Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Sunday, February 20, 2022
Saturday, February 19, 2022
The Dockers Union - London 1887
The Dockers union was founded in London in July 1887 as the Tea Operatives & General Labourers' Association
The first meeting held at the Royal Oak, Hackney Road
The union was central to the famous London dock strike of 1889
the union was formed to organise opposition to a cut in wages for workers involved in unloading and processing tea at the East & West India Dock Company's Cutler Street warehouse.
Harry Orbell - President
Dock, Wharf, Riverside & General Workers' Union (Later TGWU)
Thursday, February 17, 2022
National Union of Public Employees - NUPE Southall
NUPE branches
at Southall and Ealing established in 1936
Sunday, January 23, 2022
Harrow Clarion Cycling Club 1954
The following is an extract from an account of a ride by Harrow Clarion Cycle Club which appeared in a 1954 edition of the Daily Worker, it may well rekindle for some memories of what many, rightly consider, to have been a golden age for cycling.
National
Clarion Cycling Club 1895 ~ an association of Clarion Cycling Clubs
‘Oil up!’, cried vice- captain Bert from the rear.
‘Easy!’ cried Captain Herbert from the front. And 20 cyclists two abreast in
neat column safely negotiated a turn across the main road into a quite lane.
Gabriel and I, uncertain performers, among the experts of the Harrow Section of
the Clarion Cycling Club, were learning not for the first time since we had set
out that there is a great deal more to an outing with a cycling club than just
getting on a push bike and pedalling away. “Push-bike” in any case is hardly
the word for the gleaming machines, many of them custom built, made to measure
like a good suit and costing £30 or more.
There are the club rules and the jargon to learn too. The rules are simple; don’t cycle more than two abreast and don’t go ahead of the Captain without permission. The jargon you pick up more slowly “Easy” means slow down. “Oil up” is the cyclist’s contemptuous reference to the approach of a car from the rear. ‘Eyeballs out’ as you learn from experience is an all too accurate description of how it feels to toil up a one in eight gradient. ‘The bonk’, the most feared word in cycling, is the awful depression that grips you when nothing seems to go right. The wind is against you, its raining, you’re tired and you wonder how you ever came to think of cycling as a sport. This sad malady is treated with sympathy and cheerfulness until the victim recovers, as he usually does, when plied with hot tea and cakes at the next café.
By the time we bowled through the sunlit glades to the lunch stop we had discovered that our fellow cyclists were not just eccentric with a fancy for dressing in shorts and queer pullovers, but a group of very companionable individuals. Their ages ranged from 14 to a brisk and active 74-year-old. Age seemed to make little difference as long as you can cycle round the countryside in shorts, you’re young whatever your birth certificate says.
Most of our companions had taken up club cycling
because it is cheap, helps you to make friends and combines the healthy exertion
of a sport with the intelligent interest of a hobby. Cyclists we learned don’t
just bowl about the country for the sake of boasting about their mileage later.
Most of them find their greatest pleasure in enjoying the quiet countryside and
getting to know the historic towns and villages of the land in which they live.
After lunch and a well-earned pint, we set off through the lanes and side roads to Chalfront St Giles. The village seemed to have been taken over by an army of cyclists who sported on its picturesque green and surged up and down its streets. In a café here, we witness the miracle of the disappearing bread. Plates piled high with bread and butter in thick doorstops were placed before us and disappeared almost before the plate had touch the tablecloth. Cycling gives you an outsize appetite as well as bulging calf muscles.
By the time we were on our way home to conclude an easy 40 mile run we’d almost forgotten that we’d ever been diffident beginners. We’d made a whole group of new friends and though we’d only touched the fringe of cycling activity, it was with a glow of satisfaction that we readily agreed riding with a Cycle Club was good thing most definitely to be repeated, on a fine day at any rate.
Addendum:
Interestingly whilst almost all early Cycling Clubs
used to follow the ‘no over-taking the Captain’ rule, some of the very early
Clarion Cycle Clubs also had a short-lived ‘one off, all off’ rule when it came
to climbing hills This rule was clearly unpopular with the fast lads and
lassies whose aim was to ‘bag’ as many hills as possible, in as quick a time as
possible.
The thinking behind the rule was rooted in the
Clarion’s commitment to fellowship, the novice or the slow rider knowing that his
or her comrades would not want to dismount on the hill was likely to make that
bit more of an effort than normal to stay onboard their machine in an attempt
to conquer the gradient. The more experienced, fitter riders not wanting to
hear an order to dismount from the Vice-Captain, would drop back to cajole and
encourage their less able comrade to the top of the hill.
It was rumoured that whenever the gradient steepened a
disproportionate number of ‘crack riders’ frequently suffered from bouts of
deafness!
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
Socialist Sunday School - The welcoming and naming ceremony of a child
Socialist Sunday School
The welcoming and naming ceremony of a child
The Parents and immediate friends of the child should sit in the seats nearest the conductor of the service.
Instrumental music might be played at the beginning and end, but the selections should be somewhat short, and of a quieter order of music, as befitting the presence of the central figure of the ceremony, namely a small child.
(No solos should be sung)
1. Song sung by all the assembly
3. Conductor speaks:-
Neighbours, friends, and fellow citizens, we assembled here today in order to give loving and respectful greeting to the most beautiful symbol of humanity's progress and future – A little child.
The life of our race is three fold -- past, present and future. The past is, in truth, a living past.
The record revealed in history is the record of forefathers and foremothers who laboured and suffered, who struggled and hoped, and who have not vanished for ever. Their work remains in our civilisation. The very language we speak was given to us by our ancestors. To them we and our flesh and blood. We are the very spirit and heart of their existence and time, renewed in a generation which we call the present
In like manner we are the begetters and creators of the age yet to come. Is not that a reason – the best of all reasons – Why we should each contribute our service, each cooperate, and each try to improve both himself and the world?
We are architects of fate,
Working in these walls of time;
Some with massive deed and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.
Nothing useless is, or low,
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.
For the structure that we raise
Time is with materials filled;
Our todays and yesterday’s
Are the blocks with which we build
Build today, then, strong and sure,
With a firm hand and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall tomorrow find its place.
This child, brought here by its parents and kinsfolk and friends, is a representative of the morrow, of humanity’s capacity to pass from the old to the new, from the good to the better. We who are gathered about this child in affection, therefore do not merely regard it as a happy addition to a family, but above and beyond that, we salute it as an emblem of the hope, the faith, and forward looking courage of humanity at large.
We meet in this public manner in order to testify our conviction that every child born to all our race, of whatever nation or colour, should be honored as a new member of humanity. It has been nobody said is that “the whole succession of men during the ages should be considered as one man, ever living and ever learning”.
This child we looked upon as a cherished part of that one man of all the ages.
As spokesman of the community, I asked by what name you wish this child to be known.
(a parent or kinsman recite of the name or names, and hands the child to the conductor who says,
(while all the company stand)
On behalf of all this company present, and of society generally, I welcome this child (repeat full name) into the membership of the human family, and and express a heartfelt desire that its life may be blessed with health and joy, and they may render service, in a humble sphere or in the public sphere, to the social commonwealth, it’s fellowship, it’s order, and its progress.
(The child is handed back)
To you, parents and kinsfolk, I put the question before all this assembly:
Do you promise that, so far as in you lies, you will train this child, and cause them to be trained, for a career of self-respect and self-reverence and service to mankind?
(Parents etc : We promise)
3. Song:
"Hail to thee, hail to thee, child of humanity”, or any other suitable selection
(the company resumed their seats)
The joyous and homely ceremony we have just collectively performed should act as a reminder to us all of our relation and our duty to all the children born into human society, and especially in our immediate environment.
The Romans had a saying that “the greatest reverence is due to a child” it is our part not only to show love and good natured favour to children, but unfailing respect. With due allowance for the young soul's limitations and experience, we should , in effect, show as a genuine respect to a child as to an adult. Disrespect evinced towards these little ones is, at bottom, disrespect to the supreme humanity of which we are all the offspring.
Let us therefore honour the young and immature life by providing it with the best material comforts and aids, and the most efficient and humane education for which the city and the nation possesses the means. No social and civic energy and wit are so well laid out as the energy and wit applied to the training of the feeling, reason and character of our young citizens. Here and now, therefore, we combine the gladness of a welcome to discharge and young neighbour, with an acknowledged public and solemn obligation towards all there sisters and brothers in the community at large.
(the proceedings may close with instrumental music) F J Gould
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The Ceremonial or ritual varied with each Sunday school
The platform was tastefully adorned with narcissus and tulips
Sunday, January 02, 2022
Southall Railway Clerks Association Established 1918
Southall branch of the Railway Clerks Association now TSSA held its first meeting 12th February 1918
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