occurring in the early autumn when the tensions of the summer marching seasons have died down, point to a central guiding hand controlling the assassin.

Morality or even emotion do not enter into the calculations. Ostensibly the choosing of the victim does not make sense. The usual victim is an innocent labourer or tradesman. The message, however, would seem to be that the general public and especially the minority community must conform or else. Perhaps, there will be minor concessions such as nominal power sharing at local level in return for conformity. In the old days the situation of dealing with a threat to power would be met with a Culloden and Highland extermination manoeuvre, but the pressure of world press and T.V. cameras would now preclude this here. It is only an Eastern power bloc would employ such a measure nowadays, where they are prepared to ignore world opinion.

In terms of human suffering and terror the long drawn out effort is as bad if not worse than the quick massacre.

I do not suggest that the terrorist groups on both sides are not capable of or have not committed, outrages on their own initiative. They are, however, carrying all the blame in the propaganda exercise. There can be no doubt that all the organisations have been infiltrated by the Secret Service machine. It is probable that many, if not most of the killings emanate from this source through the use of agent provacateurs or through unfortunates on whom there is a hold for some other serious crime.

Inklings of this situation came out in the Littlejohn and the Baker affairs. Another pointer is that the killers seem to be able to work with immunity in spite of the heavy presence of security forces checkpoints and up to date radio communication. On the other hand freelance murders, e.g. those motivated by robbery are often caught and brought to justice.

The latest move in the dismal picture is that the terror has now been taken to the innocent civilian population of England. Motivation for this by a terrorist organisation is illogical and irrational. One result which is not to the benefit of the terrorist organisation is that the British public is now conditioned to accept a much tighter control of "law and order"; and encroachment on individual rights. If the necessity arose, the death penalty could be reintroduced overnight without much dissent.

Disclosures in evidence reported at trials in England would suggest that again there is collusion between infiltrators and young misguided dedicated members of the I.R.A. who are induced to travel over and wreak havoc in England. The ease with which many are picked up straight away suggests that their actions and the possible results are known before they start. The usual speed of arrest contrasts strangely with the average delay in the case of ordinary criminal acts where a large section of the police force may be extended for a considerable time.

This assessment of the Northern scene is not given by way of condemnation of Britain only. Any power structure will act in similar fashion. France and Spain are indulging in similar measures against minorities where the activities of the Bretons and the Basques threaten the integrity of central power.

It is only if my thesis is accepted that the dreadful evil of internment can be understood. A child could tell that its declared purpose to confine terrorists and deter others is just nonsense. It is there to stay until the minority community gets the message. The archives show that indefinite confinement in the prison bulks of the Medway successfully extinguished the remnants of Gaelic culture of the Scottish Highlands following the '45 rebellion. The weapons of power do not change with time and the reason of humanity. This has immunity from all appeals to measures to retain it, and has always been so in man's history.

What can we do in this situation? It is of little help to engage in idle condemnation of any or all of the parties involved. we are all involved by our existence here. Wide discussion is necessary to understand the problem. My own view is that all efforts of reasonable men should be directed to mobilising public opinion to press for the complete departure of British power from our shores so that we can live in peace and with justice and harmony. It will mean that on our own we will have less affluence but life should be adequate for all.

This may be regarded as a dream. I would counter by saying that the present and the alternative is a nightmare. 

The writer of the foregoing article, Surgeon Patrick Lane of Belfast, is a well-known worker for Communal reconciliation in Northern Ireland. His son, Peter, a 24 year old medical student was the victim of an apparent sectarian assassination in the North almost two years ago. In connection with the murder of Peter Lane, it is probably not without significance that his father had compiled evidence of tortures inflicted on detainees by the security forces.

Surgeon Lane detects a carefully planned pattern of sectarian killings with a central guiding hand controlling the assassins. He has no doubt that all the militant organisations have been infiltrated by the British Secret Service machine and that most of the killings emanate from this source. 

TRELLIE
Ken Clay

When Trellie was very young, during that bleak period of austerity in the late forties and early fifties, he was taken to the pictures every week by his mother. All the heroes, it seemed to him, played the piano very well or quoted long pieces of Shakespeare flawlessly. His father venerated these accomplishments and could himself quote two lines from John of Gaunt's death-bed speech in Richard II. He made a point of committing the couplet to memory after coming across it in the monthly magazine of the Royal Society of St. George.

Then there was Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia, the only set of books in the house apart from the Home Doctor and the Daily Express Book of the Garden. They were all kept lying flat under blankets in a drawer in the wardrobe; it didn't seem worthwhile buying a bookshelf. From these Trellie received the first stirring intimations of the power of great art. Not from the works themselves - the Encyclopedia did indeed contain whole sonnets by John Keats and Milton in addition to blue toned photographs of Michaelangelo's David and Moses - but from the grandiose, overblown language of Arthur Mee himself. Surely, thought Trellie, if these things can move people like Arthur Mee to deliver such extravagant praise they must be the most important things in the world. When he looked at the poems and statues the sonorous phrases of his guide made his flesh creep once more in a frisson of awe.

Later he wrote poems: it was easy. Then he started to keep a notebook of thoughts which one day, when he'd got enough to publish, would undoubtedly appear in Encyclopedias of the future under the heading 'Immortal Ideas Which Have Changed the World'. As he grew older the ideas of others began to pollute his stream of thought. Eventually the n