History

This article was published in two parts in Solidarity newspaper, beginning in issue 388 on 6 January 2016.

Picture: My grandfather, Albert Henry Booth, who was in the Navy at Gallipoli, with his sister Victoria (Queenie).

Follow the links for a shocking story of a Stalinist anti-semitic purge.

London is loyal, London's a comrade
London has toiled through many a bomb raid
London's a leader, London's a fighter
London is feeling the noose closing tighter

Those in London's seats of power
Are sending suspects to the tower
London's former champions sense
There's too much foreign influence

A century ago, with Britain at war, the Woman's Dreadnought published this poem:

CHRISTMAS EVE
- to man the comfortable

Click here to read a special issue of Workers' Liberty written by Daniel Randall, which draws on Janine's work researching the life of Minnie Lansbury.

Respect for war dead is not proved
By the depth of bow you're showing
But by the mountains you have moved
To stop their numbers growing.

​This poem was included in the anthology Poems for Jeremy Corbyn (Shoestring Press, 2016)
​and published by the Daily Mirror in September 2016.

A reflection on my son visiting the Stonewall Inn because of his passionate commitment to LGBT equality, only to find that he couldn't go in.

I remember the age of consent cut from twenty-one
A landmark amongst all the battles our struggles have won 
And now it's the age of admission the Stonewall Insists

In 1848, in response to the 300-strong Convention for Woman's Rights in Seneca Falls (USA) and its Declaration of Sentiments, a Philadelphia newspaper urged the city's ladies not to join the new movement and become women but to stay as "wives, belles, virgins and mothers". Here's my poetic response:

If Nicholas Winton were saving the children today
His Transport of Kindness would camp out in fear at Calais
Compassion is easier cast back through history's mist
Abhorrence for migrants but Oscars for Schindler's List