The George Garrett Archive Project.

Module Four. 

The Subterranean Theatre 1918-1955. 

The Writer as Historian. 1945 – 1955

Tony opened tonight’s session by referring to an interview we filmed with George’s two remaining sons, Roy and Derek (for future broadcast in the short film we are making about George Garrett). Towards the end of the interview I asked them if they ever felt, or got the impression, that George was disappointed by life. Their response was emphatically ‘No’. They said he always had a song, he had his faith and he had his family. But what, Tony asked, did they mean by this?

Alan O’Toole, in his as yet unpublished monograph on George, makes the point that more space should be given to that form of libertarian socialist, the anarcho – collective endeavour, and the pursuit of justice by individual radicals. He argues that this strand of left-wing radicals, this way of thinking, which applies to George Garrett, has been washed over by the tendency to look at radical history through the lens of the Communist Party and organised Labour generally.

All too often activists who fell out, for example, with the CP, became bitter, or even reactionary. Jack Carney, a radical from Widnes, who like George sailed to America and became an activist, became so jaundiced with the communism that he ended up working with the CIA, campaigning for ‘free’ trades unions. Jack Braddock, who in his early days as a Communist was what we may now term ‘ultra-left’, went over to the right at a pace of knots after WW2.

But George doesn’t succumb to these moods of reaction, bitterness or despair. He takes on what Camus says – In order to be a rebel you have to keep on turning. And turn he does, but George turns to different activities, be they creative, organised protest, or advocacy, to express himself, maintaining a principled position with syndicalism at its core to hold him steady. In his political activity he maintains a measured pace throughout his life. He never falls out with the Braddock’s although he despises their politics. His ‘faith’ is a humanist one, but he is held in great respect by many who are religious, including Canon Raven, who refers to him as one of the most Christian like men he has ever known. His sons remember him remarking, when asked why he didn’t go to church, that not all Christians were to be found there. He is in demand for his services with The Reconciliation Movement, active on Netherfield Road calming tensions between the Orange and the Green. He’s an everyman, yet he is his own man, and certainly nobody’s fool.

Reflecting back on the earlier workshops, Tony returned to the economic cycles of Kondatriev that chart the rise and fall, boom and bust of the economic cycle, and pointed out that the different stages of George’s life appear to mirror Kondatriev’s 25 year cycles: 1895 – 1920, George from Birth through war to the end of his first period in the United States; 1920 – 1945, from the unemployed marchers, through the Spanish Civil War, and WW2; 1945 – 1970, last years with The Unity Theatre and final activism and writings.

George’s friend and leading light of The Unity Theatre, Jerry Dawson, remarked after the war and into the late 1940’s, that time had appeared to pass George by. He was no longer seen as much at the theatre, and that the 1950’s was really no place for him. While New Writing and Left Review editor, John Lehmann, was asking in his 1955 autobiography where George Garrett had disappeared to, George was at peace, content to work on the TexMex Tanker tha he took up and down the Manchester Ship Canal.

George’s drama was his own life. He’d done it all by then, the marchers, protests, arrests, the crusades. In 1949 Jerry Dawson was writing to him from Italy about the possibility of a future ‘Unity’ school there, but there’s little evidence of George’s involvement from this point onwards. But the case and the cause of the seafarers remained with him all his life. He remains active around the Seamen’s Reform Movement. In 1947 he applies to become an Unestablished Seaman. This is a political act that ties him again to the casual, the dissidents, the transients, who are now being segregated by union and Government alike.

It is to George that the leading activists among the seamen go to when the younger members are being threatened with mutiny and jail; he has the intelligence to understand the danger they are putting themselves in, and the authority to talk them round and spur them for future action. And it is to the seaman that George returns in the last year of his life, when he is invited to speak at a rally during the Strike of 1966 – the first official strike since 1911, which, when he witnessed the 1911 mass rally on what became known as Bloody Sunday, was also George’s first taste of the power of the union movement, and, when his nose was broken by the police who attacked the demonstration, the brutality of the state.

George and Grace had been together since 1918. They’d raised five sons. George had his family around him. He also had his song. His sons say that his favourite was ‘Big Strong Man’, aka ‘My Brudda Sylvest’. Big Strong man is a song written in the middle of the 20th century that very much dates itself with references to the Lusitania, Jack Dempsey, and Mae West. It starts with a Jewish immigrant writer, for the Italian penny operas. It is supposedly set for the Spanish American war of 1901. It was sung by American Servicemen in 1917. It was popularised again by Canadian Seafarers and Airforce men in the Second World War. George would have known it from his earliest American days in New York. Since then it is popularly known as an Irish folk song, popularised by the Wolf Tones. The song, which George apparently took great pride in knowing word for word, seems, in its mix of international references, could well have been written for George.

In 1966 he spoke at several meetings in support of the seaman’s strike. At the last one he attended he threw his bus fare into the collection and walked home. He died in 1966 of throat cancer. After a life well lived, given over to creativity, art and struggle, he went out the way he had lived, supporting the underdog, the restless and the poor.

Tonight’s session was the last of our 4 module, 16 week taught course. The course has been a tremendous success; Tony Wailey’s inspirational teaching combined with the consistently high attendance (16 per week on average) and the commitment and enthusiasm of all the participants have ensured that the weeks have flown by. The feedback from participants (see below) says more than I ever could about the value of the course in generating knowledge and awareness of George Garrett’s life and work, but also in developing interest in Liverpool’s history and heritage generally. The course has provided a solid foundation for the rest of our work on the project and as a result of the enthusiasm of those who attended, we have agreed that from Monday 10th February we will continue meeting and will now begin a research-based course, with participants working to conserve and catalogue the archive and prepare it for the exhibition and celebration events in May. On Monday 10th May we will meet at Liverpool’s central Library, 6pm, with Senior Archivist Helena Smart, for a session to explore how the archive will be curated for the celebrations in May, and how the Library catalogue their collections. New participants are more than welcome to join us.

In reaching this major milestone for the project, I’d again like to acknowledge the incredible support we have had from Val Stevenson, Head of Academic Services, Library Services, at Liverpool John Moores University, and all of her team, including Anne Foulkes and Emily Parsons. Their support has been a key factor in the smooth running and overall success of the course and the project to date.

Blog created and written by Mike Morris & Tony Wailey, based upon a series of introductions by Tony Wailey to the George Garrett Archive course.

The George Garrett Archive project workshops are free and open to all. We meet every Monday, 6-8pm. For our next session on Monday 10th February we will be meeting at Liverpool’s Central Library, William Brown Street. All welcome.

Course Feedback from Participants

"I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the course, in its entirety. Brilliant. Fantastic subject matter, (George Garrett). The unveiling of the archive display at the Central Library in May, is a fitting tribute to a true working class warrior. The George Garrett story needs to be continued, through its reproduction of his plays, short stories and other available material."

"I enjoyed the course very much, the content was stimulating, wide-ranging and thought-provoking. The atmosphere was friendly and encouraging and the knowledge and enthusiasm of the two tutors was impressive and engaging." 

"Congratulations to the teaching staff who taught and organised the course.
Develop as a local history element of all Merseyside school as an integral part of history teaching."

"Very good contact with people. Classes were a good laugh, a good mix between formal and informal."

"Very enjoyable, loved it."

"I found it exceeded my expectations, very illuminating. My congratulations to Mike and Tony for their enthusiasm and knowledge of the subject."

"Totally new to George Garrett, extremely interesting person. Overwhelmed with all the information. I need to take time to read his short stories and plays to appreciate all he has written etc. Congratulations to the tutors on an excellent course."

"A wonderful course which only leaves you wanting to expand even further on the different facts of George Garrett’s life."

"I feel I have learnt a great deal, not just about George but about history generally during the early – mid 1900’s." 

"I have enjoyed and benefited from every aspect of the course."

"The course provided a fascinating insight into the life of George Garrett. It would be great if he could receive some worthy recognition from the city. I would like to see it included into curriculum of Liverpool schools, possibly developing a teaching path."

"Just fascinating, the entire course has been a privilege to attend. It has truly felt very special to learn about and get to know about, the life and times of a most significant figure of our social history and beyond. The format of the course was excellent, with Tony’s introductions being always utterly absorbing and inspirational. Thank you to all involved."

Big Strong Man 

MY BRUDDA SYLVEST. Words by Jesse Lasky. Music by Fred Fischer; Fred Fischer Music Pub. Co., 1431-33 Broadway, New York,. "Sylvest" was first published in 1908 as "MY BRUDDA SYLVEST, a stage-Italian dialect number that referred to the Spanish-American War"
Brooklyn, New York.

Oh, you heard about the greata stronga man,

Oh, the greata biga Johna Sullivan.

Oh, you heard about the Jeffriesa fight.

He'sa strong, all right.

He whipa fifty men in onea night.

But I got a brudda got the buncha beat.

Got a chesta measure forty sev'na feet.

Got a peanut stand on Mulberry Street.

He's a tough man to beat.

CHORUS: My great big brudda Sylvest

Takea greata biga ship on the chest.

Killa fifty thousand Indians out west.

He no takea no rest.

He gota one stronga grip.

Witha onea puncha sinka da ship.

Oh, it take a wholea army to whip

My brudda Sylvest.

Upa town there was a firea lasta week.

P'licea mana calla firea engine quick.

Firea engine makea root-tootie-toot 

The fire out to put 

A ev'rybody tried, nobody could.

Oh, Sylvesta he then came along and shout,

"I will show you justa how to go about."

Oh, he swell his chesta big an'a stout

And he blow the fire out.

WORD UP.

Calling all Spoken Word Artists, 

Creative Writers, MCs and Poets!

Writing on the Wall are proud to announce the launch of their new workshop sessions aimed at young people in Liverpool. This series of events will be led by renowned spoken word artist, Nikki Blaze.

The twelve-week project, Word Up, aims to offer development and support to young and emerging writers in a wide range of fields. From flash fiction to spoken word and performance poetry, each session will provide a creative platform for young writers to sharpen their craft in a supportive and engaging environment. Young writers will be encouraged to develop their own voice and style, leading to a live performance showcase for the writers to demonstrate their skills to an audience.

Word Up co-ordinator, Nikki Blaze, says:

'Word Up, is a 12 week writing project hosted by Writing on the Wall. From ages 12-22, the project is open to all creative writers: poets, story writers, song writers, script writers and lyricists. This will give each participant the chance to explore their inner creative side and take their writing ability to another level. In May there will be a performance in the WOW festival, giving the group a chance to showcase their work.'

Nikki Blaze – Workshop Leader

Nikki Blaze is a Liverpool born artist who is on a high dose of creativity. Nikki creates with many different genres such as Soul, Dance, Dubstep, House and Hip Hop. Her love for Hip Hop music has given her the opportunity to travel and perform in many places around the globe. With a background in BBC Radio, Nikki has had the pleasure in interviewing a number of Hip Hop legends from RZA, GZA, DJ Premier, Prince Paul, The Jungle Brothers, The Beatnuts, Keith Murray, David Banner, Ghostface killah, MOP, Crazy Legs, Afrika Islam and Mobb Deep.


The workshop sessions begin on 26th of February, 5.30pm – 7.30pm at Liverpool Central Library, William Brown Street. 

For further information and/or details contact:

Writing on the Wall. 
info@writingonthewall.org.uk.
0151 703 0020.
www.writingonthewall.org.uk

For press enquiries contact:

Madeline Heneghan
madeline@writingonthewall.org.uk
0151 703 0020

The George Garrett Archive Project

Module Four. The Subterranean Theatre 1918-1955. 

Workshop Three. The Writer as Activist 1926-1939.

In the later 1930’s George, although working on his own writing, still sees the role of the artist in a more collective way. We know in this period, from the letters exchanged between George and the editor of The Left Review, John Lehmann, that George is writing copiously. In this moment, when all of his short stories are published between 1934 and 1937, that he is at the top of his game. But this burst of activity, when he is writing during a long, long period of unemployment, takes its toll, and is finally cut short in 1937 when he suffers what appears to be a breakdown. He spends, in his own words, four weeks in hospital, ‘half-lunatic’.

The success of having his short stories published brings him offers of work; the writer, jack Common, invites him to contribute to a ‘Seven shifts’, a book of working class writers exploring and documenting their working lives, and Tom Harrisson, the founder of the Mass Observation movement, offers him a salary to become one of their writers. George’s piece for ‘Seven shifts’ was torn up by one of his baby sons, after he turned his back with three thousand words complete, and he was unable to complete it. Likewise, he refused the offer from Tom Harrisson. In the workshop Tony speculated upon the reasons for George turning down what appears to be the chance of a lifetime, to finally be paid to do what he loves doing most; to write.

The Mass Observation movement was founded in 1937, with the aim, through interview, observation, and listening in to conversations, to document the views and attitudes of the working class. The idea was to subvert to popular view as represented in the national press of the time. They worked with up to 500 volunteers, and also paid some people as investigators for particular projects. Their work was centred in Bolton, Blackpool and London’s East End, but also had a national focus during the war when it was utilised by the government to record the popular mood.

There was a mixed reception to their work, and they were often viewed with some suspicion. The majority of the observers were middle class students, although there were some workers and left-wing individuals who took part. Garrett would have viewed the whole project with some suspicion. Garrett lived the life of the worker and documented it through his fiction and reportage. He was both observer and participant. It’s likely he would have viewed it in the same way he viewed Orwell’s ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’, which he felt excluded the informed, or intellectual working class; as Orwell explored the poverty of workers in Britain he bypassed those such as garrett were setting up the Unity Theatre and both politically and culturally active in their response to the Civil War in Spain, who were being arrested in Chester for staging Odett’s play, ‘Waiting for lefty’. So it appears likely, regardless of his illness, that George would have rejected Mass Observation in principal.

When he recovered he moved away from writing his short stories, and became engaged once again in theatre, this time into the collective endeavour of establishing the Left Theatre/Unity Theatre alongside Jerry Dawson and other activists. By this point you could say that George had lived at least three lives. A stoker on the ships, a writer and activist in America, a writer and activist in the UK; he could have been forgiven for being tired. But he throws all of his energy into the theatre, as a writer and actor; like all those involved he does what he can to make it a success. He seems to have had a clear sense of the audience he wanted to reach, and reaching a working class audience through theatre would compensate for his disappointment at reaching a mainly middle class audience with his short stories.

But George, maybe better than many, can see the signs of the next war approaching. And when it does arrive he again signs on and goes back to sea. He’s 42 year of age. Other writers, like James Hanley and Jim Phelan get jobs working for the BBC. George could have looked for an alternative role at home. But it may well have been a sense of relief for him once again to get away. Was his wife Grace disappointed? We know from Alan O’Toole’s memoir that she was disappointed that George never followed the path into political office she felt his talents demanded. George never took the easy path, and viewed any attempted patronage with suspicion.

George was great friends with the Irish ‘tramp’ writer, Jim Phelan, a prolific writer who served fifteen years in Jail in Manchester for his role in an IRA raid on a post office in Bootle, Liverpool, that lead to the death of the postal clerk. In 1937 Phelan, in a dedication to George in the inside cover of his novel ‘Museum’, used the phrase ‘Some come through’. And, although there is far more to come with George’s activities after the war, this phrase could some up how George may have felt on returning to sea - he had made it through, still intact, with his family, and with a body of work to be proud of.

Blog created and written by Mike Morris & Tony Wailey, based upon a series of introductions by Tony Wailey to the George Garrett Archive course.

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 Hope Street). The next meeting will be on Monday 27th January 2014. All welcome.

What's Your Story? with Refugee Action

In September 2013 we ran a six week writing course for Refugees and Asylum seekers. In collaboration with Refugee Action, the group were tutored by award winning author, Helen Walsh. This is what she had to say about the course and her experience:

"I can think of few instances in my life to date where a group of people have inspired, challenged and subverted my way of looking at the world in such a way as my students did in those sessions. Each week I was presented with new ways of looking at the human experience, each week I was forced to pare back those uncomfortable truths of humanity, and in doing so re-evaluate my understanding of the concept of liberty, and question how often and how casually it is squandered here in the Western world.

All of my writers were brimming with stories, so rich and complex and ultimately life affirming, that they needed little inspiration from me. I hope that they will continue to lay down their pasts and make sense of the here and now and that one day, we are able to read their stories in print. I’m in no doubt that the face of contemporary fiction will be richer, deeper, better for it."

The Story of Our Table

At first we thought we wouldn't understand each other,

but then we dovetailed,

someone drew,

someone translated,

then we all made sense.

In my country it is hard to be a woman,

so I just want to listen.

It's too hard to think about the past

but the future – I'd like to be a fashion maker,

I want to be a successful person in this place.

You can use your past to build your future,

but not to dwell there.

This poem was written by participants in Writing on the Wall's Where are you from and What's your Story? event in association with Refugee Action and Asylum Link.

Here is some of the work that was produced over the six weeks, these pieces are a mixture of fiction and non-fiction:

The Sweet Potatoes Across The Stream

The rain had been pounding the earth for almost two hours  in this remote village of Bulilimamangwe district in the Southern African country of Zimbabwe and showed no sign of relenting., when my little sister Linda , may her soul rest in peace, and I decided to dash to our  granny Gwibby’s. The two homesteads were separated by a stream that at the time was bursting in the seams with the dirty brown rain water as it roared along the stream’s course westwards.

We sneaked and darted out of our grandmother’s kitchen thinking only of the sweet potatoes that granny Gwibby ,who was our maternal granny’s young sister, was popular for in the neighbourhood. The thought of the little clay pot by the open fire side combined with the prospect of a surprise appearance before our unsuspecting host made us oblivious of the danger we were about to expose ourselves to. She was five and I was six but we could be taken for twins.

Hand in hand we excitedly headed for the usual crossing point which at the time was only imaginary due to the flooding ravine. Without even thinking we threw ourselves into the muddy water and in no time we were swept off our feet and in panic let go each other’s hands, as the strong current took charge.

As I reflexively fought to remain afloat, at a chance glance I saw my young sister being helplessly tossed in and out of the raging water. It happened so fast that none of us uttered any scream for help which would hardly be heard above the thundering storm and the roaring usually friendly stream turned monster. In my struggle to survive, my body was tossed against a hard object which happened to be an exposed root from a mopani tree that went across the stream. I clung to it for dear life and as my eyes opened, I saw Linda standing on the bank on the other side. Somehow the water had thrown her out and she was sobbing, shivering and stomping the soaking ground in desperation, with fear written all over her face.

I realised that the root that had been my saviour was not very far from the edge and before I could even think of what to do next, my sibling took the risk and caught my foot by which she dragged me out of the water. We stood there in each other’s arms for a time that seemed eternity without a word before we proceeded to our destination.

It was still raining when we entered granny Gwibby’s warm kitchen, soaking wet and frightened. The old lady was so shocked that she spent some seconds just staring at us before she asked us to sit down before the fire .She was not amused at all and she cursed her sister for having sent us out in such hostile weather. Before we could even respond the shrill voice of grandma voice penetrated the air as she yelled out our names.

Granny Gwiby got out of the kitchen and yelled back that we were at hers. The near fatal episode of drowning and how we survived remained our guarded secret that we only reminded each other of now and again during the course of our lives till my dear Linda passed on at the age of forty eight in the year of our Lord 2002.

by Vincent Ndlovu

Crescendo

It was a Thursday afternoon, late in Spring, and where I lived in the West of Iran, snow still capped the mountains. I was thirteen years old and I was travelling back from Bistoon, a historical place of interest which I’d visited with my class. My classmates and I had feigned interest as we walked around the remains of a castle and viewed the Persian writing on the walls. I remember Mr Karamei, our form teacher, being exceptionally quiet that day. Looking back he had been quiet for a while. We on the other hand, were boisterous. We larked around, not paying that much attention to the history. I was already thinking forward to home time when I could slump down in front of the tv. The school day ran from midday to 5pm and by the time I reached home  I was usually tired.

I sat at the back of the bus. Mr Karamei sat at the front, seemingly at a distance from our noise and banter. Occasionally, he would turn his head to view the snow covered mountains speeding past the window, but not once did he look behind at us.  I had dragged  out a couple of empty water containers from under the seat. During the summer months they would always be filled with water, lest the bus break down on the long, arrid stretches of road but now they were empty and they offered themselves up as a diversion on the journey home. I slapped them, as though they were drums, while my friends sang out a familiar Kurdish ditty. I hit the drums harder and harder.  The water cans buzzed in the after burr. My friends laughed raucously. Mr Karamei sat at the front, perfectly still.

The noise reached a crescendo. I had been banging the drums for fifteen minutes now. My friends danced on the seats. Outside the window, the mountains fell away to fields and in the distance my village rolled into view. It must have been at this point that Mr Karamei got to his feet. I was thumping the drums, singing, dancing. I didn’t see him walk slowly, very calmly, to the back of the bus.

He punched me in the face, once, twice. And then his fists rained down on me – on and on and on. My friends stood back for a moment, shocked, confused and when the onslaught showed no sign of abating, they jumped on him and pulled him away. I must have blacked out for a minute. When I came to, I saw the faces of my friends stooped over me. They were filled with quiet relief.

Naturally, my parents were enraged when I returned home that night with two swollen slits for eyes and. My older brother threatened to kill him. If the truth be told, a part of me wanted him to. The next day my parents marched into school, demanding an explanation. “Were they going to suspend Mr Karamei?” “Surely the police should be informed?” But the headmaster told them that none of these things would happen. He explained that Mr Karamei had been a soldier in the Iranian Military who had fought against Iraq. He had tried to save our land and our people. He had been stationed in an area where lots of bombs went off. The noise of the drums had triggered this reaction. My family understood at once, and in a flash their anger turned to sadness.

Later that evening, they sat me down and explained about Mr Karamei’s situation. I was still angry but I no longer wanted my brother to kill him. I felt sad for him.  From that day on, I sat quietly and obediently in his class.

By Kianoosh
October, 2013.

Seed's Story

Translation of script:

I went over to see one of my British friends, who has a new flat which he wanted me to see. He was there with his three hippy friends who I didn’t know. Two of the guys were called Dylan and Jacob. At about 7 we started drinking, they were talking about a party called Shanti. They said it started from midnight and carried on until tomorrow, whenever you want. When I asked about the details of the party they said it was a party for hippies, full of drugs and drinks and everything and that you could stay there until whenever you wanted. They said it was full of mushrooms and acid. I didn’t take acid until that day. I really wanted to try and test it because I’d heard good things about it.

We went to the club, it was a nice club in town. We couldn’t get into the club until we finished the bottle of drink we had on us. So we were outside for about two hours. Jacob took us to an alleyway full of graffiti. I drew my tag up there. We went there to smoke weed with 12 people, one of the girls shouted “Has anyone lost any drugs? If you tell me the details, I will give it back to you.” He had found two grams of cocaine in the street. No one claimed the drugs so three of us sniffed the cocaine and started smoking weed. I had smoked a lot of weed and drunk a lot that afternoon. I had tried cocaine before, so I knew what it was. We headed to the club at two in the morning. One of the hippies, introduced me to a drug dealer who had acid. I paid £5, it was liquid. He put it in my hand and I licked it. We started drinking again and smoking fags. Jacob kept saying “Am I looking after you?” They were worried about me. We went to a house and took me upstairs and made me dinner, mushrooms in a dhal or something. There were strange and colourful pictures on the wall. He kept saying, “Look at these”, showing me the pictures. I said “What the fuck are these? I don’t understand what this is”. I was waiting for something to happen.

It was four o’clock, everyone was outside and one of them shouted, “Everyone knows where we’re going so let’s go”. We travelled from town to Kensington. When I was walking I started feeling different, something special. I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t understand the colours. We arrived at a massive building. On the ground floor, it was a big place full of decorations and pictures, just like the club. It was free to get in. Music kept playing, it was heavy house music, psychedelic music. The room had ultra-violent lights and people’s faces were strange colours. You could see people’s faces brightly in the dark. When I started looking at the pictures, I couldn’t keep my eyes of them. It was a trip, I was going inside them. It was like I wanted to find something, everything was moving in the pictures. I was so drunk and stoned, I became really afraid of the pictures. I tried to not look at them, so I just sat somewhere and talked to people. It was full of hundreds of people I didn’t know. I don’t know where my friends went, Jacob was asleep on the sofa. There was a space next to him so I went to sit there. There were two hippy girls on my right hand side and Jacob was on my left. The two hippy girl’s faces were scary, haunting. I felt paranoid. One of the hippy girls said “Do you want some mushrooms?” I replied, “I’ve taken Acid, will I be alright?” She said, “Yeah they’re similar. You’ll be alright.” So I took them. An old man with white hair and glasses came and sat with us. He was wearing a top with the exact same picture I kept seeing. He brought a glass and started making lines of coke. He was giving everyone around him coke, so I took that as well. Everyone was talking about the pictures. Everyone found something new in the pictures, people kept asking me “Can you see that, I’ve found that. Can you see that?” I went outside. There was an old man, he wasn’t normal. He kept dancing and I didn’t understand what he was saying. I was smoking out there and showed him my graffiti, my tag. He looked and said “I hate graffiti, you know.” “What? Why do you hate graffiti, it’s art!” I replied. He took me inside saying he wanted to show me something. We went back in, the two girls were asleep. He showed me something in a picture. I looked, “What is that? That’s not graffiti”. I didn’t understand.

We kept dancing till about half 10 in the morning. We went upstairs. They knew it was my first time taking acid and kept asking me if I was alright. I felt weird, it was daytime it wasn’t night anymore. I said I was alright and everyone started laughing. I thought maybe I’d done something bad. Maybe I did, I didn’t know. I still don’t know.

Eventually, I went home and was so happy that I was still alive and could still breathe. I didn’t ever want to see those scary pictures and strange guys ever again.

By Seed

A massive thank you to Helen Walsh, Kevin Keech, our sponsers ESF and of course the WYS? participants. 

The George Garrett Archive Project

Module Four. The Subterranean Theatre 1918-1955. 

Workshop Two. A Playwright in the Shadows, 

a Deportee Lying Low. 1922-1926

In 1923, after the National Hunger Marchers have reached London, rallying for a mass demonstration at Trafalgar Square, and have subsequently been ignored by the new tory Prime Minister, Bonar Law, George realises that Liverpool, even though they have forced the Guardians to increase the rates of relief, holds little for him. Blacklisted for his activities, he’s certain to be at the back of the queue for any jobs that may be available. With the agreement of his wife Grace, he makes his way to Southampton and on to New York aboard The Homeric.

In New York he is lying low, living as George Oswald James, he works at any job he can to make a living, including in a brewery (during prohibition) and as a janitor in a Police Station. But he’s not complaining, as this also offers him the opportunity to mix with other writers, with actors, immerse himself in the work of Eugene O’Neill, Ibsen and Strindberg, and most importantly, spend time on his own writing.

It was Samuel Beckett who coined the phrase ‘The Siege in the Room’, the time when every artist has to do time at their desk, stripping everything away to focus on their work. From George’s notebooks, which show how he studied his craft, through to the two complete plays (Flowers and Candles, Tombstones and Grass) he produces in this short period, plus Two Tides written a few years before, it is clear that George is now devoting all his energy into becoming a writer and a dramatist. It is not clear to what degree George was successful in getting any of his work performed, but there’s no doubt that his output at this stage was prolific, and that if it wasn’t performed, it certainly wasn’t through a lack of effort on his part.

As we explore George’s plays we are able to see the clear influence of Eugene O’Neill; the tight focus on characters in scenes in confined spaces; the use of common language; the exploration of j ealousy, anger and bitterness among characters drawn from everyday life. But there are features that demonstrate that George is finding his own voice, introducing his own themes and concerns of justice and utilising drama to explore the role of class in society, and demonstrating, as we also see later in his short stories, a keen eye for dialogue, for character, and humour.

Actor Jackie Gleason

Despite the Palmer Raids of 1919/20 New York remains a melting pot of nationalities and radical political and cultural ideals. George lives among the bohemia of East 42nd Street, and rooms with actors who later establish themselves in Hollywood, including Jackie Gleason and Victor Mclaglan and Barry Fitzgerald. This is a time for George to escape from the pressure he would no doubt be under in Liverpool as an activist and as a mentor and advocate for people in need of support, and he uses it well. George is finally forced back to Liverpool as the jobs and his money run out, but not before he has imbibed all he can about writing drama, and honed his craft. Although there is no evidence that any of George’s plays were performed in Liverpool, that he clearly intended on finding a place for them is indicated in annotations in the manuscript of ‘Flowers and Candles’ where he changes place names, characters and slang words to suit it for a British rather than American audience.

Letter from Millie Toole 

The radical moment, for the time being has passed, but George, and others like him are still working away. But what is radical here? The writer Millie Toole, who struck up a correspondence with George in the 1950’s, and credits him for ‘telling her the story’ in her biography of Bessie Braddock, urges her to tell him all about Byron Street and the Communist Party in Liverpool in the early 1920’s. But George, who was described as a Communist by Orwell in the 1930’s, was one of many, including Jack Braddock, who had caught the wind of change in the role of the CP and had left. George described it as getting another Pope off his back when he left. Many syndicalists had flooded into the CP following its upsurge in popularity after the Russian revolution. Eric Hobsbawn said it was the only party that could contain them.

But after 1922 something happens. It’s the first period of Leninism, and the role of the Russian CP in the lead role, through which all other struggles and satellites were to be conducted didn’t sit well with many activists. It’s likely too that the violent suppression of the uprising by the krondstadt sailors would have hit hard among seafarers the world over. There is feeling that the CP is becoming too restrictive. Democratic centralism was always going to be hard to swallow for someone like George, who named one of his sons after a Wobbly leader Wesley Everest, who was lynched and castrated by right-wing thugs during a strike in America. The seaman Jimmy Breslan returns from a visit to Russia and tears up his membership card, because the ‘poor, working class stiffs’ were still ‘getting it in the neck’. George still sees the CP as a force, but is no longer willing to take part in its activities. In 1928 the European working class movement is divided, but George still continues as one of many who Camus describes as ‘persistent radicals’, who don’t get subsumed in organisational structures.

During the workshop the group read from Act Two, Scene One of ‘Two Tides’. Two Tides, most likely written in Liverpool between 1920 and 1922, is remarkable in many respects, not least of all in being the first play of a writer who has had no formal training or experience in writing for the stage. If he does encounter the work of O’Neill when in New York between 1918 and 1920, then it is clear that he has absorbed it at an incredible rate. Two Tides exhibits strong themes and plotting, with believable and sympathetic characters. Our reading brought the play t life, and provided a lot of scope for discussion and further enquiry. One of the most significant aspects of the play, commented upon by the group, was how modern it felt in the way that George foregrounds and gives prominent roles to the female characters. This too is indicative of his work, and as we’ll find out later when we look at other plays, how he deals with issues of race also reflects his radical concerns. We also watched a fascinating clip of the actor Christopher Plummer discussing O’Neill’s work, and portraying the character Edmund Tyrone from O’Neill’s masterpiece, Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
Click here to view the clip.

The workshop, as ever, ran way over time, but as they say, time flies when you’re having fun, and no-one was looking from their watch to the door.

In the second part of the session we discussed ideas for the celebration events in May, and how we could continue to work in the run up to the Writing on the Wall festival in May, and beyond. We are planning to launch the public exhibition of the archive on Saturday 3rd May at the Central Library, and there will be a rehearsed reading of the play ‘Two Tides’ on Thursday 29th May at The Unity Theatre. In between these two events, which nicely bookend the celebrations, we will have a public display, which is being designed by art and design students at Liverpool John Moores University. This display will be taken to different venues in Liverpool as part of our work to bring knowledge of George’s work to the wider public. We will also launch the complete website at the beginning of May.

Other ideas suggested include: a small book, or ‘mini-series’ of George’s work; finding a sponsor to enable publication of a more substantial collection of George’s writing; asking the Liverpool Echo to publish a long article about the project and George’s work; cycle of performance of all of the plays and a reconstruction of the hunger marchers, or of the events around the Walker Art Gallery. We also explored the idea of linking in George’s time during the war, and his experiences afterwards, with the centenary events commemorating the First World War. We will continue consulting with the group and looking at what is possible over the next few weeks as the festival programme develops.

At the end of the session (as I said, busy night this one!), Val Stevenson, the head of learning and research at LJMU Aldham Robarts Library, showed us round the rooms next to where the archives are stored, and we discussed plans, when the taught sessions of the course finish at the end of January, to continue with the group working collectively to catalogue and curate the archive in preparation for May. This will allow us to continue researching any area that participants are interested in, while also gaining a range of skills including, writing, research, preservation, handling and curating. Thanks again to Val and her team – absolute troopers all.

Next week will be looking at the period 1926-1939, exploring some of his short story work and reading Scene Two Act two from Two Tides.

Blog created and written by Mike Morris & Tony Wailey, based upon a series of introductions by Tony Wailey to the George Garrett Archive course.

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 Hope Street). The next meeting will be on Monday 20th January 2014. All welcome.

The George Garrett Archive Project

Module Four. Workshop One.

The Subterranean Theatre 1918-1955. 

The Writer as a Jaunty Radical Seaman. 1918-1920

This module will act as both a recap on aspects of the earlier modules, revisiting some of our previous discussions as a reminder of the context of the times George lived through, and will also allow us to take a longer, deeper look at various aspects of George’s writings – his plays, short stories and reportage, and discuss the themes he explores throughout his work.

Introducing the workshop, Tony Wailey quoted the poet Stephen Spender, who, when writing about the Spanish Civil War said, ‘Never was there a time when justice was so central, nowhere easier to judge right from wrong than in the conflict in Spain.’ Paraphrasing WH Auden’s poem, Spain, Tony talked of the hope, imagining a time after a Republican victory when they could ‘Take bike rides in the suburbs, under liberties masterful shadow’. Writers like Hemingway, writing in The Spanish Conflict, saw Spain from an America viewpoint, urging the US to intervene.

Artists were hugely engaged in the civil war, as were leading working class activists. Industrial areas and ports played a major role in sending volunteers to join the International Brigades – The South Wales Coalfields, Glasgow and Liverpool in particular.

Less than ten per cent of the volunteers are married men. George, now 42 and with a family of five boys, stays at home and fights the battle for Spain from Liverpool. He helps found The Left Theatre, which later joins a national theatre movement and becomes Merseyside Unity Theatre. There has been an opening for George’s writing; between 1934 and 1937 thirteen of his short stories are published in new Writing and The Adelphi Magazine.

But now he moves away from the short story into drama. Did he perceive his audience to be different? Alan O’Toole speculates that George, like many working-class writers, became disillusioned with this work when he realised that the majority of his audience were middle class. Writing his plays in the 1920’s he found little outlet for them in New York or in Liverpool. Now there is a theatre of action, a theatre of the oppressed, and for George The Unity symbolises everything he is about. Already a veteran writer and activist he can bring all his experience to bear as a writer, actor, organiser and mentor, and when the International brigades return home after the defeat of the battle for the river Ebro, George is being arrested in Chester for the offence of playing Agate in Clifford Odett’s Waiting for Lefty, a play about striking taxi drivers that exhorts the audience to join in at the end chanting ‘Strike, strike, strike!’

The struggle in Spain is the motor for an outpouring of culture with justice at its core. This chimes well with George’s work, where justice, both collective and individual, plays a major role. In one of his earliest pieces of writing, an article called ‘Sons of the Sea’ in the journal of the Red International of labour Unions, he focuses heavily on the working conditions of the seaman, and the Stoker in particular. Here, for the first time, he uses the phrase ‘The Subterranean Theatre’ to describe the scenes below decks in the stokehold. This article, and this phrase, resurface again in fictional form in one of his later works, only published after his death, ‘The Maurie’.

After 1938, with the defeat of the Spanish working class and the rise of Fascism, when the prophesy ‘Bombs on Madrid today, Bombs on Liverpool tomorrow’ is becoming a reality, it is now the state that takes charge of the anti-fascist war. Many of the left-wing organisations initially got it wrong, simplistically calling it an Imperialist war. When Hitler invaded it became a ‘People’s War’, and although many workers, the dockers, the seamen, etc., never signed up to ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, already too long in the tooth to expect any improvement for them after the war, they instinctively understood the need to fight fascism (as they had already on the streets against Moseley’s Blackshirts), and stepped up to ‘do their bit’.

George too did his bit. But, always the street fighter, the activist, the man on the ground, it may have been that he felt out of step with this new ‘people’s war’ mentality. He knew all too well, after the experiences of the unemployed after WW1, how workers would fare both during and after the war. In this period he moves away from trades union based activity, he’s not engaged politically except through his work in the theatre.

In the workshop we read from two of George’s short stories, ‘The Maurie’ and ‘The Redcap’. We were concerned primarily with exploring issues of justice, and how this theme is represented in his work. In ‘The Maurie’, where all the action takes place below deck in the ‘subterranean theatre’ of the stokehold, and in the ‘cracks’ where the men’s bunks are laid out, a thief is discovered. Thieving is anathema to the seamen – whatever their differences, a thief takes their peace of mind, and brings suspicion and conflict. A trap is laid, the thief caught, and a collective punishment is delivered – the thief is tripped and strapped with belts as he is forced down a tunnel of the men either side of him. There are rules – no buckles, leave the face alone, strap his back and legs, but it is harsh and unrelenting; when one man steps aside another jumps into his place, eager to deliver a blow. Punishment over, the man is then dressed and taken back to his bunk to recover, and no word of his crime is mentioned even to the men who he shares his rooms with. In this, although punished, he is protected from the men he works with, and also from the ships authority, as no mention is made to the officers either. This punishment confirms the collective.

Even though any reader would have sympathy for pain suffered by the thief they would invariably understand the necessity of the actions of the other seamen, and see in it a certain honour in how they protect the thief from further actions by other men of officers. What makes George’s writing stand out is how, rather than leaving it there, he introduces a discussion between the seamen where they express their doubt, and even horror, at what they have done. There are voices split between feeling it would ‘teach him a lesson’, and others feeling they had gone over the top, maybe acted like savages. What else could they have done? Asks one voice, and there is finally a feeling of relief as they troop back down to the stokehold to resume work and put it behind them.
 Joseph Pridmore, writing in his thesis, ‘The Man Who Could Not Be Bought’, argues that ‘Garrett does not attempt to resolve the matters he found irresolvable in life’. This is a good point, and is played out further in the end of ‘The Maurie’ in which the narrator relates a humorous story about some of the seamen who once stole a lamb and, as they had no use for it had to dress it up as a sleeping seamen. Overdoing it brings unwanted attention – pilfering from the ship’s stores was considered acceptable, but the carcass was a ‘stupid pinch’ and led to more hassle than they needed in getting rid of it.

Garrett moves easily from the violence to humour, mirroring the way in which workers themselves, in cramped conditions and in back-breaking jobs, have little choice but to find a way to survive and live amongst each other.

The Redcap tells of a different type of justice. McMahon, the old soldier, now seaman, who fought in The Boer war, and is irked by The redcap (Military Policeman) on the quayside of the French port they are docked at. An eight o’clock curfew means the men have just an hour after working, washing and eating, to get ashore for a ‘wet’ at a bar and back to the ship. One unfortunate caught coming back late is fined more than a month’s wages. Mcmahon persuades young ‘Gummy’ to accompany him, but doesn’t tell him he is also looking for his son who is also billeted nearby in the army. McMahon also needs some new boots, which he barters from a soldier, and Gummy smears with mud to hide their gleam from the Redcap. Eight minutes late and the Redcap has also spotted the new boots. As he leans down to make Mcmahon remove them, the Redcap falls loses balance and falls in the dock. Gummy immediately jumps in to save him. McMahon steps back into his boots and watches the scene. Gummy is struggling and seems to want McMahon to help. The captain calls for McMahon to jump in. And jump in he does. But to Mcmahon the upturned face and the tooth-brush moustache ‘epitomized all the insults, cells, stoppages of pay, and untimely deaths that many soldiers suffered’, and so he aims his boots to land on the head of the redcap, killing him in the process.

But instead of being up on a charge, McMahon is congratulated by the Captain, who regards it as ‘Hard luck losing the poor soldier chap’. Now the younger men, who had previously regarded him as an old fogey, looked on him in admiration. The second officer sees a smile flit across McMahon’s face, and puts it down to a ‘swelled head’ with the praise. Unusually for George, it appears, in the phrase at the end ‘Maybe it was’, that his own voice appears in the narrative. A wry comment that lest the reader in on the joke, the knowing that McMahon, in his struggle for justice, hasn’t changed the world, but has won one more of life’s small battles to survive amidst petty authority and its ways.

George gives the workers some agency, a chance to win small victories against the authority of the ship, or to assert themselves within their own collective, but he never strays into utopian dreams of an alternative world outside their means to achieve it. As Pridmore points out, George never claims to know all the answers, he writes of life as it is, but with a sharp understanding and keen empathy for the lives and struggles of the seamen and the workers he lives amongst.

Blog created and written by Mike Morris & Tony Wailey, based upon a series of introductions by Tony Wailey to the George Garrett Archive course.

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 Hope Street). The next meeting will be on Monday 13th January 2014. All welcome.