WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON
Not in linear sequence:
Flooding prevents that -
But in an act of near nominative determinism,
I present the famous words of Thomas Rainsborough,
From down by the river bank at the Church of St Mary the Virgin,
From the Civil War Putney Debates of 1647:
‘For really I think that the poorest … that is in England
Hath a life to live, as the greatest …’
What would Mr Rainsborough make of the need
For food banks, four hundred years later?
I’m not a great one for sponsorship,
Tbh,
My mantra is ‘Parity not Charity’:
I’m rather more of a supporter of tax,
Not regressive taxes such as VAT,
Where everyone pays the same,
Irrespective of income,
But progressive taxes such as income tax,
So as to redistribute wealth from the rich;
Oh, and another thing about charity:
I dislike the virtue-signalling,
And Americanisation
Of our society, with chuggers in the street,
And the incessant rattling of tins,
And that apparently self-validating cry:
‘Charidee!’
I do give, however, in a random way:
Domestic appeals, national appeals, international appeals,
Beggars in the streets,
Big Issue (not a charity),
Food banks …
Even though it’s a piecemeal patchwork,
Random and uncoordinated:
A personification of charity itself, I suppose …
So here I am in February 2020,
In the year of our Lord of Paupers’ Burials,
In the year of our Lord of Bet Fred,
In the year of our Lord of Universal Credit,
In the year of our Lord of Universal Cruelty,
In the year of our Lord of the Five Week Wait,
Pragmatically doing my bit
For the Trussell Trust,
Which, I think, also feels ambivalent
About its work – as its website says:
‘94% of people at food banks
Are in destitution.
This isn’t right.’
‘Destitution’, now there’s a throwback
To a Victorian lexicon:
‘Poverty so extreme that one lacks
the means to provide for oneself’.
Synonyms for destitution include:
Penury; privation; indigence;
Pauperdom; beggary; mendicancy -
Isn’t it interesting to notice,
How many of these synonyms
Seem like archaisms?
Our semantic field for poverty is reluctant
To acknowledge the impact of modernity:
Universal Credit, the gig economy,
Zero hours contracts and so on,
It likes to pretend that poverty is old hat,
Dickensian: Scrooge before redemption;
So that’s why I am donning my boots and pack,
And walking to London along the Thames,
Piecemeal through the winter, spring and summer,
A homonymic walk along a river’s banks,
To raise funds for the destitute, and food banks,
And you can contribute at the end if you wish,
A mite will do; it all adds up in the end:
WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #2
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
So here I am walking from Walbridge in Stroud,
Along the Thames and Severn Canal,
To Trewsbury Mead and the source of the Thames,
The prologue to my pilgrimage
To the Celestial City.
Prologue: Wednesday, 5th February 2020 Stroud to Source
It’s a great walk down to Capel’s Mill from my house, Past old ridge and furrow and tenterhook hedgerows, Teazles here and there to raise your nap, Imagining the patchwork quilt of fields of two centuries ago: You pass an old oak sentinel to reach the River Frome, Railway viaduct and canal-bridge close at hand, And there is the dell that once was Capel’s Mill: Trees clambering down the steep riverbank to shroud the waters, The remains of the mill sluice quickening the river’s pulse, Rusting iron work still visible, The steady drip down from the railway arches,
The echo of the 1839 Miles Report:
The weavers are much distressed; they are wretchedly off in bedding; has seen many cases where the man and his wife and as many as 7 children have slept on straw, laid on the floor with only a torn quilt to cover them … children crying for food, and the parents having no money in the house, or work to obtain any; he has frequently given them money out of his own pocket to provide them with a breakfast …These men have a great dread of going to the Poor Houses, and live in constant hope that every day will bring them some work; witness has frequently told them they would be better in the (work)house, and their answer has been, ‘I would sooner starve.’
Watery sunshine, blue skies, bit of cumulus later on; 5 degrees initially; sunrise 7.33, sunset 16.56; carbon count: 414.32, pre-industrial base: 280, safe level: 350; ‘LANDOWNERS WELCOME CAREFUL WALKERS’ (Is this what the Tories mean by their mantra, ‘Levelling Up’?); Source of the Thames 3pm. 13 miles.
THE COURTS HAVE RULED THE GOVERNMENT
DISCRIMINATED AGAINST THE DISABLED
WITH UNIVERSAL CREDIT
PEOPLE ARE TOO SCARED
TO SIGN UP FOR THE NEW
UNIVERSAL CREDIT SYSTEM
THE TORY MINISTER RESPONSIBLE
WILL QUINCE
BLAMES ‘SCAREMONGERING’
YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT UP
COULD YOU?
LANDOWNERS WELCOME
CAREFUL WALKERS
IS THIS WHAT THE TORIES MEAN
BY ‘LEVELLING UP’?
WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #3
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
And on Thursday 6th February, I started the first day
On my Thames Path Food Bank Pilgrimage:
Day One Thursday 6th February 2020 Source to Cricklade
Frost, fog, mist, sunshine, sunrise 7.31; sunset 16.57; carbon count 413.90; remembering the remarkable Allen Davenport of Ewen, one mile on from the source of the river; swans, herons, twitcher all in camouflage secreted behind a tree, ridge and furrow, flooded water meadows, meandering broken banked Thames, wading waist-deep on one occasion; 13 miles. Cricklade 3pm.
Remembering Allen Davenport of Ewen:
One of ten children in a handloom weaver’s cottage: ‘I was born May 1st, 1775, in the small and obscure village of Ewen … somewhat more than a mile from the source of the Thames, on the banks of which stream stands the cottage in which I was born … I came into existence, while the revolutionary war of America was raging …’ He taught himself to read by learning songs; then saving up to buy printed versions. He taught himself to write: ‘I got hold of a written alphabet … I tried my hand at black and white … and to my inexpressible joy I soon discovered that my writing could be read and partially understood’.
When he moved to London, he read the works of the agrarian communist, Thomas Spence, and helped spread his revolutionary, republican slogans with chalk on pavements and walls.
‘SPENCE’S PLAN: THE PEOPLE’S FARM’
‘SPENCE’S PLAN AND FULL BELLIES’
‘THE LAND IS THE PEOPLE’S FARM’ ‘If rents I once consent to pay My Liberty is past away.’
Allen Davenport became an influential metropolitan and national leader across various working-class movements for some thirty years, from Peterloo to Chartism. An activist and political poet, remembered on the Reformers’ Memorial in Kensal Green.
Not bad for a handloom weaver’s child born one mile from the source of the Thames.
But what would he have made of food banks?
He couldn’t have imagined that such a thing
would exist nearly two hundred years after his death.
He would weep.
Is this progress?
When inequalities seemingly outstrip those of the Regency and Victorian era.
THE PEOPLE
VULNERABLE TO COVID-19
APART FROM THE ELDERLY
AND THOSE WITH HEALTH PROBLEMS
1.2 MILLION USERS OF FOOD BANKS
1.3 MILLION DESTITUTE
320,000 HOMELESS
OVER HALF THE PEOPLE
DEFINED AS BEING IN POVERTY
LIVE IN WORKING HOUSEHOLDS
AT LEAST 69 SUICIDES
IN THE PAST YEAR
LINKED TO UNIVERSAL CREDIT
UNIVERSAL CRUELTY
NEARLY 75% OF KIDS
LIVING IN POVERTY
LIVE IN HOUSEHOLDS IN WORK
WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #4
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Day Two: Cricklade to Lechlade 11 miles
William Cobbett visited Cricklade in 1826 on his Rural Rides: ‘the source of the river Isis … the first branch of the Thames. They call it the “Old Thames” and I rode through it here, it not being above four or five yards wide, and not deeper than the knees of my horse … I saw in one single farm-yard here more food than enough for four times the inhabitants of the parish … the poor creatures that raise the wheat and the barley and cheese and the mutton and the beef are living upon potatoes …’
Plus ca change …
A haiku exploration:
Ridge and furrow fields, Once beyond the river’s reach, Now puddled and drowned.
Peasants till the fields, Barefoot ghosts and revenants Follow in our steps.
Silhouetted trees, Pewter sky and silver clouds, The water’s canvas.
Swans glide the field-flood, A limitless lake’s expanse, Burnished willow boughs.
And at Inglesham, A medieval village, Lost to Time’s waters.
While we ooze and splash Through rising water tables, To a drowned future.
Postscript from Kel Portman
walking through water in winter’s delicate light so many more clouds
From field to wetland Submerged ridge and furrow fields Only geese rejoice
Newbuilds encroaching On ox-ploughed ridge and furrow Built on old floodplains
Connecting pathways Link old fields and new town Concrete covers soil
Hungry water floods, Transforming land into lake. Soil becomes mirror
Across old-ridged fields Footpaths lead dogwalkers home To flood-prone newbuilds
New rugby pitches All fresh-white-lines and mown grass. Lost, the ancient fields
Two new waterscapes Made by this flooded river Which of them is real?
Trees stand in water, Surrounded, up to their waists. Waiting for summer
Threat’ning Iron grey skies Bring more rain to fill the Thames. Filling forlorn fields
Lechlade where time and paths confluence
At the young wander of Thames.
Neolithic cursus monuments
ghost lines hinted in the plough soil,
the spectral signs of people here four thousand years before.
Always people returned
to Lechlade’s river land
where ways went from oolitic Cotswold upland
or towards chalk hills over claggy bottom vale.
All took the Thames track where fish tremble like strange sonnets
to seek further: teased by the twists of Thames.
There is much promised here for a life of ample gains,
Yet why halt now with paths and ways leading on?
Thames is a coming and going,
Lechlade wavers beside its bank.
Perhaps Britain is not an island,
but hundreds of flowing rivers carrying us all to the Sea.
Robin Treefellow
STATE OF HUNGER RESEARCH:
PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN
REFERRED TO A FOOD BANK
HAVE AN AVERAGE WEEKLY INCOME
AFTER HOUSING COSTS OF JUST £50
WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #5
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Lechlade to Newbridge 16 miles
I walked past Shelley’s Close by the Church …
Where Shelley wrote his ‘Summer Evening Churchyard’, Crossed the bridge and turned left for London, It was just the sort of light I like for a riverine walk: Waves of silver rippling through the dark waters, Moody clouds above Old Father Thames’ statue, Once of Crystal Palace, now recumbent at St John’s Lock – But the nineteenth century was soon forgotten: It all got a bit Mrs Miniver and Went the Day Well? After Bloomer’s Hole footbridge: I lost count of the pillboxes in the fields and on the banks (‘Mr. Brown goes off to Town on the 8.21, But he comes home each evening, And he’s ready with his gun’), As I walked on past Buscot, with its line of poplar trees, Planted to drain the soil in its Victorian heyday of sugar beet And once with a narrow gauge railway dancing across A lost Saxon village at Eaton Hastings; Then on past William Morris’ ‘heaven on earth’ At Kelmscott Manor (‘Visit our website to shop online!’), Walkers occasionally appearing beyond hedgerows, Like Edward Thomas’ ‘The Other Man’; Then to Grafton Lock, and on to Radcot’s bridges and lock (The waters divide here with two bridges: The older, the site of a medieval battle after the Peasants’ Revolt; A statue of the Virgin Mary once in a niche in the bridge, too, Mutilated by the Levellers, before their Burford executions; The newer bridge built in the hope and expectations Of traffic and profit in the wake of the Thames and Severn Canal), Past Old Man’s Bridge, Rushey Lock and Rushey Weir: A traditional Thames paddle and rymer weir (The paddles and handles, called rymers, Dropped into position to block the rushing waters). Now it’s on to isolated Tadpole Bridge on the Bampton turnpike, Now past Chimney Meadow – once a Saxon island, Then Tenfoot Bridge – characteristically, Where an upper Thames flash weir sed to pour its waters, Until Victorian modernity silenced that; Then past Shifford Weir and the hamlet of Shifford, Once a major Wessex town, where King Alfred Met with his parliament of ‘Many bishops, and many book-learned. Earls wise and Knights awful’.
But you finish your waltz through a Saxon landscape: (The honeystone bridge at Newbridge is in sight) Buscot, Eaton Hastings, Kelmscott, Radcot, Shifford; And along the Red Line of resistance from the summer of 1940, The skeins of geese and ducks no longer calling, There’s an evening mist gathering over the river: ‘The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, The ploughman plods his weary way And leaves the world to darkness and to me’; It’s time for an imaginary pint
At the Maybush (the Berkshire bank), And another imaginary pint …
At the Rose Revived (the Oxfordshire bank) – The bridge is actually 13th century, and only called Newbridge As it’s newer than the original 12th century bridge at Radcot: ‘The Thames Path 40 miles to the Source 153 to the Sea.’ ‘In 1644, the Battle of Newbridge was fought on the banks of the river. Parliamentarian William Waller attempted to cross in order to surround Oxford and capture King Charles, but was defeated.’ I rather like the use of the word ‘but.’
STATE OF HUNGER RESEARCH:
PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN
REFERRED TO A FOOD BANK
CANNOT AFFORD TO BUY THE ABSOLUTE ESSENTIALS
THAT WE ALL NEED TO EAT,
STAY WARM AND DRY, AND KEEP CLEAN –
WITH 94% FACING REAL DESTITUTION
It seems certain that in the next few months there is going to be growing pressure on the food banks. At the same time ,the collection points at supermarkets are nearly empty as people shop for their families. Can the supermarkets make provision for those that can afford it to make a monetary donation when they pay for their goods. ?
Each week the Food Bank managers could find out how much is in the "pot" and buy goods to that value by " click and collect". In this way they can get the food and other goods they are most short of. It also cuts out multiple handling . A simple sign in each Supermarket in front of the tills would be sufficient to remind shoppers to help the Food Banks in these difficult times.
Mike Putnam
Stroud
WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #6
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Newbridge to Oxford 14 miles
The Windrush joins the Thames at Newbridge, Flowing beneath the elegant Taynton stone bridge, Once a port of call for honeyed Burford quarried stone On its way to Oxford and London, As well as a defeat for the Parliamentarians …
Yet today, So many swans gliding on the waters, So close to King Charles’ Oxford, With their mute depiction of feudal hierarchy: These birds are for monarchs old and new, not ‘Yoemen and husbandmen and other persons of little reputation’; A heron interrupted the flow of my thoughts downstream To Hart’s Weir footbridge – more English quaintness: The weir has gone, but a right of way remains to Erewhon; Then Northmoor Lock, before reaching literary Bablock Hythe: Matthew Arnold’s scholar-gypsy, ‘Oft was met crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hythe, Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, As the punt’s rope chops round’; None of that now at the Ferryman Inn and its chalet purlieus, Instead a meander inland before returning to the waters At Pinkhill Weir, before another short roadside detour, And a boatyard and chandlers and a stride to Swinford Bridge (Swine-ford), Where feudalism and modernity meet: A toll bridge, built at the behest of the Earl of Abingdon in 1777, Where a company still charges drivers today (But not pedestrians!), Then on to the now invisible Anglo-Saxon cultural importance Of Eynsham, and Eynsham Lock, Evenlode Stream and King’s Lock (King denoting kine), Underneath the Ox-ford by-pass (You’ve heard its constant roar for over an hour), To Godstow: ‘Get thee to a nunnery!’; ‘The use of detectors is strictly forbidden’; Fair Rosamund, Alice Liddell and Charles Dodgson, Glide past the astonishing free grazing common lands of Port Meadow: Horses gallop free, while a train passes in the distance, Kine, countless, standing in the waters, Swans gazing at the stationary herds, Port Meadow, a feudal gift to the burghers of Oxford, Courtesy of Edward the Confessor, Honoured by William the Conqueror; But enough of this medievalism and feudalism …
The industrial revolution is calling:
A boatyard, a footbridge, Osney Bridge, a canal, And a train back to Stroud.
STATE OF HUNGER RESEARCH:
PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN
REFERRED TO A FOOD BANK
ARE VERY LIKELY TO HAVE HEALTH ISSUES
WITH NEARLY 75% REPORTING
AT LEAST ONE HEALTH ISSUE
Rodborough Allotments gave over surplus rhubarb to the Long Table at Brimscombe and we collected from all over the plots and delivered two wheelbarrows’ full.
Hi Stuart,
Sorry, I did mean to email you yesterday, but the day ran away with me! Thank you so much for the rhubarb, the chefs will turn it into something delicious! We love using fresh surplus food, especially fruit and veg grown locally as the basis of our meals. If you do have any further surplus fruit and veg from your allotments do let us know- we would to turn it into delicious meals.
WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #7
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Oxford to Abingdon 11 miles
A swollen, turbid, fast flowing river; blackthorn blossom; osiers, rushes and willows half-drowned; many trees down with the recent storms. Flooded mediaeval water meadows; rain at twilight.
I had companions today, including a food bank volunteer for Stroud. Here are some observations from a weekly commitment:
'Stroud Foodbank has two outlets in Stroud town and a few others in the District. I help run the Nailsworth one. We don't have much demand, so we don't have weekly drop-in sessions in a centre. But, of course, there are some individuals in our little town who can benefit from what the Foodbank offers. They can contact the Foodbank office and obtain a voucher through the usual channels, and we arrange a Foodbank delivery to their home.'
'I volunteer at Stroud Foodbank on Fridays, usually this is the busiest session of the week. We never know who might turn up on the day. We have a wide range of customers. A few we see every now and then who have longer term issues, others are just one-offs, caught out by temporary problems - job losses, benefit delays, health issues, work with unreliable hours etc.'
'Although we are there mainly to help them with food parcels, we try to engage with our clients on other matters. Our experience is that the local agencies work well together, but we check that our clients haven't slipped through the net regarding other help that could be out there for them.'
From our customers.
'When my husband was made redundant it took a bit of time before the money came through from his new job. We just needed some help to bridge that gap. We were so pleased that the people of Stroud had given so much nice food. And not just food, there was shampoo and toilet rolls too, and a bit of pet food! It made a difficult time for our family a bit easier.'
'I was a bit scared when I first needed the Foodbank. Going into a room and feeling a bit like a beggar. But the volunteers were so friendly to me. They were kind to me, and made me feel comfortable, before we went through the food parcel. I'm a vegetarian, and they managed to help me, which was great.'
And this from Robin Treefellow:
The Thames
Was a country
thick and fast flowing
through the gizzard of Oxford’s streets.
By canal, over bridge, we tramped after the great swilling of Thames
and the thrashing tail of Cherwell.
The mud ground slipping, the land finding river,
and the geese clamouring ghosts,
honking grey-barred spirits of the Thames:
their wings beat at the air.
Oxford left behind,
the marshy seat of scholars and professors:
all gone.
Oxford with its well-bred students in costly gowns, or panting up and
down the canal to maintain a well-bred outline:
never here.
Here is: Poplar trees, reeds, birch, sedge,
the citizenry of the Thames path,
the river in the thoughts of everything, absorbed, drunk up.
Existence is the river flowing on through the low fields
where I cannot see a tarmac road or a house.
Hinksey, Iffley, Radley: the powers to summon
on this day.
I walked as fish stride,
ahead there’s more water and more water
to welcome us back to the visceral earth.
As ants scream in summer,
as the Thames roars in winter,
as our hearts tremble in our skins.
The path by the river was all the land left
between us and the primordial ordinance of water way
whirling and going on.
Human
not long lasting:
the river is always.
The Thames
completed what I couldn’t.
Treefellow 2020 February
WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #8
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Abingdon to Wallingford
Abingdon to Wallingford March 12th 2020
Sunrise 6.20 Sunset 18.00
Carbon count: 413.78 Pre-industrial base 280 Safe level 350
14 miles Start 11.20 Arrival 15.25
The day after the budget the day before
(Hedge funds versus food banks),
On a train to Didcot and then a bus to Abingdon,
Past Didcot Power Station edgelands,
Pat business park daffodil roundabouts,
And a stream of greenwashing lorries,
Until I walk beneath the bridge at Abingdon,
Past medieval alms houses
(A Foodbank Pilgrimage),
Splashing through big sky open fields,
Past dovecots and manor houses,
Past bridges and weirs and locks and ferries,
Past thatch and pub and hills and woodland,
Following the line of pill boxes,
With magnolia in bloom in Shillingford,
Blackthorn and hawthorn in blossom too,
Hawk, heron, corvid, swan and skylark,
A rainbow over the church at Dorchester,
Half drowned trees and silvered puddles,
And all the time,
The relentless flow
Of the quickening, wide and turbid Thames,
Past Neolithic, Iron Age and Romano-British remains,
Past Paul Nash’s Wittenham Clumps,
Until I at last reach Saxon Wallingford,
And a bus back to Didcot,
And a train back to Stroud.
The end of self-isolation and social distancing,
The end of losing myself in time and space,
Back to the coronavirus anxiety,
Back to the lack of help for the gig economy,
Back to the land of the five-week wait,
Back to the land of hedge funds,
Back to a land of Cummings and going,
To a land of survival of the fittest,
To a land of ‘herd immunity’,
Now more than ever convinced of the need
For our Food Bank Pilgrimage,
But that’s not the reason why all those pill boxes
Were constructed along the banks of the Thames.
It was to stop the survival of the fittest.
I once walked out into a rain-blossom Thames Valley morning,
Feeling ever so slightly wired
And ever so slightly pantheistic,
That feeling aware of it all,
And feeling a part of it all sort of thing:
The robin singing in the cherry tree,
An Anglo-Saxon springtime song of joy,
No spear or seaxe, sword or shield,
No warrior-cry or smote-shout,
No blood-red stain in the rain-splash gutters,
But the corvids still cried in alarm,
Clacking and fluttering in the trees,
As I walked this watery defensive barrier,
A Dark Age storm-sheet rain cloud,
Enveloping the new-green land.
But later, the sun was shining
As I reflected on the Victorian cult of King Alfred,
That cult of Englishness and cult of imagined democracy,
When in fact we would have a 95% chance of being a peasant,
And a one in four chance of enslavement
A feudal, hierarchical society:
Monarch; ealdormen (jarls, earls); theigns;
geneats, cottars, geburs, boors (villeins); slaves …
‘Each boor must give 6 loaves to the herdsman of the lord’s swine
when he drives his herd to the mast-pasture …
When death befalls him let the lord take charge of what he leaves.’
STATE OF HUNGER RESEARCH:
PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN
REFERRED TO A FOOD BANK
HAVE A HOUSEHOLD INCOME
THAT WAS ABOUT THE SAME
AS THEIR HOUSING COSTS
WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #9
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Wallingford to Cholsey
Sunday March the 15th
Beware the Ides of March – but I’m a long way from the tidal reach of the Thames – Wallingford Castle - High Street - Thames Street – St Leonards – a glimpse of the Chilterns in the distance – Littlestoke Ferry – the Papist Way – Ferry Lane – Cholsey – 5 miles.
Springtime on the Thames
When is spring not a spring?
When Edward Thomas went in pursuit of spring,
When spring’s advance was slower,
Compared with today’s two miles an hour,
In that so-called Golden Age before the Great War,
He hadn’t endured biblical floods,
And a seeming apocalyptic pandemic,
A pandemic that has arrived in this country
After a forty-year post-Thatcherite zeitgeist,
A zeitgeist that foregrounds charity,
And emphasizes individualism,
Rather than welfare state collectivism.
And the consequence of this zeitgeist?
Panic buying, hoarding, selfishness,
And a consequent diminution
In charitable donations,
Thereby indicating the fragile
Efficacy of charity …
The Guardian 11th March, Robert Booth, Social affairs correspondent:
‘Food banks in Britain are running out of staples including milk and cereal as a result of panic-buying and are urging shoppers to think twice before hoarding as donations fall in the coronavirus outbreak.’
Patrick Butler, Social policy editor:
‘Mental health charities and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have called for an independent inquiry into the deaths of vulnerable people who were reliant on welfare benefits.’ There has been ’69 cases of suicide linked to benefit issues in the last six years’.
How will Universal Credit/Universal Cruelty,
And the five-week wait help in this crisis?
When the Department for Work and Pensions
Reply to criticisms
Highlighted by the death of Errol Graham,
Who starved to death,
Has this sentence within:
‘We always seek to learn lessons where we can’.
‘Where we can’ …
WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #10
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Tuesday 17th March Cholsey to Tilehurst 12 miles
Sunrise 6.08 Sunset 18.08
Carbon count: 414.24
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350
I posted this today on to the Global Walking Artists Network:
Hello there
As some of you know I have been walking the Thames from source towards London to raise funds for the Trussell Trust and food banks but the public health crisis requires a change of approach. Please see below if you are interested in how I am going to rethink and de-walk:
I’ve reached the conclusion that individual, family and public health considerations mean that I will now walk the Thames in a virtual/pretend way.
How will I do this?
By laying out the route-map for the day and by measuring the required distance on my phone. I will walk within my home and within my immediate locality, but far from the madding crowd: 19 corvids rather the COVID-19, as it were.
By using imagination and memory rather than observation.
By following my usual practice of blending reflections on topographical, historical, and contemporary contexts, with the Trussell Trust and food banks always in focus.
I’ve now reached Wallingford in the real world and have also done London bits towards the end, but if anyone wants to join me in a pretend section for the duration, let me know. I’m ‘doing’ Wallingford to Cholsey and then on to Tilehust today btw …
Best wishes,
Stuart
Walking to work, walking at work,
Walking home, walking at home,
Up and down the apples and pears,
Walking to the allotments,
Digging the allotment plot,
Up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire,
Takes me all the way to Tilehurst,
In a manner and manor of speaking,
Imagining some of the following:
Littlestoke ferry point – Cholsey Marsh – Offlands Farm – Moulsford – Ferry Lane – The Beetle and Wedge – Cleeve Lock – Goring Lock – Streatley Church – Goring (ancient ford and meeting point of the Icknield Way and the Ridgeway) – Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s GWR bridge – Gatehampton Ferry Cottage – Hartslock Farm – Whitchurch – The Greyhound – Whitchurch Mill – Church Cottages – the Toll House – Whitchurch Bridge – Pangbourne – Mapledurham (Mapledurham House as in The Forsyte Saga and the inspiration for Toad Hall in The Wind in the Willows) – 78 and a half miles to London – Purley – Kentwood Deep – Tilehurst.
BBC Football Gossip:
‘With the Premier League currently suspended, Liverpool players, staff and fans have stepped in to offer support and donate cash to a foodbank, which relies on donations on match days. (Liverpool FC)’
WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #11
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Tilehurst to Shiplake 10 miles
Thursday March 26th
Sunrise 5.48 Sunset 18.24
Carbon count: 414.34
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350
Along the virtual towpath; imaginary Chiltern hills; half-remembered GWR line; signage: ‘Welcome to Reading’; ‘Thames Side Promenade’; remember Oscar Wilde on his release from Reading Gaol, May 1897: ‘Oh Beautiful World!’; more bridges over these troubled times: Caversham Bridge; Reading Bridge; on to Caversham Lock (down); King’s Meadow; the conjoining of the Kennet and the Thames (Kennet, my brother’s ‘House’ at school); Horseshoe Bridge (bring us luck, please); Sonning Lock (down); Sonning Bridge (How I loved Sonning Cutting on the train as a child!); Jerome K. Jerome on Sonning:’ It is the most fairy-like nook on the whole river … more like a stage-village than one built of bricks and mortar. Every house is smothered in roses … bursting forth in clouds of dainty splendour’; Shiplake Lock (down); onomatopoeic Lashbrook; Lower Shiplake; The Baskerville Arms; Shiplake.
Chief Executive of the Trussell Trust, Emma Revie:
‘We welcome the extra financial support announced, particularly the £500m hardship fund for local councils, which can play a key role in anchoring us all from poverty.
But as coronavirus unfolds, more people could need this safety net than ever before – especially those who aren’t eligible for sick pay or have unstable jobs. For many of these people the five-week wait for a first Universal Credit payment could cause real hardship, despite measures announced in today’s Budget. We know the five-week wait is already pushing people to food banks, trapping many in debt and making issues with housing, ill health, disability and domestic abuse worse …
As more people look likely to move onto Universal Credit as a result of the outbreak, the most effective way to help would be to end the five-week wait for a first Universal Credit payment by giving people grants, rather than loans that have to be paid back further down the line. We can prevent more people being locked into poverty as the outbreak develops by ending the wait now.’
The Trussell Trust’s #5WeeksTooLong campaign is calling for an end to the 5+ week wait for Universal Credit.
About the Trussell Trust:
· We’re here to end the need for food banks in UK.
· We support a UK-wide network of more than 1,200 food bank centres and together we provide emergency food and support to people locked in poverty, and campaign for change to end the need for food banks in the UK.
· Our most recent figures for the number of emergency food supplies provided by our network: https://www.trusselltrust.org/news-and-blog/latest-stats/
· You can read more about our work at trusselltrust.org
WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #12
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Shiplake to Marlow 11 miles
Tuesday March 31st
Sunrise 6.37 Sunset 19.32
Carbon count: 415.68
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350
Bolney Ferry – Marsh Lock (down) – Mill Lane – Mill Meadows – The Angel on the Bridge – Henley Bridge – Remenham Church – Temple Island – Hambledon Lock (down) – Hamledon Weir – Aston Ferry – Ferry Lane – The Flowerpot – Medmenham - Medmenham Abbey (the Hellfire Club) – Frogmill – Danesfield – Hurley Lock (down) – Hurley – the Olde Bell – Temple footbridge – Temple Lock (down) – Temple Island – Bisham Abbey – Bisham Church – Marlow – where Mary Shelley completed Frankenstein and Percy Shelley penned A Proposal for putting Parliamentary Reform to the Vote (which included a proposal for annual parliaments – the one point of the Chartists’ eventual Six Points that didn’t become into eventual actuality).
‘Time and again over the past decade, food banks across the UK – aided by a generous public who have donated time, food and money – have stepped up to protect people on the lowest incomes in our communities. But with the spread of coronavirus we all now face an unprecedented challenge and uncertain future. It is possible that food banks will face increased demand as people lose income, at the same time as food donations drop or staff and volunteers are unavailable, due to measures rightly put in place to slow the spread of infection. All of this comes when food banks are already dealing with a record level of need for emergency food.
We’re working with our network on how best to support people as the situation unfolds. Wherever possible, food banks will continue to provide the lifeline of emergency food to people unable to afford the essentials and we encourage the public to continue donating after checking with their local food bank what items are most needed.
We welcome the Department for Work and Pensions’ measures that will not penalise or sanction people for self-isolating, but we ask our government to go further and consider additional measures they could take to ensure everyone has enough money for essentials at this challenging time. Ending the five week wait for a first Universal Credit payment would be one such measure that could help significantly.’
Chief Executive of the Trussell Trust, Emma Revie:
That note from Emma Revie is from two weeks ago; I am reading The Guardian at the moment on March 30 2020. Here’s a few snippets from Rebecca Smithers’ report today: ‘The supermarket chain Morrisons is to distribute £10m worth of food to the UK’s food banks during the corona virus outbreak … The UK’s food banks have been struggling to meet demand at a time when the number of volunteers, typically older people, has slumped because of self-isolation. It is estimated that the outbreak of Covid-19 has led to a 40% reduction in donations to community foodbanks …’
WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #13
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Friday 3 April Marlow to Windsor 14 miles
Sunrise 6.30 Sunset 1937 Carbon count: 415.68
Marlow Bridge – Seven Corner Alley – All Saints Church – St Peter Street – Two Brewers – Marlow Lock (down) – Marlow Mill – Quarry Wood – Winter Hill – Spade Oak Ferry Cottage – Spade Oak Farm – Bourne End – Cock Marsh – Cookham Bridge – Cookham churchyard – Holy Trinity – Churchgate – Tarry Stone – The Bell and Dragon Inn – Royal Exchange – Stanley Spencer memorial gallery in the restored Methodist church – four channels downstream from Cookham Bridge – My Lady Ferry – Cliveden – Boulter’s Lock (down) – Ray Mill Island – Maidenhead Bridge and Brunel and Turner – Bray Lock (down) – Summerleaze Bridge – Dorney – Thames Field – Dorney Court – Oakley Court – St Mary Magdalene – Boveney - Boveney Lock (down) – Etonian bathing place – Brocas Meadow – Windsor Castle (partly built of Cotswold stone brought down the Thames) – The Waterman’s Arms – Eton High Street – Windsor.
He has been voted the second greatest ever Englishman (sic) in a Sunday Times poll:
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a special constable during the Bristol Riots of 1831 when "he was heard to complain that his fellow constables did not hit the rioters hard enough".
A few years later, we find him surveying a different line where he had, it seems, an ambiguous attitude towards the lower orders and bodily harm - 131 navvies were taken to Bath hospital between September 1839 and June 1841 with serious injuries: " I think it a small number considering the heavy work and the amount of powder used. I am afraid that it does not show the whole extent of accidents in that district."
Indeed, it doesn’t. Over 100 navvies were killed in the subterranean depths of gunpowdered Box Tunnel.
A hundred years after the GWR was commenced, Bertolt Brecht wrote this poem –
Questions From a Worker Who Reads
Who built Thebes of the 7 gates ? In the books you will read the names of kings. Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock ?
And Babylon, many times demolished, Who raised it up so many times ?
In what houses of gold glittering Lima did its builders live ? Where, the evening that the Great Wall of China was finished, did the masons go?
Great Rome is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them ?
Over whom did the Caesars triumph ? Had Byzantium, much praised in song, only palaces for its inhabitants ?
Even in fabled Atlantis, the night that the ocean engulfed it, The drowning still cried out for their slaves.
The young Alexander conquered India. Was he alone ?
Caesar defeated the Gauls. Did he not even have a cook with him ?
Philip of Spain wept when his armada went down. Was he the only one to weep ?
Frederick the 2nd won the 7 Years War. Who else won it ?
Every page a victory. Who cooked the feast for the victors ?
Every 10 years a great man. Who paid the bill ?
So many reports.
So many questions.
Dear Stuart Butler
Thank you for your kind donation of 50.00.
With your help we are committed to providing emergency food and support to people in crisis. The food banks distributed over 1.6 million three-day emergency food supplies last year and even before the current crisis were seeing an increase in demand.
As the Coronavirus outbreak develops, more people than ever are needing our help. The teams are working tirelessly to ensure that food banks are able to remain open and have the necessary stocks to respond to this crisis.
We have been overwhelmed by the generosity of so many people. Your support means we can respond to the changing situation and continue to provide this vital lifeline.
You will appreciate that in the current climate we are having to adapt to working in different ways, with most staff working from home. Please do accept this email as an official thank you as we are unable to send postal acknowledgements at this time. If you need a written receipt please email supportercare@trusselltrust.org.
If you would like to hear more about our work and how you're helping us fight hunger in the UK, why not sign up to our e-newsletter? Or if you'd like to find out more about what we do, including our latest campaign actions, please visit our website.
Thank you for helping to create a future without food banks.
The Trussell Trust team
Walking the Thames to London 14
Thursday March 26th
Sunrise 6.19 Sunset 19.45
Carbon count: 415.72
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350
Windsor to Shepperton 14 miles
Windsor Bridge – The Cobbler – The River House – Romney Lock (down) – Black Potts railway bridge – The Home Park – Windsor Castle – Victoria Bridge – High Street – Old Bridge House (where Datchet Bridge once stood; demolished and two new bridges built, named Victoria and Albert so that they could have a riverside retreat) – Albert Bridge – Old Windsor Lock (down) – Runnymeade – Lutyens gatehouses – Magna Carta Island – Bellweir Lock (down) – M25 – 19th century London coal post marker – Staines Bridge – Hythe – River Colne – Thames Lodge Hotel – Staines – Penton Hook Lock (down) – Penton Hook – Queen Mary Reservoir – Blacksmith’s Lane – Laleham Church – Laleham Park – M3 – Chertsey Lock (down) – Chertsey Bridge – Chertsey Meads – Shepperton Weir – Shepperton Lock (down) – Ferry Lane – Weybridge bank.
1066 And All That W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman
1. That no one was to be put to death, save for some reason – (except the Common People).
2. That everyone should be free – (except the Common People).
3. That everything should be of the same weight and measure throughout the Realm – (except the Common People).
4. That a Baron should not be tried except by a special group of other Barons who would understand.
Magna Charter was therefore the chief cause of Democracy in England, and thus a Good Thing for everyone (except the Common People).
Common People
The lexicon of popular history,
With its ridge and furrowed semantic fields and stories,
Opens doors of childhood perception,
To fields of knowledge, imagination,
Wonderment and enchantment –
But, I think, especially enchantment.
Take, for example, an Anglo-Saxon tale,
The tale of Alfred the Great and the burnt cakes:
The moral of the tale presented to me in childhood books
Was all about the humility of a king
(A king in a common kitchen, indeed!),
And the curtness of the woman in the kitchen,
When discovering that the stranger –
Preoccupied with Vikings rather than griddles –
Had ruined the cakes.
But could a different moral have been presented to my boyhood self?
Where’s the next meal going to come from?
The woman in the kitchen has so many things to do.
Cooking cakes is, in fact, a difficult and highly skilled task.
Popular histories for grown-ups carry on this approach,
Textually rather than through pictures perhaps,
But the effect is the same.
Take the phrase ‘ordinary people’, for example:
The word ‘ordinary’ is, I think, used almost as a pejorative,
Rather than as a synonym for majority;
And what synonyms do we find for ‘ordinary’?
Ordinary, as in ‘not distinctive’ …
Common, everyday, humdrum, run of the mill …
And what synonyms do we find for ‘common’?
Routine, simple, trivial, daily, plain, banal, homely, mediocre, prosaic, monotonous, stale …
The coarse, common people:
Coarse: not fine, rude, rough, unrefined, inelegant, low, lowbred, uncouth, vulgar,
As opposed to courteous, gentle, patrician, highborn, wellborn …
This is a vocabulary permeated by class, hierarchy and property
(And where did that property come from?),
And so any search for the provenance,
First cause derivation and origin
Of pure, unadulterated meaning of these words
Is a search for etymological fool’s gold,
Unless you visit ancient Rome, perhaps,
And its lexicon of class-based language,
Patrician: Good; Pleb: Bad; Vulgar: Bad.
And with conventional History’s
Fetishization of textual evidence,
Conventional History can so easily become
An endless story of kings and queens and nobles,
Heritage … Blue Plaque Heritage …
With the unlettered majority – the ordinary –
Consigned to the dustbin of history.
Now, as is fairly obvious,
I’m no expert in sociolinguistics,
Linguistic anthropology or cultural hegemony,
But at the very least, I think we might question
The assumptions and implications that lie
Beneath much of this vocabulary,
The hidden labelling that lies beneath the surface
Of our lexicon, our language, our discourse,
Of our ridge and furrowed semantic fields:
‘The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose off the common,
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.’
And that includes language and meaning too,
Literal and figurative,
Which is why we have this watchword;
‘Beyond the Empirical,
Beyond the Documented:
Counter-Heritage!’
Francis Haverfield in The Romanization of Britain 1912
‘The rustic poor of a county seldom affect the trend of its history.’
Walking the Thames to London 15
Saturday 11 April 2020
Shepperton to Teddington 11 miles
Sunrise 6.12 sunset 19.50
Shepperton Lock (down) – ring the bell for the ferry and the south bank route – D’Oyly Carte Island – Desborough Court – Walton Bridge –
North bank – Ferry Lane – Shepperton – Shepperton Loops – Manor House – Merlewood House – Walton Bridge –
Sunbury Weir – Sunbury Church – Molesey reservoirs – anti-tank WW2 defences – Hampton Church – Garrick’s Ait – Molesey Lock (down) – Hampton Court Bridge – Hampton Court – Barge Walk – Kingston Bridge – Turk’s Pier – The Boaters Inn – ‘Half Mile Tree’ – Teddington Weir.
Dear Stuart,
The outpouring of support both we and our network of food banks have seen during the current crisis has been incredible – thank you! Together, we’re making a real impact and we’re so grateful for your support for the Trussell Trust during these unprecedented times. We might be physically distanced from one another, but as a community we’re pulling together like never before to support people in financial crisis during this pandemic. We've been overwhelmed by the love, compassion and empathy of people just like you. By standing alongside us, you're helping food banks to dynamically adapt to the challenging task ahead. The passion and resilience of food banks is nothing short of outstanding. They are determined to continue to provide the lifeline of emergency food for the people who need it most - even if this means completely overhauling their delivery model or processes to ensure the safety of everyone involved.
BURYING THE POOR
IS THIS WHAT THE GOVERNMENT MEANS
BY ‘LEVELLING UP’?
THIS GOVERNMENT GETS THINGS DONE
WITH
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
Walking the Thames to London 16
Teddington to Putney
Thursday 23 April
Sunrise 5.46 Sunset 20.10
Carbon Count: 416.28
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350
North Bank 14 miles
Teddington locks (down) – Twickenham – Pope’s Villa – Eel Pie Island – Hammersmith Ferry – Marble Hill – Petersham Meadows – Richmond Bridge – Richmond Lock (down) – Old Deer Park – River Crane – Lion Wharf Road – the Duke of Cumberland’s River – The London Apprentice – Old Isleworth – Isleworth Ferry – Syon Park – Syon House – Brentford High Street – Grand Union Canal – Dock Road – Ferry Quays Inlet – Great Wharf – Smith Hill – Victoria Steps – The Hollows – Kew Bridge – Strand on the Green – Chiswick Quay – Chiswick Bridge – Duke’s Meadows – Mortlake Brewery – Chiswick Boathouse – Duke’s Hollow – Barnes Bridge – Chiswick Church – Chiswick Ayot – Church Street – The Old Burlington – St Nicholas churchyard – Hogarth’s tomb – Cedar House – Hammersmith Terrace – the Dove – Kelmscott House (William Morris) – Furnivall Gardens – Hammersmith Bridge – Thames Wharf – Palace Wharf – The Crabtree Tavern – Fulham FC – Craven Cottage – Bishops Park – Putney Bridge.
Dear Stuart,
Coronavirus has affected us all. But in the first two weeks of the pandemic, food banks in our network were busier than ever – with a record 81% more emergency food parcels being given out, compared to the same period last year.
When the government put extra cash into Universal Credit and other schemes to try to protect people from being swept into destitution, it showed how quickly huge changes can be made during a national crisis.
But it won’t be enough. That’s why we’ve teamed up with a coalition of anti-poverty charities to call on the government to do more.
Will you help us convince them that they have to act fast? We need MPs from all sides to pile on the pressure – you can help by asking your MP to write to the Chancellor today.
Food banks in the Trussell Trust network have seen a record 81% increase in need, and a 122% increase in food parcels for children, compared to the same period in 2019. That’s more than 6,250 emergency food parcels a day, and close to 3,000 for children.
Support from the general public and amazing campaigners like you, dedicated volunteers and staff has been incredible. And recent government measures like the Coronavirus Jobs Retention scheme and additional investment in Universal Credit were a welcome boost.
But even with all this support, there is a limit to the number of people food banks can help – and it shouldn’t be left to community charities and volunteers to pick up the pieces. Your support for #5WeeksTooLong has made a real difference as we fight for change, and we need you now to join us in calling on the government to do more.
As the nation continues to face not just a health crisis but an economic one too, we’re working with a new coalition of charities including the Child Poverty Action Group, the Children’s Society, StepChange, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and Turn2us to call on the government to provide a Coronavirus Emergency Income Support scheme. Find out more about what we’re calling for on our website here.
In recent weeks more than 1.8 million people have applied for benefits and it’s likely that more and more people will need to use food banks in the coming months.
That’s why were asking the government to act quickly. You can get involved by emailing your MP asking them to call on the Chancellor to make changes now.
No one should need to use a food bank and now more than ever we need to make sure that everyone is able to access the resources they need to stay afloat.
Write to your MP now and get involved. Together, we know this can change.
Thank You,
Tom
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The Trussell Trust
Unit 9 Ashfield Trading Estate
Ashfield Road
Salisbury, Wiltshire SP2 7HL
United Kingdom
South Bank 12 miles
Teddington Locks (down) – the furthest reach of the tidal Thames – Ham Lands – Ham House – Hammerton’s Ferry – Marble Hill – River Lane – Petersham Meadows – Richmond Bridge – White Cross pub – Trumpeters House – Asgill House – Richmond Green – The Wardrobe – Old Deer Park – Kew Observatory – Richmond Lock (down) – Isleworth Ait – Old Isleworth – Syon House – Kew Gardens – quay reminder of Brentford Docks where Thames and Grand Union met – Kew Bridge – Kew Pier – view of Strand on the Green – Chiswick Bridge – Mortlake Brewery - Barnes Bridge station – Barnes – Hammersmith Bridge – Putney Bridge.
The present crisis highlights the latent contradiction between the needs of capitalism and the requirements for public health.
Quite simply, the need for constant consumer spending, the need for increasing profits, and the need to keep wages as low as possible, cannot produce a healthy society, economy and world. As someone once said: ‘Capitalism is a great idea in theory, but it doesn’t work in practice’.
For when times are hard, private business calls for state aid. Even though, it devotes its usual time, with the press, to deriding the state, collectivism, and socialism, while eulogising market forces, laissez faire and the profit motive.
If airlines and railway companies say they cannot survive without a bail out from government, then why not nationalise them and take them into public ownership? Why should the taxpayer subsidise shareholders?
If public health requires the need for private hospital beds, then take them. The taxpayer shouldn’t have to subsidise shareholders by ‘renting’ them.
If we’re all in this together, then we’re all in this together. We shouldn’t have to pay for the right to be included. Collectivism means collectivism, not some halfway house.
If we are all in this together, then that means socialism.
Walking the Thames to London 17
Friday 24 April
Sunrise 5.44 Sunset 20.12
Carbon Count: 416.28
Pre-industrial base: 280
Safe level: 350
From Putney to Tower Bridge 11 miles
This stretch conjoining river banks and food banks,
Necessitates an emphasis upon Putney,
The Church of St Mary the Virgin,
And the Putney Debates of 1647.
I highlight the famous words
Of Thomas Rainsborough:
‘For really I think that the poorest hee that is in England
Hath a life to live, as the greatest hee …’
And offer a reply from Stroud:
A Stroud Broadsheet
In the year of our Lord, 1649,
England became a republic,
And that word: ‘Commonwealth’
(‘In the beginning was the Word’),
Another mistaken step on the road
Towards constitutional monarchy,
And parliamentary democracy –
Or so the history books so often tell us;
That quintessential English evolution
From King John and Magna Carta,
To the enfranchisement of all women,
In the year of Stanley Baldwin, 1928:
A line of presumed continuity,
And peaceful, reforming contiguity;
And even when the history books mention
That un-English word, ‘Revolution’,
With a political denotation,
It is ‘The Glorious Revolution’ of 1688,
Which merely guaranteed that the monarchy
Would be protestant and not catholic.
But there is another optic to use,
When scrying this Whig history:
See how the possession of property
Was a prerequisite for liberty;
See how the law was used to impose
The tyranny of wage-slavery,
Upon those without property and liberty,
And all in the name of the Law,
Rather than rack-renting and usury.
Whipping and branding for the motley ranks
Of vagabonds, beggars and tramps
In dear Old Merrie Englande –
‘Kicked to and fro like footballs in the wind’;
Families torn apart by press gangs –
Such Hearts of Oak -
‘For who are so free as the sons of the waves?’
Enclosure robbing cottagers and squatters:
‘Without a class of persons willing to work for wages,
How are the comforts and refinements
Of civilised life to be procured?’
And transportation of child paupers to the colonies:
‘Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!’
The Royal Africa Company saw to that.
The loom, The mill. The factory. The clock.
Clocking in. Clocking out. Wage-slavery.
The triangular trade.
The middle passage.
Two and a half million people
Enslaved from Africa in British ships.
But we shall rescue this perspective
From ‘the enormous condescension of property’,
And instead of kings and queens and admirals and slave ships,
Robin Hood! Poachers! Smugglers! Dick Turpin!
The Maroons!
Olaudah Equiano!
The gypsy liberty of John Clare’s vision!
Democratic pirate ships and a freed Man Friday!
Free-born miners from the Forest of Dean!
Robert Wedderburn!
William Davidson!
William Cuffay!
The Levellers!
The Diggers!
As Gerard Winstanley said in 1649:
‘Quietly enjoy land to work upon,
That everyone may enjoy the benefit of their creation,
And eat their bread by the sweat of their brow.’
Remember this in this the year of our Lord, 2020,
The year of our Lord of Bet Fred,
The year of our Lord of Paupers’ Burials,
The year of our Lord of Universal Credit,
The year of our Lord of Universal Cruelty.
And at Tate Britain: The Age of British Baroque:
Power and Illusion
(from the reign of King Charles the Second to that of Queen Anne)
Baroque and Rococo:
The high culture of Great Britain and Europe,
The playful sensuality;
The elegant embellishments;
Cherubim and seraphim;
All the ornate fruits of the known world;
The art and artifice of sophistication;
The periwigged grandeur of the dance;
The hollow emptiness of this masque,
Sugar coated by its slave ships.
I walked along the Thames Path, past the Golden Hinde,
All Gloriana and circumnavigation of the globe,
And thought that an interesting commemoration to mark
The historical significance of the present Queen’s reign
(The nation’s longest reigning monarch),
Could be the re-creation of a slave ship near Canary Wharf,
With a full explanation and with free entry –
After all, the present monarch’s forebears invested in
The Royal African Company
And King George the Third
Opposed abolition.
At the moment, the national and civic representation
Of the history of slavery
In our streets seems to be akin to
‘The Truth that date not speak its Name’:
The last century saw hunger marches
In the Great Depression of the 1930s,
Organised by the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement,
Then there was the Jarrow Crusade, too:
Poverty, hardship, cuts in the dole, and the Means Test,
Scant reward for the winning the Great War.
Now we’re cycling and walking to London again,
With a faint echo of those earlier marches,
Preceding us on the ghost roads to the capital,
And an echo of an earlier
Ruling class attitude towards ‘the poor’,
Pursuing us in our pilgrimage and wake:
The distinction, authority has tried to make,
Between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor,
In a constant attempt to cut spending.
The reign of Elizabeth the First
Saw the whipping of beggars and vagrants:
The poor, once more, punished for being poor.
The 19th century saw the workhouse system:
Conditions inside the workhouse were to be
Worse than from the worst paid job outside,
‘Lesser eligibility’, they termed it,
But the motivation was the same
As with Universal Cruelty-Credit:
Cut spending on the poor and destitute,
While canting that employment and a job,
The magic of a weekly pay packet,
Is the pathway out of poverty,
Even though the Rowntree Trust has just shown
That over half of those deemed to be
Below the defined poverty line
Are actually in work
In the year of our Lord of the Gig Economy
And the year of our Lord of Zero Hours Contracts.
I hope to have conversations about my purpose,
And about food banks, each step of the way
From the Slough of Despond to the Celestial City;
People have responded positively,
So far, in the main, although now and then,
I find the ‘foodbanks are for the feckless’ trope;
And there’s more uneasiness when I say
I feel ambivalent about propping up
Universal Credit through charity;
I’ve yet to start any dialogue
About the ‘levelling up’ Tory mantra,
The empty yet deceiving cant,
That feeds the prejudices
Of what was once called ‘Middle England’,
I’ve yet to argue that levelling up is anything but,
If it doesn’t involve redistribution of wealth,
If it doesn’t mean taxing the rich …
Meanwhile, signs such as
‘LANDOWNERS WELCOME CAREFUL WALKERS’
Remind me of how far we have or haven’t come
In ‘levelling up’;
I’m reminded of John Thelwall,
‘That Jacobin fox’,
‘The most dangerous man in Britain,
Walking this journey in reverse in the summer of 1797,
Off to visit ‘Citizen Samuel’ Taylor Coleridge,
In Nether Stowey, in Somerset,
When Thelwall would use the word ‘pedestrian’
To mean radical walking:
Ignoring notices about trespass,
Ignoring notices about private property,
Ignoring fences, barred and locked gates,
Ignoring Enclosure’s newly planted hedges,
Wandering freely as a ‘pedestrian’ …
Nothing humdrum about the word back then;
‘Citizen John’ Thelwall was an associate
Of the radical leader, Thomas Spence,
Who when confronted by a gamekeeper,
Over alleged trespass, politely pointed
To squirrels roaming free to gather their food,
And politely pointed out that they
Had more rights than he, a so-called
‘Free-born Englishman’.
And all this at a time of high food prices,
An incessant war against the French,
Enclosure and privatisation of land,
Wage cuts for farm labourers,
Food riots and marches on markets,
Right here in the Stroudwater valleys and hills,
Demands for a fair price for corn and bread,
A just price, a moral price, a fair price,
‘A moral economy’ rather than a capitalist one,
And yet, today, in the Year of our Lord of Bet Fred,
We walk and cycle towards the City of London,
To raise funds for food banks: ‘The New Normal’.
AT LEAST 69 SUICIDES
IN THE PAST YEAR
LINKED TO UNIVERSAL CREDIT
UNIVERSAL CRUELTY
NEARLY 75% OF KIDS
LIVING IN POVERTY
LIVE IN HOUSEHOLDS IN WORK
Memories of Conversations about Food Banks
The most delightful was probably
In the church at Inglesham, near Lechlade,
When one of the two people brushing the floor,
(Who both remembered me from my previous visit,
Two years before and more),
On hearing of our quest, likened us to pilgrims,
And showed us the faint image of St Christopher,
Like a palimpsest within the whitewashed
Sun-splashed medieval wall painting;
She then led us to a small door at the back of the church,
‘The Pilgrims’ Door’, she said,
Where medieval itinerants would have processed;
I asked them for a photograph,
They assented and wished us well;
The medieval ridge and furrowed fields
Watched us depart.
Richmond
I include this from The Guardian and Jessica Murray, 27th February 2020, in a piece about the ‘Arcadian Thames’ at Richmond:
‘With the climate emergency set to bring more heavy rain and rising sea levels, the river along the Arcadian stretch in Richmond is just one of many waterways breaching its restraints in its natural floodplain.’
Jason Debney, Thames Landscape Strategy Coordinator: “It’s pretty much under water and that is going to be the new norm. The river is telling us that it wants that flood plain back … You can either have flood defences and be disconnected from the river, or you can have rewilding and keep the character of the river … Doing nothing is not an option. This is about adapting to climate change.”
Walking the Thames to London 18
Saturday 25th April
Sunrise 5.42 sunset 20.14
Tower Bridge to Thames Barrier 10 miles
London
William Blake
I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.
But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
Paint the Thames Red
Upstream: Red sky at night – shepherds’ delight;
Downstream: red sails in the imperial sunset.
This river once flowed red across the globe:
The oceans and continents
Checked by Stroud scarlet sentinels:
For the sun once never set on the British Empire.
·
A river running red from its spring-source,
Through field and wood and hamlet and village,
And town and gown and city and weir,
To reach the wharves and barracks
Of imperial London,
And so paint red the world.
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1902
‘The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters … A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark … condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth …
The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day … a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth … The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea … They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith … What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! … The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires.’
Hi Stuart, I hope you’re well.
Over two thousand people have emailed their MP to call for a Coronavirus Emergency Income Support Scheme. It’s been a fantastic response so far.
We’re all facing the same storm but we’re not all in the same boat. That’s why the government must act to make sure everyone can stay afloat.
To keep building the pressure, we need MPs of all parties to back our call and write to the Chancellor – will you ask your MP to help?
This week, Chancellor Rishi Sunak extended the Coronavirus Jobs Retention scheme. He said "the cost of not doing this for society, for our economy, for our country would be far higher” than the financial cost of the furlough scheme. He said it was “the right thing to do.” Together with a coalition of charities we're calling on the government to act quickly to put in place a Coronavirus Emergency Income Support Scheme that treats everyone with dignity and leaves no-one behind. It’s the right thing to do.
It means making sure councils can properly support people in their community facing a crisis right now. It means increasing benefits that go to families, suspending repayments of Universal Credit advances (and so helping people cover the five-week wait) and lifting the benefit cap and the two-child limit.
At the end of the Prime Minister’s statement on Sunday, Boris Johnson said that the UK could come out of this crisis “stronger and better” than before, “more generous and more sharing.”
If that’s going to become a reality, the government needs to act now. And so do we.
Thank you for your support,
Tom
At Iffley Lock
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