In the Shadows of the Workhouses

Once again this blog results from a comment I made during a discussion on another excellent blog, this time by from Sue Marsh: http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/2011/02/nhs-camerons-albatross.html If you haven't visited Sue's blog yet http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.com/ you really should. After I made the comment I wanted to expand on it and so this blog began to form

A bit of explanation first. Most of us have hobbies/interests, although perhaps mine sometimes take the form of obsessions! As the years have passed I have realised however how often these interests dovetail, to name a few: Victorian Fiction, Workhouses, Victorian Religion, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, H.G.Wells, History of the Early Days of the Labour and Trade Union Movement, Edwardian Society, Family History.


In the nine months of this Coalition Government, like many others, I have listened to and read the pronouncements of David Cameron and his colleagues with increasing disbelief. Taking into account the inevitable 'Yaa boo' of a new government blaming the previous administration for every ill in the country [so far the snow in December didn't seem to be Gordon Brown's absolute fault] there seemed to be almost a determination to dismantle society as we know it, despite the 'ideals' for a 'Big Society', which many are still saying they do not understand.

Last week we had the unedifying spectacle of the Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman saying 'We got it wrong'in Parliament after half a million people signed a petition protesting against the proposals to change the ownership of 637,000 acres of woodlands from public to private. There is an ongoing protest, with petitions
[ http://www.petitiononline.com/ukcghq/petition.html ]and massive campaigns on social networking sites for example, to stop the proposed closures of Coastguard stations and the selling-off of the Air Sea Rescue Service. The privatisation of the latter had to be halted when it was revealed that "commercially sensitive information" had been leaked to the interested 'purchasers'.

Nearly every night on our local news there is another village or town in our area holding a protest to try and keep their local library open. Especially in small villages the libraries are so important as a 'hub', providing a centre for not just books and computer access, important as that is - but for reading and other groups, holiday activities, local exhibitions etc. Do those in government ever have to use a library - or can they afford any book that they read a review about in the newspapers they can afford to buy every day [no going to the library to read the daily newspaper for them!] Do their children ever have to go to the local library to use a computer in the holidays to finish a school project or have they got one or more at home they can use?

And of course I haven't started on the cuts to the front line services, the NHS, the Disability Living Allowance, Housing Benefit, Student fees. I don't need to point out that if we are really so much in need of money that these things will save their are other ways this could be found: examination of tax avoidance of large multi-nationals and defence spending just for a start......

Someone in our blog discussion suggested we are going back to the way of life of the 1930s but I would suggest it is worse than that, and leaving the 21st and 20th centuries akin to going back to the 1830s, the 19thCentury. Here is my reasoning:

When the Poor Law Amendment Act was passed in 1834 adjoining parishes were linked together in unions to adminster jointly 'welfare' to the poor & destitute of their parishes. This was a way to save money by pooling resources by being more 'efficient' [a good 19thC buzzword - but heard more and more in the mouths of Cameron et al nowadays] Of course this resulted too often in mass catering etc being costed and delivered at the cheapest possible rates [Workhouse records make fascinating readings at County records offices] and the stringent rules to get admitted into a workhouse resemble too closely the sort of assessments claimants have to undergo now.

Of course in the 19thC there was the notion of the 'deserving poor' and thus too this led to the idea that there must be 'undeserving poor'. At this time poverty was commonly thought to be a sign of God's disapproval [Calvinst/Protestant Work Ethic] so those born poor and staying poor really should not deserve or expect much help. God showed his approval of the 'good' by awarding them with riches but expected them to re-invest rather than fritter it all away, and if this re-investment led to further riches, well more and more approval was being shown! What an excellent creed for the then burgeoning Capitalist society! Of course it was believed that the rich had a 'paternalistic' duty to look after the poor [only enough to enable them sufficient health and strength to provide factory fodder, to keep them in luxury would have been against God's plan, after all] Another term for this 'welfare' was/is 'Benevolent Capitalism'. [Recently Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight asked a 'Suit' from the Institute of Directors what had happened to Benevolent Capitalism and he replied 'Oh, I think we have moved on from there' - but in the proposed 'Big Society' with all the welfare reforms what will replace it?]


In a really perverse way, the 1834 Act was the beginning of a kind of Welfare State in that it 'standardized' across the country the provisions of each union for their needy but left individual unions to set the spending on their 'paupers'. As long as an individual union kept its inhabitants alive all was well - officialdom only interfered if mortality rates rose too high as in the case in the Somerset workhouse in Bridgwater in 1839. Those able to work and provide for themselves were deserving poor, those feckless enough to not be able to find work [even in times of agricultural depression for example] or becoming unable to work through age or incapacity were undeserving poor so admittance to an institution like the workhouse was actually rather good of the society which could have left them to starve. Statistics show that at times the mortality rate in prisons was 3% whilst in workhouses it was 40%, so multi-occupation was not the reason for the high mortality.


Why am I giving you all a history lesson? Because it seems to me as if the present Government wants to keep today's 'needy' on subsistence levels but with not enough money for 'luxuries' as a punishment for not being born rich/becoming ill. Excuse me if I sound cynical, we should learn lessons from the mistakes of history - not return to them. Why shouldn't those who can't afford 'luxuries' like books, medicine, education, walking in the forests, rescue at sea, help when ill, help with social services etc etc expect those who are lucky enough to earn enough/have inherited wealth to help them out. In a 'Big Society' where 'We are all in it Together' it would still seem that - to misquote George Orwell - 'We are all Equal - it is just that Some are far more Equal than Others'.



For more information and history on Workhouses - if I haven't already bored you silly - please go to this great website: http://www.workhouses.org.uk/


The photograph above is of the entrance to Williton Workhouse, W.Somerset. Taken on a beautiful day, with tubs of flowers in the foreground - try to imagine entering here on a cold, wet day with one's possessions [if any] taken from one and being issued with a sort of 'sackcloth uniform' and being set to 'picking hemp' on a diet of little more than cold porridge..... There is a heartbreaking fictional account of the way old people were separated from their spouses - in the "Men" and "Women's" wings in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell

Punishing the Unemployed

We really do seem to be returning to the thinking of the 19th Century where the Protestant Work Ethic - amongst other thought provoking ideas - basically laid forth the idea that the rich were showing God's approval by being rich and the poor God's disapproval by starving.

Iain Duncan Smith - as reported in today's Observer [click on blog title above to read the article] wants Job Seekers to be penalised for their audacity in previously working for industries/workplaces that can no longer retain their services. So to show them their sins and remind them what it is like to maintain "habits and routines" of working life [quote from the article] the suggestion is that the unemployed will have to undertake "mandatory work activity" of at least 30 hours a week for a four-week period [quote]. Apparently the Department for Work and Pensions is planning to organise this by contracting private providers who will presumably arrange placing the unemployed with charities, voluntary organisations and so forth.

Lots of objections spring to mind and will probably continue even after I have logged off. The sheer audacity of the way that this has been announced with no regard for the feelings of those who are unfortunate enough to be long term unemployed cannot even be described or listed. However these are just a few additional 'objections' that immediately occur:

1. Will the 'volunteers' in any way displace those already employed? Litter gathering and gardening as suggested in an article on the BBC news homepage should already be covered by local workers, for instance

2. Many of these 'volunteer' jobs will require some sort of training. Who pays the trainers or will they also be taken from those naughty, naughty individuals in the ranks of the unemployed?

3. Fares/Expenses: One assumes that in areas where the population of unemployed is in a higher ratio to the employed than others there will be less 'volunteer' jobs to go around. Therefore there will be fares/expenses involved in the logistics of 'matching' individuals and work. This will surely put the benefits bill up?

4. Insurance: These part-time/temporary workers will have to be insured. They may not be permitted to use machinery because training is insufficient and insurance would not cover.

5. At the end of the mandatory work period where are the jobs that our 'volunteers' are now raring to fill? Would I be cynical to suggest that nothing will have changed really? The real winners will be bureaucracy - a lot of forms will have been completed and possibly a few more civil service jobs created? And the private providers that are organising the scheme of course. Oh but wait a minute - wasn't that one of the ConDem pledges to cut down on bureaucracy and the Civil Service? I must have misheard that.

Picture today is of Robert Tressell's grave - author of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. I may have mentioned this book before. Tressell may be spinning in his grave today. I hope not, may he [and the others with him] sleep gently.

Heroes

We are back from a rather meandering road trip around parts of the country which somehow managed to evoke several of my heroes, many of whom I have previously mentioned in these 'pages'.

The ending of our half term holiday in the West Country coincided with a celebratory concert given by a political folk singer friend of ours [and hero!] - Roy Bailey. He was 75 last month. Picture above and click on the blog title to go to his website. Roy Bailey is a good friend of another of my political heroes, Tony Benn, and in fact they perform together in a 'gig' called The Writing on The Wall which is basically the history of dissent. There is a brilliant CD of this available from Roy's website [no I am not on commission!] I have seen them perform this gig many times, the last time at the British Library in 2009 during the BL's Taking Liberties: The Struggle for Britain’s Freedoms and Rights season. 

Roy's concerts always feature him talking about his political beliefs and influences. On Sunday he was talking about two more of my heroes and influences - Paul Robeson and Joe Hill.

Our journey to Sheffield took us via East Midlands Airport, where we stayed at a nearby hotel on Saturday evening. However it was slightly alarming when watching President Obama [of course a hero of mine!] speaking about the foiled bomb plot on the Friday evening news to hear him mention East Midlands Airport.

When we left the East Midlands we travelled onto Sheffield via a circuitous route to take in places we had not previously visited. Driving through Matlock we passed Masson Mills which was Richard Arkwright's most prestigious mill. I suppose only a retired history teacher/lecturer would get excited about this and although I would not describe Arkwright as a hero of mine he certainly was a key figure in the industrial revolution. I suppose in a way it is not surprising that the site is now a shopping village [as well as a museum] and thus one of the birth places of the capitalist system has now become one of its 'cathedrals'!

Onto Buxton in Derbyshire, where Vera Brittain once lived. A definite heroine of mine, especially for her work toward Pacifism and Socialism. I had to restrain myself when browsing in a bookshop from buying yet another edition of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, my bookshelves are groaning as it is and I had already bought too many books during our days away....

Arriving in Sheffield it was lovely to see Andrew Motion's [a literary hero of mine, of course!] poem on the side of one of the university buildings. To see a wonderful picture of this and other great photographs of Sheffield please go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theotherbailey/5137117621/in/set-72157625167089633/

Meanwhile the poem is a lovely way to end this travelogue of a blog!:

What If..? by Andrew Motion
O travellers from somewhere else to here
Rising from Sheffield Station and Sheaf Square
To wander through the labyrinths of air,

Pause now, and let the sight of this sheer cliff
Become a priming-place which lifts you off
To speculate
What if..?
What if..?
What if..?

Cloud shadows drag their hands across the white;
Rain prints the sudden darkness of its weight;
Sun falls and leaves the bleaching evidence of light.

Your thoughts are like this too: as fixed as words
Set down to decorate a blank facade
And yet, as words are too, all soon transferred

To greet and understand what lies ahead -
The city where your dreaming is re-paid,
The lives which wait unseen as yet, unread.

This is the end of the innocence*

Well that's how yesterday's budget felt to me. We could all hope that it would not be too bad, that the LibDems would fulfil their promises to 'rein in' the Conservatives worst choices and make the budget one that although eye wateringly hard would affect all sections of society - nay take from the rich more than from the poor. Those supporting the Robin Hood Tax were hoping for just that - money to be taken from the greedy banks [we have all learnt about them over the past few years!] to help the World's poor. The Merry Men and Women of Nottingham were disappointed yet again: http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/. Instead this was the reverse of a fair budget as it looks as if it will overwhelmingly take from the poor and give back to the already rich.

It would not be so bad if we still had as many council houses [whoops now equals 'social housing']as we did in the 1980s and then the cap on housing benefit might be achievable. Callers to 'Money Box Live' on BBC radio4 told Paul Lewis that they did not know how they were going to manage to pay their rent next year. I wonder if George Osborne was listening in to that?

George Osborne also talked about children growing up in homes where 'worklessness' was the norm. What's wrong with the old-fashioned word 'Unemployment'? Why does George's use of 'worklessness' somehow smack of 'worthlessness' or 'shiftlessness'. Did he see the woman on BBC TV news who remarked that it is all very well to talk about getting people back to work but where are the jobs coming from? Obviously not the public sector.

And lone parents must get a job [with the proviso of there being a job to get] when their youngest child is 5. Fair enough but where is the child care to facilitate this? Will it be economical for the state to provide 'free' child care so that these lone parents can find a well paying job near enough to home to race back to fetch said children before the child care 'closes' for the night?

George please read The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. I won't ask again but would ask amazon to deliver you one if I didn't know you can afford your own copy.

Sorry to be a misery today but like Kevin Maguire of the Daily Mirror, I don't like the budget! http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/columnists/maguire/2010/06/23/history-will-show-george-osborne-s-emergency-budget-was-a-disaster-115875-22352641/

*Lyrics from the Don Henley song The End Of The Innocence . But of course that little phrase also reminds of Blake's Songs of Innocence and thenSongs of Experience. And I think an appropriate Blake 'Song of Innocence' would be:
Infant Joy
I have no name;
I am but two days old."
What shall I call thee?
"I happy am,
Joy is my name."
Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet Joy I call thee:
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while;
Sweet joy befall thee!

Which lightens my mood but:

A 'Song of Experience' dedicated to George Osborne:

“London”
I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every black’ning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

Please don't let us return to these times.

"The heat and dust had already been at work upon this multitude."*

*The War of the Worlds by H.G.Wells, Book 1, Chapter XVI - The Exodus From London

We have the builders in. It may have become obvious over the past few weeks that I am neither very domesticated or housetrained. In the past when other half has announced that he was about to decorate it has thrown me into a tizzy which has often lasted far longer than the actual 'happening'. However somethings just cannot be avoided and certain areas of woodwork need serious attention, involving much sanding down and ensuing dust. So the above quotation from one of my favourite authors is very apt considering today also appears to be one of the hottest days of the year so far.

The hot weather is very welcome as this means that the front door can be left open for the constant toing and froing. It also means that all those passing by can see that one of the builders has a scarf tied around his face a la terroist style to keep the dust out of his face [I suggested a purpose made dust mask but apparently that is 'cissy'] So I am expecting a visit from the police/security services at any moment. But the climate change also means that in a house where normally the doors are all always open [whether due to old hippiness 'freedom' or laziness I cannot remember] but today are closed against the encroaching dust, every room is heating up nicely despite all the windows being open. I can't put the fans on in case they whirl the dust that is getting in under the doors around!

It occurred to me about four hours after the job started that maybe dust sheets would have been a good idea. I will know next time....... And what is quite cute are the footprints showing clearly my toes wherever I have walked! I never wear shoes indoors which makes me wonder why I have so many pairs of sandals!

To make matters worse it is Budget day today. So far it doesn't sound as if the poorer sections of society are coming too well out of it but I need to read more detail before commenting. I have tweeted and facebooked the link to my previous blog on The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists as suggested reading - especially for the chancellor: George Osborne. But my escapist reading for today will by another H.G.Wells favourite: 'Kipps' and if I get time I may watch the 1960's musical based on it: 'Half a Sixpence' which stars Tommy Steele. I am leading an online discussion on 'Kipps' and great fun it is too, to do this with a favourite book!

And before I leave 'The War of the Worlds' altogether I do have to 'advertise' the Jeff Wayne musical version which I adore and have in many different forms. And this is not only because Richard Burton is the narrator! The music is awesome. And before I get even more self-indulgent I will sign off!

My e-reader

I love my e-reader! I first became vaguely interested in buying one when I read a review of the 'appliance' by Andrew Marr in the Gruniad about 18 months ago. Then last year when my neuro probs seemed to be escalating and reading could at times be stressful, although my computer use didn't seem to get so compromised so quickly I thought about buying one and after seeing one 'in the flesh' decided to make the leap and part with the pennies!

It has helped a lot and reading so much 19thC literature I can download so much from free sites on the net. Just now I downloaded something one of my face to face reading groups is doing in September, although I have the 'hard copy' it means that I can take this copy along with the other 130 so books on holiday with me in the e-reader and it will take up less space than an average sized paperback.

The other great use is when - like yesterday - I get a copy of a book out that has been sitting on my shelf for a time and find that since the last read the print has shrunk considerably! So I can download the book and get started whilst I am waiting for amazon to deliver a new copy with larger print.... I find that old hardbacks are the worst culprits for shrinking print. Victorian editions especially. Our ancestors must have been a lot more determined than us when reading - especially when considering their poorer lighting!

There are drawbacks, it is not always easy to find something one has read previously and obviously one cannot annotate the text - but it is possible to 'bookmark' pages and if using the reader for study purposes a small notebook would help. When I have been teaching a book I always have two copies of it anyway - one to read and one to teach from which is full of annotations, post it notes and scribbles whose meaning are known only to me! One can save photographs and things , but despite having had the reader for nearly a a year that is a technical leap I have not yet taken, but it would make a lovely compact, portable photograph album!

The only trouble is that when I get onto one of these free sites I am worse than a child in a sweet shop! Books I have always meant to read or know I have and can't find in the house just beg to be downloaded and because it is so easy to do I just have to do it. Last 'I must download it' was 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists', after I had told everyone on the blog that they must read it, I thought it would be a good idea to take it to Somerset with me. Two minutes later there it was in my e-reader, I hadn't even had to look for it in the cupboard to pack [and I do know exactly where that is in my cupboard - right next to the biography of its author Robert Tressel, about a foot from where I am typing this!]

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

Have decided to become dictatorial and recommend summer reading on facebook, twitter, various blogs by other people and here on my own: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell http://amzn.to/dBjzQD Many 'Old Labour' party members claim it changed their lives/caused them to become Socialists. I worry that the Condem government policies may see a return to many of the problems highlighted in this novel, albeit in a more 'modern' form {OK so we may not have workhouses anymore but some form of state interference may cause pensioners to lose all that they have saved before any State help becomes available}