A Communist in Space: Yuri Gagarin

 I was actually delivering Labour Party letters to the Old Barrowfield estate in West Ham early yesterday morning, while listening to the coverage on Radio 4 "Today" on the 50th anniversary of manned flight to space.

This was surely a great moment in our history. It must have been a terrifying experience for all the early space pioneers. I'm also sure that the Daily Worker headline (right) of the time didn't go down all that well in many quarters.

I wonder what happened to the well deserved Gold Medal that the Manchester Foundry Union workers awarded to Soviet cosmonaut and hero Yuri Gagarin?

Old Barrowfield is a lovely and well looked estate but comprises of a number of low rise non-lifted blocks.  Could have done with just a little bit of a rocket boost up and down those stairs.

hat-tip Col. Roi

"Battle of Cable Street" Veteran Urges Support for TUC March on 26th

Max Levitas who marched against the fascists in Cable Street in 1936 joined our Labour Party and Trade Union stall in Stratford on Saturday to pledge support for the TUC March for an Alternative on the 26th.

Max (picture) is now 95 and was a Communist Party Councillor in Whitechapel from 1945 to 1958. At Cable Street he marched alongside Phil Piratin (on of the first Communist MP's and father of one of my former UNISON branch secretaries).

He still comes shopping to Stratford twice a month and takes the 25 bus here and back.

I have seen Max speak at events in the past and once even knocked on his door while canvassing for Labour.  He is still proud to be a Communist but says he would usually vote for Labour if there was not a real Communist standing and is pleased to see the Labour Party out campaigning.  He will be there on the TUC March on the 26th.

Max warned us about the threat to the Labour Movement from those who have their own agenda and will try their best to wreck and split us.  Of course, I haven't a clue who he means?

A Peoples' History of the Blitz: "We shall not forget them"

 This is another history of September 7 1940 and the London Blitz.

Check out the excellent "Hayes Peoples History" here.

"The working class communities of Inner London had suffered badly during the depression of the 1920’s and 30s with its high unemployment and slum housing. Now they suffered the heaviest levels of devastation – large parts of Stepney, Bethnal Green, Poplar, West Ham, Bermondsey, Deptford, Lambeth, St Pancras & Westminster were destroyed...

...According to Phil Piratin (future Communist Member of Parliament for Stepney)

"That night the East End burned, the dockside was ablaze...........

it lit up a great part of East and South East London....... It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire."

Daily Worker journalist Fred Pateman writing in the 9th September 1940 edition of the Daily Worker stated

“Yesterday, I walked through the valley of the shadow of death –the little streets of London’s East End.....Along the main roads is a steady stream of refugees – men with suitcases, women, with bundles, children with their pillows and their own cot covers – homeless in the heart of London.

Maya Angelou - History despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived but if faced with courage need not be lived again"