The Clarion - May 2011

Newsletter of the National Clarion Cycling Club 1895 (North Lancs Union) May 2011

May Day Greetings To Cyclists and Trade Unionists in every land

‘Socialism can only arrive by bicycle’ Jose Antonio Viera Gallo

Know your history; learn your history; understand your history; but most important of all, never forget your history.

Cinderella Clubs

Clarion Vocal Unions

The Handbook of the National Clarion Cycling Club 1913 Easter Meet contains a section on Cinderella Clubs. The credits for the formation of these Clubs belongs to Robert Blatchford, editor of The Clarion newspaper. ‘Nunquam’ had seen the poverty and deprivation that existed amongst the mill workers and he resolved to do something about. He wrote articles exposing life in the slums and encouraged like-minded readers to join him in the formation of groups who would provide food and entertainment for children forced by the evils of capitalism to endure such conditions.

The Handbook states: ‘The central idea of the Cinderella Clubs is to subject all slum children to a severe course of dolls, toys, skipping ropes and other amusements and to feed them so that they may enjoy the pleasures the better’. Blatchford’s idea was quickly embraced by the newly formed and rapidly expanding Clarion Cycling Clubs, Clubs that aimed to be so much more than just cycling clubs. Has Bob Manson wrote in 1897: ‘If Clarion CCs exist with no other object than riding about the country, there is little justification for their being and none for their name’. Cinderella Clubs soon started in scores of industrial towns.

Denis Pye’s book ‘Fellowship is Life’ gives numerous examples of how Clarion cyclists gave support to those Clubs: At the 3rd Easter Meet held in Leek, the Saturday afternoon was devoted to a Cinderella conference. Any profits raised by the Clarion Cyclists’ Club House Company, formed in 1897, were to go to the Cinderella Fund for poor children. Surplus money from the box office of productions by Clarion Dramatic Societies were to be used either to assist propaganda work or the Cinderella Fund. In Scotland money raised by selling programmes at Athletic and Cycling Carnivals went to the Glasgow Clarion Cinderella for their work with poor children. Cinderella Clubs organised free education, clubs, trips, holidays.

Bradford’s Cinderella Club was formed in 1890. Its first act was to organise a tea and entertainment for 200 poor children. The Club, which still survives to this day, went on to buy a holiday home for children near Morecambe.

Clarion Vocal Unions were formed by Montagu Blatchford ‘Mont Blong’ in November 1894, ‘to develop the art of unaccompanied singing, and to aid the propaganda of Socialism by singing at Socialist Meetings’. By 1896 there were 15 choirs.

On Jubilee Day !!! 1897, the first meet of the Clarion Vocal Union was held in Bolton Woods under the conductorship of Mont Blong. Assembled that day was a United Choir of 400 voices hailing from Halifax, Rochdale, Preston, Keighley, Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester Oldham and Leeds. It was decided to make a yearly feature of the gathering and in 1898 the Board of The Clarion newspaper presented the C.V.U. with an ivory and gold baton, to be competed for annually. Newcastle Clarion Choir who won the much coveted Baton at the National Clarion Festival held in Manchester in 1910, also sang at many Socialist and Labour gatherings raising over £500, of which £350 was given to the Clarion Cinderella Club.

The handbook for the 1914 Easter Meet of the Cycling Club held in Shrewsbury gives a good insight into the work of the Vocal Unions: Birmingham formed in 1912 had 60 voices and rehearsed: ‘Death of Minnehaha’, ‘Song of Liberty’, ‘King Estmere’ and numerous part songs.

Coventry Choir, now only exists as a Quartette.

Glasgow Choir was affiliated to the United Socialist Choirs of Glasgow with an average attendance of 200. Hyde Choir was open to ‘all who pass slight test as to musical ability and affirm themselves Socialists’ (that rules out the Labour Party). The choir sang at the Welsh Eistedfodd and gave a donation to Hyde Socialist Sunday School.

Subs for the Keighley Choir were: males 3d, females 2d. A recognition that women workers were even more under-paid than their male counterparts. The North Staffs Clarion Choir gave a musical evening at the Stoke Workhouse and donated the £10 they had raised carol singing to the Cinderella Club. In 1913 the Oldham Clarion Choir held both the Lancashire Challenge Baton and the National Clarion Vocal Union Baton. One wonders how many of this splendid choir were to fall in the Great War. Montagu Blatchford died in 1910 his brother wrote: ‘If he had done nothing else for Socialism than create the Clarion Vocal Union, his success in the undertaking would have earned him the gratitude of every Socialist’.

You can hear today’s Socialist Choirs at the Raise Your Banners Festival in Bradford on Nov 26/27 th.

Know your History ~ continued Has someone forgotten their History?

On a January day in 1901, seven determined ladies mounted their bicycles adjusted their flowing skirts and straw boaters and rode slowly through the streets of Bury. They ignored the cries of ‘shame’ and ‘hussies’ from outraged pedestrians and the boos of children running alongside. Following the ladies at a respectable distance came 20 men, also on bicycles. The 27 had a mission, besides founding the Bury Section of the National Clarion Cycling Club that day; they were intent on preaching Socialism as soon as they reached Tottington

Dr. Colin Bradsworth, Clarion cyclist and International Brigade volunteer.

Colin Bradsworth, attended King Edward’s School for Boys in Birmimgham and saw service in the Great War. He was a member of the Communist Party and the Midlands Clarion Cycling Club.

During the Spanish Civil War he served as a field surgeon with the Canadian battalion of the International Brigade, the MacKenzie-Papineau.

Doc. Bradsworth in the centre

Tom Browne – cyclists and comic artist Tom Browne was born in Nottingham in 1870. He started work at the age of seven as an errand boy.

Age 14 he began a 7 year apprenticeship with a printing company where his artistic talent for drawing cartoons rapidly developed. He was soon having work published in several comic papers.

Tom was an enthusiastic cyclist who travelled far and wide on his ‘safety’, he was also an accomplished artist who had water colours exhibited at the Royal Academy. His greatest claim to fame came in the first decade of the twentieth century when cycling and relatively cheap train fares gave rise to a boom in postcard publishing.

Tom’s bold clear lines and unfussy style was ideally suited to this market and his postcards, many of which contain cyclists, are now very collectable. He usually signed them Tom Browne or Tom B.

From Tony Pickering. Desford Lane Pedallers VVCC

During his time in Spain one thing which stood out in his mind, was the way in which the Spanish people had used music as a weapon in every aspect of their struggle against the thuggery of fascism.

The soldiers, the workers; the peasants, even the children, had fought with a song on their lips. So in 1939 at a Daily Worker social in Birmingham, he announced that he wanted to start a workers’ choir.

He was quickly joined by a number of willing volunteers and before long the choir was named

and 60 years later they still sing for Socialism.

Clarion Conference ~ Durham 1937 Emergency resolution on Spain to the Annual Conference of the National Clarion Cycling Club held in Durham 1937.

‘Conference sends greetings to the Spanish people in their heroic fight for freedom against the forces of international fascism and bows its head in admiration of the brave deaths of Tom Durban and Ray Cox, late Secretary of the Southern Counties Union, who died fighting in the defence of democracy and freedom. It recognises that fascism destroys liberty for sportsmen and its only use for sport is to harness it to militarism. Conference pledges to actively help all anti-fascist forces at home and abroad’.

Cycling Socialists Jack Fitzgerald 1873 – 1929 Cyclist and founder member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Jack Fitzgerald, was a bricklayer and an active member of his trade union: The Operative Bricklayers’ Society. He was also a keen cyclist, designing and building his own bicycles which he would use regularly for the purposes of combining the pleasures of cycling with the propaganda of Socialism. For Jack, a very well-known public speaker, his bicycle was an important weapon in the armoury of Socialism as it enabled him to get to from one engagements to another be it indoors and outdoors. Jack had received his grounding in the Principles of Socialism as a member of Britain’s first Socialist Party; the Social Democratic Federation. It was his expulsion from the SDF in 1904 which led him along with others including Horace Hawkins and Alexander Anderson to form the Socialist Party of Great Britain in June of that year. He was soon to become one of The Socialist Standard’s most prolific and popular writers.

The First Annual Conference of the Socialist Party of Great Britain held at the Communist Club in London, 1905.

Club quiz question: Name a Clarion Cyclists whose head appears on a postage stamp and who also has a red plaque dedicated to their memory? Answer: Harry Pollitt 1890 - 1960 Manchester Clarion CC and General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Harry was born in Droylsden, Lancashire in 1890.

He received an early introduction to the Principles of Socialism from his mother, a self educated weaver, who had joined the ILP in the hope of building a better future for mankind. On leaving school he trained as a boiler maker and soon channelled his energies into Trade Union activity.

He was a supporter of the Russian Revolution which led him to become the national organiser of the ‘Hands off Russia’ protest movement in 1919.

A movement widely supported by Clarion ‘vanners’, Clarion Scouts and Clarion cyclists.

The Daily Herald ‘Hands off Russia’ Clarion Van. Charlie Openshaw one of Harry’s comrades in the Manchester Clarion recalls: ‘Off we’d go on our bikes into the country. We’d put up fly posters raound about, choose a spot and hold a meeting.

We didn’t always get many listening, but by God we enjoyed it’. Harry who attended the 1913 Easter Meet of the National Clarion C.C at York, where on the Sunday he spoke to a huge crowd from a Clarion Van. Stating ‘I have heard a lot of scoffing at Clarion fellowship….but in this Club it was a reality which made hard, poverty stricken lives much better’. He also recalled that they would wind up each meeting by singing ‘England Arise’.

Both Sunday rides on the National Classic Lightweight Rally will call at the Clarion Tearoom.

Known locally as ‘Little Moscow’, this haven of Socialism in the heart of Pendleside was opened by the members of the Nelson Independent Labour Party almost one hundred years ago and today it stands as a monument to those proud workers whose vision was equality, fraternity and peace.

This event will take place at our H.Q. of Oakhill College over the weekend of May 6th to 8th. There is on site camping and plenty of B&B establishments close by. The programme will be as follows: Friday 5pm. Registration & welcome from 5pm.

Saturday: 8.00 to 12.00 Cycle Jumble 13.00 Choice of two led rides 6.30 Evening meal followed by film and socialising in the bar.

Sunday: 10.00 Choice to two led rides both of which will visit the Nelson ILP Clarion Tearoom.

15.00 Lunch back at Oakhill.

If you wish to attend please contact Paul Reid asap by telephoning: 016973 43089.

So what is a Lightweight Classic?

Is it a Bates, a Carlton, a Duckett, a Hill Special, an Ephgrave or perhaps a Sid Mottram or a Woodrup A question to which there is no definitive answer, ask ten experts and you are likely to get ten different opinions. Clarion member and rally organiser Paul Reid offers a starting point on which we will be able to debate in depth at Saturday’s social. ‘The origins of the classic are as old as the cycle itself but it was the lugs developed in the 1890’s by firms such as BSA and Chater Lea that, when married to the continental frame style by a French firm, Bastide, led to the braised up frame with tapered chain and seat stays. This type of machine was imported into Britain in 1913.

Following the end of the Great War, smaller frame builders were inspired to develop a truly British style. The frames of the 20s and 30s were well made but very simple. The quality and intricacy of lugs probably reached a peak in the 1950s. By the mid 60s the lug work was less ornate but the quality of fames remained exceptionally high. The end of the era is difficult to define and to a great extent depends on personal taste’. So there you have it.

The Tearoom is open every Sunday of the year and everyone, irrespective of their political affiliations, are welcome. The tea comes in pint pots; there’s an open fire to dry your jacket, yes! it has been known to rain on the slopes of Pendle Hill and the company is grand. The greatest joy at Clarion House is to share your sandwiches with a stranger ‘with half a shared cup and half a shared loaf I oft won me a friend’ .

So who were the ILP pioneers who had the vision to build this wonderful place. They were readers of Robert Blatchford’s campaigning newspaper The Clarion. Their aim was to encourage the mill folk of Nelson to get out into the unpolluted air of the countryside at weekends. Their sentiment was that the land should not to be the preserve of the rich, but open to all. Their call to the people of Nelson was the call of fellowship; the call for a socialist commonwealth. They had a vision of a new society based on co-operation as opposed to the conflict and greed offered by blinkered self-interest of the mill owners. Without doubt they left the world a slightly better place than when they entered it.

The Clarion’s Easter Tour Report Four great rides, super accommodation, picturesque villages, good weather and pubs, pubs, pubs ~ Clarion boundarising at its best.

This year the Club’s Easter Tour was based in the Cotswolds at Alvescot Lodge, the Education and Training Centre of the Communication Worker’s Union. Sixteen members spent four most enjoyable days cycling round this most beautiful and almost traffic free part of England. Good Friday’s ride was to the Fox and Hounds at Fernham (which turned out to be called The Woodsman’s Arms but did we care). The highlight of Saturday’s ride was a visit to the memorial to the Ascott Martyrs a group of 16 brave women unjustly imprisoned in 1873 for trying to form a branch of the Agricultural Worker’s Union. This almost unknown site deserves far greater recognition from Trade Unionists and Labour Movement activists. The lunch stop in Great Tew at the Falkland Arms was equally memorable.

Easter Sunday after another excellent breakfast at the Lodge, Comrade Colin Carritt led us on another splendid ride through the heart of the Cotswolds to Burford churchyard where the Levellers Movement’s fight for a fairer and more just society was finally suppressed by Oliver Cromwell in 1649.

Our final pub stop of the day at the Victoria Arms in East Leach brought a pleasant and totally unexpected surprise when an elderly lady spied the No Pasaran slogan on our Club shirts. She turned out to be the niece of Ralph Fox, an International Brigade volunteer who, like a number of Clarion members, gave his life in the struggle for freedom and democracy in Spain. Easter Monday we cycled to Colin’s home in Woodstock in order to visit Blenheim Palace, home of the Duke of Marlborough (paid for from the public purse) and birth place of Winston Churchill, a Tory politician remembered for an infamous speech in the 1920’s in which he advocated the gas bombing of the uncivilised (sic) Kurds of northern Iraq.

A massive vote of thanks to our Trade Union

At the Front ~ supporting the Principles of Socialism The Centenary of the Pretoria Pit Disaster At 6.30am the morning of December 21 st 1910 men and boys began to arrive at Pretoria Pit near Hulton, on the outskirts of Bolton. By 7am they were underground working at the coal-face, 50 minutes later 344 men and boys, some as young as 13 were dead, killed by an explosion of gas. On 21st December 2010 Clarion members joined the local community, Labour and Trade Union activists in a commemoration of this tragic event. Bolton Wood Street Socialist Club Clarion Choir sang at a ceremony where the Mayor of Bolton opened the Pretoria Memorial Park and Heritage Trail. The trail will lead from the site of the Pretoria Mine to a newly unveiled memorial in the centre of Westhoughton.

The memorial lists the names of all 344 who died.

A photograph taken on the day of the explosion shows a bicycle abandoned by the wall. Did it belong to one of those who died or to someone who had gone to look for his mate? Perhaps even a Bolton Clarion man, we will never know. What we do know is that the owners had the pit reopened on January 11th before all the bodies had been recovered and some six weeks before an investigation established the cause of the accident. The pit finally closed in 1934.

Four brothers who fought for freedom The following motion was put to the Scottish Parliament by the Scottish Labour MP Comrade Jackie Baillie: ‘That the Parliament recognises what it considers the bravery of four brothers, Tommy, Daniel, Joe and John, who travelled from Renton in West Dunbartonshire across to Spain to serve with the anti-fascist International Brigades; further notes that one of the brothers Tommy, died in action; notes that a cairn will be dedicated to the brothers at Renton’s Carman Centre in a ceremony on Sunday 1st May 2011, and commends what it considers the sacrifice of these brothers and all those who fought against the fascists during the Spanish Civil War’.

The Club’s anti-fascist ‘Tom Mann Centuria’ banner will be taken to this event and we would appeal to all members, especially our comrades in Scotland to attend this important occasion. Let us not forget at least four Clarion cyclists fought and died in Spain.

Blackstone Edge Commemoration

On Sunday May 1 st why not cycling up Blackstone Edge from Littleborough to join our comrades from the Calder Valley Voices Choir for their annual commemoration of the great Chartist Really of 1846.

Chartism flourished in the early part of the 19 th century. Its aim was to achieve a government which represented all men (sic) as a means to improving the lives of the working people particularly those living in the newly industrialised towns. The Chartists were not cyclists but if they had been, they would have found Tom Groom and his Socialist comrades from the Labour Church in Birmingham shared their views that ‘Labour is the source of all wealth’. Meet at the White Horse on the A58 at 12 noon.

CTC York Cycle Show This annual event which seems to be dying on its feet despite the hard work of numerous volunteers will be held over the weekend of June 24th/26th. Once again a Clarion propaganda stall in the Club marquee will remind all cyclists that the Club’s historic link with Socialism will never be broken.

The South Yorkshire Trade Union Festival This annual event to be held on Saturday July 2 nd at Wortley Hall, the Worker’s Stately Home near Sheffield simply gets better and better. Once again we have booked a stall from which we will spread the message that Clarion cycling and Socialism are alive and very, very well.

Tolpuddle Martyr’s Rally This popular event in the calendar of the Labour Movement will be held over the weekend of July 15th/17th.

An occasion when Clarion cyclists are proud to march along side their Trade Union comrades in UNISON as they commemorate that day in history when six brave Dorset labourers decided to stand up for their rights

Communication Worker’s Union Cycle Sportive.

This year’s sportive run by our comrades in the CWU will take place on Saturday, Sept. 3rd. There will be 3 routes: 25km, 50km and 75km all departing from Alvescot Lodge which is situated on the edge of the Cotswolds, near Bampton. Every single penny raised will go to help workers in South America and Asia in their fight for basic Trade Union rights. For further details contract: tlavelle@cwu.org. Please pull out all stops to be there.

‘Lanterne Rouge’ National Clarion Motor Club Badge The National Clarion Motor Car Club was founded in 1916, three years after the National Clarion Motor Cycle Club. Its aim was to enable ex-Clarion cyclists ‘to retain their connection with the Clarion Movement’. In the May edition of The Clarion we appealed for a picture of the Club’s badge, a trade union comrade in Unison informed us that there was one for sale on Ebay. The badge, from the Potteries Section of the Clarion Motor Club, is now proudly displayed on the grill of Merlin Evans’ Austin Seven. If you have any information about the Potteries Clarion Motor Club drop us a line.

Morally debased by riding her bike?

Ruth Coates displays her 1905 New Hudson at the Desford Lane Peddler’s Christmas dinner/pub ride.

Her bike is from a period when The Cyclist's Chaperon Association provided "gentlewomen of good social position to conduct ladies on bicycle excursions and tours." These gentlewomen had to satisfy strict criteria to qualify as guardians of virtue. They were married ladies, widows or unmarried ladies over 30. They needed three personal references, two from ladies of unquestionable social position, and another from a clergyman of the church -- all this to protect women from becoming morally debased by their bikes.

Anti-fascista Cycle Ride

The route for the Club’s Anti-fascista cycle ride to London for the 75th anniversary commemoration of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the Battle of Cable Street has now been finalised.

Sunday 18th Sept. ~ assemble in Edinburgh.

Monday 19th Sept ~ Depart from IB Memorial (Princes St Gardens). Visit IB Memorial at Blantyre en-route to Glasgow.

Tuesday 20th Sept ~ Depart from IB Memorial (on banks of Clyde) Wednesday 21st Sept ~ Depart Cairnryan on ferry to Northern Ireland, cycle to Belfast.

Thursday 22th Sept ~ Depart from IB Memorial in Belfast, cycle to Dundalk.

Friday 23rd Sept. ~ Depart Dundalk ride to Dublin Saturday 24th Sept ~ Depart from IM Memorial at Liberty Hall. Cycle to Arklow Sunday 25th Sept. ~ Depart from Arklow cycle to Rosslare.

Monday 26th Sept ~ Depart from Rosslare on ferry to Fishguard. Cycle to St.Clears Tuesday 27th Sept ~ Depart St. Clears, cycle to Cardiff.

Wednesday 28th Sept ~ Depart Cardiff IB Memorial, cycle to Bristol.

Thursday 29th Sept ~ Depart Bristol IB Memorial Cycle to Streatley via Swindon IB Memorial Friday 30th Sept ~ Depart Streatley, cycle to IB Mural in Cable Street, London.

Saturday 1st October IBMT AGM Sunday 2nd October Cable Street Commemoration.

All comrades are welcome to join us either for the entire ride or for any part of the ride. For more detailed information please contact Charles Jepson on 01254 51302 or email clarioncc@yahoo.co.uk.

In Memory It is with great sorrow one must record the passing of Comrade Bert Allen, President of Manchester and Stratford Clarion and in recent years a most generous benefactor to National Clarion CC 1895.

Bert was a true Clarionite who gave over fifty years of service to the Clarion Cycling Club and when some fell by the wayside he remained loyal to the Club’s