Stand up for the young people wrongly charged with terrorist offences.
Stand up for the young people wrongly charged with terrorist offences.
The activists who broke into the RAF facility at Brize Norton knew, that their actions were illegal. Political resistance such as the suffragettes, the gay rights movement, anti-apartheid and the right to vote involved intentional law breaking. These young people are against the genocide in Gaza and ashamed of the RAF for supplying intelligence to the IDF. They knew they risked being charged with criminal damage. What they didn’t anticipate was being proscribed as terrorists so that even supporting Palestine Action in words – as I am doing now – could constitute a serious legal offence, punishable with a sentence of up to 14 years in prison. Do these young protestors remind you of anyone?
Nelson Mandela spent 27 years on Robbin Island for direct action against the Apartheid regime. I was at the birthday party held on 17 July 1988 in Hyde Park. It was his 25th year as a prisoner on Robbin Island. We were demanding ‘Freedom for Nelson Mandela’. Norman Tebbit called us terrorist sympathisers. Mandela was released 2 years later and, until his death, supported the Palestinian Cause recognising that they too suffered from APARTHEID CONDITIONS. The Brize Norton Protestors are joining Zoe Rogers and others who raided the Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit in Bristol .
In reality Elbit spreads terror in Gaza and Zoe harmed no one and is a threat to no-one. This kind of action has not been my chosen method of protest but ,when you are young and passionate, you are not always aware of the consequences of your action. All of us were young once and surely recognise that Zoe et al could have been us?
In her blog the author Sally Rooney quotes Martin Luther King Jr . He wrote from a Birmingham jail: “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” And the provision of weapons to facilitate genocide is more than unjust: it is an abyss of moral horror. Those brave enough to break the law in protest – many of whom are already serving time in prison for their actions – deserve our highest respect.
At Zoe’s age I joined the Birmingham Committee for Peace in Vietnam. In my memoir, I tell a story about how I could have been arrested.
One Saturday morning in June 1968, I had a phone call.
‘We have a loudspeaker van available. Can you help?’
The driver was a young man called Dave and I was in charge of the mike. He drove around the shopping streets while I talked about stopping the war. He joked that I sounded like the Queen. But the humour ceased when a police car flagged us down. We had to follow it to the central police station. Dave became increasingly agitated. I asked what was wrong. He’d protested against Polaris nuclear submarines based at Faslane, and been arrested and beaten up by the police. I tried to reassure him.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘leave this one to me. They’re not going to beat up a pregnant woman.’
When we arrived, I suggested Dave stay seated on the bench while I go to the desk. The committee hadn’t notified the police—it had all been naively spur of the moment. I apologised and promised we wouldn’t do it again without a licence. In 1968’s patriarchal society, there were occasions when it was advantageous being a woman.
****
What I had done was illegal. I was young and idealistic and critical of Harold Wilson for not condemning the war. With the wisdom of age, when I compare Wilson to Blair and Iraq, I realise Harold was a genius. He kept British troops out of the war while not alienating the USA.
Older people are realising that it is better if we do the defiance of this cruel action of Evette Cooper. I took this poster to RAF High Wycombe last Saturday.
We pensioners have paid off our mortgages and don’t have careers to sacrifice. It’s no surprise that a lot of those arrested for supporting these young people are retired They include retired head teachers, doctors, nurses, priests, poets, magistrates, even a Sir, Sir Jonathan Porritt, and a retired Colonel – what a terrible danger they are to our society, Evette! They obviously need to be behind bars. We need to campaign for the release of the young people who may not face trial until 2026 but are on remand.
If you don’t want to march or be involved in protests and direct action how about you Sing4 Gaza? The composer Malcolm Atkins has written new lyrics to fit Renaissance chants. This is our first gathering but we would love the idea to be taken up all over the country.
Sing 4 Gaza
While the destruction of Gaza continues,
we ask people all over the country,
starting here in Oxford to Sing4 Gaza
The composer Malcolm Atkins has set peace lyrics to simple Renaissance chants.
Learn to sing them and share them @
The Quaker Meeting House
St Giles, Oxford OX13LW
On Wednesday 10 7.30-9.30
Everyone welcome
Come Together – Flow Together: the only way to solve the world’s problems.
We need hope in these dark times and Confluence Collective founded by Malcolm Atkins and friends never fails. I wrote a poem celebrating how the group bring creative people from every community together, from India and Pakistan from Ethiopia and China, Iran and Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan as well as France and Greece and Spain and Germany. Marian Eastwood who, unknown to me, filmed me reading it, was born in the Philippines. The only way the world will solve its problems is by coming together and flowing together…
https://www.facebook.com/marian.eastwood.3/videos/738207275337957/? Here are the words
Creative Confluence by Sylvia Vetta
Streams spring from the hills
to swell with spring rain.
People come to the city.
More and more people come.
They sing alone in
tongues of Babel.
Come together pleads the man
Flow together echoes the dancing woman.
She dances to the sitar and the guitar.
Male and female voices sing to the tabla’s beat.
‘Improvise’ demands the drummer.
Words flow as the rivers of Oxford rise.
Words from the Tigris and the Indus
Rhythms of India and Africa.
Come together pleads the man
Flow together echoes the dancing woman.
Wells of joy spring from Ethiopia and Iraq
From Bosnia and Brazil.
Mardi Gras meets Bach and Persian lute
Babel ? No Babel ?
The music of their souls
harmonise and improvise.
Come together pleads the man
Flow together echoes the dancing woman
Learn more about the group. https://confluenceoxford.com/ and join us coming together to celebrate in music poetry and dance and take part . Cafes are welcoming and informal.
They shared my edited version of Shelley’s Ozymandius – what future generations will make of Donald Trump.
Maga maga: King of Kings
I met a traveller from the antique land of Persia,
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked the Keirs who knelt before him
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is the DONALD , king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Memories of Helen Peacocke: The importance of my talk at Headington LitFest on May 10
On May 10, I’ll talk about the importance of telling your story. Yesterday was the funeral of the former The Oxford Times food writer, chef, author and drama critic, Helen Peacocke. The Humanist celebrant, Ian Wilcox used my castaway interview with Helen when giving his tribute to her. Similarly, when Trevor Cowlett the founder/ director of Kennington Choir and Air Commodore Bob Martin died, their families were able to use their life stories written by me. I expect many of you have experienced the feeling. Why didn’t I talk to my father, sister friend about that when they were alive? If you haven’t been interviewed by me or anyone else, why not write down your stories ?
Memories of my friend which will keep her alive for me. I used to call us the LE girls –the female contributors to Oxfordshire Limited Edition magazine when it was award winning. We used to meet twice a year for a meal. Here’s a pic of us taken by Helen in her garden.
She was a dog lover and real ale lover and wrote walks to pubs with dogs. I had the privilege of rekeying some of those walks with her I invited her to talk about the Paws books at the Kennington Literary Festival which I organised before the libraries were threatened with closure.
If you go to the Story Museum you will see Winnie the Witch’s birthday cake. Helen made that. So when we wanted to thanks Korky Paul for helping us to save the libraries, I asked her to make one we could give him.
Her food photography was second to none. Take a look at her pics in Green Power the Spirulina Cookbook. She provided the recipes for free for the Nasio Trust.Helen did something exceptional 10 years ago-she believed in locally sourced food and lived only on them for year- to show it can be done. The only exception she made was salt, coffee and lemons.
She loved poetry and booked tickets for us to go to Adelstrop on the 100 anniversary of Edward Thomas’s poem. In those days writing for The Oxford Times was a privilege, as you can see from the pics display anther memorial yesterday. Pics of her with Terry Waite, John Thaw, Terry Wogan, Tommy Steele, Michael Palin etc. Here’s her castaway feature.
Helen-Peacocke408590-b2a8-4bc6-bea0-69dc45a70b91 See some of you on May 10?
Peggy Seeger and Ruth Crawford Seeger
Today, March 19.2025, the composer of the day on BBC Radio 3 was the first celebrated female American composer, Ruth Crawford Seeger, the mother of Mike and Peggy and stepmother of Pete, who sang at Obama’s inauguration. I had the privilege of sending Peggy to my mythical island of Oxtopia. Her life story was long adventurous and controversial so it took six hours and I had to reduce it to 4 pages. You can read it on this link.
Peggy’s mother died in 1953 so Peggy was denied a deep personal adult knowledge of her. Ruth wanted Peggy to become a concert pianist and she could have but it was folk music and Ewan MacColl who stole her heart.
Last week Roberta Flack died. Her recording of Ewan’s song When First I Saw Your face was an enormous hit and helped Peggy and Ewan when their life was tough financially. Ewan had composed it for Peggy and only sang it once -over the phone to lure her back to England from the USA.
When I met her, she was about to start work on her memoir which she fittingly titled FIRST TIME EVER and so invited me to the launch and I organised a second successful launch in my village of Kennington for our library.
Before that we had fun together appearing in a local film directed by Philip Hind supporting KOA and the Children’s Radio Foundation
It was first shown at a Fifties Fandango where my artist friend, Weimin He, made the delightful sketch of her.
https://vimeo.com/64536645 Fifties Fandango
Memoir in all its variety.
Laurie Lee grew up not far from Carterton where I’ll talk memoir on March 4. The audience will know the PLACE but not the TIME.
Following my interviews of Ray Foulk and Roger Bannister for the Oxford Castaway series, both men wrote their memoirs and I had the privilege of reviewing them and compering Ray’s book launch in Blackwell. Artist Weimin He captured the moment in brushstrokes. I wrote Weimin’s story from Manchuria to Oxford via Belfast in Oxford Castaways. Weimin He – Castaway
Memoir doesn’t have to be about every aspect of a life and it’s true in this case. Rays’ Stealing Dylan from Woodstock is double the size of Food of Love but is about one momentous year. Roger decided to concentrate on just two aspects of his life –his sporting and his scientific career.
Memoir can help readers empathise with people in circumstances almost beyond their imagination such as Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime. It was easy for me to understand how that felt because when Atam and I met in Smethwick in the West Midlands mixed relationships were regarded with hostility.
Memoir and novels help us walk in someone’s else’s shoes. I recommended these memoirs for Shepherd.com https://shepherd.com/best-books/memoirs-which-help-us-understand-the-world
Politics, Lives, Page Turners: The Courage of Claret Press publishing Sylvia Vetta and Pen Farthing
Politics, Lives, Page Turners: The Courage of Claret Press publishing Sylvia Vetta and Pen Farthing
I first made this blog before Pen Farthing and I talked at the Oxford Indie Book Fair .
Today’s Guardian feature warrants re-posting it.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/18/kabul-afghanistan-animal-airlift-whistleblower-employment-tribunal?
I love my publishers new book mark. It sums up what Claret Press is about. Their latest author is Pen Farthing and his book is titled Operation Ark. The last government and the Tory Press trashed Pen’s reputation as a means of diverting our attention from the chaos and apathy that marked Dominic Raab’s handling of leaving Afghanistan. Decide for yourself after reading his account telling the WHOLE story ! Or come to the Oxford Indie Book Fair on Dec 1 and hear us discuss it. https://www.oxfordindiebookfair.co.uk/whats-on-december…/
Pen had previously been published by one of the big guys, Penguin Random House. But they decided his brand is ‘toxic’. I’m delighted that Claret Press has published his account of events in August 2022, so readers can make up their own minds knowing all the story and not just the propaganda line ‘Pets before People’. In my opinion, the government used him as a scapegoat to divert the vitriol away from their incompetence. After twenty years in Afghanistan, they hadn’t a plan for an orderly and successful evacuation and the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab couldn’t be bothered. He preferred to stay on the beach in Cyprus. That Pen managed to get out his 68 Afghani staff without their help, is an achievement. You need to read the whole story to understand that this charity is not about Pets over People. 1000 Afghans a year were dying of rabies after being bitten by street dogs and his charity was trying to make that a thing of the past.
I knew that Katie had courage. My first novel Brushstrokes in Time was 10 years in the making. When I learned from the artist Qu Leilei about the courageous Stars artists, I realised that their story was ignored and forgotten –written out of history. I believe it’s an IMPORTANT story that needs to be told. As no one else would write it, and no one in China can, because of censorship, I took on the task. That entailed three years interviewing Leilei and other Stars, a year researching and visiting the places in the book. While doing that I studied for the Diploma in Creative Writing at Oxford ,so that I had confidence to do it as a novel. By creating a few fictional characters, I could tell the story without harm to living people.
I sent it to Myslexia. I knew they introduce you to an agent if they shortlist you. They indeed did that for me. The agent said that my novel was interesting, well-written and a publishable page turner but unfortunately she wouldn’t be able to sell it. I tried other agents and the ones who responded did so in a similar way. One was honest and explained the reason, ‘You are not Chinese.’ They were afraid of the toxicity of the label ‘cultural appropriation.’ I thought the Ms would stay on my computer until a friend told me about Claret Press. In her latest newsletter she explains why she takes on authors like me and Pen. https://www.claretpress.com/single-post/a-sip-of-claret-news-operation-ark-is-out-now
She writes,
‘Last Saturday I set up my stall at the Oxford Indie Book Fair alongside 60 other exhibitors. The OXIBF promotes books and voices from outside the mainstream publishing industry (by mainstream I mean the ‘Big Five’ publishers responsible for 80% of all books published in the US and UK). It was, as always, a delight. It was, as always, bigger and better than before. And its existence is thanks to Claret Press author Sylvia Vetta and a few of her friends. I met Sylvia after a literary agent told her that no publisher would take her novel which was inspired by Qu Leilei, the Chinese founder of the Stars Art Movement, now exiled — like so many of his compatriots. Her fictionalised telling of recent Chinese history lifts the lid on its tumultuous change including the Cultural Revolution, the Democracy Movement and the Stars Art Movement (1979).
Equally, it is a touching coming-of-age love story. Brushstrokes in Time was praised by professors at both Harvard and Oxford and the Guardian’s chief foreign correspondent for China, among others. It was translated into German. And yet, the reason why the big publishers wouldn’t take it because Sylvia is not Chinese. They didn’t think it was authentic enough despite the story being based on many, many interviews of Qu Leilei conducted by Sylvia herself.
Also at the Oxford Indie Book Fest was The Dawson and Lucy Series author Steve Sheppard, who writes page-turning thrillers full of twists and adventure with a kick-ass heroine and a lovable hero. They also happen to be laugh-aloud funny. So are they comedy thrillers? What to call this unique blending of styles? For lack of an easily marketable label, Steve couldn’t get published by the big leagues. My gain. Again Steve’s books have been praised widely by comedy writers and by his growing legion of fans.
And then there’s Pen Farthing. We launched his book in London this Monday. He was a Sunday Times bestseller who fell out of favour with his publisher because of the uproar over the Afghanistan Evacuation. You’d think that would mean that he’d be even more of a hot ticket. But no. He got blackballed and lost not just his publisher but also his literary agent. Again, his book, Operation Ark, about escaping from Afghanistan during the disastrous evacuation in the summer of 2021, has been highly praised.’
To buy copies of Oxford Castaways 2
Go to
http://www.oxfordfolio.co.uk
and click on the cover image.