Submitted by Janine on
The WSF was the organisation led by Sylvia Pankhurst, which had previously been the Workers' Suffrage Federation, and before that, the East London Federation of the Suffragettes. It had previously fought militantly, first for votes for women, and then more explicitly for votes for all, and in 1917 was advocating supporting international socialists in parliamentary elections.
Submitted by Janine on
Thanks to the TUC Library for asking me to write this guest blog post, published here. And for existing.
Submitted by Janine on
Back in 2009. Docklands publications The Wharf published this review of Janine's book, 'Guilty and Proud of it: Poplar's rebel councillors and guardian 1919-1925'.
Submitted by Janine on
Publikshed in Soildarity 350, 21 January 2015:
During the 1914-18 war, well over 2,000 people wrote published poetry in the UK. Most of them were not soldiers writing from the trenches.
Submitted by Janine on
An article published in Workers' Liberty no.66 in 2001, which turned out to be a precursor to my 2009 book, Guilty and Proud Of It.
Submitted by Janine on
My recommended First World War reading - from this selection of recommendations by socialists in Solidarity 347, 10 December 2014.
The Home Front by Sylvia Pankhurst
Submitted by Janine on
When an officer was killed in World War One, the British Army told his next of kin by telegram. Lower-ranked men’s deaths were reported on Form B104-82. ‘Calamity’ is a poem by E.H. Visiak. Private Ted was my great uncle.
Visiak’s Calamity once said
From heart to heart grief’s wireless sped
No officer, this Hoxton lad
No telegram to mum and dad
Grief’s letters only slowly plod
Five weeks through Flanders’ shell-churned sod
’Til death’s cold-morning cockerel crowed
Outside a house on Edgware Road
Five weeks false hope for Private Ted
At last they learned their son was dead
Submitted by Janine on
'From the Youth of All Nations' reads to me as a bitter complaint against the ruling classes on all sides of the First World War playing out their arguments with the sufferings and lives of soldiers.
Submitted by Janine on
Published in Solidarity 337, 24 September 2014
The Workers’ Dreadnought published this poem on its front page, heading an article entitled “Soldiers ask what they are fighting for” on 20 October 1917.
Submitted by Janine on
Published in Solidarity 335, 10 September 2014
From The Workers’ Dreadnought, 29 June 1918
A poem was found on the dead body of a German soldier. The British authorities reproduced it in facsimile and threw it from aeroplanes into the German lines.
