The Peasants Are Revolting

On Sunday we were trying to think of somewhere to go. One of my son's pulled up off Google a suggestion for a walk in the grounds of Calke Abbey. We'd been there before a few times as members of the National Trust. Its only about an hour's drive just on the border of east Staffordshire and South Derbyshire. So off we went. In fact the name is a misnoma. Its not an Abbey at all, but the stately home of the Harper-Crewe family now handed over to the National Trust. The Crewe bit of the name is the part of the family related to the Marquis of Crewe after whom the town better known for its many train lines takes its name, and which is only a few miles down the road from where I live.

I'll get to the relevance of this shortly.

I use a sat-nav for most journeys nowadays just for the novelty of what different roads it takes me to the ones I'd normally use. This time it took me through the South Derbyshire town of Melbourne. It brought back a few memories. In the late eighties one year close to Christmas. I went to Melbourne with another comrade one evening. I'd been shortlisted by a number of branches and CLP's for selection of the Labour Party candidate for the East Staffordshire seat in the European elections. The meeting in Melbourne was one of these meetings.

The evening stuck in my mind. Not so much for the success. I wasn't really expecting to get selected against the incumbent Labour MEP. In my speech the broad outlines went something like me beginning with setting out my working class background, and Labour Movement experience. I used that as the basis for setting out my central thesis that real change only comes from direct working-class activity, and the role of any elected representative is essentially no different than that of a shop steward - to act as a spokesperson, to lead, to encourage, to help organise, but above all to instill in those you represent that they should rely on their own strength. I outlined my recollection as a ten year old of sitting with a similarly politically motivated friend of watching the results of the 1964 General Election, and outlined the disappointment felt in the following years at the Labour Government, especially comapred with the great events that unfolded in Prague, and in France in 1968, and of the workers struggles in Britain at the time especially those against the anti-union laws that Wilson and Barbara Castle tried to impose. Extending this to Europe I noted amongst other things that unlike Britain many European countries still had large numbers of Peasants,and that a European socialist Programme should seek to mobilise those peasants by encouraging them to collectivise voluntarily, and that support should be given to them to do so by workers and socialists. (After all in Britain even today the biggest farmer is the Co-op). I went on to outline similar ways in which I would seek to use my position,a nd the resources available to support similar self-activity by workers in East Staffordshire.

I don't know how many votes I got, but clearly the idea of promoting such self-activity whilst it would have been undoubtedly accepted as commonplace in the 1920's or 30's was a bit too advanced for the 1980's. But according to the comrade who went with me the other problem was the reference to Peasants. Apparently, he saw people's faces look somewhat asconce at the reference, only recognising it as some form of abuse rather than the accurate description it was intended to be!

On the way home just as I came rather too fast around a bend in one of the many country lanes the darkness was lacerated by an aurora of startlingly red and blue lights. Fortunately, I wasn't being pulled over for speeding - strangely at the time along with having all my mail opened regularly, and people listening to my phone conversations, I was regularly stopped both in my car and on my motorbike by the police for no apparent reason or reasons such as, "There have been a lot of motorbike thefts", to which my obvious question was "And is this one on the list?" - but was part of South Derbyshire's blitz on drink driving. I'm glad to say that I passed, but apparently or so I was informed, about half an hour later Edwina Curry's - she was the Tory MP for the area - husband was pulled over and done. So there was a bright spot for the evening.

Anyway back to the peasants, and the Harper-Crewe's and Calke Abbey. The first time I went into the house the NT had only recently taken it over. There wasn't even electric lighting inside. The house was more like a junk shop than a stately home. All the accumulated junk of a few centuries of aristocratic decadence - the hundreds of birds eggs, stuffed birds and other creatures were fairly unceremoniously dumped in various rooms, a Snooker table looked like it had more likely been used in the same way the Clampett's used theirs than for leisurely pursuits - littered the house. In Russia in 1917 the Bolsheviks had taken over such places and put them to good use housing the homeless. But despite the housing problems in Britain today that would not be a sensible use. We have the resources to build better accommodation for everyone if we choose to do it. We don't destroy the relics of Roman and Greek civilisation even though its ampitheatres and so on are the expression of the lives of its ruling classes at the time. Nor should we destroy these old houses simply because of who used to live in them, but should preserve them to remind us of the fact that they did, and to celebrate the skill of the workers and artisans that built them.

One of the things I remember about the house was that it had a tunnel which ran from the bowels of the house the extent of around 300-400 metres through the front gardens to an ice-house, in which was stored large bocks of ice to adorn the G&T's of the Upstairs residents. The tunnel was not to save the servants from the effects of the English Winter weather when they needed to bring in the ice. No it appears that when the residents commented "the Peasants are revolting", it was not a sign that they had taken up arms, but really was the kind of term of abuse that the comrades at the aforementioned shortlisting meeting saw it as. The sole purpose of the tunnel was that the aristos did not have to actually see these lowly creatures going about the work which ensured that their household functioned smoothly, and their every wish was catered for!

The odd thing is - though probably it would give Edwina material for another pot boiler novel - the fastest groiwing area of occupation in Britain today is domestic service.