Monday, October 28, 2013

Hayes Cottage Hospital Occupation 25th October 1983 - 30th Anniversary

Hayes Cottage Hospital Occupation 25th October 1983

 

30th Anniversary





Hayes Cottage hospital, West London. Occupied 25th October 1983 until late December 1983, when the local health authority backed down and the hospital was saved.


Marge Bayne, Sylvia Tebbenham, Susan Marshall led the Occupation for the staff members of COHSE and NUPE.


Northwood & Pinner Cottage Hospital was also occupied at the same time starting 26th October, led by the Matron Jean Carey COHSE member
.

Stjepan Filipovic - Yugoslavia Partisan - SFSN

Executed Today Post

On the 22nd May 1942, this happened:


The young man striking the dramatic pose is Stjepan Filipovic, an anti-fascist partisan hanged in the city of Valjevo by the Serbian State Guard, a collaborationist force working with the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia.

Filipovic is shouting “Death to fascism, freedom to the people!” — a pre-existing Communist slogan that Filipovic’s martyrdom would help to popularize. Smrt faĆĄizmu, sloboda narodu! … or you can just abbreviate it SFSN!

In the city where Filipovic died, which is in present-day Serbia, there’s a monumental statue in his honor replicating that Y-shaped pose — an artistically classic look just like our favorite Goya painting, poised between death and victory.

(cc) image from Maduixa.

Since the break up of Yougoslavia he has been claimed by all sides - Valjevo monument — it’s in Serbia, remember — calls him Stevan Filipovic, which is the Serbian variant of his given name. But as Serbia is the heir to Yugoslavia, he at least remains there a legitimate subject for a public memorial.

Filipovic himself was Croatian, but his legacy in that present-day state is a bit more problematic: in his native town outside Dubrovnik, a statue that once commemorated Filipovic was torn down in 1991 by Croat nationalists; its vacant plinth still stands sadly in Opuzen. (Opuzen’s film festival, however, awards its honorees a statuette replicating the destroyed monument.)








Sunday, October 27, 2013

Hayes Labour 1971

Labour candidates Hillingdon 1971

Belmore Ward
Mrs D "Beryl". Bell Labour
  Mrs E "Maggie"  Broughton (Labour)
Mr Paul Harmsworth (Labour)
Martin Craxton (Labour)

John Mansfield (Communist)

Hayes Ward
Robert Came (Labour)
Ossie Garvin (Labour)
Mr J. Walters (Labour


Jim Ford (Communist)

Yeading Ward
Mr Stanley Chilton (Labour)
Mr G. Edwards (Labour)
Mr Robert Willams (Labour)

Peter Pink (Communist)

Frogmore Ward
Ken Gigg (Labour)
Alan Madge (Labour)
E "Ted" Harris (Labour)


Steve Panayl (Communist)


Uxbridge Labour party Officers 1971
Percy W. Bush (Secretary)
Peter Smith (Chairman)
Ald Mrs W. Pomeroy (Vice Chairman)
George Pringle (Vice Chairman)
A. J. Potts (Treasurer)
Dave Heppenstall (Youth Officer)
A. Collins (social secretary)

President of Hillingdon Trades Council
Arthur R Groves called for maximum support for the demonstration against the Industrial relations Act on 21st February at Hyde Park at 1 pm 
"I dont believe this will stop the Industrial Relations Bill- only general action will do it, not a days strike but a general strike...I would prefer to strike for five weeks than have to put up with five years under the Tories"

Peter Pink Perspective Communist Party candidate


Vishnu Sharma spoke on the New Immigration Bill at a meeting organsied by Hayes Communist Party April 1971 He stated the new Act "would create insecurity in the lives of coloured immigrants and help the racialists to persuade Britons that black people were undesirable".

Arthur Skeffington MP had died causing a by election, John Ryan former Labour MP for Uxbridge decided not to stand


New Oxfam shop to open at 44 Coldharbour Lane, Hayes in March 1971 run by a Mrs Davis

March 1971 an Anti Apartheid demonstration on Botwell green was held in Hayes under the auspices of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. marched from Botwell green to a field in North Hyde Road

Patrick "Pat" Lyons addressed the demonstration also in attendance John Gaestewe (one time President and the General Secretary of SACTU ) Bob Hughes Labour MP for Aberdeen, Ernie Roberts (engineering union later MP Hackney) and Maggie Broughton, Alan Madge,Peter Pink, - Ealing Technology College banner was present.

Housing Estate for BA Workers


A new housing estate for British Airways staff was opened April 1971 at Manor Court, Monument Hill, Weybridge for BOAC workers. The scheme comprises of 75 two bedroom flats in three blocks built by the British Airways Staff Housing Society Limited. The BA Housing Society had now provided 1,650 houses. One of the first residents was Mr & Mrs E. A Ryan a British airways loader/driver employed by BEA having been notice to quit furnished rooms in Chiswick.



Workers Olympic's 1936 - Barcelona

Barcelona Workers Olympics 1936 (Cancelled)



Apartheid backed cricket tour 1970


Apartheid backed cricket tour 1970 was canceled when the Cricket Council reversed a decision to allow South African cricketers to tour England in summer of 1970.


The move follows strong pressure from the Home Secretary, James Callaghan and campaigns by the Anti Apartheid movement

Frank Stanley


Frank Stanley
Frank Stanley (pictured above addressing the 1967 Communist Party Congress at Camden Town hall and left in one of his election addresses)  

Frank Stanley was born in 1920 in Acton. His father was an active trade unionist and steward. 

At the end of life in his junior school, Frank won a scholarship to the local Grammar School. But, because his father was unemployed at the time and unable to afford the loss of wage to the family, or the cost of a uniform, he was unable to take his place and eventually left school at the age of 14.

In 1937 he joined the Young Communist League and in 1940 became a full member of the Communist Party, in the same year he married his wife Joan who he met through the YCL and with whom he would have two daughters.

From 1942-1946 he served in the REME (14th Army) for three and a half years in Burma and became a Warrant Officer. An instrument maker by trade, he started work at EMI Hayes in 1950 and became an Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) steward the following year. From 1959 he was AEU convenor and Secretary of the Joint Stewards Committee, negotiating on behalf of 6,000 workers at EMI. 




In February 1962 a one day strike took place at EMI at which a number of scuffles with police broke out. The local MP was to state that, in Blythe Road, Hayes, the police "appeared to encourage them to drive at the pickets". 

That March 700 AEU members marched from Hayes to Southall protesting at the Government imposed a "Pay Pause". They were addressed by Mr Sheeny convenor at Alladin's factory. The local paper refers to a Wally Hannington, a retired Jarrow engineer being present on the march. This must be Wal Hannington (1896-1966), former AEU and National Unemployed Workers Movement organiser (See entry for Hannington).

Stanley was Chairman of West Middlesex District Committee of the Communist Party and national chair of the Communist Party’s Central Committee and was a pallbearer at Willie Gallacher’s funeral in 1965.

Frank Stanley lived in Hayes and was the Communist Party candidate for Hayes & Harlington constituency on a number of occasions. In his first attempt in the General Election of October 1964, he stood on a platform of: 

1) Put yourself before the Monopolies and land speculators
2) Vote to abolish nuclear weapons
3) Break the American grip on our country 


He also featured a campaign for a branch line linking Hayes with the Central or Piccadilly Underground line). Frank and the local Communists canvassed over 16,000 houses in Hayes during this election and John Gollan, Communist Party general secretary, spoke at his adoption meeting on Monday 14th September at the Civic Restaurant, Coldharbour Lane.

He was one of 36 Communist parliamentary candidates at the 1964 election and took part in the Communist Party Election rally at Hyde Park and march to the BBC to demand air time on Sunday, September 13th. He also appeared in the Communist Party’s election broadcast in the following General election.

Frank Stanley was also active in  the promotion of the Trades Union Congress inspired Centre 42 arts programme in 1962 (named after the arts resolution number on the agenda at TUC Congress), Centre 42 "aimed to provide an outlet for cultural ambitions and entertainment of the ordinary person" The public face of which was Arnold Wesker and toured Britain visiting Hayes and Southall November 19th - 24th, 1962, this stop included the first presentation of "Enter Solly Gold" by Bernard Cops, a Youth Theatre production of "Hamlet", Music Theatre presented "The Soldiers Tale” and the "Nottingham Captain", a Jazz band, poetry reading, photograph exhibition, drawings, folk singing including Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger.

Ill-health forced Stanley to retire to Banbury, Oxfordshire.

Hayes Trades Union Council

Hayes Trades Union Council 

circa 1960

Hayes Trades Union Council was an organisation that represented all the local branches of unions active locally in the Hayes area (including Heathrow)

centre 

Arthur Skeffington MP for Hayes & Harlington

Elsie "Maggie" Broughton