From
South Africa to West Yorkshire
Brian
Bamford peruses the politics of the 1960s,
as he talks to Joan Christopher about her husband, Bill
as he talks to Joan Christopher about her husband, Bill
THE
early 1960s
was a time of great expectations in radical left-wing politics.
There had just been the Campaign to Boycott South African Goods,
called by the Anti-Apartheid Movement. The boycott attracted
widespread support from students, trade unions and the Labour,
Liberal and the then Communist Party. The Anti-Apartheid
Movement had begun as the Boycott Movement, set up in 1959 to
persuade shoppers to boycott apartheid goods.
 |
| Joan and Bill Christopher on holiday in France |
Later together with the Freedom Press anarcho-syndicalist carpenter Peter Turner, Bill Christopher was to become joint-secretary of the Industrial Sub-committee of Committee of 100 [3], that was a time of great conflict and activity during the national campaign against nuclear weapons and the Bomb. It was to be out of this Committee of 100 London Industrial Sub-Committee that the industrially based National Rank & File Movement (N.R&F.M)[4], an organisation of militant trade unionists and shop-floor syndicalists, developed and was founded at a conference in London in January 1961.
'This
week-end there is to be held in London the first Conference of the
newly-formed Rank and File Movement. Much work has been put
into the preparation of this conference by liaison committees;
discussion meetings have been going on in London, resolutions and
amendments have been drawn up, and it may well be that this event
will be a significant one for militants among the industrial workers
at least.
(FREEDOM: January 28, 1961)
 |
Joan Christopher speaking to N.V. in Todmorden, West Yorkshire |
Introduction to the interview by Brian Bamford
These were the days before Spies for Peace and before my own trip to Spain in February 1963 on behalf of the young libertarians of F.I.J.L in France, before the arrest of Stuart Christie in Madrid in 1964, well before the student sit-ins at the L.S.E. in 1967 and before the French events in 1968 and the '
In a pamphlet authored by Bill Christopher entitled 'SMASH THE WAGE FREEZE!' (1960s), and published by the Syndicalist Worker's Federation, Bill wrote:
'It
is obvious that today only a Labour Government would dare to
implement a wage-freeze policy and arm it with heavy penalties for
non-implementation... The opening attack on workers' wages and
conditions came with George Brown's Joint Statement of Intent on
Productivity, Prices and Incomes.... shop stewards wishing to improve
wages and / or conditions in their plant, are subject to the
penalties of the Act. The officials of their respective unions
can also be penalised.'
The
intention of the then Labour government here would be to discourage unofficial strikes, that is
strikes not supported and financed by the trade unions: in the 1950s
and early 1960s unofficial strikes represented about 90% of all the
industrial action taking place. Historically shop stewards were
intended to be simply 'union card checkers', in the
1896 rule book of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, that later
became A.U.E.W., this was stated to be the sole role of the steward.
Yet, after the Second World War the shop steward had become a key
figure on the shop-floor. Bill Christopher during his involvement
with the S.W.F. and in his writings as an industrial editor on
Freedom, was anxious to extend the responsibilities of
the shop stewards as was the rest of us involved in the National
Rank & File Movement.
*******
Political Journey - wartime South Africa to West Yorkshire
 |
Bill Christopher in the North of England |
Bill Christopher was born on Bastille Day in
July 1924, and died in January 1993.
Brian Bamford's Joan Christopher interview on Bill Christopher:
Began April 2015 and was finally completed in July 2017.
Joan
Christopher: We came here in July 1986. I was born an Essex girl
in a town called Woodford in 1928, but my family moved to
Walthamstow from around 1930.
Brian:
How did you find living up here?
Joan:
We didn't know how things were going to work out. Of course, we had
been up to visit Aileen and Bob (daughter and son in-law) several
times. But I soon learned to drive after coming up and I began to go
to college to do A-level art. Some dear friends of ours Eric and Joan
Preston (in the Independent Labour Party) lived in Leeds
Brian:
Has Todmorden changed much since you came?
Joan:
There has not been a great deal of change. There is more of a hint of
tourism – a bit like (nearby) Hebden Bridge, and it's more
gentrified now. We use to meet people who had not been out of
Todmorden all their lives.
Brian:
How does life up here compare with London?
Joan:
Bill use to reminisce about about London. He didn't seem to settle
down as much as me. For me I’ve liked living up here and I find
‘Tod.’ people very friendly – I like somewhere a
bit rural and countryfied.
Brian: How did you meet Bill?
Joan:
I use to work with Bill's sister, Jean; sewing. I started working
when I was 14-years-old at a dress-making factory cutting, finishing
and re-drawing from the pattern book on Hudson Street, Walthamstow
for about 4 months. I then worked at Cannels Ltd dress-making.
It was through his sister Jean that I met Bill and we first went out
at Xmas 1942. Jean use to say Bill only liked me because I liked
playing monopoly. He had asked me to go to the pictures a week
before he went into the RAF. Bill was a volunteer and
didn’t wait to be called-up, nor was he influenced by his mates at
the time into his decision to join up. At that time he was at
first doing air-training in St. Johns Wood.
Later
he was based in South Africa training to be a navigator, and didn't
come home until 1944. After that he was in the Army in India until
1947.
While
he was in India during the troubles there; that is during the Bombay
riots, I remember him saying that he shot into the air,.rather risk
hitting anyone.
He
didn't talk much about South Africa! It was the war that influenced
his later political views as well as his later (post war) experience
in India (in the Army). When he went to the war he had been a
Christian and as a boy he wanted to be a missionary in the Church of
England. My Mum too had been a strong believer before she met my Dad.
After
he left the Army, Bill (Christopher) went back to working in the
print (industry) in the 1940s up to the 1970s. He was an
Imperial Father of Chapel (Works Convenor) at the Daily Mail
in NATSOPA and Sogat. After he left school he worked flat-bed
printing on 'The Queen' magazine, which was a glossy.
He was doing White Chapel preparation though his grandfather had been
a copy-taker. He left the Daily Mail, went on to
Teacher’s Training College, and later began teaching in the early
1970s. He taught at Leyton County High School for Boys.
Bill was a member of the NUT (National Union of Teachers).
Bill came into teaching as a mature student and ended up teaching
sociology as part of his teacher’s training certificate.
Joan: In July
1985, he decided to retire, because Bill didn't have a degree and he
assumed that he wouldn't get a job in a 6th form College
or High School. He was 61 (Bill was born in July 1924). We already
had a daughter living in Cornholme in Todmorden. Our daughter,
Aileen, has lived in the North longer than down in London. She
originally lived in Cornholme, Todmorden, but is now over the border
in Burnley.
When we got here
Bill studied for a Master's degree (entitled) 'The women's role
in the factories in World War II'. An oral history involving
(research) doing interviews with workers (who had) worked in the
mills and factories in the Tod(morden) area (in the War). It was a
dissertation for his MA (Master's Degree), and I typed it up for him
on a Word. Processor. He started studying for a Phd shortly before he
died.
Brian: What do
you reckon of today's politicians?
Joan: You can
see that I am a Labour supporter (a Labour Party poster is in the
window). Both me and Bill voted Labour in the 1945 and 1951 general
elections: although I haven't got a lot of faith in any of them.
Because they make promises and then can't deliver. I look on Labour
as being the lesser evil. I always vote, because people died to get
the vote. The trouble is that big business has more control, although
you do get the odd MP who does a good job.
Brian: But you
were both in the Independent Labour Party (ILP)?
Bob
Galliers (Bill's son-in-law) intervene here to say that Bill had
always been a syndicalist or anarcho-syndicalist, and that they (Bill
and Joan) had been raided by the police in 1963 after the revelations
in the Spies for Peace documents.
Joan
Christopher then continued:
In
the mid-1960s Bill wrote and edited industrial and labour reports for
the Freedom newspaper with Peter Turner, who was a
carpenter in the building trade.
I
wrote for Freedom (the anarchist weekly newspaper) a
piece about that raid after the 'Spies for Peace' [5]
incident at Aldermaston at Easter in 1964. (At that time this
'subversive' document was being widely circulated by
anarchists, independent socialists and pacifists and) at a Conference
of the I.L.P. in Yorkshire [probably Scarborough]
everyone were asked to reproduce the 'Spies for Peace' leaflet.
(At that time) Eric Preston, Bill’s friend in the I.L.P., was being
followed by the police as he moved 'Spies for Peace' leaflets
and other materials from Leeds to London, but when he his copies in
the Left Luggage, the police moved in and took them. The organisation
'Solidarity'* (nothing to do with the current
Solidarity Federation) started the 'Spies for
Peace' campaign. (Bob then intervened to say the journalist
Natasha Walter published a book on the 'Spies for Peace'):
(her father was, Nicolas Walter the well-known
anarchist writer, and the only member of the 'Spies for
Peace' to go public on this matter).
We
also duplicated a rank and file newsletter the ‘Seaman’s
Voice’ in Cumberland Road, and as I recall one of the
seamen ended-up stapling his own finger, but he was still enough of a
gentleman to avoid swearing in front of a woman, although I’m sure
that he wanted to.
Bill
unsuccessfully fought the Walthamstow parliamentary seat (at
different times) for both the ILP and CND.. He was a member of the
(anarcho-syndicalist) Syndicalist Worker's Federation (SWF) and
produced both 'Worker's Voice' (then the paper of the
Worker's Party) and 'World Labour News'. Earlier in
1959, we were both involved in the 'Worker's Party'*
with Brian Behan* (the brother of the play-write Brendan Behan and
musician Dominic), but Brian was very mercurial.
Bill
rejoined the I.L.P. around 1980ish, and the 'Friends of the
ILP' are now part of the Labour Party.
Joan:
We supported the miners!
We
had an ‘I.L.P. Miner’s Support Group’ through
which we channelled our support. We were awarded a Miner’s Lamp for
our efforts. I’ve still got that lamp here at the bottom of the
stairs.
Brian:
I believe that William Morris was born in Walthamstow?
Joan.:
Yes, in the 1930s the house were he was born was turned into a
clinic, and when I was a kid, I attended the clinic for treatment in
about 1935.
Joan:
Yes, we all had a passion for Jazz! But at first I was into the
Classics, and Bill was into Jazz. When we were living on Cumberland
Road we made it open-plan, and, on Jack Stevenson’s advice bought a
Pye Black Box. We liked Bruck, Mendelssohn, Mahler, and Oscar
Peterson. But it was through Jack Stevenson we came to know the track
by Jack Teagarden ‘Tribute to Sydney Bechet’ (Joan
at this point started to hum the tune). ‘I want that played at
my funeral’, she said.
Brian:
Did you know many other people at Freedom besides Pete
Turner? People like Vernon Richards, Colin Ward and Philip Sanson?
Joan:
Indeed, we were close to quite a few people at Freedom Press,
and would go over for lunch on the odd Sunday to Philip Sansom and
his partner’s house. We knew Tom Cowan and his Italian wife
Gabrella. He was in the building trade. We were also close to Ken
Hawkes, a sports journalist on the Reynolds News and
the anacho-syndicalist editor of World Labour News –
the journal of the Syndicalist Worker’s Federation (SWF)
in the 1960s. Brian Behan, the brother of the play-write Brendan
Behan, was another good friend who we knew Brian was a bit eccentric,
he lived in a pre-fab with his wife and use to wear bicycle clips,
and we asked him about this he turned his pockets out and showed us
the holes. The bike-clips were there to catch the coins in. His
wife later went into teaching. Brian was a carpenter in the
building trade who was blacklisted and ended-up at university. I’m
still in touch with Dave Picket who took over the S.W.F.,
when Ken Hawkes, who lived on Parliament Hill in Hampstead, left to
go to work for the BBC.
Brian: Thank you for that Joan, and please express my thanks to Aileen and Bob for all their help in producing this short rendering of the life of Bill Christopher.
******
[1] The Worker's Party was a breakaway from the
Socialist Labour League in summer 1960.
[2]
Brian Behan, the brother of the Irish play-write Brendan
Behan, founded a short-lived 'Workers Party', which
published Worker's Voice and was active in support of the
Seaman's Strike.
In 1964, Behan wrote his first piece on his family life, With
Breast Expanded. Forced to give up building work due to an arm
injury, he moved to live on a boat in Shoreham-by-Sea
and studied history and English
at Sussex
University. He then studied teaching, before in
1973 becoming a lecturer in media
studies at the London
College of Printing.[3]
In 1972, he contested in a swearing
match at the British
Museum, to mark the republication of Robert
Graves' Lars
Porsena.[2]
[3] The Committee of 100 was set up
after a difference in CND about the use of civil disobedience as a
political weapon between Canon Collins and the philosopher Bertrand
Russell,
[4] The
National Rank
& File Movement. Affiliates of
SWF; the Worker’s Party; the ILP; Commonwealth; London Anarchists;
Socialism Re-affirmed (publication Agitator
- later Solidarity).
[5]
The ‘Spies
for Peace’ was a clandestine
group of individuals including we now know the Freedom
Press anarchist, Nicolas Walter,
later admitted involvement: His Wikipeadia entry states: ‘Walter
was a member of Spies
for Peace,
the only member to be publicly identified, only after his death. In
March 1963, it broke into Regional
Seat of Government
No. 6
(RSG-6),
copied documents relating to the Government's plans in the event of
nuclear war and distributed 3,000 leaflets revealing their contents.’
In his book ‘Anarchist
Seeds Beneath the Snow’ the historian
David Goodway wrote:
‘The Spies for Peace were essentially this
group (Solidarity),
locating and entering the Regional Seat of Government (RSG) at Warren
Pow, Berkshire, and circulating the pamphlet,
Danger! Official Secret: RSG-6.
[6]
‘Solidarity' publication
of the Socialism Re-affirmed Group
edited by Christopher Pallis and Ken Weller,
was originally entitled the 'The
Agitator' until 1961.
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