DEATH, GRIEF, AND ART - PEDYR PRIOR AND MARY FLETCHER

Around three months ago, in May this year, I was canvassing on behalf of Pedyr Prior, our Labour candidate in a St Ives town council by-election. In the end, the Conservative vote was too strong. But we in the Labour Party locally gave it our best shot and Pedyr came close. Pedyr was our man - respected and seasoned and tough. Chair of the Cornwall Labour Forum. He had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy, even as he led his team of canvassers. The medical prognosis looked good.

Suddenly, the word came that Pedyr had taken a turn for the worse. He had had an adverse reaction to his fifth session of chemotherapy. Three weeks later, Pedyr passed away. On 25 June, we attended with many others his funeral at Treswithian Downs crematorium.

This blog-post is my tribute to Pedyr through the paintings and poetry of his wife, the St Ives artist Mary Fletcher. Mary has expressed her grieving through these images created on her iPad and in the words of her poems. I hold these images and word in high regard and am so pleased to play my part in helping them reach a wider audience.

                                     

                                     I  wake alone

                                     heart thumping

                                     pain through all my veins

                                     wobbly

                                     uncertain

                                     likely to pitch over

                                     can't drive

                                     can't survive

                                     can't see a way

                                     without you and don't want to

                                     Grief won't kill me though

                                     I asked it to.

                                                                                   Bagatelle.

                                    In love for so long, two sides of a calm quiet arch all held together, all happy and dancing.

                                    Balanced and sure, sweet and strong 

                                    Aware of this fragile fortune.

                                    And

                                    Now 

                                    He is dead so quickly, three weeks of suffering and hope and longing

                                    I'm left,  a loose marble shot out in a moment to rattle around so painfully

                                    Ricocheting stupidly, salted with crying

                                    Lost and lonely

                                    Afraid of everything 

                                    on my own.

                                    The palliative care team, the death squad

                                    invite you to choose a day to die.

                                    But we hung on to hope two more weeks.

                                                 Yes I hear you talking

                                                 something about plants

                                                 watering

                                                 or something else

                                                 Its like a film in the next room

                                                 Its like I'm behind glass

                                                 screaming

                                                 and you go on talking

                                                 about your happy life

                                                 about how life goes on

                                                 and I am behind glass

                                                 stuck in grief

                                                 drowning

                                                 hating it.

                                                    We made a circle

                                                    a strong fortress

                                                    and now its broken

                                                    and I am toppling.

                                                   A ruined broken circle

                                                   demolished

                                                   salt soaked

                                                   bombed

                                                   perilous

                                                   terror.

                                                       Tell Richard Gere I'm free

                                                       My husband died quite recently

                                                       I need someone to dance with me

                                                       I need someone to love me who I love

                                                       So much it makes me want to die

                                                       To whom I cannot say goodbye.

                                                       But if Richard should call by

                                                       One short waltz will do

                                                       I can pretend it's you.

WOMEN'S VOICES ON 'THE ROAD TO CORBYN'

It has only just struck me how much of the positive feedback for 'The Road to Corbyn' (TRC) has come from women. Let me illustrate the point with some instances.

First, an acknowledgement fleshed out. Pippa Stilwell was one of the four members of a Cornish reading group singled out in my Acknowledgements at the front of TRC. It is worth expanding on my debt to Pippa. She had read the manuscript of 'Deception' - the work that became TRC after I had added two chapters following the 2015 General Election and the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party - and commented that 'The book is nicely written and one definitely gets the feeling of a Pilgrim's progress towards knowledge and a healthy distrust of the status quo'. The references were 'wonderfully comprehensive'. But she didn't feel that the lady Hope had been much help and she noted that 'Apart from Hope and Charity there are only two women in your book, both reduced to serving tea.'

Ouch! A thoroughly warranted rebuke - sometimes someone has to prise open your lids. Pippa continued:

'As we know that women have suffered hugely more than men under austerity, I wondered if you could introduce a page turning element by creating a female character, whom Pilgrim meets at crucial points in both their careers. She could be a single mother, public sector worker, made redundant, reduced to zero-hours cleaning, loses flat, rehoused outside her local area and networks - maybe starting a big campaign as in the New Era Housing campaign ….. so many stories in the last five years, and so many more to come.'

Read the published, final version of TRC, listen to my new improved Lady Hope - and you will understand my debt to Pippa. Being male carries its burdens, as Pilgrim himself found out. I was

NAZANIN ZAGHARI-RATCLIFFE AND LIFE IN AN IRANIAN JAIL

This blog is different from any that I have published before. Here, instead of my words, are the reflections and insights of Richard Zaghari-Ratcliffe, as his wife copes with Day 862 of her captivity in an Iranian jail separated from her daughter. Do share if you are so inclined. This is such a painful slice of reality, made all the worse because of the awful part played by the British Foreign Secretary at the time, a man called Johnson. 

Day 862 #FreeNazanin – Evin University

Richard Ratcliffe

London, United Kingdom

12 Aug 2018 — 

A lot has happened: We have a new Foreign Secretary, with promise inherited, a new court case, and more British Iranians taken, on the margins of the news. From no stones unturned to more stone collecting.

It has also been a hot summer also in Iran – with tumult even inside the ward. There have been a number of new arrivals, including some famous ones. Some women were transferred away, resulting in a long hunger strike, and time in hospital.

But also there have been releases.

Releases have a bittersweet left-behind feeling – a jealous happiness. Ex-prisoners come to Evin the following visiting day to share sweets with the families going in. Each time Gabriella asks Nazanin confused: ‘Mummy, but

A SOCIALIST LITERARY MASTERPIECE - ROBERT TRESSELL'S 'THE RAGGED TROUSERED PHILANTHROPISTS'

Robert Noonan only wrote one book in his lifetime and that under the pseudonym of Robert Tressell. He never lived long enough to see it published but make no mistake his work is a masterpiece. The version that I read last month uses the text in the Lawrence & Wishart edition of 1955 - it's the Wordsworth Classics edition of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (TRTP) with a Foreword by Tony Benn, first published in 2012. There is general agreement that this version is the best we have but it is important to know that the book which was first published in 1914, three years after the death of its author, was compiled from the pages of the hand-written manuscript in a different order from today's version and leaving out much detail. Bearing in mind some have argued that Labour's landslide victory in the General Election of 1945 was due in no small measure to the number of copies of TRTP read by WW2 servicemen during the war, it is remarkable how powerful the socialist message of the book was, even in a form less than Robert Noonan would have wanted.

In this blog-post, I would like to share some of the insights about the book's history that I now have thanks to reading Ian Hernon's admirable biography of Robert Noonan - Robert Tressell: A Life in Hell (2015). Hernon's Introduction conveys very well the impact of the book in its different versions on the British Labour movement. Listen to the opinions of these left-wing names:

• Eric Heffer (MP) - 'It had a profound influence. For the first time it showed what the world of work was really like and how the workers were exploited. It influenced generations of socialists and trade unionists.'
• Margaret Drabble (novelist) - 'The classic text of the Labour movement exposing the

THE DEATH OF DR DAVID KELLY - A SUMMARY OF MILES GOSLETT'S NEW STUDY

For starters, the background:

David Kelly (1944-2003)

Scientist

David Christopher Kelly CMG was a Welsh scientist and authority on biological warfare, employed by the British Ministry of Defence, and formerly a weapons inspector with the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq. He came to public attention in July 2003 when an unauthorised discussion he had off the record with BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan about the UK Government's dossier on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was cited by Gilligan and led to a major controversy. Kelly's name became known to the media as Gilligan's source and he was called to appear on 15 July before a parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee investigating the issues Gilligan had reported. Kelly was questioned aggressively about his actions. He was found dead two days later.

And so to Miles Goslett and his new book. 

Miles Goslett is an award-winning journalist. His book An Inconvenient Death: How the Establishment Covered up the David Kelly Affair was published in May this year. My judgement on the book is very positive. The reviewer in The Times - David Aaronovitch - was very negative. Indeed, so hostile that it seems legitimate to suggest that his review is a further ploy in an