Graham Stevenson

The Memoirs of Frank Watters

“Being Frank” The Memoirs of Frank Watters (1992) - the complete text

“Being Frank” The Memoirs of Frank Watters (25.12.20 – 25.7.02)

“Dedicated to my grandchildren Ben and Joanne Stevenson”

© Estate of Frank Watters 2006

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Editor’s note: The text of `Being Frank’ reproduced here is the previously unpublished version of Frank Watters’ intended alterations to the 1992 edition, published by Askew’s of Doncaster, should a reprint have ever occurred. Given the very high sales of the first edition, Frank did not seek a second edition and the 1992 edition is now completely out of print. His family now possesses only a handful of mint copies and has decided to place this electronic version in the public domain, in memory of a great humanitarian and as a contribution to the recording of working class history.

Some minor technical alterations were also necessitated by reproduction in this format. Where significant changes, occasioned by the passage of time, have occurred (e.g. clarifying the denoting in the present tense in 1992 of a certain circumstance), an editorial note has been inserted. Frank Watters died in 2002 and a 5,000 word potted biography on him can be found elsewhere on the site, in the Communist biographies section.

Contents

i) Sponsors of the 1992 edition
ii) Forward: by Arthur Scargill, President NUM
iii) Introduction: by Frank Watters
iv) Prologue: by Jack Adams, Deputy General Secretary T&G
v) The NUM’s submission to the TUC nominating Frank Watters for the gold badge

Chapter 1 “We may be poor but you are not going to be a slave”
Chapter 2 Digging for Victory in War and Peace
Chapter 3 “No, Comrade, your turn will come”; building a fighting leadership
Chapter 4 Bushfires to set the coalfield ablaze: Armthorpe strike 1955
Chapter 5 “Show your face to the people”, the Communist Party in the Yorkshire coalfield: 1958-68
Chapter 6 More politics – less debt collecting; taking stock
Chapter 7 Nineteen fifty-five was a memorable year
Chapter 8 From the best blend of Yorkshire coal…
Chapter 9 Close the gates! Close the gates! Saltley 1972
Chapter 10 New territory of class struggle – the diversity of Birmingham
Chapter 11 He hasn’t changed a bit! Mass struggle in the 1970s
Chapter 12 Twisted and unprincipled…
Chapter 13 Recovery or Reversal? The sacking of Derek Robinson
Chapter 14 A bark worse than his bite. Farewell Birmingham
Chapter 15 A healthy political atmosphere – back in Yorkshire
Chapter 16 The Lyons Bakery strike of 1982
Chapter 17 Nurses’ Strike of 1982
Chapter 18 The Miners’ Strike of 1984-5
Chapter 19 The Euros’ Role from 1984
Chapter 20 “Frank, Finish” – the CPGB disciplines me
Chapter 21 Seafarers’ Strike 1988-9
Chapter 22 The Ambulance Workers’ Strike 1989-90
Chapter 23 NUM Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections
Chapter 24 Jim Parker “pieces of silver… blood money from a crook and a thief”
Chapter 25 Clean Bill of Health - miners need to reverse privatisation
Chapter 26 Life moves on – I marry again; a highly romantic story
Epilogue

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Sponsors of the 1992 edition (Ed. Obviously with the passage of time many of these personalities have changed their roles, retired or died.)

Members of Parliament: Mick Clapham, Alice Mahon, Keith Vaz, Bill Etherington, John Smith, Ian McCartney, G. Lofthouse, Derek Fatchett, Gordon Brown, A. Meale, David Hinchcliffe, Jimmy Hood, Malcolm Chisholm, Peter Hain, Helen Jackson, R. Boyes, Denis Skinner, Stuart Bell, John Prescott, Eric Illsley, Richard Caborn, Hugh Bayley, Tony Benn, Bob Cryer, David Blunkett, Terry Patchett, Tom Clarke, Max Madden, Tam Dalyell, Marjorie Mowlam, Dawn Primarolo, Bill Michie, Terry Rooney, James Wray, R. Stott, Frank Dobson, Margaret Herbison, ex-Cabinet Minister for Social Security, Jimmy Boyce.

Members of European Parliament: Norman West, Alf Lomas, Alex Smith, Alex Falconer, Michael McGowan, Ken Stewart, Michael Hindley, Eddy Newman.

National Union of Mineworkers NEC Members: Idwal Morgan, Joe Wills, John Stones, Dave Hopper, Henry Richardson, Dave Murdoch, Bill Pye, Ken Homer, Frank Cave, Mick McGahey, Dave Guy, Eion Watts (former NUM Vice-President), NUM North East COSA.

NUM Yorkshire Area EC Members: K. G. Hancock, T. M. Appleyard, J. Gibson, K. Capstick, J. Church, J. A. Scott, J. Hartley, E. Millward, D. Hadfleld, C. N. Hughes, M Stowe

Professor Vic Allen

Transport & General Workers Union: Bill Morris (Gen. Sec.), Jack Adams (Deputy Gen Sec), Dan Duffy (Chair)

T&G National Trade Group Secretaries and National Officers: Danny Bryan, Peter Booth, Bob Purkiss, Margaret Prosser, Jack Dromey, George Ryde, Jim Mowatt, Victor McGeer, Len McCluskey, Fred Higgs, Chris Kaufman (Editor of T&G journal)

NUPE: Rodney Bickerstaffe, Roger Poole, Sean Hilliard, Ian McLaughin, Paul Dunn, Margaret Dunn

FBU: Ronnie Scott (President), Ken Cameron (Gen Sec), Stuart Charnley, Ray Bryant, Dave Patton

MSF: Barbara Switzer, Jack Carr, Derek Perkin, Jim Thomas, Ken Gill, Tom Sibley, Muff Sourani, Terri Marsland

Legal Profession: John Hendy, QC, John Bowden (Solicitor), Michael Seifert

Musicians: Ronnie Drew (Dubliners), Sean Cannon (Dubliners), Ian Campbell Folk Group, Banner Theatre, Ray Hearne, Mick Hipkiss (Drousie Maggie) Ron Walshe (Central Music Agency)

Members of Barnsley MBC: Terry Bristowe, Jim Andrews, Mick Harper, David Hunter, Bill Denton, Norman Whittaker, Inky Thompson, Clive Cawthrow, Arthur Whittaker, Rob McCormack, Stephen Houghton

Construction & Engineering Union: Greg Douglas, Jeff Garbitt

David Whitfield (Editor NALGO journal)

College Principals: Bob Fryer (Northern College), Stephen Yeo (Ruskin College)

Personal: D. Stables, Keith AlIsopp, Jim Stewart, (Sec. CP of Ireland), Bill Ronksley (Sheffield Trades Council), Joan Brown, Chris Smith, Eric and Dot Browne, Keith & Chris Bishop, John Richardson (NUJ), Hilton Stewart, Irene & Ken Furnell, Bill & Pat Gledhill, Joe Glenholmes and Mary Pearson, Frank Clarke, Ken and Sheila Capstick, Jean Marshall, Brian Lewis, Clive Fowler, Jim and Maureen Kelly, Rodney Marshall, Derek Robinson, John and Sam Vickers, Barry Hellewell, Alan Foster

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Foreword by Arthur Scargill

Frank Watters has been my friend for nearly 40 years — ever since the days when as an eager youngster to help change the world I joined the Young Communist League. His optimism and faith in humanity are as fierce today as when I first met him (and everyone who has been taught by Frank or worked with him knows how exhausting that ferocity can be!). His commitment to Socialist ideals has made him a virtual dynamo. He is a truly ruthless campaigner, but he has never asked of anybody what he is not prepared to give himself.

Frank’s life story is inseparable from the history of the British trade union and Labour Movement. Nobody has given more than he to the key industrial struggles of our time. Nobody has worked harder to build the forces which brought real trade union advances and hope for the future in the sixties, the seventies and through the mid eighties.

Our entire movement owes Frank so much — even this book, his own story (thus far!) doesn’t give the full picture. But it is important that he has written it, and put his interpretation of the events in which he has played such a vital role. There may well be disagreement with his view on certain things; that’s fair enough. What matters is that here we have a contribution to the history of the British working class from a key participant in the making of that history.

There is nobody quite like Frank Watters. Long may he continue to agitate, educate and organise amongst us.

Arthur Scargill - 1992

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Introduction by Frank Watters

Many of my friends and my daughter Lesley have requested that I write my memoirs. Now that the Communist Party of Great Britain, which I joined in
l938, has left me, and many others, I am at liberty to be frank, informative and constructive. To show how the dissolution of the Party and the creation of the Democratic Left is the final act of the "New Realists" who effectively ended up compromising with capitalism, as they used the Party's theoretical journal "Marxism Today" to reject the Party's programme, the "British Road to Socialism".

I am, maybe, in a better position than most to justify such accusations as the cradle of new realism was built in the Midlands in the l970s when I was District Secretary.

Some friends say they feel sorry for comrades like me who have given all their adult lives to the movement only to see not only the dissolution of the CPGB but also the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the revolutionary Bolshevik party.

Was it all worth it? The answer is yes. It was never just about being a member of any particular political party. It was about being a part of a much wider
movement the aim of which was, and is, to end the heartless, soul-less system of capitalism and replace it with one which cares for human dignity, the main object of which is to provide greater material and cultural satisfaction for those who actually produce its wealth. I am proud to have been associated with such worthy aims and the generation of comrades I have worked with for over 50 years have nothing to be ashamed of.

Many of the early memories are bitter. A childhood spent in poverty, deprivation and victimisation provided the spur which drove many of us on to work to change that system and eradicate its evils. That task is still there. Even as I write these words in the last decade of the twentieth century we are witnessing the revival of pawn shops, and some of the bitterest of those childhood memories come back to haunt me.

Memories of a mother worn down and wasted by a lifetime of constant unrelenting toil, just to scrape a bare existence for herself and her family; of ridicule and punishment at school because there were no proper boots or clothes to wear. Of victimisation at work because of the long memories of employers who exacted their revenge on the children of men who dared to defy them in the l926 strike. Of men and boys bleeding and broken in accidents at work and being refused proper medical treatment because it cost too much.

While ever there are such divisions in society new generations of fighters will emerge to carry the standard on behalf of their class as I have been proud to do. I hope my memories will prove instructive to such fighters by demonstrating what can be achieved.

I hope, too, that they will provide a warning that such advances as we are able to make on behalf of our class must be jealously guarded because the attacks of the ruling class must, by the very nature of the system, grow ever more oppressive.

Frank Watters 1992

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Prologue

“Frank goes for Gold”

By Jack Adams Deputy General Secretary T&G

I am proud to associate myself with the NUM's nomination of Frank Watters, one of a handful of its honorary members, for the TUC's highest award, the Gold Badge.

I don't envy the selection panel its task of choosing from so many worthy candidates for this award. After reading "Being Frank" I can't think of many who have given to the Labour and Trade Union Movement such passionate involvement and commitment in creating a more socially just society. Never mind Frank, history will reward you, with or without the Gold Badge.

Jack Adams

******************************************************************The NUM’s submission to the TUC nominating Frank Watters for the gold badge

Frank Watters’ life-long political activity has not been confined to any single union but has embraced many unions and community organisations. He has consistently campaigned against racism and religious sectarianism, and for world disarmament and sexual and racial equality. He has successfully applied this philosophy in all areas of his activities, political, cultural and social.

Working in the Midlands in the 1970s he was Secretary of the Star Social Club which united the diverse communities of Birmingham in cultural and political activities. The Club bridged the gulf between those communities with popular weekly concerts featuring prominent singers and musicians and a reggae disco which united black and white youth. The Club also provided a forum for all forms of political debate and a strike centre which provided vital resources for workers in struggle. Among those who benefited were the steel workers, the Fire Brigades Union, health workers and construction workers.

It also provided an organisational base for a wide range of political campaigns like the ones over the sacking of Longbridge shop steward Derek Robinson, the release of the black American civil rights campaigner Angela Davis, nuclear disarmament, women’s rights, the people’s march for jobs and an ongoing dialogue on Marxism and Christianity.

The Club became particularly renowned for the vital role it played in the now historic “Battle of Saltley Gate” during the 1972 miners’ strike, providing a base, food and accommodation as well as political guidance for the hundreds of disparate groups which were welded together in that famous campaign.

Frank’s ability to unite all these groups and individuals with widely differing political and ideological philosophies and to win them over to a non-sectarian approach was recognised by Canon Bryan Green, Rector of Birmingham’s St Martin’s in the Bull Ring Church, who invited him to share the platform with Bishops and Archbishops when he held a service to celebrate his retirement from the Church.

Taxed by the media on why he had allowed a non-believer to desecrate his pulpit, Canon Green replied that Frank had earned his respect for his ability to unite those diverse communities and to find common ground within their different philosophies in the greater causes of peace, non-sectarianism and anti-racism.

Frank was born into the Scottish mining community of Shotts in Lanarkshire. His father, a militant with an Irish rebel background, was victimised after the 1926 strike and was unemployed until 1938. His mother bore the main responsibility of raising seven children of whom Frank was the second youngest.

Poverty and illness were no strangers to the mining communities of the hungry thirties and Frank's father's political and industrial activities played a major part in preventing him from getting a job in the privately owned mines when he left school. Poverty, like racism, can have an isolating effect at school and afterwards and Frank certainly suffered from its effects in the tightly-knit Catholic community of Shotts.

He joined the Scottish Mineworkers' Union in 1935 and was soon involved in the fight for adult rates at the age of 18, day release for apprentices and more health and safety provision for young miners. He was involved in the formation of the Scottish Young Miners' Youth Committee, attended NCLC and other socialist educational facilities and was a regular student at the Scottish miners' annual school, winning places to colleges like Beatrice Webb and Ruskin.

He left Scotland in 1953 and settled in Yorkshire, playing a role in winning a National Power Loading Agreement, helping to unify all British miners engaged in this new type of mining, and in the campaigns for a National Concessionary Coal Agreement and shorter working hours for surface workers. He was also active in the campaign to end low tonnage rates in which `take up' was negotiated with the miners and deputies but where payment was left to the discretion of the management.

In the mainstream political arena he played an important part in the election of Nye Bevan as Labour Party Treasurer and won campaigns for progressive candidates at local and area levels of the Yorkshire Area NUM and as union-sponsored candidates in parliamentary elections.

His innovative style also resulted in a cultural breakthrough when he helped to get the socialist black American singer Paul Robeson to the Yorkshire mining communities.

In 1968 Frank left Yorkshire for the Midlands where he was soon involved in the steel workers' strike, organising accommodation and support groups. Birmingham and the Black Country were decisive with their massive steel warehouses and private steelworks.

Wherever workers were in struggle Frank's organising ability was brought to bear, in the fire brigades, health workers, seafarers and ambulance workers' disputes.

Back in Yorkshire in the 1982 health workers’ dispute, he brought the four unions involved together and won them unlimited support and days of action by Yorkshire miners. He was involved in raising over £36,000 for seafarers’ hardship fund during their dispute. He played an important role in uniting NUPE and COHSE workers, winning a dispute over the sacking of a NUPE steward.

Ambulance workers recognised Frank’s unstinting efforts on their behalf when, at a Barnsley Labour and Trade Union social, they presented him with a brief case inscribed: “Presented to Frank, Watters for his unyielding efforts during the ambulance dispute, 1989/90. From all staff at Barnsley, Hoyland and Penistone Ambulance Stations.”

In 1987 Frank was made an Honorary Member of the National Union of Mineworkers in recognition of his life-long service, but especially for his crucial roles in the 1972 strike and the battle for Saltley Gate, his work in the 1984/85 miners’ strike and his efforts to counter the formation of the UDM which were instrumental in the formation of the loyalist Nottinghamshire and South Derbyshire NUM. The Midlands Area NUM also marked their appreciation of his efforts in 1972 with the presentation to him of an inscribed miner’s lamp.

Honorary NUM membership card awarded to Frank Watters

In this the 20th anniversary year of the Battle of Saltley Gate it is perhaps an appropriate time to recall how that epic struggle was won, thanks to the organisational abilities of people like Frank Watters, which culminated in Birmingham’s engineering and construction workers leaving their factories and building sites in their thousands to close the coke depot gates for good.

Frank has written and lectured on the efforts that went into winning that struggle with its historic demonstration of solidarity and the power of ordinary working people united in a common cause. He now says he is proud to have been in the right place at the right time with the hard-earned respect of key workers who were able to deliver that crucial support and solidarity.

There are many worthy candidates for the award of the TUC Gold Badge, the highest reward we can offer for services to our class. We are proud to nominate Frank Watters, confident that his record of almost 50 years’ service to that class in the pursuit of greater material and cultural satisfaction for those who produce the wealth of our nation speaks for itself.

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Chapter 1

“We may be poor, but you are not going to be a slave” — The school of hard knocks and my early days.

Shotts is a former mining town in Lanarkshire, half way along the Glasgow Central-Edinburgh Waverley railway line. In its heyday it was an important power house of the Industrial Revolution with over 20 coal mines, iron works and foundries. Cast iron lamp posts proudly bore the name of Shotts to every corner of the globe as the tentacles of Victorian imperialism reached out to wherever the map was coloured pink. It’s all gone now.

In common with countless other areas throughout Britain, where the old staple industries have been annihilated by the ruthless ascendancy of the accountancy profession in the nation’s boardrooms, Shotts has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. Where once the tall chimneys belching their black smoke across the moors were a sign that men were at work making things, towns like Shotts have been reduced to providing dormitory facilities for their bigger neighbours; in the case of Shotts it is Motherwell which dominates the local economy. Shotts still has one industrial plant left — the Cummins diesel engine factory — but far more significant as local employers of those who are able to find work now are the “service industries” of a large mental hospital and a modern prison which boasts a title-winning football team which unfortunately is unable to play away fixtures! The Edinburgh-Glasgow M8 Motorway runs nearby but, perhaps symbolically, it, too, bypasses the town as almost everything else has since the onset of its industrial decline.

Shotts has had its share of famous sons and daughters. Dr Margaret ‘Peggy’ Herbison, a miner’s daughter and a former North Lanark MP, was member of Harold Wilson’s government and served in the Scottish Office and the Ministry of Social Security. On the other side of the political divide, John MacGregor started out from Shotts to rise to the upper ranks of the Tory Party, holding posts in the Thatcher and Major governments. The son of a local doctor, he began his education at Shotts’ Dykehead Primary School, as did Peggy Herbison. Peggy turned down the chance of going to the House of Lords. She occupied the Office of Lord High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland and during the Assembly she resided at Holyrood Palace. Afterwards she gave her Report to the Queen.

In mining areas it is often said that if a football team is short of a player all you have to do is holler down the nearest pit shaft and Shotts was no exception. Amongst others, it produced Alan Morton of Rangers, WilIie Telfer of Motherwell, and the same club's Willie McSeveney and Bobby Hunter. John McSeveney played for Sunderland, Phi! Watson went to Blackpool while many others stayed with the Scottish Leagues. Jimmy Traynor and Freddie Westbrook played for Hibernian, Alex King for Hearts, Celtic and Rangers, Archie Hastie for Partick and John Wood of Clyde, Phil Watson of Airdrie, WilIie Hannah and Willie McClure of Albion Rovers and Preston North End, all came from the town. Jackie McCreary (Bury, Chester and Falkirk) won an Irish FA medal with Derry City and was coach for our own Shotts Bon Accord team. But while these and many others got away to find fame and, sometimes, fortune for those they left behind the spectre of hardship and poverty was never far beneath the surface.

Even when Shotts enjoyed its boom years when the world could not get enough of its coal' and iron there was a heavy price to be paid in pollution, the industrial ravaging of the landscape, poor health and mortality rates, exploitation and poverty, and, as ever, it was the working class who had to pay that price. Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore, that Shotts threw up its share of political leaders and trade union activists.

The Shotts and Blantyre miners were always in the forefront of the defence of the Scottish mining communities and among the legendary miners' leaders who graced platforms at political meetings in the town were people like Abe Moffat, Bill Pearson and Arthur Horner. Shotts-born Mick McGahey was President of the Scottish Miners' Union, Vice President of the National Union of Mineworkers and a former Chairman of the Communist Party.

In the Depression years and especially after the 1926 strike, the miners who packed the halls and miners' Welfares to hear them speak knew they could expect nothing from the avaricious coal owners so they supported their own welfare schemes with penny-a-week funds, and they subscribed to the town's five bands. The Shotts and Dykehead Caledonian Pipe Band one year won the World, European, British, Scottish and Scottish miners championships.

Though they were obliged to depend on each other for mutual support, the community was fundamentally divided on religious grounds. The railway bridge at Shotts Station was the demarcation line with the Catholics dominating the Stane area of the town and the Protestants forming their own enclave in Dykehead. It was into this divided and dispossessed community that I was born in a miners' row on Christmas Day 1920. The sixth of seven children, a younger sister was born four years later, I was to know little but grinding poverty and injustice for the first 30 years of my life. My grandparents, of whom I knew very little, had fled starvation poverty levels in Ireland only to find a different version of the same injustice working for a pittance in the Shotts Iron and Coal Company.

The young Frank with his mother

My Mother, known by her maiden name, Kate Doyle, knew nothing but toil and struggle keeping the family together all her life. Father, Patrick “Paddy” Watters was a miner, but his political awareness was already stirring long before I was born. He had been greatly influenced by the Irish leader James Connolly and John McLean, the Marxist, anti-war schoolmaster, who was appointed by Lenin as the first diplomatic representative of revolutionary Russia to Britain. His political awareness led him inevitably to play a major role in the 1926 strike for which he was victimised, unable to find work again until 1938 on the back of the industrial expansion fired by the armaments build up to the Second World War.

Frank's father, Paddy, his elder brother, John, as a baby and his Uncle Mick

The house I was born into had two rooms. The front room had a wash up sink, an iron oven and coal fire, a set-in bed where my Father and Mother slept; attached was a small “hole in the wall” bed and in the back room two large iron beds that occupied the entire floor space. Accommodation was, to say the least, basic. Domestic plumbing did not exist and there was no water flush lavatory, the families in the row sharing the use of a midden at the back. What lighting there was came from by paraffin lamps and of course there was a coal fire, which was used for cooking as well as warmth but the problem was there was rarely any coal for those who actually dug it out of the ground.

The main fuel we used was 'mud' - a sulphurous mixture of coal slurry and dust and my first brush with the law came when I was twelve years old, appearing in Court after being caught by the Colliery bobby picking coal from a slag wagon used for making bricks. In such circumstances of grinding poverty and deprivation, it is perhaps not surprising that youngsters learned quickly to survive on their wits and to keep a wary eye open for the main chance whenever an opportunity presented itself to turn the odd copper or two.

I was no exception and enjoyed one advantage over many of my contemporaries in that I had a mentor, Davey Gilfillin, pumpman at the pit and a neighbour of the family. I had been seriously ill as an infant and Davey took me under his wing. Davey kept greyhounds and we spent many an hour with them on their regular exercise walks, he often carrying me on his back. This relationship provided another benefit. I could always depend on Davey for a square meal on a Sunday. He would stew up a sheep's head and, after he scraped the grey scum off it, we would feast on what we picked from the bones. It was hardly Haute Cuisine but it was nourishment of a sort-when there was precious little of it to be had. It had to be eaten in Davey’s house, though, because it turned the stomachs of the rest of the family, but I enjoyed the sensation of a full belly unknown to most of my mates.

Another advantage of this partnership was that we enjoyed each other’s confidence, to the extent that by the time I was about twelve years old I was entrusted with the task of taking the dogs down to the track to race. Of course there were ways and means of ensuring that the dogs tried a hit harder in some races than they did in others and I was on my honour to tell no-one, not even my own father, when one of the dogs was due to perform. The first sign most of the punters had that one of them was trying was when they heard me shouting it home from the track rails. But Davey and I knew and, even if Davey did not dare back it, the ten shillings prize money provided a welcome boost since a bob or two of it usually went to me.

Davey Gillfillin and the greyhounds

I also learned early on that pride could often stand in the way of a good opportunity. Some of the old ladies in the row enjoyed a surreptitious dram of whisky for medicinal purposes and it was my job to protect their reputations by collecting it for them from the pub. The coppers in the change were my reward for the performance of this valuable social service, just as they were when I ran regular errands to the pawnshop - a task that was beneath the dignity of many of the other lads. I swallowed my pride and built up a little nest egg. But the success was also to provide me with my first harsh lesson in the realities of commerce.

One year I had managed to save twenty-nine shillings in the corner shop Christmas Club - and this was at a time when a married man would get thirty bob dole money and two shillings a week for each child. I spent months planning how I would spend the money on unheard of Christmas gifts for the family, a new red sweatband for Davey and a football for myself. But when I went to draw the money on Christmas Eve the shopkeeper said: "I'm sorry, but your mother owes us so much on her grocery slate we are keeping your money to pay it off'. I was nearly in tears with frustration as I finished up on Christmas morning with the usual apple and orange in a silk stocking. I was bitter and angry too as I knew that my mother had never spent a penny of that money on herself but had had to run up debts just to keep the family fed.

I often felt the same 'bitterness, too, when the Priest made me confess in front of the whole school class that I had not attended Mass on Sunday. My mother was a devout Catholic but she often had to keep me at home on Sunday because I had no 'best' clothes to wear to Mass. Often my miserable school days were made worse, too, because I would be punished for arriving late. It made no difference to the teachers and the priests, who ran a tyrannical regime in the Catholic schools that the reason I was late was that I had to wait for a bus because I had no watertight shoes to wear when it was raining.

Frank’s younger sister, Katy, mentor, Davie, Frank as a boy, friend James McCannon and cousin, Elizabeth Watters

Tommy, my elder brother, often told the story of how he carried me on his back through heavy snow when I had just started going to school. The bus driver refused to take us because we had only one penny between us. That's all my mother had that morning and the fare was one penny each. Both of us were in trouble when we arrived a good hour late.

But if I gained little from my attempts at scholarship, I was learning fast in other ways. A cold hearth at home, with uncomfortable beds and inadequate breakfasts, was not conducive to fruitful study but my father was a great reader and like others before I would collect his books for him from the library. I was also good at maths and put that aptitude to use helping my mother with her weekly budget, ensuring that Friday's dole would see the family through until the pawnshop opened on Monday morning.

Then there was the school of hard knocks that, like the corner shop Christmas club incident, had a profound effect on me and my understanding of the world and its injustices. I did not leave school at 14 with the rest of my mates but stayed on for another six months because my father got an extra two shillings a week dole allowance. I eventually had to leave school to enable me to have more time to seek work.

Most of my schoolmates got past the vetting system operated by the Chief Clerk of the Shotts Iron and Coal Company and they were rewarded with jobs on the pit top. But the coal owners had long memories and a vengeful malice. To them the name of Watters was associated with the 1926 strike and the sins of the fathers were visited on their sons and there was no job for me.

I finally got a job working for a slave driver at a crushing plant where stone was prepared for road making. The job paid half a crown a day for a six a.m. start, until 4.00 p.m. working out in the open in the rain and the snow. I lasted two days before my mother refused to let me go again. “We may be poor, but you are not going to be a slave,” she said.

Eventually I did get a job at the pit where my elder brothers had managed partly to exorcise the curse of the Watters name by establishing a reputation for sheer hard work. They also managed to win the respect of their workmates through trade union activities and it was not long before I was following in their footsteps. Some of the older colliers had a slightly ambivalent attitude to my activities. While they felt obliged to acknowledge some grudging respect for my ability to work they were also sometimes resentful of my political activities and achievements.

This was a trait that I was to notice recurring throughout my life and on which I was often later to remark. When I had become recognised as a known figure in the Communist Party, there were many who would not have had anything to do with me because they were afraid of being tainted by my political allegiance; but most of them were to admit that I got the work done when it was most needed.

Within a few months of starting at the pit I had my first accident. Working on a tramway underground, my job was to hook the coal tubs on to the haulage ropes and I got my foot trapped between the tub and a sleeper, badly injuring my ankle. I was off work for three weeks before I was hauled before the Compensation Tribunal, a panel of what the men called 'quacks'; whose sole function was to determine how long an injured person should be allowed to have off work. They decided I had been off long enough and sent me back to work with a payment of £3.00. I took the cash because I realised my mother needed it but she called it 'blood money'. Fourteen years later I had to have a major operation partially to repair the damage done by the initial neglect of my mutilating injury and I have had to wear surgical boots ever since.

At the age of 18 I joined the Young Communist League (YCL), later following my two elder brothers, John and Mick, into the Communist Party. A third brother, Tommy, never joined the Party but was a good supporter. Mention must be made here of John's role in the local community. He was a 'People's Lawyer', specialising in the cursed miners' disease pneumoconiosis. When it was eventually accepted that it was an industrial disease thousands who had already left the pits totally incapacitated by it were denied compensation because they were classified as bronchial or emphysema cases, neither of which were attributed to working in the pits.

John took up their cases and fought for them through to medical tribunals where they were represented by the Union. He also tackled another problem which had its roots in the superstitions fostered by religious beliefs, especially among the Catholic community. They were told by the Priests that their bodies would rise up to rejoin their souls on the day of redemption and they were reluctant to allow what they saw as the physical mutilation of post mortem examinations. The Priests never faced up to this dilemma of their own making and many of their flock were thus denied their just compensation for, without an autopsy, the pneumoconiosis panel of doctors were unable to confirm the cause of death as an industrial disease.

John and Mick played a crucial role, convincing widows that there was no alternative to this expensive and traumatic procedure if they were to win any compensation. John the ‘Lawyer’ and Mick, the Union Branch Secretary, won thousands of pounds for new and old cases alike. John also held office as a parish councillor for a few years but the Cold War put an end to that. Everyone in Shotts said that if only the Watters were not Communists they would have gone places. We may not have reached high office in national or local government but, even if we were not accepted at the ballot box, we earned the respect and gratitude of the only constituency that really mattered to us — that of our peers in this mining community. John remained in the village until his death at the age of 72 in 1982.The whole village turned out, led by St Patrick’s Silver Band, for his funeral. It was a simple, heart-felt gesture, Shottsonians saying ‘Thanks, John’. It was the only reward he ever sought. He was one of Shotts greatest sons!

Two other brothers were NUM stalwarts; Mick became Branch Secretary of the Calder Head NUM branch and, when he married, left Shotts to live in Blantyre where he was welcomed and respected as much as he was in his hometown. He was elected Secretary of Blantyre Miners’ Welfare, where he had a reputation for being ruthless with any money defaulters. Tommy was known as ‘Big Tam’ and was regarded as a ‘brute’ worker; he never missed a shift even if he had had a good ‘skin full’ the night before, so prodigious was his strength. He was Secretary of the local quoiting club and, like brother Mick, was universally trusted, earning the affectionate nickname of ‘Big Honest Tam’. He died in 1987, two years after his wife, Susan and four years after my sister Chris. Mick, who remained a Party member all his life, died in 1994.

Frank's siblings: Tommy, Katy and Mick

Sadly, elder sister, Sal (who `mothered’ us all!) and my youngest sister, Katie, also both died in 1995. When we were all able to, the increasingly smaller Watters’ tribe enjoyed periodic ‘Meetings of the Waters’ - always warm and convivial gatherings. None of us ever lost touch with our shared heritage, our get-togethers always had an element of political discussion, as well as family matters. As I prepare this revised edition, I am the last of the dinosaurs, but I still keep in touch with my many nephews and nieces when I can. For, I have a strong sense that my background gave me no choice but to opt for the political life that I did.

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Chapter 2

Digging for Victory in war and peace.

At the height of the war the pits were working full out to fuel the allied effort and the miners made sure nothing impeded the fight against fascism. Every tub was filled for victory and we were campaigning for the second front to relieve the pressure on the Russians who were under siege. I was warned to watch my political activity as the manager and some right-wing union officials had noted I was beginning to have some effect on the men.

I ignored the warning and the management silenced me by simply closing the section of the mine on which I was working. All the men except four, including me, were redeployed. I won an appeal against my dismissal, but the management refused to reinstate me and the men were ready to come out on strike in my defence. But I persuaded them to stay at work, as I felt the coal was needed for the war effort and that was more important than my own job. Blacklisted by the local management, I set off in search of work elsewhere and finished up at Benhar Colliery, eight miles from Shotts.

It was there that, at the end of an exhausting shift, I was feeling the strain of my previously injured ankle and missed a stopper on the track that would have slowed the coal tub down. The tubs were normally fitted with rings to act as handles by which to hold them, but they often dropped off. Because of the war effort they were seldom replaced as the iron and steel was being poured into armaments and this tub had none, so I tried to slow it down by grabbing the top. But the tub accelerated away, reared up and struck a notch. My hands were smashed between the top of the tub and the roof.

I was sent home with a bandage wrapped round my smashed fingers and at four o'clock the doctor came and redressed my wounds. The dressing was inadequate and my mother had to wrap towels round my hands to stop my bedding being soaked in blood. The doctor gave me a note to go to the hospital and the following day I had to travel to Edinburgh by train. My old Uncle Mick accompanied me.

On arrival I was kept waiting for another four hours, because the hospital was understaffed. But I was eventually taken to a ward and then to an operating theatre, where I became a guinea pig for students who were treated to an object lesson in how not to deal with such injuries. Dirt had been left in the wounds and I was allergic to penicillin, which might have been used to fight the resulting infection. Added to that the delay in providing proper treatment meant there was nothing the surgeon could do beyond cleaning up the wounds and redressing them.

The local doctor was asked by my father why I had not been sent to the hospital earlier and he said he was under instructions from the pit ambulance committee, which was run by the wives of the colliery managers, to cut down on the number of ambulance trips to hospital because they cost thirty shillings each.

I was to pay the price of their parsimony for the rest of my life, as, after six months off work, I had to return to hospital to have my finger amputated. The coal company salved their conscience with a one-off lump sum payment of £50 and sent me packing, because my hands were no longer any use for getting coal for a considerable time.

It was 1944 and the wartime employment boom provided a boost for the construction industry. I found a job working as a timekeeper on a building site, later travelling to work on construction sites in various parts of Scotland and England but I missed home and the pit community and, after the Labour victory in the 1945 election, I went back to Shotts and volunteered to work again in the pits.

The euphoria of victory was short-lived. After their wartime alliance, which had been necessary to beat fascism, East and West were once again on opposite sides of the political fence with the Iron Curtain descending across Europe and the West cranking up the Cold War, which was to bedevil the world for the next 40 years.

The winter of 1947 saw a big freeze of a different kind with the worst weather on record. I had found a job at Calder Head pit in Shotts and the men were again breaking records in a productivity drive, this time fired by their enthusiasm for the Labour government's pledge to nationalise the industry.

But their efforts were paralysed by several days of non-stop snow, during which nothing could move and the pits ground to a halt. The snow had stopped by Friday morning and the Union saw the pit manager to argue that the men should be allowed in to get their shovels and start to clear the drifts from the rail tracks, so that the pit could reopen.

The management were reluctant, because it meant paying time-and-a-half for Saturday and double-time for Sunday. But the Union argued that the coal needed to keep British industry working was more important than the pittance earned by the miners working at weekends. They prevailed in their argument and the colliery was working again by Sunday.

The alliance of the Labour government, with its promise of nationalisation, and the workforce who wanted only to see the back of the hated coal-owners then began to come under external pressure. The Daily Mail, which had shown a generation before that there were few depths to which it would not stoop with its scandalous Zinoviev telegram fiction, demonstrated that little had changed when it began a scurrilous campaign against Shinwell, the Labour Minister of Fuel and Power.

There was pressure, too, from the Americans, who made their Marshall Aid, on which the post-war reconstruction programme depended, conditional on the retention of six-day working in British pits. Western paranoia over the 'Red Menace' was cranked up another notch or two with massive Communist votes in Italy and France.

The miners won their five-day week but the victory was short-lived. Shinwell was moved from the Ministry of Fuel and Power and shortly afterwards the pits were back on an eleven-day fortnight. Stafford Cripps was another victim of Labour's drift to the political right. That shift was accentuated with the election of Hugh Gaitskell as Labour leader after a meteoric rise, which saw him move from being a lecturer at Nottingham University in 1945, to the government front bench three years later. Two years after that saw the first massive wave of pit closures on economic grounds, a now familiar story which has been repeated with ever-increasing ferocity ever since.

Calder Head was one of those that closed and I moved to Greenrigg pit with two other brothers where I stayed until 1953, when I was requested by the Scottish Communist Party to become the Area Secretary for West Lothian. By then wages for underground workers were about £12 per week, a good deal better than the Party paid. But I had no hesitation and have never regretted opting for the job of full time revolutionary one bit.

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Chapter 3

“No, comrade — your turn will come.” Building up a fighting leadership amongst the miners.

February 1953 saw the commencement of my long political career when I was asked to bury my pick and shovel and take on the post as Communist Party Area Secretary, in West Lothian, Scotland. This was not an easy decision for me because, like most industrial workers, I was then normally very reluctant to put pen to paper. The thought of having to draft leaflets, election addresses, membership bulletins, learning to type, to keep accounts, speak at pithead and other public places, presented a nightmare. Also it meant at least 50% reduction in my income, if you were lucky enough to get the pittance a full-time worker was supposed to receive.

This didn’t worry me as I always put the Party first, but I was initially concerned in case becoming a professional revolutionary was maybe beyond my capabilities. All I can say is that this short apprenticeship of six months in West Lothian confirmed my belief in myself and the style of work I have always tried to carry out with honesty, conscious of one’s shortcomings, prepared to listen and take advice. Workers will forgive you for a multitude of mistakes. This was my experience in West Lothian and it helped me again reluctantly to accept that I leave Scotland and become Area Secretary in the South Yorkshire coalfield. This meant leaving home and my family. My Mother, who never objected to anything I did for the Party, was very upset and did everything to get the Party to reconsider its proposition.

The Party nationally and the Yorkshire District, especially the District Secretary Bert Ramelson, understood the political significance of the National Union of Mineworkers being won, or at least insulated, from the right-wing triple alliance of the Transport Workers, The Miners and the General & Municipal Workers. The Transport & General imposed bans on Communists holding office in the period from 1949 to 1968. The NUM dare not go as far because of the strong position the Party had in coalfields like Scotland, Wales, North Derbyshire and Northumberland. But anti-communist intolerance was demonstrated when Arthur Homer, the General Secretary of the NUM, was formally rebuked by his Union’s President, Will Lawther, for a speech in Paris in October 1948 which encouraged and supported French miners in the Communist-led CGT national strike against redundancies in their coal industry. From here on Homer was barred from making political pronouncements and at the ‘Big Meeting’ at the Durham Miners’ Gala separate platforms were erected when Clement Attlee, the Labour Party leader, and Arthur Homer were the guest speakers.

The anti-communist crusade of this triple alliance had to be broken before any thaw in the cold war could even be contemplated. This was the task the Yorkshire District Communist Party set itself in February 1953. This was their first priority, and what was needed was someone who understood how to communicate with miners and how to bring together a group of outstanding mining comrades scattered all over the vast coalfield of 150,000 miners in 130 pits. I estimate we had less than 100 miners in the Party membership with some influence in less than twelve pits out of a total Party of approximately 300 members covering the Doncaster, Worksop, Rotherham and Barnsley Areas. On the Area Council we had only three party members out of 136 delegates and only Tommy Degnan had the courage to challenge the right-wing leaders, Ernest Jones and Fred Collinridge. Tommy, veteran of the Spanish Civil
War, was in constant conflict with the policies of the Yorkshire Area
leadership as it then was.

There can never be any question that it was the Communist Party that mainly made the challenge to the right-wing machine in Yorkshire and nationally. I moved to Yorkshire in October 1953 and by February 1954 we had the election for the President of the NUM, with Abe Moffatt challenging Ernest Jones. Moffatt polled 162,396 to Jones' 348,391 nationally.

The Party had to carry out an independent campaign because there was no cohesive left organisation. We sold 6,000 of Abe's pamphlets and over 2,000 copies of the Daily Worker special article by Abe on wages. Three hundred people attended a public meeting with Abe as speaker and we made 25 recruits to the Party during the campaign.

Following Jones' election as National President there was a vacancy for Yorkshire Area General Secretary. The left candidate was Eddie Collins, a very close friend and ally of the Party, who was Compensation Agent; Eddie challenged Fred Collinridge who was Vice President, polling over 18,000 in a three cornered contest. This was 1,000 more votes than he had previously won as Compensation Agent, but Collinridge won.

This created a vacancy for Yorkshire Vice President. We had a long and serious discussion within the mining leadership to decide who should be supported for this position. There was a strong feeling expressed that a Party candidate would stand as good a chance as any of the lefts. Unanimously, we decided that Sam Taylor, always a great campaigner, should be the candidate. Forty-five candidates were nominated from 130 branches, but only eight were short-listed. By this time we were concentrating on selective localities with large branch
memberships to ensure our candidate would be short-listed. Sammy got
13,000 against Bullough, the right-wing candidate, who polled 27,000.

The next time the position of Yorkshire Vice President became vacant was in 1961 when Sam Bullough was elected as President. This time our candidate was Jock Kane who polled over 23,000 votes, losing to Jack Leigh by 6,000. These two elections for Vice President in 1954 and 1961 highlighted the significance of the NUM's transferable vote system. Sammy Taylor got 8,000 first preferences while Jock Kane got over 16,000 and led in the first round by nearly 1,500 votes. One of the problems we had was the division in the left, whereby we couldn't get agreement on a single candidate, whereas the right wing with a
strong grip in the West Yorkshire Coalfield supported only one candidate. Even so, this was a drop of 5,000 on Jock's previous contest against Sam Bullough for Area President in the same year.

In my opinion the reason for this was that the election followed a disastrous strike on the issue of an increase in tonnage rates. Doncaster Panel, the joint committee of local branch officials, had discussed a resolution from Edlington for a substantial increase. Before Edlington was able to process their claim and get the backing of other pits within the Panel, Woodlesford, where Bob Wilkinson, a Communist, was delegate, "shot the gun" and decided to come out on strike over the same issue. The flying pickets arrived in Doncaster, where they knew no miners would cross the picket line. Unlike the later 1955 Armthorpe strike, which I shall come to in the next chapter, these events were not planned or properly organised.

In fact I was furious with Bob, and told him that he should have been consolidating his own area and then appealing for the support of others, especially Doncaster where the Panel supported the Edlington
resolution. Instead, Woodlesford opted for the easy pickings, but, in the process, undid the years of work devoted to getting clarity along with the necessary preparation for an all-out coalfield strike. The outcome was disastrous. Pickets from Doncaster had to go into West Yorkshire, and then they were evicted by police, leaving Doncaster isolated and the Panel officials had to sign a settlement document. The whole thing resulted in more divisions between South and West Yorkshire miners.

Following his defeat by Jack Leigh in the election for Vice President, Jock said in a very angry tone, "Now forget about me, I am finished". My reaction was, "No, comrade, your turn will come". One year later the Area Agent for Doncaster died and Jock was elected. Then in 1966 he was elected as Financial Secretary and by this time he was a member of the NEC. So we had two leading Communists on the NEC and as Area Officials.

Sammy Taylor made the first major breakthrough for the Party by becoming the first Communist from Yorkshire to win a seat on the NUM National Executive in 1959. Also, by that time we had made big advances in our contacts, and with 30 pits we could now win nominations for our candidates. The election of Sammy to the NEC was a masterpiece of detailed organisation. Even Bert Ramelson, whom I am sure never wrote many congratulatory letters, expressed this in a personal letter to me.

Sammy had to win in the first round, for Sam Bullough was Vice President and one of the four candidates. If we did not win at the start the preference system would have worked in his favour. Thankfully, Sammy polled 1,319 votes in the first round against 1,279 for the other three candidates, winning by a majority of 40 votes.

The Party had grown from just around 300 in the South Yorkshire Coalfield in 1954 to 440 by 1960 in spite of the revelations of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the Hungarian uprising and the ballot rigging in the ETU. Sammy's election was but one magnificent repercussion from a style of work that placed Communists at the centre of things in the Yorkshire Coalfield.

The election of Sammy Taylor was not accidental. It was the result of years of work by the Party in the Coalfield, the union branches, sales of the Daily Worker at the pithead and above all, the growth of the membership over the period of 1954 to 1960.

South Yorkshire Coalfield Communist Party pit membership

Area Members No of pits covered

Doncaster 76 9
Worksop 20 5
Rotherham 20 5
Barnsley 15 4
West Yorkshire 6 1

By this time the Party had become an influential force. Also, we had developed many good non-Party contacts. We were now in a position to get nearly one-third of the branches to nominate any left candidate. That's what won Sammy's election to the NEC.

One feature I remember well about this election was the detailed monitoring of those Branches where we had a chance of winning the vote. On the Monday before the Tuesday noon voting deadline, I discovered that the Denaby vote had not been posted. They had 36 votes; without that vote we might well be required to go to a second round against Sam Bullough who was in a strong position to win as the sitting Vice President and with a very powerful right-wing machine behind him. The problem was two-fold. I asked myself: "Can I get the
secretary of Denaby to agree to fill in the ballot paper for Sammy?"

The Committee had expressed support, but that was not yet endorsed by the general meeting. I spent over two hours, eventually convincing the Branch Secretary, Tommy Ryan, a Labour Councillor in Rawmarsh and a strong Catholic, to fill in the ballot paper with the branch stamp.

Now the problem was that all branch votes had to be in Barnsley by 12 noon the following day. In no way could I deliver it, or be seen putting it through the letterbox. Questions would be asked as to who delivered it, because Tommy had a meeting with the manager that morning. He had no transport, so it was impossible for him or another member of the Committee to deliver the vote. I phoned Eddie Collins' brother Abe, whom we had supported when he was elected Area Agent. Abe was an ex-official of this branch, so he could find some excuse to visit Barnsley and hand in the vote.

Arrangements were made to meet him at a roundabout in Brampton, near Rotherham, at 8.00 a.m. and deliver the envelope. The votes were counted that day and Sammy got a telephone call to say that he had won by 40 votes. This meant Sammy was now in a position to sit on the platform at Area Council and give NEC reports. The Party had increased its representation on the Area
Council from three to nine with many additional left delegates. Alwyn Machin by this time was exercising his authority as President and playing a very helpful and progressive role. He encouraged weekend schools and day release courses in Sheffield and Leeds. Many up and coming young branch officials, and, in fact, many current branch and Area Officials, benefited from this progressive venture. Machin was elected National President of the NUM with the highest vote in the history of the union but tragically he died on the day the result was announced.

There are very interesting lessons to be drawn. Before being elected, Machin was playing a much more progressive role, both on the NEC along with Sammy Taylor and in Yorkshire. Progressive resolutions were now appearing from Yorkshire on the Agenda of the NUM Annual Conference. For example, on the issues of periodic election of all officials, peace resolutions, support for Nye Bevan as Labour Party Treasurer, delegations to the Soviet Union, China and the GDR, and a delegation to France as guests of the French Miners in the CGT, which was affiliated to the World Federation of Trade Unions.

The most significant demonstration of international unity was on the issue of a reciprocal delegation from the Soviet Union. The Area E.C. recommended that this delegation be postponed because of the Hungarian issue. After a lengthy discussion on the Area Council, the E.C. Minute was rescinded by nearly a 2-1 vote. The Council then went on to invite the Soviet miners to attend their Gala.

Paul Robeson, the famous black singer, previously refused an invitation by Ernest Jones, was brought to Yorkshire. On a whole host of issues, such as Suez for example, Yorkshire under Machin was playing a much more progressive role. All I can say is, while we had not made a complete break from the past, at least the right-wing couldn't automatically rely on the Yorkshire Miners' vote any longer and the Party was a force to be reckoned with.

In such circumstances one would have thought the left would have given Machin a clear field over the right-wing candidate J.M. Southall, who later joined the National Coal Board. The other contenders: Bert Wynn from North Derbyshire, Jim Hammond from Lancashire and Willie Allan, originally from Scotland, but now Secretary for Northumberland all were ex-members of the Communist Party. Wynn was the first to be eliminated, but he had nearly 32,000 transferable votes to be distributed: over 13,000 went to Southall and less than
11,000 to Machin. Similarly when Hammond was eliminated, an anti-Machin factor in transfer votes emerged. Allan was still in the race for the final count, polling nearly 159,000 votes. Nonetheless, Machin was elected with 254,675 votes. What must be answered is why the so-called left never supported Machin. This I discovered later.

These three NUM Officials, who left the Party following the Hungarian issue, had been secretly meeting with other, Communist, Officials from South Wales, drafting policy documents, organising weekend schools and formulating left policies for the coalfield, without reference to the Party, the wider left or even the mass of the miners.

Involved in drafting these documents were members of the Communist Party who, nonetheless, accepted a written formulation that the CP in Yorkshire represented the "negative left". That was the background to why Yorkshire CP members were excluded and not invited to weekend schools at Wortley Hall organised by the "Chesterfield Keep Left".

This group mainly consisted of Bert Wynn, Jim Hammond, Willie Allan, and two Communist NUM Officials from Wales. Also involved were four university lecturers responsible for the extra-mural day-release students, a select few of whom were invited to join this elitist group. These students included Eric Varley, ex Labour Minister of State and now Director of Coalite. The main contact in Yorkshire was Barry Yates, a delegate from Rossington, a constant contender against Jock Kane. He never held any leading position in the Yorkshire NUM,
because he was very impatient and in the end he opted out of the Union
and joined the Coal Board as an industrial relations officer, never on the miners' side! He and others were known as 'The Goldthorpe Keep Left'.

The reason I am making reference to all this is to show that it was anti-communism that held back the development of a genuine left committed to change in the NUM. The left in the NUM and the broader labour movement paid a heavy penalty. If this group were so anxious to demonstrate that they could formulate left policies and win leading positions within the NUM, especially in Yorkshire, why put three of their candidates against Alwyn Machin, who had no connection with the Yorkshire CP? He represented nearly one-third of the NUM membership and was playing a progressive role both nationally and within
Yorkshire.

Alwyn Machin's untimely death was a serious set-back, but the field was still wide open for the left to build on the magnificent vote of Machin, provided they got their act together, selecting a candidate who would win the Yorkshire nomination.

Following Machin's funeral a group of comrades met in Barnsley for a formal review of the situation. It was thought that Bert Wynn, Jim Hammond and Willie Allan were likely candidates. Alec Moffatt from Scotland and Les Ellis from Nottinghamshire, both members of the Communist Party, expressed their interest.

Now we had three ex-Communists, Wynn, Hammond and Allan, and two others, members of the Communist Party putting themselves forward. I was present at this discussion and I can honestly say there was no hostility to the three candidates that stood against Machin. The criterion we had to adopt was who among these five left candidates could win the Yorkshire nomination? Without it the left did not stand a chance.

The candidate who stood the best chance of winning the Yorkshire nomination was Alec Moffatt; the brother of Abe who was too old to be a candidate himself but who was well known in the Yorkshire coalfield. There was also the fact that a big contingent of Scots and Durham miners had been transferred to Yorkshire and they would campaign for Moffatt.

Sam Bullough, who was Yorkshire Vice President, was the natural candidate for the right wing to replace Machin. But, Sam was already in the contest for a more important position, President of Yorkshire Area NUM, especially with such a strong challenger as Jock Kane. So the right wing settled for Sid Ford from the clerical section of the NUM.

There were eight candidates nominated in Yorkshire, including Alec Moffatt and Sid Ford. Only Moffatt and Ford reached the final, resulting in Moffatt winning 1,293 votes against Ford's 857 votes. Moffatt won nearly 50% of all Yorkshire branch votes.

Following this magnificent vote, Moffatt was a clear favourite if he had the backing of Yorkshire, Scotland, Wales and Northumberland. Approaches were made to the other left candidates to withdraw but with the exception of Willie Allen, they refused. So the election to replace Machin took place in mid-1960 with seven candidates.

The outcome staggered us all. Sammy Taylor was present at the count on behalf of the NEC. I spoke to Sammy that weekend and the coded version of the way the count was proceeding was: "The sun is shining and getting brighter". Yes, it looked like a landslide with Moffatt leading by 23,000 votes over Ford in the first round, then going up to 24,603. But, there is an old adage: "Never count your chickens until they are hatched". Yes, the chicken had come home to roost and what a shock.

The votes of the last candidate to be transferred were those of Les Ellis, with an accumulated total of 102,000 to be divided between Moffatt and Ford. Before this, Moffatt had a lead of 24,603, home and dry; but Ford got 62,219 as against Moffatts 27,635 votes from Les Ellis. Ford was elected with a 10,000 majority.

What a tragedy for the miners and the Labour Movement. A massive pit closure programme followed, carried out ruthlessly by two future Labour Lords, Robens and Mason. Paynter, like Horner before, became a prisoner identified with the butchering of the industry.

Ford's victory also paved the way for Joe Gormley, who remained in office right up to the last day before retirement giving the right wing a 20 years stint. I often wonder what Joe must feel about his stubbornness and anti-communism, deciding to hold on to the end to prevent Mick McGahey getting another crack at the Presidency because of the age limit.

This cleared the way for Arthur Scargill to break the right wing mould and with an even larger majority than Machin - 138,800 votes against 58,496 votes for the other three candidates. I wonder if Joe regretted this, especially in later years when Mick's relationship with Scargill showed some strain?

What happened in this election was unforgivable and the main culprits were the so-called "New Thinkers" around "Chesterfield Keep Left", who were blind to the radical changes that were taking place in the Yorkshire Coalfield, with the CP in the forefront. At no time could we be labelled as a "Negative Left".

There is another lesson to be drawn from this election and the 1971 Presidential election with McGahey and Gormley. On both occasions the left candidate came from the Scottish Area that was one of the smaller areas and losing members, where the Yorkshire Area was approximately one-third of the national membership and growing. The criterion we adopted in Yorkshire was support for the left candidate who could win the Yorkshire vote. Without that they were an also-ran.

The significant thing was that both Moffatt and McGahey got nearly 50% of branch nominations. In the 1971 Presidential election there were seven candidates contesting Yorkshire's nomination, including Jack Leigh, Yorkshire Vice President, and Joe Gormley. Mick beat Leigh and earned the Yorkshire nomination.

By this time I had left Yorkshire to become Birmingham City Party Secretary. I was asked to come back and spend one month on this campaign. I was responsible for Doncaster, Worksop, Rotherham and West Yorkshire. Arthur Scargill, who gave Mick all possible support, covered the Barnsley area and delivered the votes. What upset me was I could not find the Party. Dave Priscott, District Secretary, I saw once when I arrived in Leeds. Vic Allen was in charge of the overall campaign and Mick, who visited Yorkshire during the campaign, never even made a phone call to see how the campaign was going. Maybe they all thought I didn't need any consultation, but what was obvious to me was that not only had the Party in the coalfield disappeared but many of the "left" didn't even want to be publicly identified with such a leading Communist. A well-financed Gormley bandwagon invaded the Yorkshire Coalfield with mainly anti-Communist material. Mick was defeated. Gormley polled 117,663 votes against 92,883 votes for McGahey.

The Party in Yorkshire not only played a major role in getting Alec Moffatt's nomination in the earlier election, but this put us in a very strong position for the next crucial battle, the Yorkshire Presidency, which ended up as a straight fight between Jock Kane and Sam Bullough who had the advantage of being the Vice President and Acting President.

This was a great campaign: this was a test for the left to unite around one candidate. The result; Kane polled 27,862 votes (40%); Bullough 43,928 votes (60%). Again we had recorded a substantial increase for a Party candidate, from 11,000 in 1954 for Sammy to 15,753 for Jock as Vice President. Then there was a vote for the Yorkshire Presidency of nearly 28,000. In all an increase of 17,000 in 6 years - not bad! Not bad at all.

Before I leave this question of NUM elections in this period, there are other points I must record. One is positive and one negative. This may upset some of my friends, but the book is called "Being Frank" and that's me; history must be true and mustn't wait 50 years to be recorded.

Following the 1955 Armthorpe strike, to which I will come shortly now, a resolution was passed that, in addition to the five Area Officials, five Area Agents should be appointed embracing the eight Panels. The Party contested three seats and supported two lefts. Abe Collins was elected, representing Rotherham and Worksop Area.

In the Doncaster Area, Jock Kane on first preferences got 2,049, beating Harry Huckerby by 125 votes. In the final vote, Jock polled 4,109, being defeated by 155 votes. Armthorpe, which had a membership of over 2,500, returned only a 55% vote. If we had got 10% more Jock would have won and this would have put him in a much stronger position to win Area office before he eventually did in 1966 as Area Finance Officer.

In the Barnsley Area, (better known then in NUM circles as Carlton Area), Sammy Taylor in the first round polled 2,255, being neck and neck with J. Stone from the strong Frickley (South Elmsall) Area, who eventually beat Sammy by 186 votes. Again a lost opportunity! But Sammy was elected as Compensation Agent in 1961. Tommy Degnan, in a more difficult area overlapping Wakefield, polled 2,147. We had a total of 11,004, in a very difficult period. The Daily Express carried a story headed "The Reds step up pit drive" and "Three line up". Comrade "Citizen" Jock Kane, Comrade Taylor and Comrade Degnan were all mentioned, with the usual quote. But there was no identifying the Miners' Union leader who said that, "It is obvious the Communists are using their usual tactics of putting up only one candidate in an area to avoid splitting the vote".

There were, in this period, two other elections in Yorkshire in which I was not directly involved as I had left Yorkshire by this time to become the Birmingham Party Secretary, subsequently becoming the Midlands District Secretary and a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist Party.

Even though I was in the Midlands, I was well informed about these developments and it is worth describing them. Jock Kane retired as Financial Secretary in 1966 and Owen Briscoe took over his role as the leader of the Doncaster Panel. Along with Percy Riley, he played a major role in preventing the Coal Board from using Government legislation on "Standardised Rents" which would have meant a substantial increase in the rents for Coal Board houses, especially the ones built in the 1950s for transferred miners. There was no doubt that Owen was a popular leader and thus warranted serious
consideration for an Area official's position.

I understand that the Yorkshire Party staked a claim that as Jock was elected as a well-known Communist, the Party had a right to replace him. I couldn't understand the logic in this thinking, for it was not generally the way the Party worked in the Labour Movement. Admittedly, if a member of the Party was the most likely to defeat the right-wing, then we fought for our corner, as we did with Jock and Sammy. When Sammy died in 1971 he was replaced by Arthur Scargill, a former member of the Young Communist League, but again the argument was about whom was the best placed to succeed. For me, it was never about narrow Party advantage.

I was aware of the eruption that was being caused among the comrades in Yorkshire. I got a long telephone call from Eric Browne, a key activist and life-long friend in Armthorpe, asking me to intervene. This was impossible, as the comrade in charge of industrial work in Yorkshire, Howard Hill, would not take my interference lightly, as we weren't the closest of friends. What I couldn't
understand was why the opinion of people like Jock Kane was not the Party's guiding light. The feeling against this arrogant stand of Howard Hill was very strong indeed. Howard insisted that Peter Tait from Barnsley, a Scot whom I had recruited to the Party, must be the successor to Jock. I am told that Dave Priscott (the Yorkshire District Secretary after Bert Ramelson) tried to be the mediator between Jock and Howard. He visited Jock to explain that the decision
to support Peter Tait had his backing also. I don't think Dave Priscott had a clue about Jock's temperament. I understand Jock's reply was short: "So we have two stupid bastards!", meaning Hill and Priscott. That should have made Dave re-think.

I have always operated a golden rule: consult the comrades who have to argue for the Party's line. It wasn't Howard Hill or Dave Priscott that faced a barrage of abuse, knowing well what could and did happen. Neither Peter Tait nor Owen Briscoe was short-listed in the end and a member of the staff, Raymond Horbury, who was head of the Finance Department, was elected in a three-cornered contest.

This was the first time in Yorkshire since 1954 that a left candidate was not short-listed. This was disastrous and certainly wouldn't have happened if I had still been in the Coalfield. I got a phone call from the Yorkshire District asking if I would call in to see Peter when visiting my wife Freda's family in Leeds. This I did, but the more I heard what was happening the more I became convinced
that it was a wrong decision and that there was no need for it. Coming up was the position of Yorkshire Area Secretary, as Schofield was due to retire. Unity around Owen Briscoe was absolutely vital. Peter would have been a natural candidate for either Yorkshire Secretary, or the Area Financial Secretary if Owen decided later to go for General Secretary. As it worked out Owen became General Secretary and Peter Tait never won office. Peter then left the Party to take up a position in the International Miners' Federation, offered to him by Joe
Gormley, following another disastrous defeat in the election for Vice President of the Yorkshire Area which was won by Jack Taylor, an outsider, who went on to play a vital role in the 1980s whilst Peter faded away. The Party had displayed a shortsighted view of what was possible in the best interests of left unity. Not for the first time.

I left Yorkshire in 1968 not for any political difference, but there was a school of thought that the Party was well established in the Yorkshire Coalfield and I needed a change after 15 years struggling to get my pittance of a wage, often not in receipt of it, and I was married with two children by that time.

Maybe if some of the Soviet money which we are now being told about had been channelled into the South Yorkshire Coalfield, guaranteeing at least my pittance of a salary, my leaving could have been delayed. I am confident that the divisions between Owen Briscoe and Peter Tait wouldn't have happened and Mick McGahey would have had a Party campaigning for him in 1971, instead of empty promises from the Yorkshire District of the Communist Party about the importance of retaining influence in the coalfield.

All I can say is that my conscience is clear. I was never in receipt of any help from the Party Centre and certainly not one penny came our way in the Midlands when we were struggling to build a Social Club, imaginatively bringing the Party's image into the 20th Century.

On and off I kept up connections with the coalfield as when I helped out in Arthur Scargill's various elections; Compensation Agent, Yorkshire President, National President twice, so no one can say that Scargill never tested the water. I can't think of any Area or National Official that has such a record. He was a smashing campaigning candidate, but the agony I had to go through waiting for the result. It was a good job I was a super-optimist or I would not have been able to write these memoirs.

The other time I returned during my period in the Midlands was after a large delegation of Communist and left NEC miners invaded King Street (the headquarters of the Communist Party) requesting Johnny Gollan, the General Secretary, to release me from the Midlands to work on Owen Briscoe's election for General Secretary. Johnny was shortly after to pay a visit to Harry Bourne, Midlands District Secretary who was seriously ill and in fact died later, and so met me in the Midlands.

Johnny wanted my opinion. I said that I was always prepared to help out, but I thought Owen could win with the team he had in Yorkshire. Johnny posed a key question to me - what if we have divisions in the Party, such as we have had since you left and Briscoe is defeated? Gollan answered himself that the Party would be held responsible. Therefore, in these circumstances, if my wife areed, I should go to Yorkshire to help out.

All I can say is that we won easily, but the most heartening factor was the warmth and welcome I got from the mining lads then and any time I was involved. The same applies since 1981, when I came back to Yorkshire for good and helped record a proud history that has enriched the Labour Movement, irrespective of what some say about the 1984/85 strike.

There are many other aspects of my work in South Yorkshire that put the Party on the map, especially our work winning two seats on the Thorne Rural District Council. This I will deal with later to put an end to the myth that my period in the Yorkshire Coalfield from 1953 to 1968 was mainly trying to win positions in the National Union of Mineworkers and that other aspects of Party activities were neglected.

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Chapter 4
“Bushfires to set the coalfield ablaze – the Armthorpe strike of May 1955

I have made passing reference to the Armthorpe pit strike, which took place in May 1955, and this campaign warrants a little more detailed examination. When I arrived in Yorkshire in 1953, I discovered that the Coalfield was rife with rank and file militancy. This revolved around a system where pieceworkers' wages weren't fully related to the amount of coal produced. Nearly half was made up in a multitude of allowances. These were negotiated at the point of production.

Progressive deputies, wanting to get the face cleared off, would agree with pool leaders on what these allowances should be. Other deputies, who were not so progressive, and, afraid of management, were in constant battle with the lads. On top of that the management could all too often easily over-ride these local agreements and withdraw special payments.

In 1954, the Yorkshire Coalfield had more stoppages than the rest of the country and the highest number in the post-war period. I can only describe them like "bushfires", flaming up in every part of the coalfield. There were no Area Agents only Area Officials, who were incapable of dealing with the volume of disputes and, in some cases, so discredited they did not dare to show their faces at the collieries, it was left to Branch Officials to negotiate with local management.

I attended many of these meetings, reporting news stories based on them to the Daily Worker and generally testing the atmosphere. I was convinced that some day we would get the right pit, with leadership and rank and file support, which would end the "bushfires" and set the entire coalfield ablaze.

By this time Alwyn Machin had taken over from Ernest Jones. It was obvious Machin had direct contact with the Coal Board and was able to get some satisfactory settlements. I always remember him saying. "If I don't get a satisfactory settlement, I promise you that I will resign". I knew the magnitude of the strikes was growing and some day he would regret those words. That day came in May 1955 when the Armthorpe branch decided to call a halt. A special Doncaster Panel was called that weekend which decided to support any action undertaken by the Armthorpe miners.

Eric Browne, Betty Kane, Arthur Scargill and the Armthorpe banner, proudly featuring Jock Kane

Machin was given a very rough ride when he attended a mass meeting in a field behind the Taddy pub one Sunday morning. He was the only Area Official present and pleaded that he knew all about the men's problems because he had first-hand information from his son who was a face worker at Thorne pit. The men shouted him down, saying he should be ashamed of himself allowing his own son to work under such conditions for terrible wages. The following day another mass meeting was held in Armthorpe. All the Doncaster pits were represented to carry out the Panel's decision. I have never witnessed such a mass gathering of men determined to end once and for all the uncertainty of what wages they would receive. I managed to get into the meeting, while hundreds had to wait outside. Jock Kane was President of Armthorpe and he introduced the platform, including the Panel representatives. He gave a brief report of the dispute and highlighted the Panel's support for action, but made the point that of course that would depend on the outcome of the meeting. Area and Panel officials who had turned up to speak against the strike changed their minds when they gauged the mood of the meeting.

Representing Yorkshire NUM was Fred Collinridge, who was the most hated and vicious right wing leader; not only incompetent, but lazy and never available when needed. Along with him was Alwyn Machin. Alwyn, who came from the Doncaster Area, of course had a reputation as a militant – a new type of leader, with a fair intellectual capacity. He started in his usual way. "I can understand the frustration. Working so hard, sometimes in wet conditions, dangerous roofing, breakdowns etc., expecting to receive the amount of allowance agreed between your representative and the deputy, and only to discover either the manager or the under-manager has pencilled it out. I can assure you, if I don't get these reductions restored, I will resign".

Well, only a Hampden roar could be compared with this spontaneous reply, "Resign now because you have had since last week to rectify this problem!!" That's what the lads roared out. Then Jock Kane called for order and said, "Mr Collinridge, our General Secretary, has a brilliant idea to get a proper consensus of this meeting. He has brought ballot papers for you to declare support or no support for strike". Can you imagine the reaction towards this hated and discredited official? Again Kane had to appeal for order and then went on to put the boot into Collinridge. In his usual sarcastic and laconic way Jock said: "Now lads, get your pencil out of your pocket - get your jacket over your head to ensure no-one sees how you vote." He then turned to Collinridge and said: "Fred, there is only one way we vote at Armthorpe - show of hands and you know what to do with your ballot paper." A massive cloud of hands for action went up. The coalfield was waiting for this. Doncaster pits had met that weekend and all endorsed the Panel decision to support Armthorpe. But the problem was West Yorkshire.

Here the idea of the "Flying Pickets" was tried out. Fortunately enough, the Branch Committee was united in support of the flying pickets. So there was no shortage of money for breakfast in the pit canteens, or petrol allowance. A prosperous home coal scheme of which Kane was the Secretary delivered the goods. The invasion of the West Yorkshire pits by the Doncaster lads did lead to one minor setback, however. The flying pickets took their payslips with them to show to the West Yorkshire lads but the tactic backfired when they discovered that the West Yorkshire pits were getting paid even less than they were themselves! It did not deter them, though, and picketing proceeded but the Doncaster lads stopped waving their payslips about!

Within days the Coalfield was at a standstill. A special Council meeting was called on the following Monday, but Armthorpe was not included. Arthur Horner, a life-long Communist, was the national General Secretary and had a good relationship with Bill Sales who was National Industrial Relations Officer for the NCB. (Sales was one of the few Coal Board personnel committed to the industry and the success of nationalisation.) Horner was invited to address this Council, but it became clear the delegates did not dare to vote to return to work without the agreement of Armthorpe who were excluded from the meeting.

Now the behind the scenes diplomacy was to be tried. The Armthorpe Branch Committee was in the Royal Hotel in Barnsley, a few hundred yards from the Miners Offices. Horner sent one of the staff down to invite Kane to meet him privately. Both Kane and Horner were old buddies and both members of the Communist Party. Kane's reaction was however supremely principled: - "I have no objection to meeting the General Secretary, but not unless he is prepared to meet all members of the Branch Committee." This Horner could not do, because by this time the strategy of the right wing was to isolate the Armthorpe branch and take disciplinary action against a group of the strike leaders, including Jock Kane.

Both Bert Ramelson and myself were daily involved. The Daily Worker sent George Sinfield to cover the strike. George resented the fact that Bert and I would call at his hotel about 7.00 a.m. to meet Kane and review what was needed. Here is when the Party was so vital. By this time we had grown in numbers and contacts in Yorkshire, and the Party nationally was following the dispute with great interest. A defeat, with the prospects of Kane and others expelled out of the Union and out of the industry, would be disastrous.

When Horner returned to London he made it clear to Bill Sales, NCB National Industrial Officer, that the NCB would never have peace in that coalfield as long as a large percentage of piece workers' wages were made up with allowances; and that management should not have the right to reject allowances without knowing the real nature of working conditions as agreed by the Deputy and the men's representatives. I understand that a meeting between Horner and Sales took place where all the three issues were settled: i.e. a) The right to negotiate allowances on the job without senior management interference; b) A substantial increase in tonnage rate c) An Area Water Agreement, when required to work in wet conditions.

By Wednesday, Horner couldn't understand why the coalfield was still stood when all demands were agreed upon and he asked the Industrial Department of the Communist Party to find out why Armthorpe was still on strike. What he did not realise was that the Area Officials did not want a settlement, but revenge for their humiliating experience at that meeting in Armthorpe.

On the following Wednesday, when the strike was in its second week and still solid, I picked up a small news item in the Doncaster Post which said that Horner and Sales had met and agreed to meet the demands of the strike. This appeared only in the early edition that was rarely read except by punters looking for the day's race cards. The problem was how to confirm this report. Another special Council was called on the Thursday. Before the Council meeting, I visited Allen Beaney, the delegate from Hickleton, and looked upon as the father of the Council; Beaney was a very capable orator. Again Armthorpe was not invited. When Machin opened the meeting, Beaney moved a point of order that he had a press cutting on which he wanted some clarification. This was agreed; Beaney read it out and asked Machin if he had received any correspondence from Horner confirming a meeting that had taken place with an agreed settlement. Machin said there was some correspondence regarding a discussion with Horner and Sales. He was then asked to read the correspondence out. Beaney then moved that a copy of this letter be delivered immediately by hand to all Branch Secretaries and that all Panels meet over the weekend to consider returning to work based on this agreed settlement.

Machin, I understand, was livid. Eddie Collins, who was Compensation Agent and one of the five Officials, was not informed. Once we had an official copy it was all over bar the shouting. But wait. The purpose of the Special Council was not only to isolate Armthorpe, but to discipline the strike leaders. The following morning a meeting of all the five officials took place and, with the exception of Eddie Collins, they agreed to discipline five leaders including Jock Kane. Eddie always left his office dead on 12 noon for his lunch and we had a special rendezvous where we would meet. Eddie was nearly in tears at the thought of these lads being victimised by his Union.

Now here was a real problem. The strike had lasted two weeks and the signs of financial strains were appearing among the lads. We had won a resounding victory against the Coal Board and now we had to fight our own Union. All the Panels were meeting that night. How could I deliver this news without disclosing its source? The answer was a simple resolution: "that all pits resume work on Monday, provided there was no victimisation either by the Board or the Union."

The problem was both time and distance of travel. I was in Barnsley. To get to Armthorpe meant I would require two buses. I also had to get to Thurcroft and Worksop, for their Panels were meeting that night, and we wanted as many of the Panels as possible passing a similar resolution. I was in digs at the home of Norman Greenfield, who always had a big car. I had passed my driving test but had no car. I went into Norman's, took his car keys, knowing he wouldn't be home until 6 o'clock. I phoned Bert Ramelson and asked him to ask Bob Wilkinson to cover the West Yorkshire Panel. I also asked him to be at Norman's house before 6 p.m. to defend me. Norman didn't object, but what an experience! I hadn't driven a big car. Norman was a very big man and I couldn't adjust the driving seat. I drove that car over 60 miles with my legs fully stretched out. There are those comrades who have since remarked that driving with me when my feet were touching the floor could be an even more terrifying experience!

Then I had another problem, when I arrived at Jock's house there was no one in. I dare not go to the pub, where the strike committee had its headquarters. By the way, Jock had a golden rule ... you never drank even a pint of beer when you were leading a dispute. I phoned the pub hoping Jock or someone friendly would answer. But no such luck, it was Joe Cole, the Branch Secretary, who never had the guts for a struggle. Even so, Joe had developed a liking for George Sinfield, who was one of the best industrial correspondents. This is how the conversation went:
F.W. "Can I speak to Mr Kane."
J. Cole. "Mr Kane is busy."
F.W. "I know, but it's important."
J. Cole. "Is that you George, I will get him."

Kane came to the phone, by this time I had a lather of sweat with the car problems and worry as to whether Cole would detect it was me. Don't ask me how I did it, but it worked. When Kane answered he said: "What do you want George?" I said: "It's me." He said: "Jesus Christ! What are you playing at, trying to imitate George Sinfield?" My normal accent was and is distinctly Scottish. George was obviously a Londoner when you heard him talk. The sweat by this time was dropping off my nose - when I told him the problem he readily agreed to try to get the resolution carried at the Panel. Then I was off to Thurcroft and Worksop, another 20 miles each way with my legs fully stretched.

In the evening I got Norman to take me into Doncaster to meet Jock and George in the Danum Hotel. There is no one I have ever known who can put on a poker face better than Jock Kane. I hadn't got over my earlier experience and was wondering if Cole had spilled the beans that I had had a special message for Kane and wouldn't divulge it to him.

Both of them walked in - George Sinfield and Jock. I said, "How did it go?" Kane replied, "How did it go? We have worked our bollocks off, our lads have been kicked from pillar to post and you had to put your stupid foot in it!!" He kept on and on, George claims he could see my red face turning green. At that he burst out laughing and told Kane to stop it then ordered me a large Drambuie. Kane then unravelled the story. After he returned to the other side of the bar, where Joe Cole was standing, Cole said: "Did you get George"? Kane said: "Yes, it was nothing" and Cole then said: "There is one thing about George you can always tell. It's sure to be him by his cockney accent."

All’s well that ends well. Sales then decided to come into Yorkshire as NCB Chairman. The coalfield was never the same, but as long as you have a piecework system you will always have "rag-ups". Hence, we saw the need to step up the fight in all coalfields for the campaign for a National Power Loading Agreement where miners had a common wage-rate that also unified all face workers. That was the corner stone that led to the 1972 strike, and it became one of our major tasks.

The next campaign was to build on our success and make sure the branch elections in June reflected the new mood of confidence. This we did and we increased our representation on the Council from three to nine. We also got a decision that each Area would have a full-time Agent. Now was the chance to test the support we had in the coalfield.

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Chapter 5 “Show your face to the people” - Campaigning for the Party in the Yorkshire Coalfield: 1958-68

The reader would up to now be forgiven for getting the impression that the only field of activity the CP in South Yorkshire concentrated upon was in bringing about a radical change in the balance of forces within the NUM, especially in the Yorkshire Area.

This was of course was our immediate objective, but building the Party was vital. Even so we couldn't work in isolation from the many international events, which occurred during this period. All of which posed the most difficult problems for the British CP since it was formed in 1920.

In the early months of 1956 the revelations of Nikita Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CP of the Soviet Union shocked the world's Communist Parties. He revealed, in a secret session, many of the crimes of Stalin in the years immediately before the 2nd World War and the years that followed. Then, in the summer of 1956, the Soviet Army invaded Hungary; and Britain, France and Israel embroiled themselves in the Suez disaster. During these three years the British Communist Party lost nearly 8,000 members; many were intellectuals and Jewish comrades who joined the Party during the war years, especially after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941.

These revelations not only affected this group of Communists, but many blue and white-collar workers. Many Trade Union leaders, such as John Horner, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades' Union, left, as did Alec Moffatt of the Scottish NUM, although he re-joined later. Bert Wynn (Derbyshire), Jim Hammond (Lancashire), Willie Allan (Northumberland) and Lawrence Daly (Scotland), were all Communist Party members from the NUM who resigned.

In Yorkshire, we had maybe the most difficult and toughest internal struggles in all the areas of the British Communist Party. We had a powerful group of intellectuals, E.P. Thompson, John Saville, and John Hughes, along with other academics. Some of these were well known as Communists, others who had kept their heads very low because of the anti-Communist atmosphere of the McCarthy years, suddenly allowed their names to appear publicly.

The launching pad for a new theoretical journal, called "The Reasoner", was in Yorkshire. This was to provide an in-depth analysis of what went wrong in the Soviet Union. They challenged the concept of democratic centralism primarily to acquire facilities within the Party to distribute the journal, with no Party control over the content and editorial policy.

The final outcome was that the journal did appear, but it was short-lived because it had no common political or ideological base. It was a pity these comrades left the Party, because by this time the British Communist Party was taking a more critical view of events in the Soviet Union and agreed to publish a monthly journal, "Marxism Today", a discussion and theoretical journal edited by James Klugmann. He, along with other intellectuals in Yorkshire, such as Arnold Kettle, Ron and Joan Bellamy, Tom Driver, Bill Moore, and District Secretary and District Organiser Bert and Marian Ramelson, were no mean students of Marxism. Industrial workers such as Jock Kane, Sammy Taylor, Bill Carr from the NUM and engineers' rank and file leaders George Caborn and Herbert Howarth, Hymie Besser and other comrades in the Leeds area, joined in defending the unity of the Party. These together may have been able for a time to fill the major gap in the Communist Party’s intellectual leadership, following the death of key theorist James Klugmann, after which Marxism Today, the journal he had edited, was high jacked from the Party and then played a major role in the diminution of the Marxism in the CPGB and its programme, "The British Road to Socialism".

There were big divisions among the full-time staff in the Yorkshire Communist Party. In Leeds, where we had a large Jewish membership, especially in the clothing industry and our comrades had a rough time. What made matters worse for them was that the Leeds Secretary of the Party, Jim Roche, could not come to terms with the revelations and later left the Party.

In Sheffield, where the leadership was also weak, it needed industrial workers like George Caborn, Herbert Howarth and others who had a massive industrial influence in the city, finally had to intervene to hold the Party together and to get on with the task of defending workers' conditions and fighting the run-down in engineering and steel.

In South Yorkshire we had our problems. An up-and-coming young writer from Thurcroft, near Rotherham, Len Doherty, resigned. He featured me as a character, thinly disguised as "Frank Wells" in one of his books. Len at this time was under the influence of other Communist writers, like the now famous Doris Lessing. Len was enjoying the social snobbery of his regular weekends in London with the literary elite. Looking back, and especially on the other tragic issue of Soviet intervention - in Czechoslovakia - this experience helped me to reject the notion of the infallibility of Marxist leaders, just as I had previously rejected the notion of Papal infallibility which the priests had tried to instil in me.

In spite of all these internal problems, the Party in South Yorkshire was making big advances in our public campaigning. The main breakthrough came in 1958 when Bill Carr was elected to the Thorne Rural District Council. This encouraged others to have a go. In the early 60s, Jock McKenna polled over 1,200 votes in Rossington, near Doncaster, nearly defeating a strong right-wing candidate who was the NUM branch delegate. As late as 1992, capitalising on all these years of work, Terry Wilde stood under the name "Democratic Left", (the CPGB having been dissolved). He polled 560 votes, the lowest vote in that village since the 60s. The change of name didn't do much good for Terry. I estimate that, by the 1960s, we were contesting in at least 14 local authority elections across the area. Percy Riley was the first Communist in Yorkshire to be elected but along with several other Labour councillors in Dearne was removed from office for sending an official council delegation to the Warsaw Peace Conference. Apparently they should have kept their attention fixed on dustbins! This conference should have been held in Sheffield, but the Labour Government forced Picasso, along with Percy and many others to go to Poland instead.

The other interesting contest was when young Arthur Scargill at the age of 22 challenged a key figure of the Worsbrough Urban District Council. Arthur won on the first count by a majority of one in the postal ballot returns. We tried to get that accepted by the Returning Officer as the final vote, but consistent with his usual lack of humour we got the reply "no". Arthur polled 138 votes out of a total of nearly 2,000. This proves he has always been in favour of postal votes! It was not a bad result for a first time contest, but the issues raised in the campaign were interesting.

Alongside general issues of Housing, Education, etc. we highlighted the problems of the young people in Worsbrough. "If you want more than a pint and a game of darts, you have to hop on a bus to Barnsley or Sheffield ... No cinema, no swimming baths, no dance hall, no skating." Olympic sprint champions like Dorothy Hyman and Gloria Goldsborough of Barnsley had to travel 12 miles to Sheffield for their practices. Now we have a first class stadium named after Dorothy Hyman at Cudworth and a Leisure Centre at Hoyland. This, we said, was what Socialism is all about, providing facilities for the old, young, disabled and disadvantaged.

Yorkshire Young Communist League activists in the early 1950s

Of course, we targeted the areas in the coalfield where we could make a breakthrough. We did likewise in local election contests especially in Moorends, Doncaster. Bill Carr, (following the 1955 Armthorpe strike), had been elected Thorne Branch NUM delegate, defeating George Kenny, a right-winger and West Yorkshire County Councillor. He now found himself in a stronger position to win a seat on the Thorne Rural District Council and was elected second from top of the poll with 934 votes. Then, the following March, a by-election took place. Sam Cairns, the Communist candidate, received a magnificent vote of 623 to Labour's 1093 in a straight fight when the poll was even higher than in May.

Bill Carr later contested the local seat for the West Yorkshire County Council. All this required months of canvassing before the May election. We had only a handful of Party members, so we had to rely on comrades coming in at the weekend from other areas.

In the present circumstances it is difficult to grasp the atmosphere in the Thorne Area leading up to all elections; there was the Thorne RDC, West Yorkshire County Council and the Goole Parliamentary Constituency. Bill Carr polled over 1000 votes out of an electorate of just over 3,000 in a straight fight with Labour for the Thorne RDC. Then there was the vote of over 1,200 for West Yorkshire County Council in a much larger area than Moorends. And he polled nearly 1,000 in the Parliamentary contest in 1964 when the Tories had ruled for 13 years and Harold Wilson promised the "White heat of the Technological Revolution" and a halt to pit closures.

The election of Bill Carr in 1958 as a Councillor, with such a magnificent vote was no accident; it was the result of years of hard work, particularly by Bill in the pit, the union branch and regular sales of the Daily Worker, both in the pit and in the village.

The main problem we faced in these elections was that we had far too small a Party to do all the things we had to do. Here is where many non-Party sympathizers helped out and became natural contacts for joining the Party. The right-wing area officials in the Yorkshire NUM got worried that a Communist might join the elite club of sponsored NUM branch secretaries and delegates on the County Council where election expenses and an attendance allowance were paid.

They were so worried when, in 1963, Bill Carr contested the County Council election against the rejected NUM sponsored Labour candidate, George Kenny, who never attended a branch meeting following his defeat as delegate in 1955. The Area EC, which Jock Kane and Sammy Taylor were theoretically obliged to support, issued a leaflet to every voter in the area calling on them to support the official Labour and NUM candidate, George Kenny. This was at a time when Independents and Ratepayers were sweeping the boards in strong Labour areas, and yet only in the Thorne Area was such an appeal made.

The Yorkshire right-wing thought that they would be able to silence people like Jock Kane and Sammy Taylor on polling day. All it meant was we rallied more help and Jock and Sammy toured the area calling for support for Bill Carr and exposing the so-called NUM sponsored candidate who never attended a union branch meeting for over eight years.

Many miners' MPs were drafted into the area, including George Jaeger MP for Goole, whose stay was shortened when he was challenged by Jock Kane to "come out of your big car, remove that microphone and show your face to the people". I have never heard anything like it; windows and doors opened and the street was packed. Jaeger couldn't face this challenge, he took the microphone from his face but it was to accelerate his departure and many more decided they had had enough.

It was a political treat to be in this area on Election Day when Party posters were stuck on walls everywhere - or in windows of hundreds of houses; sixteen sheet posters were displayed as you entered the area. A well decorated shop, with a large window right on the main road, showed the Party meant business and what was needed was another Communist on the Council, to ensure issues like increased rents and cuts in social services would be debated. You had the usual situation, a massive Labour majority; the group would meet and decide, resulting in Carr not being able to get a seconder. That we soon remedied by Sam Cairns joining Bill, but what an experience!

This time it was a very high turnout; Bill had topped the poll but there was a concerted effort to defeat Sam. There were three counts to decide between Sam Cairns and Johnny Weaver, a very good left-winger. On the first count Weaver won by six. We called for a re-count and Sam Cairns had a majority of three. By this time we were all looking at our watches wondering if we would get a pint after such a long day during which we operated a rule, "no beers during period of canvassing." There was a common understanding that we were entitled to at least the last half hour before the pub closed, so we agreed that the third count would be final, and Sam held his lead of three, and that was it.

The pub was chock-a-block awaiting the result. When I walked in, our supporters knew the result by the big smile on my face. It had been hard going and by the time the polling stations closed I had made a few enemies by insisting, even in the rain, that we had a list of promises with no record of how they had voted. The usual cry was "Christ, I've visited that person and they claim to have voted." My records said no, therefore try again, I insisted. The comrades who had travelled from all over Yorkshire respected the discipline, because we knew we were fighting for every vote for Sam, Bill was home and dry, but Sam had to struggle. I phoned Freda, my wife, to explain that in no way could I get back home until the following morning. As usual, she understood and was pleased with the result. I had spent nearly two weeks in Moorends.

Sammy Taylor, as the Communist candidate for Don Valley, hands his deposit in, watched by (L to R) Reuben Beuffman, Johnny Mason, Percy Riley, John Parks and Tony Gilbert

The victory for Sam and Bill was a combination of splendid candidates, a vigorous campaign and the thrashing out, on the doorsteps and in street meetings, of the basic political issues that convinced the people of Moorends that Carr needed a running mate, if their grievances were to be aired.

There was one incident in these election contests when the Labour supporters got a good laugh at our expense. It was the Parliamentary Election in 1964. Sam Cairns had a big posh car and there was a large family in Moorends who were, as they say, a copper or two short of a full shilling! Sam crushed them all into his car to vote. The regulations prevent any unauthorised person in the polling booth. Sam had to wait in the corridor, along with many of his personal friends in the Labour Party. When the mother of this large family came out, followed by her chickens, Sam said: "Well, did you all vote?" They replied: "Yes, we voted, Mr Cairns. We voted for Mr Jaeger" (the Labour candidate). The Labour supporters were in stitches, and the penalty for voting Labour was they had to walk home. There is an old saying: "You can take a horse to the well, but you can't make it drink."

With Sam now on the Council with Bill, soon the meetings, which normally lasted one hour, were having to be adjourned many times. Council house rent increases were an annual battleground and alongside Sam and Bill battling it out in the Council Chambers, petitions were being signed, councillors lobbied and the most right wing harassed.

There was one from Stainforth, called Councillor Riddle, who liked a few beverages before the Council meetings and found his beer money somehow other than by working. Sam Cairns really upset him, when it was obvious that it was the beer that was talking; Sam would say: "Aye-hey diddle diddle, Riddle is on the fiddle."

Alongside the many things won for the people of Moorends and Thorne, the one promise our councillors made and achieved was the building of a swimming bath in that area. That is what is meant by putting Socialist thinking into practice.

Now the task was to build a Party and not always to rely on outside help. This we did, in spite of internal and international problems.

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Chapter 6 “More Politics - less debt collecting”; taking stock on leaving Yorkshire.

The influence of the Communist Party far exceeds its numerical strength." How often have we heard that said? Nowhere is this more true than among the mining communities, shown in the election of National, Area and Local Officials of the NUM. In Scotland and Wales, scores of Communists were elected to all levels of local government authorities and Willie Gallacher to Parliament for West Fife. Shotts was no exception where a well known Communist, John Ferguson, an able orator, speaking every week at the Labour Exchange, leading
deputations to the Parish Chambers for extra food allowances, bedding, boots and some warm underwear to survive the harsh winters of which Shotts had more than a fair share, was elected in a straight fight with Labour.

It was this activity that won the respect and acceptance that Communists cared for the people, whereas the Labour Party, especially following the betrayal of Ramsay McDonald, went into oblivion during those hard years. This should not surprise anyone, as a vital ingredient has always been missing from Labour's recipe book - that is participating in mass struggle, and maybe all those engaged in the post-mortem into why Labour lost the 1992 election should start
rectifying this. They have a ready-made issue to start with - put unemployment at the top of this agenda. The Labour and Trade Union Movement can't say "wait for a return of a Labour Government".

The "People's Marches" in the 80s mainly came from the initiative of the Communist Party backed up by progressive local Labour Parties, trades
unions, trades councils and many church organisations. Here we have a
problem. Irrespective of our numerical strength, distinguished by its
organisational capacity as well as analytical powers and strategic
vision, this is no longer possible since the "New Thinkers" who have
dissolved the Communist Party of Great Britain have also ditched the word "struggle", let alone "class struggle", from their recipe and inserted "consensus" politics and the confusion of tactical voting. What must be understood is that you will never defeat right-wing governments or right-wing control in the Trade Union Movement by empty slogans - "Time for Change, Time for Labour." What we need is a change in society that puts people's need
before the satisfaction of the greedy few. This is what we tried to do, with some success, in the Yorkshire Coalfield in the Fifties and Sixties. Especially in the direction of changing the NUM despite the hostility of those like the Yorkshire Miners' leader George Rhodes who promised to "cut out Communist influence like a surgeon cuts out a cancer".

Also, to our credit in our public work, especially in our local election campaigns, we raised the questions of lack of facilities for the young; the need for health centres; more senior citizens' homes; more meals on wheels and home helps; we opposed annual increases in rents and where we had influence, such as in
Thorne, both Sam Cairns and Bill Carr fought and won the right to sit on all committees in the Council, to make sure the controlling group carried out their promises. We were in the forefront against pit closures. We were always in the forefront fighting for a decent wage for the miners. Jock Kane often remarked, "We couldn't get up off our knees for the medals Lord Robens pinned on us instead of decent wages".

Yes, this generation of Communists in the Yorkshire Coalfield had a proud record of service and I am proud to be associated with it. It was a very rewarding 15 years I spent in the Yorkshire Coalfield. Especially, as the next chapter recounts, because I met and married my late wife Freda whilst in Yorkshire and my daughter Lesley was born and mainly schooled there. The kindness and friendship I enjoyed then was typical of Yorkshire folk and I am lucky to be enjoying this goodwill all over again now.

But, I must make some comment on the real financial problems both Freda and I had to face in Yorkshire in the early days. Without her political understanding and our mutual love for each other I wouldn't have been able to do what I did. Not only were there big financial sacrifices, but I was not always about at vital times when needed. On numerous occasions I would try to justify such absences. My daughter Lesley then and now would say "where were you on the day I was born - in Moorends selling Daily Workers". That's true; she was born in March 1959, just before we won both seats on the Thorne RDC.

Anyone who has spent any time working in any coalfield in Britain will confirm it is a difficult task not only to build Communist Party branches, but to retain them. Hard work and shift problems in the mining industry leaves little leisure time, especially after working in the bowels of the earth all week, on nights and afternoons. A social drink or two naturally took priority at the weekend. The task
we had to overcome was to organise events that took this into
consideration, coupled with trying to ensure that miners' wives could fit into such events. In short, how to mix politics with pleasure.

We took a gamble on Saturday evening socials-cum-meetings in a clean and attractive pub or hotel. We were fortunate that we had a number of good speakers who wanted to come into the coalfield, to share our successes and to help. John Williamson was a victim of the McCarthy anti-communist period in the USA. John was a Scotsman who had emigrated to America during the depression and joined the Communist Party there. A massive campaign was conducted throughout Scotland, especially in the Scottish NUM, when John was finally deported back to his native Scotland. His experience was sought all over the country. We got a date from John and organised a meeting in Darton, a mining village near Barnsley where an outstanding Communist, Harry Hyde, a highly respected pit deputy, would ensure a good audience. I was living in
Barnsley and helped out. Forty turned up to hear John and eight joined
the Party. Moorends branch, which is at the other end of the coalfield, 30 miles away, sent a deputation to see how this event went. They were very impressed and, with their successes in the local elections, decided anything Darton could do they could do better. In other words, we got the spirit of Socialist emulation going.

The challenge was taken up. On the Saturday before Christmas a social-cum-meeting was arranged with Les Ellis, a Nottinghamshire miners' leader, as the speaker. Eighty attended and eleven joined the Party. This was followed by another event in Darton with Johnny Campbell, a well-known Party leader, and ten joined the Party. Moorends said to me, "We will double Darton's recruitment if you get us a national speaker. George Matthews, then Editor of the Daily Worker, agreed to come. This followed a by-election where Sam Cairns polled 623 votes.

Amazingly, there was a note of disappointment when 'only' 90 turned up to the meeting! Yet, out of this, we made 14 recruits, including three YCLers. But the target of 20 recruits was achieved, because those friends of the Party in Moorends who had promised to come along as possible recruits, had, for a variety of reasons, been prevented on the night. They were visited and the target of 20 for the Party and three for the YCL was achieved before the week was out. We also tried out this style of work, unfortunately with less success, in other villages. Even so, the overall results were good. By the end of January, we had increased our membership by 80 over the previous year, and had the biggest membership in the coalfield for many years.

Success breeds success, but there was one field of our work where this was not true. This was in raising sufficient donations to pay my pittance of a weekly wage and also to keep the organisation financially viable. This single failure played a major part in the decision of comrades, especially the miners, both in Yorkshire and nationally, that it was time I had a change of District with a bit
more security and a regular wage.

Let me make it clear, it was not entirely the fault of the comrades in South Yorkshire that we had to endure the often humiliating experience of being like the weekly 'debt collector', whose knock on the door was not the most welcome sound. The real problem of course was that the Party never had sufficient money to pay even the average wage of an industrial worker. But to crown it all, Communist Party full timers who were in an area with a small number, and like South Yorkshire a massive area to cover, were much worse off than in cities
like Leeds with a large professional membership. Or, as in the case of Sheffield, well established factory branches where it was relatively easier to arrange weekly collections. Sheffield also had the benefit of the philanthropic bakers, "Fletchers". The owner was the son of George Fletcher, (who was one of the twelve Communists imprisoned during the 1926 miners' strike and charged with 'sedition' for supporting the miners). His son, also called George, could always be relied upon when the going was tough - a vehicle with free repairs meant the full-time organiser and his staff never needed to spend
their weekends collecting wages.

It is a known fact there is no better fundraiser than myself! In my adulthood, as in my boyhood, I have never let my pride stand in the way of collecting money for the Party and the wider movement of the working class. Of that I have a proud record. But both Freda and I knew the fault lay more at the door of the District and the Party Centre, who claimed the winning of the Yorkshire miners, and the NUM, was a vital ingredientto any progress. Therefore, much more help should have been given.

Instead, I was under constant pressure over my area not meeting its financial obligations to the District and constant harassment from the Centre that South Yorkshire was among those areas with the lowest dues paying membership in the country. There was a weekly stamp to be bought by members, the proceeds from which were divided between the Centre, District and Branch, but because Area Committees were not formally part of the constitution, they didn't qualify for any share of this monthly payment.

Bert Ramelson, then the Yorkshire District Secretary, did show some compassion, but he hadn't a clue how to solve this problem. One Saturday, he called at our house to have a discussion about some issues that were coming up at the District Committee the following Sunday. When he enquired where I was, Freda's reply was "the usual - chasing money". He finally found me at a Gala, not for the beer or entertainment, but because I knew there would be a number of comrades whom I could tap. I think this experience upset Bert, for he came forward with what he thought was the answer. The Party in Leeds had many good contacts in the clothing trade. Terylene had just come onto the market; difficult to get, but in great demand. Now if I could, along with other comrades, get orders for ready-mades the margin of profit was good and this might help to fill the gap between the partial wages I was actually receiving and the pittance I was supposed to receive.

Hymie Besser, a Jewish comrade who was a market trader and had plenty of contacts in clothing, could get ready made suits, some with a slight fault, selling for less than £5.00. Bill Carr had a contact in Hemel Hempstead who had a shirt factory, some perfect and some not so perfect. What they all forgot was that you also needed a large cash float, because no matter how cheap or desirous it was to get a pair of Terylene trousers, the custom and practice was to pay so much down and the rest when you could catch me. So instead of knocking at comrades' doors at the weekend, when at least I could do some political business as well, I was chasing debtors so as to pay my creditors, who were
breathing down my neck at the end of each month.

Bert and Marian Ramelson went to the Soviet Union for a month and when they got back their bank balance had gone. The creditors had threatened to take legal action and as it was Bert's idea, and it was the District that would have faced the consequence, the comrade in charge, Connie Sheehan, agreed to pay. I will not repeat the verbal battle between Bert and myself when I was ordered to appear before him when he returned. This ended the venture of selling trousers, suits and shirts, and the rhyming slogan coined by Sammy Taylor, if voiced in the Yorkshire way, "Don't go round in rags and tatters, get your shirts and suits from Frankie Watters", was no longer valid.

Then Bert had another bright idea. Sammy Cairns was a very good and hard-working businessman, with a track record of success second to none Bert explained to Sammy the vital role I was playing, but that I couldn't continue much longer on intermittent wages with a wife and two children. Bert's idea was that Sammy would put up a cash float of £50 that was to balance any weekly deficit and Sam would pay me my weekly salary. Very good intentions, but what Bert failed to realise, and Sam soon realised, was that unless I continued to spend a large part of my time raising money, I would end up with part weekly wages. The £50 disappeared in less than three weeks and Sam, a successful businessman, failed to resolve this problem.

I will never forget when, on the third week, I appeared in Sam's coal yard, expecting my pay slip to be along with the other coal drivers he employed. Sam was a hard man, but I never have seen anyone so upset, because the money was not coming in and my style of work had changed. "More politics, less debt collecting" were my instructions, but where were my wages? I told Sam not to worry, t