PEAK DISTRICT
This introduction to politics and political activity led also to my initiation into the countryside. What is now known as the Peak National Park, in Derbyshire, became our playground at weekends. From Spring to Autumn, every week-end, a group of us, mostly members of the Young Communist League, would take the train from London Road Station, (Piccadilly), on Saturday morning to the village of Glossop. From there we walked to Little Hayfield to spend the night in a small farmhouse and then on Sunday we walked the hills, singing, laughing, talking, putting the world to rights.
One particular week-end remains with me because of what happened when we left Manchester late on the Saturday and found ourselves without enough time to make it to the farmhouse in Little Hayfield before dark.
We arrived in Glossop and started to walk towards the Snake Pass over Jacob's Ladder. By the time we got to the Snake it was getting dark and we could not go on round Kinder Scout in the dark. So we had to find somewhere to stay for the night. The only place in the area was the Snake Inn, which gives the Pass its name. The Inn has the coat of arms of the Cavendish family and features a snake.
Well, this posed us with quite a problem as none of us had the sort of money that would be needed to pay for a night's lodging at the Snake Inn. But, there was nowhere else we could stay.
So in we went to see if we could get accommodation.
The details of what happened from then are hazy but we came to an agreement with the landlord who gave us an attic in the roof where we could all sleep. In the morning we collected enough money together to pay for the night and without having any breakfast, for we could not afford it, set off across the road to walk round Kinder Scout and so down into Hayfield.
What remains with me about that incident to this day is the sight that greeted us as we started our hike around Kinder Scout. The sun was rising over the mountain, and the reflection of the sunlight on the water tumbling down the mountainside looked like molten gold. A magnificent sight that I shall never forget, that view was worth all that we had paid for our nights lodging and more.
We combined recreation with politics. By that I mean that as well as enjoying the freedom and fresh air of the outdoors, we took part in the campaign for freedom to walk over the hills and dales.
Since the Enclosure Acts of the 18th and 19th centuries, huge areas of countryside were closed to the people. In 1884 attempts were made to present to Parliament a Bill to provide access to the mountains. If such legislation were passed it would mean that people would be given the right to walk on land not used for cultivation. Unfortunately, these attempts, although having some support in Parliament, were not successful. The landowners were too powerful and by 1932,the "Access to Mountains Act" was still in limbo. The year 1932 is important as that was when the now well known "Mass Trespass" on Kinder Scout took place.
Of course I was too young to have been involved in that action, but I mention it because it is necessary to know the background to the campaigns in which I was involved around the question of freedom to walk the hills and dales of this our "green and pleasant land."
There had been an organisation called the British Workers' Sports Federation started in London in 1928. Its aim was to get working- class youth involved in sport and concentrated mainly in London on organising Sunday football. It had branches in Manchester and started to hold week-end camps in Derbyshire in places like Little Hayfield, Marple and so on. These camps became very popular with the youth of the Manchester area and were responsible for initiating many of them to the joys of the countryside. To be able to walk freely in the clean, fresh air of the Derbyshire countryside became a great favourite with the young people. Living, as most of them did, in the mean, back-streets of the cities where living conditions left much to be desired. As I have mentioned earlier, most of the working-class housing was bug ridden, a garden was an unheard of luxury for most people and the few parks were no alternative as they did not give the wider perspective that a walk in the countryside could give.
Kinder Scout became the centre of the campaign for freedom to walk the hillsides. That mountain became the focus.
The idea of a mass trespass over Kinder Scout came out of the rambles that were organised by the members of the British Workers Sports Federation. A meeting of British Workers Sports Federation members from the Manchester area was held with delegates from the various branches in the area, and the decision was taken to organise a Mass Trespass on to Kinder Scout.
For those who want to learn more about the Trespass I would recommend a book by the then secretary of the Lancashire British Workers Sports Federation, and organiser of the Trespass, Benny Rothman, titled The 1932 Kinder Trespass.
The campaign for freedom to walk in the countryside did not end with the Trespass. It did lead to the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949,but between 1932 and the Trespass, and 1949 and the National Parks Act, there had been a continuing campaign of meetings in places like Winnats Pass when hundreds of us listened to speakers supporting the demand for the freedom to walk.
Of course, whilst taking our part in the struggle, we also enjoyed our time in the hills of Derbyshire.
By this time we had moved to Heaton Park and I became a member of the Prestwich branch of the Young Communist League. There were about six of us in the branch and during the spring and summer months we spent most week-ends in the Peak District. Starting from London Road Station (Piccadilly),on the Saturday morning we took the train to the Derbyshire village of Glossop. From Glossop we walked to the Snake Pass going through Doctors Gate, Jacob's Ladder and across the Snake and round Kinder Scout by way of William Clough and White Brow and then down into Little Hayfield where we stayed the night in a small farmhouse for the cost of one shilling and sixpence (8p) for bed and breakfast. Having arrived at the farm we went to the pub in the village, The Grapes, and spent a very sociable evening.
Sunday we would be up bright and early and after an excellent breakfast provided by the farmer's wife, we walked all over the hills singing, talking and generally enjoying the freedom and fresh air.
In order to describe how we felt about the Peak District and what it meant to us to walk in that beautiful land, I could not do better than quote the song written after the Kinder Trespass by its press officer Jimmy Miller who later became better known as singer song writer Ewan MacColl,
THE MANCHESTER RAMBLER
I've been over Snowdon,
I've slept
upon Crowden,
I've camped by the Wain Stones as well,
I've
sun-bathed on Kinder,
Been burnt to a cinder,
And many more
things I can tell.
My rucksack has oft been my pillow,
The
heather has oft been my bed,
And sooner than part from the
mountains,
I think I would rather be dead.
CHORUS
I'm a rambler I'm a rambler
from Manchester way,
I get all my pleasures the hard moorland
way,
I may be a wage slave on Monday,
But I am a free man on
Sunday.
There's pleasure in dragging
Through
peat bogs and bragging
Of all the fine walks that you
know;
There's even a measure
Of some kind of pleasure
In
wading through ten feet of snow.
I've stood on the edge of the
Downfall,
And seen all the valleys outspread,
And sooner than
part from the mountains,
I think I would rather be dead.
Chorus
(Words and music by Ewan
Maccoll
©1978
Ewan Maccoll Ltd
Administered by Harmony Music Ltd
11 Uxbridge
Street, London, W87TQ
Taken from The Essential Ewan Maccoll
Songbook - Oak Publications
Use with permission)
Full lyrics available here.
That song became the anthem of the struggle for freedom to walk the hills and I feel it expresses far better than I ever could the enthusiasm that was evident in the long campaign that developed around this issue. The generations that have followed have reaped the harvest of pleasure to be had by the simple act of walking in this beautiful land of ours.
Many week-ends we spent walking on the tops with the rain soaking us to the skin, but it didn't matter, we just sang our hearts out with the popular revolutionary songs, Soviet songs and of course the many folk-songs that were popular.
Evenings we spent in the local pub and I suppose that was where I had my first "pint".
Those week-ends spent in the company of comrades and friends were more than just social events. We spent many an hour discussing politics. Setting the world to right, and preparing ourselves for the struggle ahead.
This was at a time when it was becoming more obvious that war was in the air. The slogan "Bombs on Madrid to-day, Bombs on London tomorrow" summed up the feeling that was prevalent. We in the Young Communist League, along with all the other left -wing forces, campaigned for a Collective Security Agreement between Britain, France and the Soviet Union to stop the march of fascism across Europe. Others have dealt with the situation to a greater extent than I can and I would not be so rash as to think I could do a better job of it. This is meant to be my story and not a political treatise.
Of course, politics has played a very large part in my life, so cannot be left out, but I want to convey to whoever reads this that what I am, who I am, is dependent on where I came from and the era through which I lived. This is of course, a truism, "Man is the product of his environment". I hope more than anything else that my children and their children will learn from this that they come from the same roots. They should always remember where they came from.
I finished my apprenticeship in gents' hairdressing with Sam Chernick and his two brothers having passed on to me their experience in the trade, and I went out into the world of adult employment looking for a job as an "improver", the term given to someone who had just come to the end of three years apprenticeship.