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BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget...
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BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... |
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Subject: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: Steve Shaw Date: 23 Apr 19 - 08:57 PM Blair, socialist, much-loved teacher, anti-racist, trade unionist, friend, murdered forty years ago on 23 April fighting fascism. He was about five foot seven, he had a terrible stammer that left him when he was speaking passionately, he was funny and witty, he was never judgemental, he loved a pint or four and he was my mate. He won't be forgotten, not ever. A little feller who was a giant of a man. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: Joe Offer Date: 23 Apr 19 - 09:57 PM I hadn't heard of Blair Peach. Sounds like he would have been a good man to know. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: Dave the Gnome Date: 24 Apr 19 - 03:43 AM It was an awful incident. Steve. My sympathies are with you and all his friends and family for what that is worth. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: Dave Hanson Date: 24 Apr 19 - 08:47 AM Puts me in mind of Martin Carthy's updated version of the song ' Rigs Of The Time ' Home secretary's I must bring em in, With their society obedient at every turn, At kicking the Peach, pulls Towers to the ground, Who needs the NF when there's SPG around. Towers was Lidddle Towers, also killed in police custody. Dave H |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: peteglasgow Date: 24 Apr 19 - 11:12 AM i remember blair peach, steve - that must have been a terrible incident for you. and steve biko - from around the same time i guess. jean charles de menezes too. chris wood's song about his murder 'hollow point' is incredibly atmospheric and moving ...(could anyone put a link on here please) how we raged about these crimes back in the day but now- apart from the grieving families and friends - it almost seems commonplace. government crimes like windrush and grenfell - kicked into the long grass of an inquiry. someone apologies, no-one resigns and on we go... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: Ed. Date: 24 Apr 19 - 11:30 AM As requested, peteaberdeen: Chris Wood - Hollow Point |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: peteglasgow Date: 24 Apr 19 - 02:33 PM thanks ed ...but sorry steve - your thread was about blair peach and i immediately took it off on a drift. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: Steve Shaw Date: 24 Apr 19 - 02:46 PM It was perfectly appropriate, Pete. No worries! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: Dave the Gnome Date: 24 Apr 19 - 04:09 PM My mate, Mike, used to do McTell's "Water of Dreams". I must ask him to do it again when I see him. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: Ed. Date: 24 Apr 19 - 06:41 PM I was only 11, when this happened, so I don't remember it in great detail. I do however recall feeling that a grave and tragic injustice had occured. So, on that basis, I offer you my heartfelt sympathies, Steve. As a self-appointed 'link maker' in this thread, here are songs that Daves' Hanson and Gnome alluded to: Martin Carthy - Rigs of the Time Ralph McTell - Water of Dreams |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: Steve Shaw Date: 24 Apr 19 - 07:39 PM It was a long time ago and I was a young and somewhat hot-blooded leftie who hated "the system" and, especially, the Tories (that's never left me), and I regarded the centrists and the soft left as collaborators with the establishment. Even the Labour Party under Wilson and Callaghan, and the trade union bosses to boot. A lot of the executive members of the union were both Communist Party members and head teachers in those days, and we detested them as runners with the fox and hunters with the hounds. In fact, somewhere I still have filed away several threatening letters from the then general secretary of the NUT, Fred Jarvis, berating me for supporting unofficial action against spending cuts and the forcible redeployment of teachers for money-saving reasons. As a union rep with one of the biggest memberships in east London I got embroiled in a campaign to save the job of one teacher in a primary school, then later in a scandal involving a teacher, a member of my school union group, who had behaved extremely unprofessionally. Blair was the slightly older and more experienced union man who walked me through those horrid times. He was as uncompromisingly hard left as you could wish for but he was also a fine humanitarian who would never criticise anyone who didn't live up to his ideals, as long as they were honest brokers. He and I would slope off down Burdett Road from Mile End for a few pints after one of our interminable and fractious branch meetings and put the world to rights. We were both members of the council of Inner London Teachers' Association for several years, representing our union branch, and he and I were the two delegates who supported Teachers' Rank And File. I learned a lot from him, about how to be a good teacher who also fought for the interests, tooth and nail, of the pupils first and foremost. He was even loved by many of the head teachers in east London, who, whilst disagreeing with his politics, saw that he put the interests of the kids first and would never, ever, let ideology get in the way of that. He was funny, witty and earthy and he understood people like almost no-one else I've ever known. Then some git clobbered him one night and that was it. That was some low ebb. As I said, a long time ago but we shouldn't forget blokes like him, ordinary enough blokes who have more good in their little finger than in ten million bloody Tories any day. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: Steve Shaw Date: 24 Apr 19 - 07:52 PM By the way, there are very few photos of Blair in existence, and the ones you see when you google him, looking like some hippie-Jesus, don't represent him at all well. Mind you, there's one of him with some terrible 70s wallpaper behind him. I can vouch for that wallpaper! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: peteglasgow Date: 25 Apr 19 - 06:01 AM at that time i was a student at stirling, studying drinking and politics. it was a new university and quite left -wing the (left labour/communist ) - broad left and the SWP (or IS as was) dominated the union . we took 300 folk down to a R against R gig at Victoria Park. where, stoned out my mind against the nazis) i saw the Clash and others. all this very exciting for a 19 year old. i missed my last year at Uni (giving up the hell of maybe 5 teaching hours a week, subsidised bars and accommodation and all the other pleasures of the flesh, as i wanted to get on the street and fight fascism. which and listen to some great music. i could say joe strummer changed my life, protest, and all the other ideals which my impressionable mind absorbed readily. blair peach too - as our symbol of the depths which a vicious state can sink to. well, i havn't changed much - 'neither washington nor socialism but international socialism' has become neither W nor M nor any other government but all the people for the planet' red to red/green. anyway i do not get less idealistic - opposing teachers being killed by the state isn't something you can change with age. though i do get tired of losing and these days tired of what has happened in our country. in our (cumbrian) pub last week 3 guys were talking about how the bloody irish are fucking up our brexit, and blaming jeremy corbyn for supporting the IRA and tony blair for causing the problem - we should just send the tanks across ireland that would sort them out.' people seem capable of believing any old nonsense these days and are quite happy to shout about it in pubs. we did take them on (you can only listen to so much ...) and they backed down a bit and went off moaning about us to the pub, where i now feel in a minority as i think about this stuff. and can't accept the racism of large parts of the place- particularly down west. anyway, sorry for rambling- we just put our house on the market, partly because of the above, and don't really have any particular place to go. any suggestions? - must be full of old hippies in good pubs, diverse community with plenty of music and film going on. and up north, near the west coast line for glasgow trips - scotland, ireland europe considered. maybe i just need to move back to my youth - punk, ANL and the only time when it was trendy to be a lefty. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: Jim Carroll Date: 25 Apr 19 - 06:24 AM If you can put up with 60mph fog in the winter and 6 nights a week tradi sessions in the bars Miltown Malbaay's ok Galway and Limerich fiare not too afr away for fimls Come in - the water's lovely (if you don't mind the occasional weaver fish) Jim |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: punkfolkrocker Date: 25 Apr 19 - 02:08 PM Pete - you almost saved me having to write an entry in this thread... Yeah also heavily influenced by that London anti racist festival... [an eye opener for a coach party of small town west country six form college students...] Autumn 1978 I moved up to Leeds, living near the UNI & POLY.. Moved up there at 19 to be in a band and ride the agit pop wave of Gang of 4, Mekons, Delta 5, Girls at our Best, and the Au Pairs [regular visitors from the midlands..]... Blair Peach became a symbolic figure for us... There was the national media, primarily the NME [did they do a Blair Peach cover story...???] and a local Leeds radical alternative lefty hippy whats on mag... Can't remember what it was called... I became very more politicised by that student scene dominated by the scary Leeds feminists who were radicalising the girl I was living with... I wasn't a student then though.. I worked in a shit office job for 27 quid a week... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: punkfolkrocker Date: 25 Apr 19 - 02:40 PM knew something was nagging in the back of mind.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otacja5LDJY |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: punkfolkrocker Date: 25 Apr 19 - 03:00 PM Pete - thanks for firing up some nostalgia, just a little leftwards thread drift.. A northern band from the early 80s The Redskins - got a cassette of their LP in a storage box at my mums house.. "Redskins were a 1980s English band, notable for their left-wing politics, skinhead image, and catchy, danceable songs. Their music combined influences from soul, rockabilly, pop and punk rock." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: peteglasgow Date: 25 Apr 19 - 03:24 PM what a great voice that linton kwesi jonson has - a nostalgic sound. redskins too, though i hadn't given them a thought for decades. all puts me in mind of the clash and the london calling and sandinista inner sleeve cartoons - by ray lowry. 70s were great eh? and early '80s - we never had it so good. sad that some people only seem to be able to remember the bin men went on strike. there was loads of fun and righteous anger to be had.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: punkfolkrocker Date: 25 Apr 19 - 03:31 PM Pete - this is the first time I remembered the Redskins in at least 20 years... Her's a fun mini documentary I just found to wallow in... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OJ7HD5Kscs&t=238s |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: The Sandman Date: 27 Apr 19 - 06:26 PM refresh |
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Subject: RE: BS: Blair Peach: lest we forget... From: Big Al Whittle Date: 28 Apr 19 - 07:18 PM I always rated Tom Robinson's stuff from that era. Songs like Glad to be Gay and Martin. On the Power in the Darkness album (roughly contemporary with the 2nd Dire Straits album), there was a song about Liddle Towers. |