Jarrow Marchers come to North Staffs

Images from Newcastle College.

This Week's Activity

This week has seen a flurry of activity, with Socialist Students stalls at Fresher's Fairs at both Staffs and Keele Universities. We have had positive feedback thus far from students approaching our stalls. Although we couldn't offer free sweeties or balloons, we did offer a viable alternative to the draconian cuts implemented by the Conservatives; who incidentally were also at the fair, as evidenced by the vast amount of tweed on show.

Newcastle Branch Activity.

On Friday myself and Andy did a Socialist stall outside Newcastle College. It was quite interesting given that it was our first stall at that particular location. The feedback was positive from students, and many felt the frustration of no more EMA, no jobs and tuition fees.
One thing we discussed was linking in action from students with the strikes scheduled for 30th November, so that there is a greater sense of soliarity. Such action has shades of France '68.

Highway to Rhyl.

A few weeks ago my family and I went on a day trip to Rhyl.

If the above sentence resonates with you, chances are you have a good idea of my experiences of family holidays as a child.

That's right, despite the fact that it was summer 2011, I was reminded of some vague notion of childhood experiences. I myself had not visited Rhyl since the early/mid eighties, but as you may know, thousands of people from North Staffs have always gone to Rhyl on their holidays, particularly during the pottery industry's heyday.

I was struck with a real sense of how despite the intervening years, that element of the culture of working-class still pervades the atmosphere; in a cliched sense, nothing has changed. There are still penny arcades that give out garish neon lighting and deafening bleeps and bells; greasy-spooners lining the streets and purveyors of wares that are pretty useless. Anyone who has seen Lindsey Anderson's O Dreamland will understand the sociological and cultural parallels. Granted, the beach-side cafes may now serve decaff lattes instead of some muddy-brown generic 'tea', but this is only a superficial change, not a cultural one.

However, forgetting sweeping ideological statements and focusing on my own personal experiences, I remember not so much my experiences, but photos of my experiences; me in hand-me-down dungarees and sandals, fine sand, murky sea, jellyfish, static caravans and seagulls the size of dogs. It's no wonder I only semi-jokingly claimed "you're not working-class if you've never been to Rhyl or Llandudno."

What's more, not having been to Rhyl since 83/84 means that going there again with a family of my own shows that history repeats itself. It's so special being able to take my kids and my baby to the seaside; a seaside that I, like so many others, went to as a kid. Despite the fact that we may say time changes, some things never change and one day my kids will be taking their kids to some stereotypical British briney beach.

(At the top of the page is me in Rhyl around 1983, and me with my family 2011 not far from where the original was taken. Time changes, but my point is that the habits of the working-class do not. For further reading on how the culture does not change I recommend The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart published in 1957)

First Newcastle Socialist Branch Meeting.

Tonight saw the first meeting of comrades living in Newcastle. The meeting was held at mine and Di's house, and saw us start to develop ideas for a programme in the immediate future.
Although early days yet, we might be able to take this branch further and sustain it, as well as making sure we develop our activities in the area.
Exciting times!

Let Them Eat Cheese

There seems to be a common trend among advertisers emerging. That of the use of poetry that uses a simplistic form of rhyming to sell their wares. The most common example of this is the long-running Cathedral City cheese ads narrated by the late, great Pete Poselthwaite. However, more and more companies seem to be joining the trend. I noticed that great bastion of quality food Iceland getting in on the act.

The problem isn't that poetry is used, my beef with the process is that this is how our food is marketed at the working-class. It's as if this is how we, as the great unwashed masses, accept our food presented to us; we find beauty in our food yet also find something ordinary or functional about our use of food.

For example, the Cathedral City ad continually presents us with, as in my previous post, a functional society. The night workers, the early risers, the backbone of the nation - all able to continue thanks to their daily dose of Cathedral City. Phew! Even the direct address "From Runcorn to Ripon" is slightly more indicative than say "From Bury St. Edmunds to Didcot."

This whole presentation of the working-class and the rhythmic poetry of the commentary instantly reminds us of the classic Night Mail (1936: dir. Grierson, J). However, unike that cultural landmark in documentary history, 'the Nation's Favourite' and the current tripe (almost literally) shown to us by Iceland can surely not compare to W.H Auden. "The washing up shows cheesy bake was a winner." It may be, but it doesn't seem to ring as poetic as "none will hear the postman's knock/Without a quickening of the heart/For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?"

Cathedral City and Iceland are two examples of this kind of cultural significance within advertising. Although there have been ads aimed at a specific class many a time before, I would argue that we are likely to see an increase in adverts that, whilst maybe not using a rhythmic, staccato mode of speech in the tradition of Night Mail, do present goods to us more and more faux-poetically. This is known as a 'centrifugal' process - the associations generated around the product work to sustain the desirablity (or in this case the normality) of specific features of personal and social life. That's why mums, and indeed dads, buy the goods that companies convince them their class depends upon.

Walls sausages anyone?

Children. Children. Future. Future.

Watching Cbeebies with my 10-month old son this morning made me realise something. Namely, that there is something fundamental about children's TV, and more specifically, the ideology behind it.

I am not talking about an educational style, cognitive benefits or anything like that, but how much we as a nation and society understand the importance of public services and how ingrained we are that society functions in such a beneficial way. Or, to put it simply, Pierre Bourdieu in his influential Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, stated that aesthetic judgements cannot be divorced from social relations.

It occured to me for example, just how many programmes, old and new, encourage the audience to learn about buses. Not cars, aeroplanes or taxis. The first mode of transport represented to children is a public service. Of course, other modes soon follow, but I don't recall that kids' classic song The Wheels on the Family Saloon going round and round.

Other examples in one morning's viewing include the importance of libraries, public parks and the social benefits of an allotment - those council subsidised spaces that almost seem to belong to a bygone age.

It almost seems like a Reithian concept; a leftish BBC trying to "educate, entertain and inform" the masses, but not necessarily what they want to know. It is interesting that this is so. Children it seems, are exposed to the value of public services and the workings of a society operated by the masses from an early age. Surely a good thing, and one that arguably need to continue whilst they still exist, particularly under the draconian measures taken by the Con-Dem coalition.

But this is not a particularly recent development, rather a continuation of ideology stretching back decades. Of course, years ago it was no surprise that children should learn about buses or factories. After all this was the order of the day. For the majority of the working-class, taking a bus to work, riding a bicycle in the country, or walking to church were activities that were sung about, talked about, or for the purpose of this blog, watched with mother.

A Really Useful Trade Union.

In children's literature too, even the bourgeoisie knew the importance of public services, regulation and jobs associated with the mass of working-class. The Rev. W Awdry, the author of the Thomas the Tank Engine series, (the Church of England in the 1950s itself arguably a symbol of middle-class intelligentsia) included Bertie into his canon; a bus.However, this bus is arguably a negative perception of the working-class. The genteel, steam-age locomotives of the middle-class (even their names are middle-class in comparison with 'Bertie') are challenged by the more common bus and all that he negatively represents; the masses, vulgarity, and the development of roads. Even his colour is red!

Many critics have applied social class to aspects of children's media, usually approaching it from a cultural aspect. All I am attempting to do is highlight the fact that the social usefulness of various institutions are still presented to our children, which can only be a good thing. One such critic, Ellen Seiter in Sold Seperately: Parents and Children in Consumer Culture, suggests that in Marxist cultural critique, any attack on the seemingly one-dimensional 'shallowness' of contemporary children's programming automatically yet paradoxically takes the position of the 'old' bourgeoisie in its attack.

But I digress. In the end, despite David Cameron's disgusting and destructive plans for his fabled and unworkable Big Society, the working-class are still teaching its offspring the value and importance of a workable society, and is doing so through its media; its publicly owned media. And if those children grow up with a knowledge of factories, schools, buses, hospitals and the Post Office and the importance of the strength of the workers in those institutions, the more privatisation and deregulation might, just might, be staved off.