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If you are interested in the vacancy please complete the attached application form and e-mail it to ianr@gftu.org.uk

The closing date for application is 7^th December. Initially the recruitment procedure will be via an on-line Zoom or Teams conversation to safeguard those involved.

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Times theatre critic Clive Davis, who lives on a houseboat on the Thames, writes in praise of the folk songs inspired by the river.

Here they are at last, eager to tell their stories in a new collection of folk songs, Working River: Songs and Music of the Thames, a time capsule that ranges from ballads about the lost profession of the lighterman and bargee to female factory workers and footloose characters on the razzle.

It’s a delightful journey. What gives the songs extra resonance is that the performers are not starry names from folk music’s aristocracy: instead, the disc’s curator, the journalist and part-time performer Brian Denny, has assembled recordings made by amateur musicians who turn up to perform at clubs as intimate as the Hoy at Anchor in Southend.

The aim, Denny says, was to document working people singing songs about working people, and the result is an album that brings the river back to life. I happen to live on a narrowboat on the Thames, on the picturesque stretch made famous in The Wind in the Willows and Three Men in a Boat. The river can be an unruly beast here. When there are days of heavy rains my neighbours and I have to be careful to keep loosening our mooring ropes. And in the depth of winter there are often weeks and weeks when the current is running so fast that we can’t go out on the water. (That may not sound like much of a hardship, but bear in mind that we have to think about how to get to the local marina to have waste tanks pumped out once a month or so. Sit down with a boater and talk of toilets is never far away.)

When I open my hatch doors in the morning I might see a passing gin palace or yet another paddleboarder going for a jaunt. (During the lockdown summer of 2020 the river became a mini motorway, crammed with boards and marauding kayaks.) But working boats are a rarity. Every now and then the supply boat bearing sacks of coal comes looking for customers, and there’s the occasional dredger. My Thames, though, is something of a backwater.

Yet when I listen to Working River while I’m walking along the towpath, dodging hikers and rogue dogs, I’m reminded that the Thames was once a very different beast, particularly when it passed through London and made its inexorable way to the sea. In the 19th century the waterway, crowded, polluted and restless, was the beating heart of an industrial superpower. All human life was there.

And even when it was dolled up in gaudy recreational colours, the river could still be an unforgiving place. One of the songs on the album, The Wreck of the Princess Alice, is an account of the sinking in 1878 of a paddle steamer near Woolwich that resulted in the death of about 650 day-trippers in sewage-clogged waters. The disaster has been all but forgotten today, but it prompted reforms in the policing of the Thames and the disposal of sewage. We are, in short, a long way from the sedate world of Jerome K Jerome’s waterborne idlers or Kenneth Grahame’s cuddly creatures messing about in boats.

Amid the hardships and the striker’s anthems, there is humour too. Day Trip to Southend tells of a group of hardy souls who discover that the Thames Estuary is not quite the Riviera:

“Let’s take a day trip to Southend on Sea

Mother said the air would do us good

When we got down there, there was no sea anywhere

All we saw was miles and miles of mud.”

Denny insists, though, that he is not just interested in preserving museum pieces. While this brand of music may have one eye on the past, he emphasises that it is not just documenting a lost world. “It’s a living tradition,” he says. “People think of folk music as just old stories. But old stories can inspire new art. You can revisit old culture and create something new, something that people can feel a part of. It’s what’s missing in a lot of today’s music. People in this current climate are looking for something authentic.”

Strikers’ anthems and dispatches from the barricades are an unmistakable sign of the disc’s political leanings. Fifty-six-year-old Denny, a former Morning Star journalist, now edits the in-house journal of the RMT, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. The album is sponsored, moreover, by the General Federation of Trade Unions, which provides educational courses for members of smaller specialist unions.

Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in 1971 ITV/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

Still, the best of the music in the set transcends politics and ideology. Ewan MacColl, the grandfather of the traditional British folk scene, may have been an unrepentant communist, yet he was also responsible for some unforgettably tender music, from The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face to the ballad that is featured on Working River, Sweet Thames Flow Softly, beautifully performed by the duo of Jolene Missing and Joe Hymas.

Denny, whose own contribution to the set is an original song about a 19th-century smuggler, Elizabeth Little, began planning the album about 18 months ago. He jokingly describes the business of recording the songs as being “an Alan Lomax experience”, a reference to the American musicologist celebrated for making field recordings in far-flung parts of the US. Of the 21 songs in the collection, 12 were recorded specially for the project; others were made by the musicians themselves.

In keeping with the traditional DIY spirit, the album was a word-of-mouth enterprise. Denny knows the musicians. Two of them — Kate Waterfield and Charlie Skelton, composers of the instrumental Lapwing to Shore — had played at his wedding.

Lockdown and social distancing added complications to the recording process, but the finished product at least begins to fill the vacuum left by the closure of so many clubs during the pandemic. Folk, after all, is the most communal of forms; bringing people together is its raison d’être.

The river’s connection to the wider world is reflected in a cover of London is the Place for Me, the calypso sung by the Trinidadian performer Lord Kitchener (alias Aldwyn Roberts) when he arrived at Tilbury Docks on the Empire Windrush in 1948. Working River is not a multicultural project, however. Instead, it reflects a more homogenous white working-class ethos.

It’s all about roots. Denny, who is considering making a second album of river songs, argues that the local clubs that he frequents offer a more authentic form of music-making than are found in more fashionable venues. “Real folk music is still in the clubs,” he says. “A builder can turn up and sing a song about his job. That’s where it’s at. We’re not looking for a virtuoso out of music school. It’s not about people noodling.”

Working River is the fruit of that philosophy. The songs are as timeless as the river itself.
Working River: Songs and Music of the Thames is available from folktreerecordings.bandcamp.com

Here are some of recent reviews from our customers:

·  Great !!

·  A great compilation of songs which contain a varied range of experiences from the working life of many hard labourers. I enjoy the story telling through song which is  a great way to pass on the social history of many now lost industries.

·  I love it!

·  I’m enjoying it, excellent info.

·  Received and enjoyed. Fascinating sleeve notes.

·  An interesting selection of songs etc.

·  Working River is an excellent CD. It takes me back to my regular attendance on Saturday nights at The Singers Club in London, where the resident singers were Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, but where any number of guest singers also performed. Jolene…has the purest singing voice I have heard in a long time. Her version of Sweet Thames Flow Softly is a joy to listen to; it is the best I have heard it sung since listening to Ewan MacColl sing it in person in the late 1960s. What was nice about Working River was to hear artists of nowadays and to know they are carrying on the folk tradition.

·  I like the variety of styles, themes & singers.  I like the historical background, and the sense of real life & politics in the songs. I was born & grew up in London, and the ”Day Trip to Southend” reminded me of my family trip to Southend 50 or 60 years ago, when there was nothing but mud for miles.

·  I am really enjoying it, it’s really nice to have the local connection in the songs.

·  I found it good listening particularly if you are into English folk. The match girls story was particularly interesting for anyone with a feel for TU and social history.

·  Most enjoyable!

·  Very good CD. I hope it sells well so that you are encouraged to engage in further similar projects

·  I have enjoyed listening to it. After reading a review of the CD in the Morning Star I had to buy a copy. To sum up it is an excellent collection that should still be heard and performed.  Many thanks for putting it together.

·  Perhaps I should say that my wife and myself are long term “folkies” of a certain age who have been going to folk clubs and festivals since our teenage years – in my case about 60 years!! We both thought this Working River CD was very good, in terms of its content and variety and it really told the story very well and we especially like this sort of story/history descriptive narrative because it builds up a picture of something which (in this case) has all but disappeared. the songs come over very well indeed and I still find myself humming/ whistling snatches even after only a few hearings! The east track in the pub was great and we both said More, more! When it ended. So many many thanks to you and all those who made this CD possible.

·  It’s great, really enjoyed the music.

·  I love the album – it’s full of great songs and a true representation of the history of our magnificent river.

Eleven months after the coup by right wing shock groups with the support of the army and police, the Bolivian people elected the MAS-IPSP candidates Luis Arce Catacora and David Choquehuaca as President and Vice-president with an overwhelming 55.09% of the vote. The vote was 26.26% higher than the second Carlos Mesa of Comunidad Ciudadana a coalition of centre right parties who had collaborated in the coup. It was also 10.18% higher than the combined votes of all other candidates.

Camacho the ultra right wing candidate from Santa Cruz only won votes in provinces in Santa Cruz and Beni. Of the 9 departments of Bolivia MAS won in 6, Mesa won in two, Beni and Tarija and Camacho won in Santa Cruz. The support for MAS across the country is clearer at the level of the provinces. Out of 112 provinces in the country MAS won in 98. This is clear in the map below:

Bolivians also elected their representatives in the legislative branch, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. MAS won majorities in both chambers, winning 75 deputies out of 130 in the chamber of Deputies and 21 senators out of 36.

The overwhelming support for MAS is critical in pre-empting another coup. There were attempts by right wing groups to create problems through violence to create an excuse for army and police intervention to cancel the elections, which is why Evo Morales called on MAS supporters to maintain calm and discipline and not respond to provocations. The people had fought hard to win the elections. They were postponed 3 times with the excuse of the pandemic. In August demonstrations, strikes and road blockages forced the government to set a firm date for the elections for 18-10-2020, which was ratified by congress.

Right wing government-a lesson in corrupt dictatorship

The vote increased for MAS compared to the annulled 2019 elections when MAS won by 47.08% to 36.51% for Mesa. Eleven months of government by the right wing coup actors showed their corruption and incompetence. One example which made the news was their claim to have bought 500 intensive therapy beds to treat Covid patients which could not be found anywhere and the purchase of ventilators from Spain unsuitable for intensive therapy for which they claim to have paid prices 3 times higher than the listed ones. Their minister Murillo, who made his name persecuting MAS activists, also acted against government officials who asked questions about financial dealings. People also remember the massacres of demonstrators by the army at Sacaba and Sencata where 21 people were killed and hundreds wounded.

The government passed a law giving the army and police immunity for their actions against demonstrators. This law was repealed later by congress where MAS had a majority. Many of the young, had not experienced right wing rule, as the pre-coup MAS government had lasted 14 years.

Reaction against inclusion

But the most offensive actions by the coup actors was their obvious racism and rejection of the inclusion of the people of Native American extraction (85% of the population) by attacking their flag, the Wiphala and bringing a large Bible into the government ‘to eradicate devils signs’. Those images are unforgettable to all Bolivians.

The election results put Bolivia back on course to keep building the

Plurinational State of Bolivia. We must join their celebrations.

Wiphala flag on the left next to Bolivian flag, Blue MAS flags at MAS celebration of the election victory.

The TUC has launched a new campaign, Save Union Learning, to persuade the government to drop proposals to end the Union Learning Fund (ULF).

View the article here.

Read the latest article about the launch of our new Working River CD in partnership with FolkTree Recordings here.

To view more information on Working River click here.

To buy the Working River, which is out now, click here.

View the latest newsletter of the Trade Union Badge Collectors Society Volume 2 Number 3

This issue includes:

Bristol, West of England and South Wales Operatives Trade and Provident Society
Manchester Trade Union Week
Midland No 7 CWU (Burslem Delivery Office Dispute)
National Union of Public Employees
The Lilywhites
Union of state servants and non-union badges
The Peoples March for Jobs
National Seamen’s Reform Movement
National Union of Unemployed and Workers

View here

For queries contact stevewbaguley@gmail.com

The General Federation of Trade Unions Educational Trust is seeking a skilled bid writer to prepare a number of urgent grant applications to support its educational, cultural, hotel business and other activities.

Many new and pre-existing funding streams are potentially available to us, and we are keen to make the best of the opportunities over the next few months. Many of these have come about as a result of new initiatives to support organisations in the current economic climate. The broad range of our activities enable us to apply for a good number of grants. The GFTU Educational Trust (www.gftu.org.uk) manages a range of publishing, artistic and cultural activities alongside an educational and welfare programme and support services for organisations, and also has a wholly owned subsidiary company operating a hotel and conference centre in Quorn Leicestershire.

If you think you could help us, please send your CV, together with a covering letter highlighting your relevant experience of bid writing for similar types of organisation, and your day rate, to Doug Nicholls, General Secretary via doug@gftu.org.uk.

Deadline for applications November 1st 2020.

The General Federation of Trade Unions Educational Trust Registered Charity number 313439