George Garrett Archive project.

 Module Two, Workshop Four.

Last years in the States.
A Playwright Amongst Stokers. 1924-26.

It’s a question of identity. How did George travel from the image of his early days as a Stoker, or even from the ‘Coney Island Boy’ of 1919, to the image taken when he enters the States, for the second time, in 1923, when he appears to have modelled himself upon the writers of the day, going by the name George Oswald James?

Who was George Oswald James? That’s an open question. The issues really is about where were the influences coming from that he was absorbing; and the answer to that, as we discussed before, lies in the plays of the new radical, Eugene O’Neill, with Far Horizon, Anna Christie and The Hairy Ape. It seems likely that George has already written, or begun writing, his short stories. The Irish tramp writer, Jim Phelan, who first met Garrett (or Joe Jarrett as he refers to him in ‘The Name’s Phelan’) in New Orleans, talks about how Garrett already referred to himself as a writer. It’s most likely, with stories already in his bag, that Garrett’s head was turned by the new drama pouring forth from New York, which would have chimed well with his ‘Wobbly’ sensibilities of mixing theatre and song with a radical message.

Garrett is in New York and needs to earn money. In the middle of the prohibition era (1920-33) he works in a brewery; While seemingly living under the radar he takes a job as a janitor in a Police Station. He lives on East 42nd Street, a bohemian time. The age of prohibition is also the age of the mobster. Like a real life Zelig, he’s even on hand to witness the aftermath of the murder of the legendary boxer ‘Battling Siki’.

During his time in New York there is a major world-wide strike of British shipping. The strike was provoked by a union-imposed wage cut. Seamen, realising they couldn’t walk off at home, who now had to apply for a 'PC5 system' which allowed the Shipping Federation and the union to decide who could work on the ships, began to walk off ships in ports across the world outside of the UK – New York, Montreal, New Zealand, Auckland, etc. A strike against Empire.

George, a good friend of George Hardy, leader of the International Seamen’ Organisation, would no doubt have been fully aware of this, yet appears to have played no part. It’s entirely possible that in this period George still harboured hopes of bringing Grace and his young family to New York and applying for naturalisation. Three years in the States without sailing is a long time, and it seems he may have even decided that his days as a seamen could be over too. But why?

Taking menial jobs, often working at night, coupled with his extraordinary literary output and his lodging with the three young, no doubt struggling actors, suggests that George was in America for one specific reason – to write. In many ways this is his first period of sustained writing, and his decision to leave Liverpool, and the UK, after the end of the 1922 Hunger March, also relives him of his duties as he felt them towards his fellow unemployed, a responsibility he took very seriously, although intensely conscious of the effect it had upon the time he could devote to writing.

The excellent work of the late Michael Murphy, who brought together George’s short stories together for the first time in print in 1999’s The Collected George Garrett, served also to position him primarily as an artist of the short form. When you consider the three plays he writes in the early 1920’s, Two Tides, Flowers and Candles and Tombstones and Grass, the plays he writes, or contributes to for The Unity Theatre in the 1930’s, Man with a Plan and One Hundred Years Hard, plus work we have seen in an as yet undocumented section of the archive, as well his work as an actor for The Left Theatre and Unity Theatre, it could be argued that he was primarily a dramatist.

Yet, taking into account that the only evidence we have of his plays in New York are two rejection letters from theatres, it seems surprising that, upon returning to Liverpool in 1926 he seems to leave his plays behind. Judging by the strength of his technique allied to the progressive themes of his plays, it may well have been that he simply had no outlet for them in Liverpool. When that outlet appeared in the form of The Left and Unity Theatre, he returned to drama, although not his original plays.

George’s time in New York in the mid-twenties represents for him an intensely creative period. But as it draws to a close, when the work dries up and American workers are being favoured over George and the many immigrants trying to make a buck, with America being on an unstoppable course towards the great crash of 1929, and with his efforts as a playwright gaining little success, it’s also a time for some serious decisions. In reality the only choice for George is to go back to sea, back to Liverpool.

Tony, quoting from Olivia Laing’s book, Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink, mentioned Raymond Carver’s quote about the long erosion of hope often experienced by many writers as they struggle to live and keep at their craft. George never turned to drink. But, if he couldn’t make a go of his plays in the States, how in the hell was he going to make it work in Britain, with its ban on American Musicians and still oh so stiff collar attitudes, particularly on a cultural level, where jazz was seen as the devil’s music. The excitement of America, with all its privations, must surely have seemed a long, long way away on his return to Liverpool and the still extant mass unemployment. No doubt the silver-lining for George, the main driving force bringing him home, and something celebrated throughout Tombstones and Grass, would have been his family.

It’s hard to believe, but in all the material we have come across in the archive, from his great friends Jerry Dawson, Alan O’Toole, and from various biographical sketches and critical notes, virtually no-one mentions his plays. And although there’s no doubt, given more time, critical support and encouragement, they may have been developed further, as they stand they are not without merit. What is most incredible is how quickly George absorbs the new direction of the New York drama, and is able to bring it fully to bear in his work, in both his Liverpool play Two Tides, and in the two following that are set in New York.

There isn’t the time here to go into any great analysis of the plays, but I do just want to show some quotes from Tombstones and Grass, which give a glimpse of the progressive nature of George’s themes, and how he is using Modernist techniques, something I doubt many other Liverpool, or even UK playwrights generally were using at this time. It will be some interesting research to look into just what was playing in the theatres in Liverpool in the mid 1920’s.

The short story published in May 1935, ‘The Overcoat’, takes on a greater significance when considering George’s use of pseudonyms, and his ever changing identity. Allen, the young brother, takes advantage of his elder brother Andrew’s hospitalisation to wear Andrew’s new, expensive overcoat. It seems too large, but he grows into it, and wears it out and about to impress his girlfriend. He’s mistaken for his brother and receives a compliment on his behalf. He falls out with his girl after arriving late, leaving her on a wet corner, because he couldn't risk getting the coat wet. He finds himself trapped, unable to let it go, but living a lie. His brother dies, and guilt consumes him – has he killed him off?

‘The Overcoat’ is an incredibly skillful story, with layer upon layer of meaning, within the text itself, and also taken as a reading relating to George’s life. The new overcoat transforms how Allen feels about himself, in much the same way as George’s pseudonyms may have worked for George.

These extracts from Tombstones and Grass, give a brief insight into George’s themes. The play follows the fortunes of Jim, breaking free from his overbearing parents, who suffers the death of his young wife after childbirth. The child is brought up by his wife’s sister, Josephine, a nurse who is resisting the approaches of the doctor. The play ends in tragedy for Jim, but the themes throughout a strong and uplifting, exploring race, the modern family and superficial respectability genuine love.

The plays will all be available on the George Garrett website in due course, and we will be presenting a rehearsed reading of his earliest play set in Liverpool in 1918, Two Tides, during the George Garrett celebration events at the Writing on the Wall festival in 2014.

The George Garrett Archive project workshops are free and open to all. We meet every Monday, 6-8pm in Liverpool John Moores University’s Aldham Robarts Library, Maryland Street, L1 9DE (off HopeStreet).

George Garrett Archive Project.

Module Two, Workshop Three.

George Oswald James. 1922 – 24.

With the 1922 Hunger March over, George realises his prospects in Liverpool are no better. Leader of the unemployed demonstrations, arrested as one of the leaders at the walker Art Gallery ‘riots’ in Liverpool; George knows his name will be first among equals on the blacklist. With a growing young family to provide he heads to Southampton, gets work on the Homeric, and sails once again for his beloved New York. But this is a different George Garrett than the one who sailed before. He’s not just sailing for money, he’s leaving Liverpool to find some space to write. He boards the Homeric as George Garrett and alights in New York as George Oswald James; just one of the many pseudonyms he used throughout his life.

He finds a place on East 42^nd Street, and shares rooms with young actors Barry Fitzgerald and Victor McLaglen, both of whom achieve success in Hollywood, appearing in John Wayne’s 1952 Film, The Quiet Man. According to George’s son John, these actors introduce him to theatre, although it is possible he is already writing drama as his play Two Tides appears to have been written between 1920-22, just after George’s first stint in the States.

In Liverpool George can hardly step out of his front door without being accosted by people seeking his help with benefits, appeals to the Poor Law Guardians, knowing that if he can’t help he will at least provide a sympathetic ear for their woes. In New York, as George Oswald James, he can live below the radar, live out the siege in the room, giving him the first opportunity he has had for some time for a sustained period of writing.

It’s a measure of how intensely he applies himself to his work that in 1925 he registers two plays with the Washington Library of Congress; Flowers and Candles and Tombstones and Grass. Unlike Two Tides these two plays are set in America, but all three plays show clearly just how much he has absorbed, and how tuned in George is to the new age of drama coming ut of New York; drama that will change the face of theatre, with the charge being led by one of George’s most powerful influences – so powerful that he names one of his sons in his honour - Eugene O’Neill.

George is living, both physically and spiritually, at the centre of the dramatic universe. He comes in at the point when the The Ghetto pastoral movement is in full swing. In 1920 Eugene O’Neill’s play, Beyond the Horizon has taken Broadway by storm, winning the playwright the first of his four Pulitzer Prizes for Literature. With characters full of ‘Dis, dat, dem and do’s’, he’s the first playwright to bring the vernacular to the stage, real American characters full of anger, frustration, revenge and repressed desire, played out within tight, confined spaces in tenements and rooming houses. It’s easy to see, coming from the close drawn terraces where he grew up, what impact this would have had on George, and imagine the ‘light-bulb’ moment for him, the realisation that here was the way for him to tell his stories. Being so close to the life of the New York Theatres and living among working actors would have given him the route he was looking for to go from script to stage.

Unfortunately, although we have as a record of his ambition a number of rejection letters from New York theatres where he sent his plays for reading, we don’t have a record of any of his plays being accepted for performance, although it would be hard to imagine, in the circles he was mixing, that he didn’t receive support, and maybe somewhere, in a union hall or among friends, hear his plays read out. Maybe his plays were too influenced by O’Neill – there can be little doubt that there would have been many attempting to emulate his work and follow in his footsteps – but that’s for another discussion.

But still, it takes nothing away from his enormous achievement of completing the three plays – each in four acts as was the style of the day, which have clearly undergone numerous drafts, and bound and sent out who knows how many theatres, written within no more than five years, and most likely within three or four years. He situates his characters in the intense locale, and puts them under a microscope. The plays work well within themselves, the characters by and large are well drawn, and the drama is strong.

In the workshop we divided the parts and read out the first act of ‘Flowers and Candles’. The passage from the play will give you an idea of how much wedded he is to the geography of the city:

“Flowers and Candles”

Scene – Act 1

The Scene is the parlor of one of the many rooming houses situated near the North River, the lower west side, New York City. The furniture is cheap and gaudy, with the exception of a glass bureau, containing souvenirs from different parts of the world…

We all felt it was hugely enjoyable to read out the play, and in the following discussion points were made about how he made it clear it was a typical seafarers house, as recognisable in Liverpool as in New York; how the women dominated the family, the matriarchal line in control as the men were away at sea; how George used the same style as O’Neill and other playwrights to keep the action tight, held in just one room, with people always coming and going towards and away from the action.

George, like the American playwrights, deals with many progressive, challenging themes, and issues of morality are never from the surface of this or his later work. While he may have been influenced by American playwrights, what is remarkable is just how far ahead of UK and Liverpool playwrights of his time he must have been. While George played a key role in the founding of The Unity Theatre in Liverpool in the 1930’s, there is again, sadly, no evidence of his plays being performed in Liverpool either, but again, that is research for another day.

The workshops are free and open to all. We meet every Monday, 6-8pm in Liverpool John Moores University’s Aldham Robarts Library, Maryland Street, L1 9DE (off HopeStreet).

 

George Garrett Archive Project

George Garrett Archive project. 

Module Two, Workshop Two.

Babe Ruth to Coney Island. 1918 – 1920.

This week we looked at the issue of Ireland in relation to George Garrett, and in particular, the strike on the New York docks in August 1920, which centred on the Cunard ship, The Baltic, and Dr.Mannix, an Irish-born Australian Catholic bishop, who became the Archbishop for Melbourne, Australia. Dr.Mannix was known for his sympathy and support for the Irish struggle for liberation and independence, and was travelling from Australia, where he had been seen off by a rally of 200,000 at Circular Quay in Sydney, through San Francisco and New York, to visit England and Ireland, where mass meetings and processions were being prepared to greet him; Scotland Road in Liverpool was already decked with bunting in his honour. In New York sections of The Baltic’s crew, mainly Stewards, walked off in protest at him sailing. They were persuaded to return, but the engine and deck crew then walked off and refused to return if he wasn’t allowed to sail. 15,000 people poured down to Pier 60 and Mannix was finally brought aboard and the ship allowed to sail for Liverpool. However, a British frigate intercepted The Baltic just off the Cornish coast, and Mannix was removed from the ship and held under virtual house arrest in Penzance.

At the same time the Mayor of Cork, Alderman Terence McSwiney, who had been arrested and moved to Brixton Prison for his activities in the campaign for independence, was on hunger strike. In George Garrett’s papers there are two pages from an unidentified book, with a picture and an article about McSwiney, labelled ‘1920’ in pencil, in George Garrett’s handwriting.

When the Baltic returned to New York on August 27th 1920, McSwiney was entering the fifteenth day of his hunger strike. Four days previously, a group of seven women, led by the actor Helen Godden, and calling themselves ‘American Pickets for the Enforcement of America’s War Aims’ (one of those aims being to support national self-determination), had begun a protest calling for McSwiney’s release and for Dr Mannix to be allowed to visit Ireland and America. Their protest grew from a small picket, and formal meetings with the British Consulate in new York, to a mass walk out involving 15,000 workers on the docks and from the ships, that lasted for two weeks, and unified British, Irish, Italian and American workers, and brought together for the first time the black workers, a loading gang, who had previously been used as strike breakers.

Bruce Nelson, writing in ‘Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality’, said, 

“Few if any developments in the entire history of the New York waterfront could equal, or explain, this extraordinary event and the convergence of class, nationalist and racial slogans it generated,” wrote “In this case, ‘British’ coal passers, many of them wearing small American flags on their coats, stopped work in support of the ‘Irish Republic’ and black longshoremen shouted “Free Africa’ as they joined the strike.”

At a meeting in Lexington Hall, attended by 3,500, with a further 5000 outside the hall, the biggest cheer of the night was for fifty of the below crew of The Baltic when they walked up to the table of honour.

This wasn’t a strike for wages or conditions; people were giving up a wage, when jobs weren’t guaranteed, for a cause three thousand miles away. When the shipowners, aided by the Longshoremen Union, recruited a huge phalanx of black dockworkers to break the strike, three members of the American Women Pickets went to the offices of Marcus Garvey’s Negro Universal Improvement organisation to appeal for support. Garvey sent two of his lieutenants to Piers 58 and 59. The black dockworkers didn’t break the strike, however, the Foreman of the black workers agreed to support the strike on the condition that they gained access to jobs on the piers that were always historically the Irish Piers. Negotiations went on for two to three days, but finally broke down without agreement. The leader of the Irish Dockers wanted it to happen, but was cut across by the rank and file; an indication of just how complex the strike around The Baltic had become. Although agreement wasn’t reached, after The Baltic finally sailed, Black Dockers began to appear on Piers 54 to 60. 

There’s no direct evidence as yet that George was involved in this strike, but there is no doubt he was affected by it, as many ships in New York harbour or at sea waiting to sail, were tied up while the dispute lasted. There’s no doubt either were his sympathies lay.

One significant aspect of the dispute, was the people involved, their background and what they represented in society; five out of the seven American women Pickets were actors. In New York there was the beginning of The Ghetto Pastoral; the notion that every worker, of every gender and race, has a story inside of them – the issue being how to tell that story. There developed a plethora of new magazines, such as The New Masses, devoted to new writing, seeking out new voices – an early form, maybe, of proletarian Culture. These were the voices of the Tenements, and there’s little doubt that this would have been a major inspiration to George Garrett, who would have identified with the close living and often squalid conditions. It’s easy to imagine his realisation that he too had stories to tell, from tenement courts and tiny houses in Liverpool, and he would be inspired by this different way of imagining a life of protest and song. 

The strike, the developments around it, and the methods used to organise the protests that led up to the strike, were an early indication of the forms of protest and culture that came to be synonymous with the development of the CIO (the International Longshoreman’s Association originally only associated with the AFL but then later joined the CIO as well). These methods, and the ethos of merging cultural activities with protest movements, were originally perpetrated by the Wobblies.

One of the most intriguing finds in George Garrett’s Archive is the poem Blanco Jack (An Epic of Easter Week, 1916). The poem, or ballad, is not dated, so for now we cannot comment upon it in relation to the development of George’s writing, but it is clear that he worked through a number of drafts, even gluing pieces of it together and writing verses and corrections by hand. The piece, with its rhythmic structure, and repetition of ‘Loot, loot loot’, could easily be read as a song, or ballad, and would fit in with the idea of the Liberty Balladeers, the street singers from the area in Dublin, frequented by Garrett’s friend, Jim Phelan, known as The Liberties. It’s interesting to see, no matter when it was penned, that George is playing around with new styles, trying his hand at different forms, and it wouldn’t surprise if ‘Blanco jack’ was being prepared for publication – maybe even in the form of a flyer for distribution on a march or parade.

Although ostensibly written in support of the Easter Uprising, when James Connolly led an assault on the Dublin Post Office in a revolutionary movement that was soon put down and its leaders, including Connolly, were executed by the British Army, Garrett’s ‘Blanco Jack’ is a clever piece of work, that reveals once again, George’s sympathies with the underdog, who even in times of revolution can often get overlooked. There isn’t the time here for a detailed analysis, but in the workshops we noted his simple use of the word ‘Fat’ to denote the boss class, and that although Blanco was an irresponsible man, his heart clearly lay with the poor, who this latter day Robin Hood seeks to help under cover of the revolution and gunshots all around him. Garrett’s sympathies are clear when he calls the rebels Martyrs, but, in what could be a critical remark based on the view of some that the uprising was ill-timed, he also says their deaths were ‘no surprise’. A rattle, of a gun, or of death, takes Blanco out, and Garrett leaves you with the pathetic image of the children of the slums who now wait in vain for food, or loot, loot, loot.

Significantly, George crosses out his pseudonym, Matt Low, and replaces it with his own name. 

The workshops are free and open to all. We meet every Monday, 6-8pm in Liverpool John Moores University’s AldhamRobarts Library, Maryland Street, L1 9DE (off HopeStreet).

WoW and the Liverpool Irish Festival

Life has been particularly busy for Writing on the Wall during October. As well as our annual creative meeting, where we invite writers, community workers, activists and professionals to a meeting designed to set the agenda for our May 2014 festival, we have also delivered a number of other events, including the latest iteration of our What’s Your Story’ project and a special event for Black History month.

Two Writing on the Wall events that I attended had a particularly Irish flavour, appropriate as one of them was an event run in partnership with the unique Liverpool Irish Festival. This event, with Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh, focussed on Feargal’s original research examining the revival of the Irish language, and the particular role of political prisoners in speaking the language and teaching it within their communities upon release from jail. The event was chaired by Prof Phil Scraton (Queens University Belfast), a long-standing supporter of Writing on the Wall. Phil’s extended introduction placed Feargal’s work within a continuum of research on prisons, where ‘academic activists’ speak ‘truth to power’ and give voice to the powerless. The packed Bluecoat audience sat in stunned silence as Phil read testimonies from jailed women and children, concerning the horrific conditions in which they are held in prison in Northern Ireland. The fact that some of these prisoners took their lives shortly after writing their impassioned letters heightened the emotion in the room. These letters and testimonies are taken from Phil’s forthcoming book entitled The Incarceration of Women: Punishing Bodies, Breaking Spirits. Phil was a hard act to follow, but the breadth and depth of Feargal’s work saw him receive generous applause from a rapt audience. In particular, the audience clearly appreciated Feargal’s ‘insider’ perspective on the Irish language, and understood that this was a voice that had not been heard before, telling a story that had not been told before.

The other event I attended was the launch of a book by Bill Rolston, Director of the Transitional Justice Institute at the University of Ulster. Bill’s book is the fourth and latest edition in a series entitled Drawing Support. These books focus on the political wall murals in the North of Ireland, and Bill’s illustrated presentation gave attendees access to his unrivalled archive of over 2,000 images. Bill’s photos, taken in the 30+ years since the popularisation of Republican murals in the aftermath of the death of 10 hunger strikers in the Maze Prison in 1981, tell their own story, but Bill explored and explained their centrality to the visual culture of Northern Ireland. Treading a delicate path in exploring themes within both Loyalist and Republican murals, Bill did not flinch from criticising the politics found within certain specific murals, whilst also exploring the muralists’ creative achievements in developing a body of work that is now one of the leading tourist attractions in Belfast.

 WoW Trustee 
Stuart Borthwick

George Garrett Archive Course

 

Module Two. Seamen, Syndicalists and Scribes 

1913 - 26 

Workshop One. From Beachcomber to East 42^nd Street.

Garrett’s experience of America, and that of so many others who worked, on land or at sea, revealed the flip side of Fitzgerald’s ‘Jazz Age’. Not for them the endless parties and pointless conversations, but rather the daily struggle to work and keep on working. Although, in post-war New York, with mass immigration, boom-time economy and a flourishing of hope, people in all strata of society weren’t immune to a feeling of hope after much sacrifice. People were poor, but not by the standards of Europe, but they were rich with ideas. Garrett finds himself in the melting pot, jumping ship with the agreement of his wife, Grace, who waits for him to earn money to send back home. It’s a seeming contradiction – an economic boom, where America finds itself the dominant world economy, although it is yet to assume its dominant role, and bohemian nirvana, where radical ideas of all persuasions hang out together. There is a boom un the US home market, in consumer durables; radio, TV, etc., and the film industry is assuming its dominant role in world culture. Tony Wailey quotes  Jose Luis Borges, saying ‘if you want to talk about a place, imagine yourself in another’. It seems being in New York has this effect upon Garrett.

Coney Island, at the back end of New York on the Atlantic, first place devoted to weekend mass consumption, and the working classes and affluent middle classes soak it up. The testimonies of seamen bear witness to just how attractive New York was at this point.

Garrett has had five years of drama in his life as a stowaway at sea, becoming a stoker, as a prisoner of war and being torpedoed at sea. Eugenie Montale talks about how the first slice of our life is about gaining experience, and thereafter we spend our time trying to gain insight into, and make sense of those experiences that shape us.

America doing so well it doesn’t feel the need to look outside of itself, its finance sytem is now dominant, labour is in plentiful supply and its home markets soak up all it can produce. America passes Europe’s travails as if in a dream.

Compare America to Germany, when considering the five reasons that can lead to turmoil and later fascism: 1. Economic crisis 2. A growing disparity between town and country. 3. A moment of middle class panic 4. A disproportionate increase in the pace of modernisation 5. A charismatic leader. Germany has these in abundance. America lives under the banner of ‘normalcy’.

However, this is also an indication of the growing imbalance in the world economy. Debs predicts a coming crisis. The US does not need the rest of the world, and doesn’t care to act as a global stabiliser. In fact, to counter the growing radicalism in major cities, it moves to clamp down on radical aliens, and the Palmer raids, led by future CIA Director J Edgar Hoover, represent disquiet among the ruling elite.

Garrett, in New York begins to develop a world view full of ideas. He knows everything could come crashing down, and wants to create his own stories.

Garrett’s first play (we assume as it is not dated yet), Two-Tides, finds its genesis in New York. It begins his life long love of writing and theatre, and his struggle through the written word to find his own place in the world.

Legendary Labour leader James Larkin is also in New York, and is later jailed for his radical activities. Garrett may or may not have known Larkin, but what is beyond doubt is that in this period Garrett meets and joins The Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World - IWW), the trade union movement that has cultural activity and engagement at its core. Garrett, who has little time for politics that spends time on discussing the minutiae of text, loves to read but prefers action to bring about change, immediately identifies with the Wobblies, and becomes a radical on the streets of New York. For this he is caught up in the Palmer Raids, and is either deported or jumps a ship to escape before he is arrested. He arrives back in Liverpool as a writer, ready to lead the unemployed campaigns at home, but dreams returning to the US, which he will do in 1923, but this time as George Oswald James.

George Garrett Archive Course

Module One, Workshop Four.

From The Walker Art Gallery to the First Hunger March.

Detective Sergeant John Barnes, in a written report of the unemployed demonstrations in Liverpool throughout September 1921, held in the lead up to the Police attack upon the demonstrations at The Walker Art Gallery, reports hearing George Garrett speaking at one of the meetings along the way. Garrett, he quotes, said he was,

‘Taking a stand for the working class of this country against the parasites living on the workers. “They are living over there” pointing to the North western Hotel “and they will have to come out of it. In 1914 you fought for your King and Country but why should you fight for a man simply because he wears and ermine collar and has a crown of jewels. It is the wealth of that which you produce and must get. When this is done you will share equally the good things of life and that time will witness the end of unemployment and distress in this country. I do not want to say any more but will close my remarks by saying, “To hell with 1914, up 1921”.’

In our fourth workshop of Module One we discussed the significance of Garrett’s statement, against the backgroundof the prevailing world-wide financial orthodoxy of wanting to hark back to the economic conditions prior to WW1. Tony Wailey, quoting the economist Kondatrievtalked about the pressure in a ‘down period’ to cut supply when demand is slack. This was a continuation of the discussions in the previous workshop relating to the development of nationalism and the national state. Britain and France desired to return to the world of free trade, but post WW1 looked far different, and as borders rose so trade became restricted. This was to have a direct impact upon George Garrett and the Liverpool working class as in the early 1920’s 169,000 people depended upon shipping and the associated port industries for their livelihood.

Before WW1 British shipping represented 44% of the world fleet. In 1921 it had fallen to 30%. At the same time the former dominions of the British Empire, Australia, Canada, South Africa, India and the countries of Latin America, had begun to build their own infrastructure.

The move towards nationalism led to the formation of the National Maritime Board A cartel began to coalesce, forging an uncertain unity between the shipowners, The National Seamen and Firemen’s Union, and the state. As discussed previously, this saw extreme developments including the formation of the ‘White Seafarer’s Union’. This jarred with Garrett, and others like him, who had spent time in the US and had mixed with, or as in Garrett’s case, even joined The Wobblies’ (IWW – Industrial Workers of the World’), and had an internationalist outlook.

Some of the trade union leaders dressed like Lords, even turning up to meetings in top hats, seeing little distinction between themselves and the bosses they were meant to oppose. The problem of cosying up to the state became clear later: what were they to do when Lloyd George wanted to cut seafarer’s wages due to there being no demand for shipping? The Seamen were heavily criticised and threatened with jail for rejecting wage cuts.As restrictions were imposed on their protests at home, this period also seamen beginning to take action when docked in foreign ports where they felt they had more freedom to move and more power over the ship owners.

When there was no work you were forced to go ‘On the Parish’ and seek support from the poor law Guardians. Garrett, and other activists such as Jack Braddock, recognising the difficulties of dealing with Guardians across the country, some of whom were generous while others, Liverpool being a case in point, were extremely harsh, tried to drive a wedge between the state and the Guardians by raising the cry for ‘Work or Maintenance’ to be provided by the Government. However, some, such as GDH Cole and Raymond Postgate, writing in The Common People, argue that ‘it was commonly said in the winter of 1921 & 22 that the ‘dole’ saved Britain from revolution.’ Easy to say in hindsight, but what were activists like Garrett meant to do, among the poverty and suffering that they, their families, and their fellow unemployed were enduring?

The Trades Unions had grown rapidly in the period leading up to 1921, but although unemployment was a major problem across the UK, there was little articulation between the trade unions and the unemployed. The trade unions did not know how to deal with them.

1920 saw the birth of the British Communist Party. This galvanised the unemployed as a force and led to the formation of the National Unemployed Workers Movement, a movement that brought under one banner a cross section of society, of Catholics and Protestants, and even, as demonstrated in the leadership of the unemployed struggles in Liverpool, the clergy marching alongside ex-policemen.

Garrett’s writings on this period, Liverpool 1921-22 and The First Hunger March, coming as they do from someone who is both an active participant and keen observer, must rank as among the most outstanding pieces of writing about the unemployed struggles and the plight of the working class, and the response of the political and state forces of that period. 

Garrett, while carrying in his mind the heady mix of ideas and internationalism he had imbibed from his time in the States, now had to consider what might be achieved in Liverpool and the UK. He was now forced to go into the minutiae of the law on benefits and relief to be able to be of service to those suffering all around him. His scrapbooks, with detailed notes and newspaper cuttings, reveal this dedication to exposing and exploiting the law and the rules for relief to the benefit of the unemployed.

The unemployed marchers, led by ex-police striker Bob Tissyman, The Reverend Vincent Laughland, Jack Braddock, George Garrett, and others representing a diverse group of political outlooks and experiences, led a sustained, well organised and inventive campaign for work or maintenance, to get the Liverpool Guardiansto raise their rates of relief. These campaigns are brought to life in Garrett’s work, drawing you in with such a fluidity of pen and turn of detail that you are tempted to look at your feet to check you aren’t shoeless yourself.

The first stage of the campaign culminated in a ‘riot’ at The Walker Art Gallery. Frustrated by a lack of progress in their campaign for work or more relief, under pressure to win some sort of victory, and undecided about how to take the movement forward, Bob Tissyman, rather than leading the demonstrators gathered at the plateau at St George’s Hall on their usual demonstration around the city centre, called upon them to take a ‘walk’ over to the Walker Art Gallery

The demonstrators who reach the Walker Art Gallery, even though gathered peacefully inside and in negotiation with the manager who was trying to contact the mayor by telephone, becomea prime target for the police who were waiting behind St George’s Hall, in the Assizes and in the Museum. They attack the demonstrators from behind and within the art gallery, and charge them on horseback outside. They lock the gallery doors and proceed to beat the demonstrators and staff so savagely that people jump from the windows to save themselves. By the end of the day 16 were injured so badly they are taken to hospital, including ex-policeman Tissyman who has a broken arm and gashes to his head, and 140 were arrested, Garrett among them, who was picked up after the demonstration is over.

When the case came to court the judge, clearly shocked by what he sees and hears, jails the main defendants - for one day, ensuring they are immediately released. His understated comments that, ‘I think most unnecessary violence was used to these men in The Walker Art Gallery,’ gives an indication of the disquiet at the role of the Police on the day.

In the aftermath of The Walker Art Gallery the demonstrations continue, but ironically, it was the general shock at brutality employed by the Police in their efforts to curtail the demonstrations that may have contributed most to the decision by the authorities to back down and grant an increase in relief.

The idea for a national march is born, and it is this that Garrett throws his energies into next. George’s description of this campaign in The First Hunger March, organised by the National Unemployed Workers Movement,demonstrates the full range of his character as a leader of the march, and his skills as a reporter and writer. From the marchers’ refusal to accept poor food and bedding from ‘stingy’ Guardians; their protests and liberation of parents and children who are separated from each other by chicken-wire in a workhouse they stay in for the night; to the mock funeral, with George Garrett himself in the role of chief mourner and priest, leading the prayers at the burial of their old ‘comrade’ Bully Beef, the pitiful dish served up once too often to a march full of ex-servicemen, the life of the march on the road to London is brought to life, without pity, or the desire for sympathy, but with anger, pride, humour and humanity.

At the end of the march, after speaking outside parliament, George realises his prospects are still no better, and, due to an intense period of radical activity, are in fact probably far worse. And so in 1923 he embarks upon his second spell in New York…as George Oswald James.

The workshops are free and open to all. We meet every Monday, 6-8pm in Liverpool John Moores University’s AldhamRobarts Library, Maryland Street, L1 9DE (off HopeStreet).

George Garrett Archive Course

Module One, Workshop Three.

Radicals Under Pressure - 

Vigilance and Marching On.

The end of WW1 sees the world beginning to close down; the control of the individual states grows as they begin to police their citizens and decide, who are the ‘correct’ members, who are the interlopers, and most importantly, who are the carriers of dangerous ideas? In this our third session of the course, Tony explored the period leading up to 1920 when Britain, although one of the victors of the war, finds its Empire on the wane. Germany, defeated, will be made to pay, while Russia, in the midst of a civil war following the revolution of 1917, is also out of the economic picture. Quoting from The Common People by GDH Cole, Tony explained that by the end of 1918 300,000 soldiers were unemployed. At the time this was regarded as a catastrophe, but by 1920 this figure had grown to one and a half million and had ballooned to 2 million by the end of 1921. After the ‘war to end all wars’, things were getting worse rather than getting better.

In 1918 George Garrett, now married with his first son, Matty, and with the agreement of his wife Grace, who was prepared to eke out a living until he could send money home,  went straight to America, to New York. The conditions on the American ships were better, but he was attracted to the radical life there, and was soon active with The Wobblies.

In the US ‘Normalcy’ was the new catch-word summing up the desire to return to pre-war progress, but it was a false dawn. In 2912 Garrett is caught up in the anti-radical Palmer Raids and returns to Liverpool where all fingers are pointing, looking for someone to blame. The divisions leading to the race riots of 1919, culminating in the murder of Charles Wooton, are reflected in The Seamen’s Vigilance Committee, which had been set up to try and protect war time wages. The Seamen’s Union is pulled into the British Empire movement, and a White British Seafarers Union is also formed.

Prevalent economic theories of the time, including those of Nikolai Kondatriev, point to the patterns appearing in Capital; 25 year cycles, or waves, of boom and bust, which are mirrored in the development of the workers movement. Capital in 1920 is most definitely on a downward spiral, and Garrett is no stranger to the privations it brings, writing that he would leave the house without eating and spend the day with other unemployed men, not eating, so that his wife could eat what they had. When he returned home and she too had not eaten, a quarrel would ensue.

Although incarcerated in the unemployed struggles, Garrett’s stateside experiences stay with him, and are reflected in the wry humour he brings to his activities in the unemployed and seamen’s struggles, including the use of theatre and song and mimicking the Wobbly methods of cultural engagement alongside the political and industrial struggle.

Garrett feels responsibility on all fronts; he has a young family, is being drawn into radical politics alongside the young communist Jack Braddock, and is also beginning to try and find time to write.

The interwar economists argue that all is good – and the development of consumer goods indicates that capital is coming home. But in Liverpool and in George Garrett’s employment, all the industries are associated with heavy export. With the collapse in trade Liverpool, as well as Lancashire, becomes an unemployment black-spot. It is here that the genesis of the UK’s North-South divide can be found.

All roads lead to depression, the development of radicalism – the Liverpool branch of the British Communist Party is founded in 1920, and the subsequent clampdown on dissent. Although the contradictions of the world economy see people enjoying the Jazz age in the United States, which the true victor in the shift in the balance of relationships following WW1 (although the growth in protectionism see it becoming more and more isolated), while in the UK massive numbers of the unemployed, many with war medals pinned to their chest, are marching for work or maintenance.

The revision of the Poor Law Act in 1834 means that people are now forced into the territory of the Poor law Guardians – The Parish Guardians, who operate with local autonomy to decide if and how much someone should receive if they cannot find work. Attitudes vary, from the liberal to the dictatorial, with women in the areas of hard-line Guardians often having to take prams to the parish to disguise the huge Harvester Loaves doled out to them in place of cash relief.

The mass demonstrations in 1921-22, and the ‘Storming of The Walker Art Gallery’ arise from this period of turmoil and rebellion, but that’s for next week.

In the workshops, were we considered three questions relating to George’s writing and some of the artefacts from the archive, participants discussed the significance of Garrett being published, possibly for the first time, by writing and distributing song-sheets for the mass demonstrations of the unemployed and for the Seamen’s Vigilance Committee. The Wobblies are a clear influence here, but we also considered the influence of protest songs from slaves in the southern states of America; the tradition of popular song sheets being sold on the streets; the use of language, sometimes biblical, reminiscent of Shelley, and how these songs could unify demonstrations and could be picked up and shared by even the most illiterate. Garrett uses these broadsheets to announce himself as a writer, but one who is committed and engaged with the struggle all around him.

Garrett’s speech to the Seamen’s Vigilance Committee, on a platform where other speakers make outright racist comments blaming aliens for the lack of jobs, marks him out as brave, progressive figure with some authority. He attacks those who take patriotic pride in being British to extremes, praises the struggle for liberation in Ireland, and calls upon people to follow the example of Ghandi in India. In his writing, from the extracts from Liverpool 1921-22, he again uses humour to put to shame a police recruit, and in the Wobbly tradition of non-identification, describes himself variously as ‘The Young Seaman’ and ‘The Deportee’. Participants felt he didn’t want to put himself centre stage, wanted to make his stories, even non-fiction, universal and accessible to all, and, maybe protect himself for fear of victimisation and recrimination from the Guardians, the Police, and others. The ironic fact that it is a plain-clothes member of the CID from whom George Garrett’s words are handed down to us, indicate that he has reason to be cautious.

The workshops are free and open to all. We meet every Monday, 6-8pm in Liverpool John Moores University’s AldhamRobarts Library, Maryland Street, L1 9DE (off HopeStreet).