What this is all about -
Well, here we are in the snug at the virtual Topographer's Arms. It's where members of Radical Stroud meet and chat and keep good cheer...
THE TOPOGRAPHER'S ARMS JOURNAL
Online Radical Stroud, for 2020's Social Distancing Comrades and Dreamers
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The Ghost Pub Pilgrimage
The church bells were ringing as I set forth On the first day of my pilgrimage Through parts of the parish of Rodborough: A Cotswold...
Football Boots
You called on Christmas Eve afternoon, Carrying an unwrapped parcel, A gift brought from memory lane: David Dangerfield’s dad’s football...
Enough is Enough
Enough is Enough ‘Enough is Enough!’ Don’t think about semantics, axioms Tautologies and self-evident truths, When you read the phrase,...
RMT Picket Line
RMT Picket Line Gloucester 18.8.22 We initially numbered thirteen or so outside the station, Not so much a last supper at lunchtime, As a...
The Next Station is Solidarity
The Next Station is Solidarity I got up early and got the bus, To join the ASLEF Picket Line, At Gloucester, 30 July 2022: It can be...
A Ghost Pub Pilgrimage
A Ghost Pub Pilgrimage through Stroud and the Five Valleys Raising funds for the Trussell Trust in September Walk and/or bicycle your...
Close Season Nostalgia
1960-61 Close Season It was all so just so Just William perfect: Egg sandwiches, crisps and lemonade Tucked into your duffel bag,...
A Stroud Broadsheet for Tolpuddle
A Stroud Broadsheet In the year of our Lord, 1649, England became a republic, And that word: ‘Commonwealth’ (‘In the beginning was the...
We Demand Better
TUC Demonstration 2022 ‘We Demand Better’ The ‘Cost of Living Crisis’ is a misnomer – It’s a Crisis of Capitalism, Or rather, a constant...
Civil War Walk
So, there was Charles with his HQ at Oxford (Having been turfed out of London at Turnham Green), And if he were to retake London, Then...
Pandaemonium and Stroud Scarlet
Pandaemonium or Paradise Lost: 'There stood a Hill not far whose griesly top Belch'd fire and rowling smoak; the rest entire Shon with a...
1819 Public Execution near Swindon 51 Bus
I’ve thought a fair bit about public executions, Visited the remaining Newgate wall, At Amen Court just by St Paul’s Cathedral, For a...
A Storm in Every Port Vale
Port Vale versus Swindon It is and was an absolute truth, Universally acknowledged, as well, That our dad had a bad war in the jungle,...
London Radical History Walk
London Radical History Walk Prologue: ‘And when King George’s poll Shall in the basket roll, Let mercy then control The guillotine!’ ‘No...
Supporting both Teams at a Match
Is it possible to support both teams at a football match? I first watched Forest Green forty years ago, And Swindon Town sixty years ago,...
Swindon Town v Forest Green Rovers
My Granny Bingham was born in Stroud in 1891. She married Charles Butler (a carpenter in the GWR in Swindon); they moved to London where...
London Pubs Radical History Walk
London Pubs Radical History Walk Prologue: ‘And when King George’s poll Shall in the basket roll, Let mercy then control The guillotine!’...
Cochineal
Stroud Scarlet and Cochineal Prologue Cochineal: a sessile parasite That lives on the moisture and nutrients of cacti, That die when...
The Wisdom of the Market
The ineluctable, irresistible, Omnipotent, omniscient Wisdom of the market; The impersonal workings Of market forces and their impulse;...