The Unorthodox Website Blog

The CPB red flag logo

I have come to the stage when I am in a dilemma about British politics. Not just which party to vote for, but how to become more active by perhaps joining a political party again, and if so, which one.

I have been a member, at different times of course, of both the Labour Party and the old Communist Party of Great Britain. I finally left the CPGB in 1976, and rejoined the Labour Party, but when it abandoned unilateralism (i.e. unilateral nuclear disarmament by Britain) under Neil Kinnock’s leadership, I finally resigned from the Labour Party. Had I not done so at that time, I most certainly would have with the advent of so-called ‘New Labour’ under Tony Blair’s leadership, and the removal of the passage in Clause IV of the Labour Party’s constitution, once printed on all Party membership cards, calling for the common ownership and control of the means of production, distribution and exchange.

Margate (the guest house closed in the 1960s) (click on the pictures to enlarge them)

August is coming to an end, and Winter will soon be upon us. Already the nights are drawing in.

We’ve had wetter Augusts I suppose, but as far as sunshine and warm temperatures are concerned, this has undoubtedly been by far the worst August I can remember in all 63 years I have been on Earth.

Last year was a bad Summer, but that August, and every August as far back as I can remember, there have been warm sunny days when I could lie on a beach somewhere, or by a lake or pond, and go swimming. Not this year. For the first time in my life, unless the weather improves dramatically in the next 5 days (by which I mean completely cloudless skies and temperatures of 25C or above for at least 2 days to warm the water up) this August will be a complete wash-out as far as swimming/sunbathing is concerned.

Yet another 50th anniversary this month. In August 1958 there were race riots in Notting Hill, and this led eventually to the annual Notting Hill Carnival every August Bank Holiday weekend.

Notting Hill Race Riots, August 1958

But the Carnival has now become far too big an event for the narrow streets of Notting Hill. In any case, it is now a London-wide attraction attended and participated in by Londoners of all communities, both ethnic and indigenous. The West Indian ethnic community itself, once centered on Notting Hill, is now dispersed all over London, with new focal points in places like Brixton in South London.

For many residents of Notting Hill the annual Carnival has become a nightmare, trapping them inside their homes all over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

2008 is, for me, a year of many 50-year anniversaries. 1958 was quite a memorable year for many reasons:

In 1958 the first ‘Ban The Bomb’ March to Aldermaston took place, organized by the Direct Action Committee. CND revisited the Atomic Weapons Establishment this Easter, 50 years on.

At Aldermaston Easter 2008

(Click on pictures to enlarge them)

CND itself, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, was also founded 50 years ago in 1958.

The famous ‘Ban The Bomb’ or peace symbol was designed and unveiled to the world by Gerald Holtom in St Pancras Town Hall (now Camden Town Hall) also in 1958.

Also in 1958 Jerry Lee Lewis came to England for the first of many tours. However this one was aborted after just three London shows because the Press revealed that he was here with his 13-year old wife and cousin, who he’d married before legally divorcing his second wife (who, incidentally, he’d married before his divorce from his first wife was absolute.

‘International’   &     V. I. Lenin

(click on all pictures to enlarge)

Seventeen years after the Soviet Union started breaking up, we are still feeling the after-effects. The greatest tragedy of the latter half of the 20th Century was the break-up of this mighty superpower, which had such tremendous potential. Whatever its faults, it was a counter-balance to U.S. and Western imperialism, and the Socialist countries gave a lot of aid to Third World countries, now having to go cap-in-hand to institutions like the IMF and World Bank which saddle them with huge debts. The break-up of the USSR resulted in wars and violence which are still continuing. 

The latest flare-up is in South Ossetia, a province of the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia where a lot of ethnic Russians live. Another Georgian province in the north west of that country also has a lot of ethnic Russians living there, as do many other former Soviet Socialist Republics, including the three Baltic States which started the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Ronald Pearson – correcting Einstein?

There’s an old cliche that nobody’s ever come back from the dead to tell us what it’s like. Many people still believe this, though it is far from being true. It happens all the time, in many forms. Apart from people resuscitated after near-death experiences, then accurately reporting incidents which happened when their vital functions had ceased, there are numerous direct voice messages via mediums and electronic equipment, full and partial materializations via physical mediums, messages received by mediums clairvoyantly or clairaudiently (by seeing and/or hearing the deceased) and relayed to friends and relatives, and messages/apparitions, etc. which come direct to friends and loved ones.

I’m not going into great detail here, as I have done this elsewhere on this site and my earlier one (see link to The Unorthodox Website), but I have had remarkable post-humous contacts from many people I have known who have died, some direct and some via mediums.

We had a school reunion on Saturday. It was exactly 50 years since I left Bounds Green Secondary Modern school in July 1958 at the age of 13. I started at Tottenham Technical College for my last three years schooling in September of that year.

There was a reasonably good turn-out of pupils who were at the school during the 1950s and early 1960s. It would have been nice if a few more had been traced and were able to attend.

As it was I met three people from classes I had been in at Bounds Green Senior or Junior schools – Christine, Trixie and Beryl (picture below), oh I think Jennifer too was in one of my classes (picture at end of this blog, Jennifer is on the extreme left.)

Trouble is I have a shocking memory for names and faces and could only remember Beryl, but apparently I stuck in people’s memory.