I read a Tweet today that said, “I have not been this optimistic since 1917'. Although I doubt the truth of this person's longevity I understand the sentiment. I can say in truth I haven't been this optimistic since I was 17! That year I joined the Easter 1962, annual 'Ban the Bomb' march from Aldermaston to London. It was the largest to date, with over 100,000 arriving in central London from the atomic weapons research establishment and with contingents from India and Pakistan, Italy, Canada, Spain and Algeria. That country won its independence from France that year and in Spain the Asturias miners were leading the first successful strike against the Franco regime since the Civil War. With the double dose of youth and rebellion it seemed to me the world was changing for the better. But perhaps Zhou Enlai was right when asked about the impact of the French Revolution, “Too early to say.” I think we are in a similar situation today. In the USA, and for the first time since the Industrial Workers of the World ('The Wobblies') in the 1920s, socialists such as Alexandia Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar are working with increasingly large support. Here we have in place the first openly socialist leader for 70 years. I have never been a joiner of political parties, believing with Ralph Milliband, that the Labour Party has historically played a 'major role in the management of discontent.' But the Corbyn-led Party with its slogan of “For The Many Not the Few” is game-changing and gives us the possibility of a 1917 optimism. That is why I am now a member. JC4PM
Left Field: my memoir on special offer
Left Field: The music. I was in love with the girl in the record shop. She persuaded me to buy Johnny Tillotson's 'Poetry in Motion'. Being in CND in South London, meant live Blues artists at the Bromley Court Hotel. These three got my mojo working. Howlin Wolf's 'Smoketsack Ligtnin' ', John Lee Hooker's 'Jack of Diamonds' & Muddy Waters, 'Got my Mojo Working'. Jimmy Kennedy was getting ready to go to Bosnia to run the War Child Mostar bakery. I remember his endless cups of tea, his smokes and his obsession with Van Morrison's 'Queen of the Slipstream'. Brian Eno invited me to his studio to listen to an early recording of 'Miss Sarajevo'. Bono composed it and Brian was producing it. He needed to double check how to pronounce Miljacka. In 1995 the Help album was released with contributions from more than 20 artists, It was recorded on Monday, September 4th, 1995, in studios across Europe and released, on target, five days later. It raised more than £1.5 million for aid to Bosnia Herzegovina. I was in charge of deciding where the money went. Here are two tracks from the album: Sinéad O'Connor's 'Ode to Billy Joe' had arrived too late for inclusion in the album, but Brian Eno and his team were so impressed with her haunting rendition that they felt they had to include the song. 'Fade Away' was recorded by Oasis with contributions from Kate Moss and Johnny Depp. 'Pavarotto and Friends' for War Child in Modena raised millions for the charity. The music Centre in Mostar was the result. Of course Pavarotti, Bono and Eno sang 'Miss Sarajevo' and Liza Minnelli joined Pavarotti for 'New York, New York'. Bruce Cockburn's 'Somebody Touched Me' is for Anne Aylor whose touch saved my life. watch & listen to Left Field: The Musical
Then check out Left Field, published by Unbound & distributed by Penguin Books
Some readers of 'Left Field' have asked me what gave me the idea for this memoir. I started writing it while watching men fishing from a harbour wall on a Croatian island. This eventually became the chapter 'Ivos' Boat'. They reminded me of my father-in-law who had learned to fish, not as a summer hobby, but from necessity. A cafe musician, he lived most of his life in poverty and fish you catch yourself are free. Ivo had been a Partisan and communist. Born in the Austro-Hungarian empire, living most of his life in 'communist' Yugoslavia and dying in independent and right-wing Croatia. His country was confusing for him and central to me. My connection to the region is reflected in the heart of the book. But my biological family in this country have exerted a similar strong influence on me. My father was one of the first Allied medics into Bergen-Belsen and took me on my first CND march. My Welsh mother led me to a love of Dylan Thomas and all three of them have found their way into this book. Closely pursued by Pavarotti, Brian Eno and my connections to the music world and whistleblowed charity! Political activism has been a central thread in my life - I must be one of the oldest members of Momentum, but so long as Chomksy lives I feel young. www.davidwilson.org.uk
With
the1962 Cuban missile crisis, nuclear war seemed imminent. If the
missile-carrying Soviet vessels
didn’t turn back from Cuba, there would be war. Jackie Kennedy
recalled that she insisted on sleeping with her husband—not
something she often did. She didn’t want to die alone. If she was
scared, the rest of us had every right to be. That
year the anti-nuclear
movement remained the focus of my politics. I read Robert Jungk’s
Brighter Than a Thousand Suns,
the horrific telling
of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with its account of the
shadows of the dead imprinted on the earth. It left me in shock. The
book’s title is taken from Robert Oppenheimer’s words when
witnessing the first atomic bomb explosion in July 1945. He quoted
the Bhagavad Gita,
‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I started to
self-educate myself with all that was not taught at school,
following Bertrand Russell’s axiom that ‘Men are born ignorant
not stupid. They are made stupid by education.’ I read everything:
from Marx's Capital
to Bertrand Russell’s
A History of Western Philosophy
to John Steinbeck’s
The Grapes of Wrath. I
joined CND and started marching against the bomb. Fifty three years
later and Dr Strangelove is still scaring the shit out of me! Read
more here in 'Left Field'.
I have now been twice to help out on the phones at the Jeremy Corbyn campaign office in London and I will be back there tomorrow. In my 70s now my whole life has involved me in political agitation, from CND to Stop the War. And my take on parliamentary politics has until now been 'don't disturb the dead.' But this is different. One caller today said they had been waiting their whole life for this to happen – a movement challenging the estate agents who run the political parties who service the state. If you have any spare time contact: http://www.jeremyforlabour.com/contact
In 1961, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) organised protests at five bases where nuclear weapons were to be deployed. I told my mother I was going to see The Guns of Navarone, but headed to the demonstration at RAF Ruislip in north-west London. I arrived to see thousands of people with placards and some with ladders to scale the perimeter fence. Though I had no ladder, I was held in a police van for four hours. Released without charge, my incarceration had lasted a lot longer than Navarone so I rang from Ruislip station to tell my parents not to worry. My mother answered and I heard her shouting at my father, ‘I blame you for this.’ Soon after Ruislip, a police inspector turned up at our house. He wanted to question me about a march I was helping to organise as secretary of South London Youth CND. ‘Are you the organiser?’ he asked. ‘I’m one of them.’ ‘What is your role?’ he added. I was being introduced to page one of the police training manual: Locate the leader. I said nothing, but my mother tapped him on the arm. ‘He’ll get over this,’ she said. But I didn't. I read Robert Jungk’s Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with its account of the shadows of the dead imprinted on the earth. It left me in shock. The book’s title is taken from Robert Oppenheimer’s words when witnessing the first atomic bomb explosion in July 1945. He quoted the Bhagavad Gita, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I started to self-educate myself and read everything: from Marx to Dostoyevsky, from Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy to Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. In 1965 I moved to Oxford and worked at Oxfam. I wanted to go to university, but didn’t have A levels. I took a correspondence course. Two years later, I was at Essex University. On the edge of Colchester, above the muddy River Colne, the half-built campus already seemed half-forgotten. We would change that. May came early for us. On 17 March 1968, 40,000 people marched to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square to protest the Vietnam war. I helped a friend from the chemistry department make paint bombs, sealed inside plastic milk containers. These two Peter Kennard montages cover the forty years from 1961 to the Iraq war – more brilliantly in images than I can do in words. But my words can be found in my memoir, Left Field.
Peter Kennard: Unofficial War Artist is at the Imperial War Museum, London SE1, from 14 May 2015. And here's a short film about those early Aldermaston marches.
