The Socialist Labour Party issued the following statement from its Leader, Arthur Scargill on 2nd May, 2020
No Schools, Colleges or Universities should be re-opened until there is a drug to cure anyone infected by the virus or we have a vaccine to prevent it. In the event that a decision is made to re-open Schools the maximum allowed in a classroom should be 15. This will require the building of hundreds of new classrooms; a task which could be achieved quickly as shown by the building of new Hospitals in 7 to 10 days. The health of our children and grandchildren is our responsibility; and we should protect our students at College and University in the same way.“
We are pleased to note that the leaders of the Scottish National Party, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly have all issued statements today, 11th May, 2020, echoing the Policy of the Socialist Labour Party’s opposition to the Tory Government abandonment of the policy “Stay Home; Protect the NHS; Save Lives”
Socialist Labour Party 20/5/2020
John – I am contacting you about a resource pack produced by Vital Link Educational in 1994 (!), ‘Victorian Britain – Invisible Victorians’. In the light of the current debate about Black Lives Matter and discussions about the curriculum, we (a group of black teachers and amateur historians) are trawling back through resources we have used in the past to identify what resources are / are not still available. Rather than re-inventing the wheel we know that much useful work was done in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. This pack is copyright but we are enquiring about your views on making it available again free to schools through, for instance, the Runnymede Trust who are proposing to set up a digital portal of free resources. If you are the owner of the copyright we would be interested in hearing your views.
Thanks David, The copyright was owned by Vitallink Educational Limited which was a co-operative of 5 people. Personally as one of the authors I’d be more than happy for this to be used for the purpose you envisage, and for the Runnymede Trust to be involved. Some of us were involved with AFFOR in Birmingham in the period you refer to and we had a close link with that organisation. I would like to speak to the others involved but I know that they will share my thought on this. Many thanks for contacting me! Best wishes, John Tyrrell
Dear John – Derek Bishton here. Our paths have crossed several times over the years, as I’m sure you will remember. I have been using the lockdown period to write about the time I spent in Handsworth in the late 70s and early 80s working with Brian Homer and John Reardon at Sidelines in Grove Lane and the many groups and organisations we worked for during that time, including Affor, Asian Resource Centre, Satltley CDP and many more. I lived in Leonard Avenue next door to Sue Lambert for several years and it was in the Weld darkrooms that I first learned to process black and white film. I spoke to her recently about how Weld came about, and she told me that you were involved from the very start. So, I was hopeful that you might be willing and have time to talk to me about this bit of Handsworth history? I’ve done a number of ‘socially distanced’ interviews over the past few months, so we could use Zoom or, if you don’t want to look at my overgrown lockdown beard, voice call using What’s App or FaceTime – or just plain ordinary phone, of course! I’ve left my email on the form below and I look forward to hearing from you.
Very best wishes
Derek
07831 609570