Just an Ordinary Lawyer - Jan 11-28th at Theatro Technis in London

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYFJf9fZKPw

Just An Ordinary Lawyer

Theatro Technis
26 Crowndale Rd
London NW1 1TT
United Kingdom

11-28 January

Nigerian Tunji Sowande quietly breaks through multiple barriers to become Britains first Black judge in 1978. Also a fine concert singer and keen cricket lover, he muses on international politics and history as they affect the Black world from Africa to the USA and Britain, from the point of view of one who would rather watch sports, and spread love and peace through the medium of song.

Recalling heroic sporting achievements alongside epoch-defining political events, Tayo Aluko follows the multi-award-winning Call Mr. Robeson with another "brilliantly put together history lesson delivered as art."

Tickets from here:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2718827

"First Rate" The Guardian on Call Mr. Robeson
"Prepare to be bowled over" (4 stars) Wirral Globe
"Another triumph  that thrills and touches" (5 Stars) British Theatre Guide
"Immensely enjoyable" (4 Stars) One4Review
"A superb play" (9/10) Liverpool Sound and Vision
"Every socialist, anti-racist and anti-imperialist will love this" Socialist Worker
"I learnt more about black history through your show than my entire secondary school education" E.I.

LSHG Seminar - Merilyn Moos on children of refugees from Nazism

 

Monday December 5th - Merilyn Moos: 'Breaking the Silence. Voices of the British Children of Refugees from Nazism'

 Merilyn Moos will be focusing on the continuing impact on the ‘second generation’, people born in Britain to refugees from Nazism, of their parents’ terrible losses and dislocation, but also on whether  having parents who actively opposed the Nazis from the left makes a difference to their children. She will conclude by making some suggestions about similarities and differences with today's refugees.

Room 304 Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet St, WC1, at 5.30pm. Free without ticket - no need to book in advance.  For more on the subject and a link to Merilyn Moos's book please see here

For more information please contact LSHG convenor Keith Flett on the email address above...

Book launch - Rocking Against Racism 1976-1982

Free Event: Rocking Against Racism 1976-1982

Monday 5th December @ 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm – Conway Hall

Book Launch

Weblink: https://goo.gl/6uYk08

 

Celebrating a movement of both Cultural and Political importance in the UK’s history, Reminiscences of RAR – Rocking Against Racism 1976-1981 hears from a number of collaborators, rockers and fighters. The launch event will host talks, readings and, of course, music, not only looking back at the events of 40 years ago, but also looking at the struggles and fights we face in Britain today.
…………….
Rock Against Racism (RAR) came into existence in the autumn of 1976 in response to a rise in racist attacks, and the continuing growth of the Nazi National Front. In August a racist tirade by blues guitarist Eric Clapton from the stage in Birmingham led to a letter, jointly signed by the compilers of this book, to the music press critical of Clapton’s racism and asking for readers to support an anti-racist campaign through music. The response was overwhelming and a movement was born.
For the next six years RAR was at the centre of a cultural movement against racism and the NF. From 1978 it was partnered with both the Anti-Nazi League and School Kids Against the Nazis. Together they had broken the National Front by 1979 and continued the fight against racism with RAR’s Militant Entertainment Tour, and in 1981 the fourth and final Carnival in Leeds.

With 65 contributors this book brings together the reminiscences of activists and supporters during the period. From many backgrounds and ages, musician and audience, punk and Rasta, street fighter and pogo dancer, united with a single aim: to Rock Against Racism.

Book via eventbrite here 

 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rocking-against-racism-1976-1982-tickets-29301528661

The History of Labour and its Environmental Aspects

Raphael Samuel History Centre - History and Environment seminar series  

The History of Labour and its Environmental Implications

30 November 2016, 7:30 pm, Marx Memorial Library, Clerkenwell Green, London, United Kingdom

‘The Generalisation of Wage Labour, and the Changing Relationship with the Land in Early Modern England’, George Yerby, author of The English Revolution and the Roots of Environmental Change (Routledge 2016)

 ‘Capitalism, the Use of Labour, and the Environmental Context’, Martin Empson, author of Land and Labour: Marxism, Ecology and Human History (Bookmarks 2015)

 ‘Urbanisation, Industrialisation, and their Impact on Labour Militancy’, Neil Davidson, author of Nation-States, Consciousness and Competition (2016)

Chair: Carrie Hamilton (Roehampton)

All welcome. No booking necessary.

 Contact:George Yerby: george.yerby@googlemail.com or Neil Davidson: neil.davidson@glasgow.ac.uk

LSHG seminar - John Boughton on Labour and the rise and fall of High Rise Housing

London Socialist Historians Group seminar 

Monday November 21st - John Boughton (Municipal Dreams blog), 'High Hopes - Labour and the rise and fall of High Rise housing'. 

Room 304 Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet St, WC1, at 5.30pm. Free without ticket - no need to book in advance.

Other seminars coming up - venue / time same as above

Monday December 5th - Merilyn Moos: 'Breaking the Silence. Voices of the British Children of Refugees from Nazism'

For more information please contact LSHG convenor Keith Flett on the email address above...

Hadaway Harry play

PUTNEY TO HOST HIT PLAY ABOUT GREATEST ROWER


Putney will play host to a hit play about the Victorian Geordie who invented the sport of rowing we know so well today.

Harry "Hadaway" Clasper, who was from Tyneside, was the Sir Steve Redgrave of his day having led seven teams to win the Championship of the World on the Thames at Putney. In addition Harry, in the 1840s, invented and built the slim, light boats and outriggers used by modern scullers.

At the time Clasper's revolutionary new initiatives were ridiculed because rowers were still using the old clinker-built boats that had been a feature on rivers for centuries.

Harry also went on to train future world champions and umpired world championships.

The play, "Hadaway Harry", which will be performed at Newcastle's 1200-seat Theatre Royal, will have an out-of-town-run at the prestigious London Rowing Club on the banks of the Thames in Putney on Friday and Saturday, February 17 and 18.

The play itself, which was performed to sell-out crowds and received standing ovations on Tyneside in June 2015, focuses on the very first time the Geordie oarsmen - led by Clasper and comprising his brothers - defeated the "unbeatable" Thamesmen in 1845.

Playwright Ed Waugh, whose shows have been performed nationally and internationally, explained: "Rowing was the sport of the working class prior to football. Every major river had its champion so there was huge interest in matches because civic pride was at stake.

"When Harry led his team of brothers to Putney in 1845 to win the World Championship for the first time it caused a sensation nationally; was akin to Fulham beating Barcelona in the final of the European Cup!

"Even Charles Dickens wrote about the wonderful spectacle of the Geordies versus the Thamesmen."

Ed continued: "The National Rowing Museum in Henley features the modern greats but at the very start of the rowing timeline there you'll see writ large the name of an illiterate, former Durham miner called Harry Clasper."

Waugh added: "After 1845, Harry went on to dominate national rowing for the next 25 years and when he died in 1870, aged 58, more than 130,000 people crammed the streets of Newcastle and Gateshead to pay tribute."

Harry Clasper was a regular visitor to Putney. He often lodged in The Feathers pub at the mouth of the River Wandle when preparing for races.

Harry Clasper's son, John Hawks Clasper, himself a top rower, went on to live in Putney; Lower Richmond Road and Stainbridge Road, both within a few hundred yards of the London Rowing Club.

John, who also lived in and ran The Feathers pub, was a master boater builder; his workshop, on the banks of the Thames in Putney, is now the Westminster School boathouse, which still bears his name, JH Clasper.

Hadaway  Harry will be performed at London Rowing Club, Putney (SW15 1LB) on Friday and Saturday, February 17 and 18. The show starts at 7.30pm on both evenings with a matinee at 2.30pm on Saturday.  Tickets, limited to 80 per show, cost only £16 from (0191) 424 7788.

For further details visit: Hadaway Harry

Launch of a Socialist History Society Occasional Publication Killing Communists in Havana The Start of the Cold War in Latin America Speaker: Steve Cushion Author of     A HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION Socialist History Society Public Meeting Saturday 26th November 2016 2.00pm MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY 37a Clerkenwell Green EC1R 0DU nearest tube Farringdon FREE TO ATTEND – ALL WELCOME

The Cold War started early in Cuba, with anti-communist purges of the trade unions already under way by 1947. Corruption and government intervention succeeded in removing the left-wing leaders of many unions but, in those sectors where this approach failed, gunmen linked to the ruling party shot and killed a dozen leading trade union militants, including the General Secretary of the Cuban Sugar Workers' Federation. Based on material from the Cuban archives and confidential US State Department files, this SHS Occasional Publication will examine the activities of the US government, the Mafia and the American Federation of Labor, as well as corrupt Cuban politicians and local gangsters, in this early episode of the Cold War.      FREE TO ATTEND – ALL WELCOME