95 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
95 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
Severely Dealt With: Growing up in Belfast and Glasgow
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John Taylor Caldwell is over 80. For the last 60 years he
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has been an active anti-parliamentarian, a close comrade of
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the late unorthodox anarchist-communist, Guy Aldred * and
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more recently a writer and historian recording these times.
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Now, encouraged by the publishers, he has turned attention
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to his own eventful life. The first volume deals with his
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first 16 years, moving from Dumfries to the hurly burly of
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Belfast, and a voyage of discovery that led him to Glasgow.
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It is remarkable how John has been able to recall his
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innermost thoughts and cope with recalling the brutality
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he suffered as a child. He also provides a vivid picture
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of life, as his family spiralled down the social ladder.
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The respectable pretensions of his father, insensitive
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to the misery inflicted on his wife and kids (he fathered
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10 by way of three women) are brought into focus, as his
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employment prospects worsened in Belfast and the standard
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of housing worsened with each successive move.
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It is a life before the 'safety net' of the Welfare
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State, of poverty, not couched in 'good old days' nostalgia
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but of subsistence, with the children being dragged down to
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the level of street urchins. The state's attitude when
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school beckoned was to treat these working class kids,
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catholics and protestants, as "outcasts...herded into
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classrooms, not just to be educated, but to be disciplined,
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to be tamed. Hence order, silence, unquestioned
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obedience....made to fear authority". The sadistic recourse
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to physical punishment commonplace in such 'centres of
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learning' is described, with some humour in the chapter,
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"Severely Dealt With".
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John remembers, sharing a bed with all his brothers and
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sisters, lying awake -
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"...nowadays it would be said that I had a hyperactive mind. It
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was never still. It burned inside my head like a great flame in
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a little candle. It illuminated a stream of hazy visions,
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colourful dreams and profound thoughts". The book is amazing
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in its record of how his mind developed its own philosophy,
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from a child through to a page boy in the Picture House in
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Sauchiehall St..
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For those interested in history, we get a view of
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pre-War xenophobia, the horrors of thousands maimed, and
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the post war mood that "WAR IS MURDER, WAR IS HELL, NEVER
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AGAIN" is captured from a child's view into adolescence.
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At the recent book launch in Glasgow Cross, the actor
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Kenny Grant read this brilliant chapter on the post-war
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mood in Glasgow, Anti-militarist with disabled out-of-work
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soldiers everywhere. In Belfast, the mood was deflected by
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the revived sectarianism accompanying partition, and in
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"Rooting out the Fenians" we get a child's view of catholic
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families being driven out of the east Belfast streets.
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After the death of his mother, through domestic violence,
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John, still tied to his uncaring father, was called over to
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manage house in Glasgow, where the father fled to. We get a
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chilling account of Glasgow: "big city, where the people
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lived' up closes' which had stone pipe-clayed stairs with
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a lavatory on each landing to do three or four more houses.
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At night many of the closes were occupied by the homeless,
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some of them addicted to a brew concocted of methylated
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spirits and an injection of coal gas from the stairhead lighting.
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It was a tough city where many of the side-street
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dwellers wore cloth caps with razor blades sewn into the
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cap, and often carried cut-throat razors in case the need
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arose to cut a few throats. The 'polis' were to be feared:
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mostly big men who, like the Irish, spoke in amusing
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malaprops (for instance 'Come on get off', 'If you want
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to stand their you'd better move along') ".
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We also hear of a hanging of an unfortunate youth
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Kean, whose hanging took place at Duke St. Prison, and
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John imagining him in his cell "beneath the bell's great
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hammer, having a sentence of the Court pounded into
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his mind in a last stroke of retribution".
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Although many biographies of the period have
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been written, John Caldwell's book is unique in it's
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experience of brutality and poverty first hand, while
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recording the path of his conscious development from
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philosophy to anarchist communism.
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The book can be obtained for 5.95 from the publishers,
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Northern Herald, 5 Close Lea, Rastrick, Brighouse HD6 3AR.
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or after requesting a catalogue (send a large SAE)
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from AK Distribution, 22 Lutton Place, Edinburgh.
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* Come Dungeons Dark, the auto-biography of Aldred
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is published by Luath Press and available through AK for 6.95.
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