From the Cradle to the Grave
Poems and Thoughts from the Anxious Poet
From the Cradle to the Grave A war’s end, a peace to spend, red flag the comrades sang, heads back, the commons rang, a landslide, a turn of the tide, a walk on the left side ready to face a wasted nation, heady with electoral elation educating, agitating, healthing, rewealthing. William, Lord Beveridge, filled with Liberal leverage this was his pledge, to build a welfare bridge, Bunyan like, a nation’s pilgrimage struggle with the five brigands; privation’s pyramids, the rich on top, the poor disinherited. Rigorous, gaunt, gentleness was his, and valour, ignorance, want, idleness, disease, and squalor giant evils sucking at our vigour, the work of an Oxford college scholar, deliverance, a plan for national succour His call taken up, full cup, lapped up, by the suited, booted, spectacled, Labourite club: Bevan, Bevin, Morrison, Cripps, and Greenwood. Heaven’s leaven, Samaritan scripts, goodness their byword, conferred with an absurd amount of energy, nourished by a ragged trousered philanthropy, implacably ready, with all alacrity, to see the world a better place, to be a kinder face to nationalise the commonplace, to make the nations case. And behind the slum-sodden doors, poverty pours, capitalism’s carnivores, rapacious door to doors, rent collectors, doctors’ debtors, interest accumulators, Five giant evils, alive, defiant, all rivals for the crown, to bring down, to deep drown, any who dare to care. Then this Aneurin, Wales’s class war prophet, bringing all his fire in, rails off so eloquent, took up the common purse, things can’t get worse, looked up, cooked up the national health service. Stuffed the doctor’s mouths with gold bluffed objectors, soothed young and old miner bold, Ebbw Vale polled, socialism’s chokehold, until on the appointed day, no tory could gainsay, the fifth of July, health on full supply, regardless of their pocket’s ability, for no society, legitimately, can appeal to civility if disability causes deniability of medical aid, because their means forbade, an appeal to be weighed in the scales of the prepaid, waylaid by their poverty. And we arose from war Jacks waving home for heroes, press hacks raving, on the placards ‘Give Thanks by Saving’, going onwards, public banks paving the way to fair shares, caring, trailblazing safety netting, lifting the weak, a welfare state aiding and abetting the meek, ending the cheapskate state that made the giants evils agglomerate. From the slums, the mills, the shoeless streets in columns, parliamentary bills, heartbeats the drums of contradictory wills replete with factory’s commons, and did those feet, a new world, full fruits of industry’s unison arrows of burning gold, Blakes new Jerusalem within our reach, a green and pleasant union. In Clement Atlee’s cooperative, innovative era what wouldn’t they done to conquer those five giant evils, Mammon’s chimera and overthrow inequities’ malicious monster. But now these new bombasts of the rich who want life to be an uneven pitch say they have the God given right to switch a kindness of welfare for their neo-liberal dodge, have seized back control, greed in free reign. The Iron Lady let them out again, those evil giants were just hiding and now they prosper to our nation’s dividing. Conniving, purloining, misrepresenting, convincing the poor to vote against their own hopes. So let me paint a picture of our nation and lay bare this dark invasion name the evils for all their predation, and sound again forty-five’s rallying cry.
The photo at the head of this post is of my maternal grandfather George Henry Hearn. He is seated among the Willesden District Unemployed Association at the culmination of the Jarrow March. He met the marchers and by the looks of it was very happy to do so. He was a socialist and proud of it. I have copies of his three favourite books - The Stars Look Down by AJ Cronin, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressall, and Looking Backward 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy.
My Auntie Julie, my Mum’s Sister and his younger daughter remembers he kept these books (that I have had rebound) next to the fireplace and would sit and read them over and over again. The first two are different reflections of the struggle of working people to secure a better future. The last, written in 1887 imagines people in the year 2000 when there is a socialist utopia looking back to the bad old days!
I imagine he welcomed the election of Clement Attlee and the Labour government in 1945 with elation and hope. It was a government that changed things.
‘An effective prime minister could not afford to be egocentric and must remember that he is only first among equals …. some will think he has a certain amount of wisdom. His voice will carry the greatest weight. But you can’t ride roughshod over a cabinet unless you are something extraordinary.’
Attlee’s Thoughts in Citizen Clem - John Bew
They built upon the work of Lord Beveridge, a Liberal Peer who had written his famous report on the state of Britain and identified what he called the Five Giant Evils: - squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease.
I wrote the poem at the head of this post because I had been reading about this period and realised that, tragically and unfortunately the Thatcher Government began the neoliberal process of unleashing these evils back into our country.
So on the eve of the British General Election I wanted to sound again forty-five’s rallying cry. We desperately need a change - of government, of culture, of mindset, of infrastructure, of our whole country.
The change on offer might not be as bold and pioneering as Attlee’s but it could make a start on the reconstruction of our ravaged country and surely that is worth a vote.
The giant evils are hard to fight but at least we could have some grown—ups in number 10 and parliament who can take up the fight once more. My grandad would have at least recognised the need for that. As his favourite book says:
“Every man who is not helping to bring about a better state of affairs for the future is helping to perpetuate the present misery, and is therefore the enemy of his own children. There is no such thing as being neutral: we must either help or hinder.”
― Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Here is a video of the poem made by Jack Todhunter
For more of Jack’s work see Jack's Youtube