John Simkin

Rivera images from newspaper articles.:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3883&view=findpost&p=174342

Rivera obit is here near the bottom of the post.:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3883&view=findpost&p=174097

Thanks Tom for supplying these photos. I don't necessarily agree with you about Adele. I know she was on Rich's forum and he held her in high regard. Her story is fascinating. Someday when you're around the house or wherever, put the show on and just listen to it. Maybe you'll change your mind about her.

Adele is actually a member of this forum and has posted several times.

Ron, you don't need Smashwords. The thing about Amazon is that they are using e-books to destroy conventional publishers. They provide the technology and people can upload their books free of charge. As long as you charge less that $10 you get 70% and Amazon takes 30%.

I have an ebook with Amazon, but Smashwords distributes your ebook to Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo and the Diesel eBook Store in addition to Amazon.

Then it might be worthwhile. How much do they take from Amazon, etc?

I'm sure that western-allied military are hoping Gaddafi will fall, but you are quite correct - Bahrain is of strategic importance and has been stable in the past.

Bahrain has only been stable because it has a repressive government. It is a country where a religious minority rule a religious majority. This is why they cannot allow it to be democratic. Once the king is overthrown it will become an ally of Iran.

I disagree.

The same thing was said about Tunisia and Egypt, but that didn't happen, at least not yet.

The revolution has not taken place yet. The military are still in charge. I hope you are right. However, as they have not been allowed to form political parties, at the moment, religion plays too important role in politics.

Bahrain will not became an ally of Iran because it is also the home of the US Fifth Fleet, a carrier Task Force that is unlikely to fall into the hands of the Iranians.

It is at the moment but if Bahrain becomes a democracy they can do what they want. Or, maybe the US is only in favour of democracies when they agree with their world view.

In 1883 Robert Cunninghame Graham attended socialist meetings where he heard and met William Morris, George Bernard Shaw, H. M. Hyndman, Keir Hardie and John Burns. Graham was converted to socialism and he began to speak at public meetings. He was an impressive orator and was especially good at dealing with hecklers.

Although a socialist, in the 1886 General Election he stood as a Liberal at North-West Lanarkshire. His election programme was extremely radical and called for the abolition of the House of Lords, universal suffrage, the nationalisation of the land, mines and other industries, free school meals, disestablishment of the Church of England, Scottish Home Rule and the eight-hour-day. Supported by liberals and socialists, Graham defeated the Conservative Party candidate by 322 votes. He therefore became the first socialist elected to Parliament.

His biographer, Cedric Watts, points out: "During his time in the house (until 1892), he condemned imperialism, racial prejudice, corporal and capital punishment, profiteering landlords and industrialists, child labour, and the House of Lords; he advocated the eight-hour working day, free education, home rule for Ireland and Scotland, and the general nationalization of industry." On 6th March 1889, he was asked in the House of Commons whether he preached "pure unmitigated Socialism", he replied, "Undoubtedly."

Robert Cunninghame Graham refused to accept the conventions of the House of Commons. On 12th September 1887 was suspended from Parliament for making what was called a "disrespectful reference" to the House of Lords. He therefore became the first MP ever to be suspended from Parliament for swearing (he used the word damn).

Graham's main concerns in the House of Commons was the plight of the unemployed and the preservation of civil liberties. He complained about attempts in 1886 and 1887 by the police to prevent public meetings and free speech. The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) organised a meeting for 13th February, 1887 in Trafalgar Square to protest against the policies of the Conservative Government headed by the Marquess of Salisbury. Sir Charles Warren, the head of the Metropolitan Police wrote to Herbert Matthews, the Home Secretary: "We have in the last month been in greater danger from the disorganized attacks on property by the rough and criminal elements than we have been in London for many years past. The language used by speakers at the various meetings has been more frank and open in recommending the poorer classes to help themselves from the wealth of the affluent." As a result of this letter, the government decided to ban the meeting and the police were given the orders to stop the marchers entering Trafalgar Square.

The SDF decided to continue with their planned meeting with Robert Cunninghame Graham, Henry M. Hyndman and John Burns being the three main speakers. Edward Carpenter explained what happened next: "The three leading members of the SDF - Hyndman, Burns and Cunninghame Graham - agreed to march up arm-in-arm and force their way if possible into the charmed circle. Somehow Hyndman was lost in the crowd on the way to the battle, but Graham and Burns pushed their way through, challenged the forces of Law and Order, came to blows, and were duly mauled by the police, arrested, and locked up. I was in the Square at the time. The crowd was a most good-humoured, easy going, smiling crowd; but presently it was transformed. A regiment of mounted police came cantering up. The order had gone forth that we were to be kept moving. To keep a crowd moving is I believe a technical term for the process of riding roughshod in all directions, scattering, frightening and batoning the people."

Walter Crane was one of those who witnessed this attack: "I never saw anything more like real warfare in my life - only the attack was all on one side. The police, in spite of their numbers, apparently thought they could not cope with the crowd. They had certainly exasperated them, and could not disperse them, as after every charge - and some of these drove the people right against the shutters in the shops in the Strand - they returned again."

The Times took a different view of this event: "It was no enthusiasm for free speech, no reasoned belief in the innocence of Mr O'Brien, no serious conviction of any kind, and no honest purpose that animated these howling toughs. It was simple love of disorder, hope of plunder it may be hoped that the magistrates will not fail to pass exemplary sentences upon those now in custody who have laboured to the best of their ability to convert an English Sunday into a carnival of blood."

Both Cunninghame Graham and John Burns were put on trial for their involvement in the demonstration that became known as Bloody Sunday. One of the witnesses at the trial was EC: "I was asked to give evidence in favour of the defendants, and gladly consented - though I had not much to say, except to testify to the peaceable character of the crowd and the high-handed action of the police. In cross-examination I was asked whether I had not seen any rioting; and when I replied in a very pointed way 'Not on the part of the people!' a large smile went round the Court, and I was not plied with any more questions. Cunninghame Graham was found guilty and sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment.

When Graham was released from Pentonville Prison he continued his campaign to improve the rights of working people and to curb their economic exploitation. He was suspended from the House of Commons in December, 1888 for protesting about the working conditions of chain makers. Graham was a supporter of the eight hour day and made several attempts to introduce a bill on the subject. He made some progress with this in the summer of 1892 but he was unable to persuade the Conservative Government, headed by the Marquess of Salisbury, to allocate time for the bill to be fully debated.

Along with his great friend, James Keir Hardie, Graham was a strong supporter of Scottish Independence. In 1886 the two men formed the Scottish Home Rule Association and while in the House of Commons made several attempts to persuade fellow MPs of the desirability of a Scottish Parliament. On one occasion Graham humorously argued that he wanted a "national parliament with the pleasure of knowing that the taxes were wasted in Edinburgh instead of London". http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUcunninghame.htm

Robert Bontine Cunninghame, the eldest of the three sons of Major William Cunninghame Bontine (1825–1883) of the Scots Greys and Anne Elizabeth (1828–1925) was born on 24th May 1852. His mother was the daughter of Admiral Charles Elphinstone Fleming. Robert spent most of his childhood on the family estate of Finlaystone in Renfrewshire.

Robert was educated at Hill House (1863–1865) in Leamington Spa and Harrow School (1865–1867). After receiving private tuition in London and Brussels, he moved to Argentina where his family owned a cattle ranch. He also spent time in Paraguay, Mexico and Uruguay.

On 24th October 1878 he married Gabrielle de la Balmondière, who claimed to be the Chilean-born daughter of a French father and a Spanish mother. It was not until much later that it was discovered that she was really Caroline Horsfall, from Masham in Yorkshire. The couple had no children but she had a successful writing career. According to Cedric Watts "her writings include essays, poetic translations, and a substantial biography, Santa Teresa (1894)."

After the death of his father in 1883 he changed his name to Robert Cunninghame Graham. He returned to England and became interested in politics. He attended socialist meetings where he heard and met William Morris, George Bernard Shaw, H. M. Hyndman, Keir Hardie and John Burns. Graham was converted to socialism and he began to speak at public meetings. He was an impressive orator and was especially good at dealing with hecklers.

Although a socialist, in the 1886 General Election he stood as a Liberal at North-West Lanarkshire. His election programme was extremely radical and called for the abolition of the House of Lords, universal suffrage, the nationalisation of the land, mines and other industries, free school meals, disestablishment of the Church of England, Scottish Home Rule and the eight-hour-day. Supported by liberals and socialists, Graham defeated the Conservative Party candidate by 322 votes. He therefore became the first socialist elected to Parliament.

His biographer, Cedric Watts, points out: "During his time in the house (until 1892), he condemned imperialism, racial prejudice, corporal and capital punishment, profiteering landlords and industrialists, child labour, and the House of Lords; he advocated the eight-hour working day, free education, home rule for Ireland and Scotland, and the general nationalization of industry." On 6th March 1889, he was asked in the House of Commons whether he preached "pure unmitigated Socialism", he replied, "Undoubtedly."

Robert Cunninghame Graham refused to accept the conventions of the House of Commons. On 12th September 1887 was suspended from Parliament for making what was called a "disrespectful reference" to the House of Lords. He therefore became the first MP ever to be suspended from Parliament for swearing (he used the word damn).

Graham's main concerns in the House of Commons was the plight of the unemployed and the preservation of civil liberties. He complained about attempts in 1886 and 1887 by the police to prevent public meetings and free speech. The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) organised a meeting for 13th February, 1887 in Trafalgar Square to protest against the policies of the Conservative Government headed by the Marquess of Salisbury. Sir Charles Warren, the head of the Metropolitan Police wrote to Herbert Matthews, the Home Secretary: "We have in the last month been in greater danger from the disorganized attacks on property by the rough and criminal elements than we have been in London for many years past. The language used by speakers at the various meetings has been more frank and open in recommending the poorer classes to help themselves from the wealth of the affluent." As a result of this letter, the government decided to ban the meeting and the police were given the orders to stop the marchers entering Trafalgar Square.

The SDF decided to continue with their planned meeting with Robert Cunninghame Graham, Henry M. Hyndman and John Burns being the three main speakers. Edward Carpenter explained what happened next: "The three leading members of the SDF - Hyndman, Burns and Cunninghame Graham - agreed to march up arm-in-arm and force their way if possible into the charmed circle. Somehow Hyndman was lost in the crowd on the way to the battle, but Graham and Burns pushed their way through, challenged the forces of Law and Order, came to blows, and were duly mauled by the police, arrested, and locked up. I was in the Square at the time. The crowd was a most good-humoured, easy going, smiling crowd; but presently it was transformed. A regiment of mounted police came cantering up. The order had gone forth that we were to be kept moving. To keep a crowd moving is I believe a technical term for the process of riding roughshod in all directions, scattering, frightening and batoning the people."

Walter Crane was one of those who witnessed this attack: "I never saw anything more like real warfare in my life - only the attack was all on one side. The police, in spite of their numbers, apparently thought they could not cope with the crowd. They had certainly exasperated them, and could not disperse them, as after every charge - and some of these drove the people right against the shutters in the shops in the Strand - they returned again."

The Times took a different view of this event: "It was no enthusiasm for free speech, no reasoned belief in the innocence of Mr O'Brien, no serious conviction of any kind, and no honest purpose that animated these howling toughs. It was simple love of disorder, hope of plunder it may be hoped that the magistrates will not fail to pass exemplary sentences upon those now in custody who have laboured to the best of their ability to convert an English Sunday into a carnival of blood."

Both Cunninghame Graham and John Burns were put on trial for their involvement in the demonstration that became known as Bloody Sunday. One of the witnesses at the trial was EC: "I was asked to give evidence in favour of the defendants, and gladly consented - though I had not much to say, except to testify to the peaceable character of the crowd and the high-handed action of the police. In cross-examination I was asked whether I had not seen any rioting; and when I replied in a very pointed way 'Not on the part of the people!' a large smile went round the Court, and I was not plied with any more questions. Cunninghame Graham was found guilty and sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment.

When Graham was released from Pentonville Prison he continued his campaign to improve the rights of working people and to curb their economic exploitation. He was suspended from the House of Commons in December, 1888 for protesting about the working conditions of chain makers. Graham was a supporter of the eight hour day and made several attempts to introduce a bill on the subject. He made some progress with this in the summer of 1892 but he was unable to persuade the Conservative Government, headed by the Marquess of Salisbury, to allocate time for the bill to be fully debated.

Along with his great friend, James Keir Hardie, Graham was a strong supporter of Scottish Independence. In 1886 the two men formed the Scottish Home Rule Association and while in the House of Commons made several attempts to persuade fellow MPs of the desirability of a Scottish Parliament. On one occasion Graham humorously argued that he wanted a "national parliament with the pleasure of knowing that the taxes were wasted in Edinburgh instead of London".

While in the House of Commons Graham became increasingly more radical. He supported workers in their industrial disputes and was actively involved with Annie Besant and the Matchgirls Strike and the 1889 Dockers' Strike. In July 1889 he attended the Marxist Congress of the Second International in Paris with James Keir Hardie, William Morris, Eleanor Marx and Edward Aveling. The following year he made a speech in Calais that was considered by the authorities to be so revolutionary that he was arrested and expelled from France.

In the 1892 General Election Graham stood as the Scottish Labour Party candidate for Glasgow Camlachie. He was defeated and this brought his parliamentary career to an end. In 1894 he prospected unsuccessfully for gold in Spain, and in 1897 he travelled into the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. On his return he published his finest travel book, Mogreb-el-Acksa (1898).

During his life Graham had a large number of books and articles published. Subject matter included history, biography, politics, travel and seventeen collections of short stories. Cedric Watts has argued: "Cunninghame Graham's own literary output was full and diverse. During his lifetime he was often praised highly for writing which was sharply realistic, ironic, and quirkily personal... But most of his volumes are collections of tales and essays, many of which had previously appeared in magazines. Their ratio of reminiscence to invention is usually high; meditative recollection of his past travels and encounters often provides the basis. The more elegiac writing may now seem dated, but his sceptical wit and his eye for the incongruous provide ample pleasures."

Despite being out of the House of Commons Graham continued to be active in politics. He retained a strong belief in Scottish Home Rule. In 1928 he joined forces with Compton Mackenzie, Hugh MacDiarmidand John MacCormick to establish the National Party of Scotland. He was elected president and was several times the Scottish Nationalist candidate for the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University.

Robert Cunninghame Graham died from pneumonia on 20th March, 1936, in the Plaza Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His body was brought back to Scotland where he was buried with his wife, who had died in 1906, in the grounds of the ruined Inchmahome Augustinian Priory in the Lake of Menteith in April 1936.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUcunninghame.htm

The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) organised a meeting for 13th February, 1887 in Trafalgar Square to protest against the policies of the Conservative Government headed by the Marquess of Salisbury. Sir Charles Warren, the head of the Metropolitan Police wrote to Herbert Matthews, the Home Secretary: "We have in the last month been in greater danger from the disorganized attacks on property by the rough and criminal elements than we have been in London for many years past. The language used by speakers at the various meetings has been more frank and open in recommending the poorer classes to help themselves from the wealth of the affluent." As a result of this letter, the government decided to ban the meeting and the police were given the orders to stop the marchers entering Trafalgar Square.

Henry Hamilton Fyfe was one of the special constables on duty that day: "When the unemployed dockers marched on Trafalgar Square, where meetings were then forbidden, I enrolled myself as a special constable to defend the classes against the masses. The dockers striking for their sixpence an hour were for me the great unwashed of music-hall and pantomime songs. Wearing an armlet and wielding a baton, I paraded and patrolled and felt proud of myself."

The SDF decided to continue with their planned meeting with Henry M. Hyndman, John Burns and Robert Cunninghame Graham being the three main speakers. Edward Carpenter explained what happened next: "The three leading members of the SDF - Hyndman, Burns and Cunninghame Graham - agreed to march up arm-in-arm and force their way if possible into the charmed circle. Somehow Hyndman was lost in the crowd on the way to the battle, but Graham and Burns pushed their way through, challenged the forces of Law and Order, came to blows, and were duly mauled by the police, arrested, and locked up. I was in the Square at the time. The crowd was a most good-humoured, easy going, smiling crowd; but presently it was transformed. A regiment of mounted police came cantering up. The order had gone forth that we were to be kept moving. To keep a crowd moving is I believe a technical term for the process of riding roughshod in all directions, scattering, frightening and batoning the people."

Walter Crane was one of those who witnessed this attack: "I never saw anything more like real warfare in my life - only the attack was all on one side. The police, in spite of their numbers, apparently thought they could not cope with the crowd. They had certainly exasperated them, and could not disperse them, as after every charge - and some of these drove the people right against the shutters in the shops in the Strand - they returned again."

The Times took a different view of this event: "It was no enthusiasm for free speech, no reasoned belief in the innocence of Mr O'Brien, no serious conviction of any kind, and no honest purpose that animated these howling toughs. It was simple love of disorder, hope of plunder it may be hoped that the magistrates will not fail to pass exemplary sentences upon those now in custody who have laboured to the best of their ability to convert an English Sunday into a carnival of blood."

George Barnes was one of those who was badly injured by the charging police horses. Some of the protesters were arrested and later two of the leaders of the march, John Burns and Robert Cunninghame Graham, were arrested and later sentenced to a six-week prison sentence.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUbloody.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUhyndman.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REburns.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUcunninghame.htm

Doug,

Do you recommend Smashwords for self-publishing ebooks? It looks like a good deal.

Ron, you don't need Smashwords. The thing about Amazon is that they are using e-books to destroy conventional publishers. They provide the technology and people can upload their books free of charge. As long as you charge less that $10 you get 70% and Amazon takes 30%.

A logical flaw with the guys math is that it assumes that an author will sell the same number of books if he or she self publishes than if a publisher picks up their book

This is indeed possible if the author already has a good reputation or has a high-profile on the internet.

David Cano has pointed out that: "England has a tradition of producing degenerate aristocrats. There must be something in the combination of wealth and a public school education that propels this country’s elite to buggery and an obsession with smut. One of the filthiest rogues to disgrace their rich heritage is the novelist and Uppingham alumni Norman Douglas".

When Douglas was five, his father was killed in a mountaineering accident, and in 1876 he was sent to be educated at Yarlet Hall School near Stafford. In 1881 he was sent to Uppingham School. He was very unhappy at Uppingham and later admitted he warned his mother that if he was not removed from the school he would arrange to be expelled for "sexual malpractice".

When Douglas reached the age of 21 he entered the Foreign Office, and was posted to St Petersburg. In 1891 he was promoted to third secretary. In 1896 he resigned from the Foreign Office. According to Alastair Brotchie, "Douglas... got thrown out of the British diplomatic service. He was having affairs with three aristocratic Russian women at once and got one of them pregnant. He had to leave St. Petersburg because he was in danger of being killed by the family, who were related to the Romanovs." His biographer, Katherine Mullin, claims that the young girl's name was Helen Demidoft. Mullin adds that Douglas now bought a villa at Posilipo in the Bay of Naples, "intending to dedicate himself to botanical studies and travel."

On 25th June 1898 Douglas married his cousin Elizabeth (Elsa) FitzGibbon (1876–1916), the daughter of Augustus FitzGibbon, at Fulham Register Office. Elsa was two months pregnant and the marriage was arranged very quickly. They lived in Italy, where their first child, Archie, was born, and a second son, Robin, the following year. Douglas obtained a divorce in 1904 on the grounds of Elsa's adultery and gained custody of their two sons.

Douglas moved to Capri, sending his sons to boarding-school in England. In January 1905 Joseph Conrad visited the island for several months, and the two became friends. In January 1908 he moved to London where he successfully contesting his wife's attempt to regain custody of her children on the grounds of her husband's paedophilia. According to Mark Holloway, the author of Norman Douglas: A Biography (1976), his wife claimed in court that he was involved in a "rather faunesque pursuit of young boys".

Over the next few years Douglas was a regular contributor to the The Cornhill Magazine and The English Review. He joined the literary scene and became friends with Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, Compton Mackenzie and D. H. Lawrence. Douglas was also the author of three books during this period, Siren Land: A Celebration of Life in Southern Italy (1911), Fountains in the Sand (1912) on Tunisia, and Old Calabria (1915), rugged mountains and windswept coastlines facing Sicily. This was followed by London Street Games (1916), a book inspired by his conversations with teenage boys in London.

In 1916 Douglas was arrested and accused of paedophilia. According to his biographer, Katherine Mullin: "In 1916 a darker aspect of Douglas's interest in young boys became evident when he was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a sixteen-year-old boy. In January 1917 he was charged with further offences against two brothers aged ten and twelve. On the advice of Compton Mackenzie, Joseph Conrad, and other friends, he broke his bail conditions and returned to Capri."

While in Capri he completed the manuscript of the novel South Wind (1917). The sexual content of the book caused a great deal of controversy. However, its questioning of conventional morality was praised by Virginia Woolf in the Times Literary Supplement. Douglas joined a group of expatriate artists and intellectuals that included D. H. Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, Compton Mackenzie, Francis Brett Young, Axel Munthe, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Maxim Gorky.

In 1920 Douglas moved to Florence, where he lived with the Italian bookseller Pino Orioli, who was later the publisher of Lady Chatterley's Lover. Over the next few years Douglas published two novels, They Went (1920) and In the Beginning (1927). The following year he produced Some Limericks (1928). Douglas admitted that it was "one of the filthiest books in the English language". An autobiography, Looking Back, appeared in 1933.

His biographer, Katherine Mullin, points out that "in 1937 Douglas was forced to flee Florence after the police made enquiries concerning his friendship with a ten-year-old local girl." For a while he lived in Lisbon but moved to France in 1940. After the death of Pino Orioli he returned to London where a second edition of South Wind was published.

After the Second World War he went to live in Capri. His health was poor and he died on the island on 7th February 1952.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/WRdouglas.htm

I'm sure that western-allied military are hoping Gaddafi will fall, but you are quite correct - Bahrain is of strategic importance and has been stable in the past.

Bahrain has only been stable because it has a repressive government. It is a country where a religious minority rule a religious majority. This is why they cannot allow it to be democratic. Once the king is overthrown it will become an ally of Iran.

Personally I'm delighted Grant has managed to find a position for him out on the right. After such a promising start Sears had endured an alarming goal famine lasting a couple of years but, after a decent spell down at Scunny, has finally started to fulfill his potential weighing in with a couple of goals. Good for him.

It was actually the manager of Scunthorpe who found this new position for Sears when he was out on loan. When you play 4-3-3 you need two wide men who help their full-backs defend (it works really well if they can attack together as well). Sears does this really well. The problem was that Demba Ba did it very badly on the other flank. He wants to play as a striker or in a two in front. Grant needs to solve this problem before the game at Liverpool.

I can't see why Sears was dropped after his encouraging form a month ago. In some ways, Grant's problem is that he has got too many strikers and he wants to fit them all in the team. Until he solves problems like this, he will never be a good coach.

Anthony Antonello and Danny Panzella wait to ask Donald Rumsfeld if he ever found that $2.3 Trillion that he said was unaccounted for at a press conference the day before 9/11.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUi7JsH4Xb8

David Cameron has become the first world leader to visit Egypt since the overthrow of President Mubarak. On Monday visited the scene of the demonstrations in Tahrir Square in Cairo that toppled Mubarak, said the protests had highlighted a hunger for freedom across the Middle East.

In a speech in Kuwait today he said Britain was wrong to prop up "highly controlling regimes" as a way of ensuring stability. These are fine words but what he does not tell you is that with him on his tour of the Middle East is a group of senior defence manufacturers.

The prime minister indicated irritation with his critics when was asked during a press conference with his Kuwaiti counterpart how he could promote democracy and reform in the Middle East while travelling with businessmen selling arms to the region.

Cameron said: "I simply don't understand how you can't understand how democracies have a right to defend themselves." Of course, these countries are not democracies. For example, the authorities in Egypt used tear-gas and rubber-bullets on protesters that had been purchased from British companies. In other words, British governments have been helping to keep dictatorships in power, by granting export licences to these companies.

As you say, there may be a small contingent of non-mercenary Libyan military who can and will take control, like Ghadafi himself did in 1969, but it appears that the situation in Libya will not run the pronounced non-violent course of Tunisia and Egypt.

I fear that there will be a lot more violence in Tunisia and Egypt before the military give up control of those countries. I am also fairly convinced that there will not be a revolution in Iran.

In 1913, Vera Brittain's brother, Edward Brittain, introduced her to Roland Leighton, one of his friends from Uppingham School. Leighton, who had just won a place Merton College at Oxford University, encouraged her to go to university and in 1914 her father relented and Vera was allowed to go to Somerville College.

On the outbreak of the First World War Roland and Edward, together with their close friend Victor Richardson, immediately applied for commissions in the British Army. Vera wrote to Roland about his decision to take part in the war: "I don't know whether your feelings about war are those of a militarist or not; I always call myself a non-militarist, yet the raging of these elemental forces fascinates me, horribly but powerfully, as it does you. You find beauty in it too; certainly war seems to bring out all that is noble in human nature, but against that you can say it brings out all the barbarous too. But whether it is noble or barbarous I am quite sure that had I been a boy I should have gone off to take part in it long ago; indeed I have wasted many moments regretting that I am a girl. Women get all the dreariness of war and none of its exhilaration."

Edward Brittain introduced Vera to his friend, Geoffrey Thurlow. He was suffering from shellshock after experiencing heavy bombardment at Ypres in February 1915. He was sent back to England and was at hospital at Fishmongers' Hall when he was visited by Vera. She wrote to Roland Leighton on 11th October 1915: "I liked Thurlow so much. Whatever Edward's failings, I must say he has an admirable faculty for choosing his friends well... But seeing Thurlow for a short time made me feel rather sad, for the nicer such people as he are, the more they serve to emphasize in some indirect way, the fact of your immense superiority over the very best of them!"

By the end of her first year at Somerville College she decided it was her duty to abandon her academic career to serve her country. During the summer of 1915 she worked at the Devonshire Hospital in Buxton, as a nursing assistant, tending wounded soldiers. On 28th June 1915 she wrote to Roland pointing out: "I can honestly say I love nursing, even after only two days. It is surprising how things that would be horrid or dull if one had to do them at home quite cease to be so when one is in hospital. Even dusting a ward is an inspiration. It does not make me half so tired as I thought it would either... The majority of cases are those of people who have got rheumatism resulting from wounds. Very few come straight from the trenches, it is too far, but go to another hospital first. One man in my ward had six operations before coming and is still almost helpless."

Vera applied to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) as a nurse and in November 1915 was posted to the First London General Hospital at Camberwell. Vera found this a traumatic experience. On 7th November 1915 she wrote to Roland Leighton: "I have only one wish in life now and that is for the ending of the war. I wonder how much really all you have seen and done has changed you. Personally, after seeing some of the dreadful things I have to see here, I feel I shall never be the same person again, and wonder if, when the war does end, I shall have forgotten how to laugh... One day last week I came away from a really terrible amputation dressing I had been assisting at - it was the first after the operation - with my hands covered with blood and my mind full of a passionate fury at the wickedness of war, and I wished I had never been born."

She found dealing with the parents of wounded soldiers particularly difficult: "Today is visiting day, and the parents of a boy of 20 who looks and behaves like 16 are coming all the way from South Wales to see him. He has lost one eye, had his head trepanned and has fourteen other wounds, and they haven't seen him since he went to the front. He is the most battered little object you ever saw. I dread watching them see him for the first time."

Vera Brittain wrote in her diary: "Sometimes in the middle of the night we have to turn people out of bed and make them sleep on the floor to make room for the more seriously ill ones who have come down from the line. We have heaps of gassed cases at present: there are 10 in this ward alone. I wish those people who write so glibly about this being a holy war, and the orators who talk so much about going on no matter how long the war lasts and what it may mean, could see a case - to say nothing of 10 cases of mustard gas in its early stages - could see the poor things all burnt and blistered all over with great suppurating blisters, with blind eyes - sometimes temporally, some times permanently - all sticky and stuck together, and always fighting for breath, their voices a whisper, saying their throats are closing and they know they are going to choke."

Vera became engaged to Roland Leighton, while he was on leave in August 1915. On his return to France he was stationed in trenches near Hebuterne, north of Albert. On the 26th November 1915 he wrote a letter to Vera that highlighted his disillusionment with the war. "It all seems such a waste of youth, such a desecration of all that is born for poetry and beauty. And if one does not even get a letter occasionally from someone who despite his shortcomings perhaps understands and sympathises it must make it all the worse... until one may possibly wonder whether it would not have been better to have met him at all or at any rate until afterwards. I sometimes wish for your sake that it had happened that way."

On the night of 22nd December 1915 he was ordered to repair the barbed wire in front of his trenches. It was a moonlit night with the Germans only a hundred yards away and Roland Leighton was shot by a sniper. His last words were: "They got me in the stomach, and it's bad." He died of his wounds at the military hospital at Louvencourt on 23rd December 1915. He is buried in the military cemetery near Doullens.

In her autobiography Vera recalled visiting Roland's family home in Hassocks. "I arrived at the cottage that morning to find his mother and sister standing in helpless distress in the midst of his returned kit, which was lying, just opened, all over the floor. The garments sent back included the outfit that he had been wearing when he was hit. I wondered, and I wonder still, why it was thought necessary to return such relics - the tunic torn back and front by the bullet, a khaki vest dark and stiff with blood, and a pair of blood-stained breeches slit open at the top by someone obviously in a violent hurry. Those gruesome rages made me realise, as I had never realised before, all that France really meant."

On 3rd January 1916, Vera returned to First London General Hospital at Camberwell. In his book, Letters From a Lost Generation (1998), Alan Bishop argued that "nursing proved an intolerable strain while her grief for Roland was still so raw on the support" of Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow, who were both recovering in military hospitals.

Edward Brittain arrived on the Western Front at the beginning of 1916. On 27th February he wrote to his sister, Vera Brittain. "Ordinary risks of stray shots or ricochets off a sandbag or the chance of getting hit when you look over the parapet in the night time - you hardly ever do in the day time but use periscopes - are daily to be encountered. But far the most dangerous thing is going out on patrol in No Man's Land. You take bombs in case you should meet a hostile patrol, but you might be surrounded, you might be seen especially if you go very close to their line and anyhow. Very lights are always being sent up and they make night into day so you have to keep down and quite still, and you might get almost on top of their listening post if you are not sure where it is."

On 8th January 1916 Victor Richardson suggested a meeting with Vera. "May I come and see you on Wednesday afternoon? I suggest this next Wednesday, because I am on guard at one of the Arsenal entrances during the week, and as it is not an important position I could leave my coadjutor in charge for the afternoon, and disappear - without leave..... Of course if you do not feel inclined to see people I shall quite understand. If I do not hear from you I shall assume this to be the case." Vera agreed to the meeting, as she told her brother, Edward Brittain: "I had tea with Victor on Wednesday. Of course we talked of Roland the whole time."

Vera wrote to her brother on 23rd February about her new friend, Geoffrey Thurlow: "I saw that Thurlow had been wounded - I suppose in the recent fighting at Ypres. I have almost loved him since his little letter to me after Roland died, and I can't tell you how anxiously I hope that he is not badly hurt." Vera went to visit Geoffrey on 27th February. Later that day she wrote to her brother about his condition: "I have just been to see Thurlow at Fishmongers' Hall Hospital, London Bridge. He is only very slightly wounded on the left side of his face; fortunately his eyes, nose and mouth are quite untouched. In fact he says he won't even have a scar left, and the wound is healing with a depressing rapidity.... He was apparently wounded in the bombardment, before all the trench fighting began. He thinks hardly any of his battalion are left now."

Vera told Edward Brittain that Thurlow was suffering from the consequences of serving on the front-line: "Thurlow was... sitting before a gas stove, with a green dressing gown on and a brown blanket over his knees. He seems to feel the cold a great deal, which must be owing to the shock, and also for the same reason his nerves are very bad, so he has been given two months sick leave."

Thurlow told Vera that he was keen to return to France. "Of course he doesn't want to go back a bit, but since he has to go, he's got the same feeling as he had before, that he wants to go out quickly and get it over. He says he finds the anticipation so much worse than the things themselves, whatever they are. He says he is not a bit of a success out there because he is so afraid of being afraid, and he hates the way all his men's eyes are fixed on him when anything big is on, partly to see how he will take it, partly because they are afraid of anything happening to him. He says he objects to war on principle, and is a non-militarist very strongly at heart. I think it was very brave of him to join almost at once as he did... It is easy to see he is suffering from shock; he looks rather a ghost now he is sitting up, talks even more jerkily than before, and works his fingers about nervously while he is talking."

Vera found nursing badly wounded men very difficult: "He (Victor Richardson) has been near death, I know, but he hasn't seen men with mutilations such as I have, though he may have heard a lot about them; I must admit that when, as I am doing at present, I have to deal with men who have only half a face left and the other side bashed in out of recognition, or part of their skull torn away, or both feet off, or an arm blown off at the shoulder."

Edward took part in the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916. The author of Letters From a Lost Generation (1998) has pointed out: "While his company was waiting to go over, the wounded from an earlier part of the attack began to crowd into the trenches. Then part of the regiment in front began to retreat, throwing Edward's men into a panic. He had to return to the trenches twice to exhort them to follow him over the parapet. About ninety yards along No-Man's-Land, Edward was hit by a bullet through his thigh. He fell down and crawled into a shell hole. Soon afterwards a shell burst close to him and a splinter from it went through his left arm. The pain was so great that for the first time he lost his nerve and cried out. After about an hour and a half, he noticed that the machine-gun fire was slackening, and started a horrifying crawl back through the dead and wounded to the safety of the British trenches."

Edward Brittain was sent to First London General Hospital at Camberwell where his sister was working as a nurse. According to Alan Bishop: "After receiving permission from his Matron to visit him, Vera hurried to Edward's bedside. He was struggling to eat breakfast with only one hand, his left arm was stiff and bandaged, but he appeared happy and relieved. Edward would remain in the hospital for three weeks before beginning a prolonged period of convalescent leave." On 24th August it was announced that Brittain had been awarded the Military Cross.

On 24th September, 1916, Vera received news that she was being posted to Malta. Her brother, Edward Brittain wrote on the 5th October: "The night of the day you left London the Zeppelins dropped 4 bombs at Purley somewhere up that hill where we walked one afternoon when I was still bad only about 600yds from the house but it did no damage. A foolish woman came out into the road and therefore received some shrapnel in one eye from one of our own guns but otherwise there was no damage except windows and a pillar box."

Vera continued to communicate with Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow. Richardson, who was a member of the 9th King's Royal Rifles was stationed on a quiet sector of the Western Front: "I have so far come across nothing more gruesome than a few very dead Frenchman in No Man's Land, so cannot give you very thrilling descriptions. The thing one appreciates in the life here more than anything else is the truly charming spirit of good fellowship and freedom from pettiness that prevails everywhere." Thurlow wrote on 18th November 1916: "Since my last letter much has happened - we have been to the war again and the weather treated us abominably: however our battalion did well taking an important Hun trench - we didn't go over the top but had to clean up and hang on to the trench. Luckily we had no officer casualties though there were many among the men. But as our number of officers is at present the irreducible minimum perhaps this accounts for it."

Edward Brittain received his Military Cross from George V on 16th December 1916. In a letter to Vera he wrote: "We were instructed what to do by a Colonel who I believe is the King's special private secretary and then the show started. One by one we walked into an adjoining room about 6 paces - halt - left turn - bow - 2 paces forward - King pins on cross - shake hands - pace back - bow - right turn and slope off by another door... The King spoke to a few of us including me; he said "I hope you have quite recovered from your wound", to which I replied "Very nearly thank you, Sir", and then went out with the cross in my pocket in a case. I met Mother just outside and we went off towards Victoria thinking we had quite escaped all the photographers, but unfortunately one beast from the Daily Mirror saw us and took us, but luckily it does not seem to have come out well as it is rather bad form to have your photo in a cheap rag if avoidable."

On 20th February 1917, Vera wrote a very personal letter to Edward: "But where you and I are concerned, sex by itself doesn't interest us unless it is united with brains and personality; in fact we rather think of the latter first, and the person's sex afterwards... I think very probably that older women will appeal to you much more than younger ones, as they do me. This means that you will probably have to wait a good many years before you find anyone you could wish to marry, but I don't think this need worry you, for there is plenty of time, and very often people who wait get something well worth waiting for."

In a letter to Edward Brittain on 2nd April 1917, Vera reported that some of the staff had been posted to Salonika. "I wish they would send some of us.... I would volunteer like a shot. Not because the city of malaria and mosquitoes and air-raids and odours suggests many attractions, but because this wandering, unsettled, indefinite sort of life makes one yearn to taste as much as one can of what the war has placed within human experience."

Victor Richardson was badly wounded during an attack at Arras on 9th April 1917. Vera wrote to her mother, Edith Brittain: "There really does not seem much point in writing anything until I hear further news of Victor, for I cannot think of anything else... I knew he was destined for some great action, even as I knew beforehand about Edward, for only about a week ago I had a most pathetic letter from him - a virtual farewell. It is dreadful to be so far away and all among strangers.... Poor Edward! What a bad time the Three Musketeers have had!"

Richardson was sent back to London where he received specialist treatment at a hospital in Chelsea. Edward Brittain, visited him in hospital, and then wrote to Vera, about his condition: "It is not known yet whether Victor will die or not, but his left eye was removed in France and the specialist who saw him thinks it is almost certain that the sight of the right eye has gone too... The bullet - probably from a machine-gun - went in just behind the left eye and went very slightly upwards but not I'm afraid enough to clear the right eye; the bullet is not yet out though very close to the right edge of the temple; it is expected that it will work through of its own accord... We are told that he may remain in his present condition for a week. I don't think he will die suddenly but of course the brain must be injured and it depends upon how bad the injury is. I am inclined to think it would be better that he should die; I would far rather die myself than lose all that we have most dearly loved, but I think we hardly bargained for this. Sight is really a more precious gift than life."

Geoffrey Thurlow was killed in action at Monchy-le-Preux on 23rd April 1917. Three days later, Captain J. W. Daniel, wrote to Edward Brittain, about Thurlow's death: "The hun had got us held up and the leading battalions of the Brigade had failed to get their objective. The battalion came up in close support through a very heavy barrage, but managed to get into the trench - of which the Boshe still held a part... I sent a message to Geoffrey to push along the trench and find out if possible what was happening on the right. the trench was in a bad condition and rather congested, so he got out on the top. Unfortunately the Boche snipers were very active and he was soon hit through the lungs. Everything was done to make him as comfortable as possible, but he died lying on a stretcher about fifteen minutes later."

Edward wrote to Vera about Thurlow: "Always a splendid friend with a splendid heart and a man who won't be forgotten by you or me however long or short a time we may live. Dear child, there is no more to say; we have lost almost all there was to lose and what have we gained? Truly as you say has patriotism worn very very threadbare."

Vera replied: "I can't tell you how I shall miss Geoffrey - I think he meant more to me that anyone after Roland and you. as for you I dare not think how lonely you must feel with him dead and Victor perhaps worse, for it makes me too impatient of the time that must elapse before I can see you - I may not even be able to start for two or three weeks. Geoffrey and I had become very friendly indeed in letters of late, and used to write at least once a week... After Roland he was the straightest, soundest, most upright and idealistic person I have ever known."

Vera decided to return home after the death of Geoffrey Thurlow and the serious injuries suffered by Victor Richardson. She told her brother: "As soon as the cable came saying that Geoffrey was killed, only a few hours after the one saying that Victor was hopelessly blind, I knew I must come home. It will be easier to explain when I see you, also - perhaps - to consult you about something I can't possibly discuss in a letter. Anyone could take my place here, but I know that nobody else could take the place that I could fill just now at home."

Edward Brittain went to visit Victor and on 7th May he told his sister: "He was told last Wednesday that he will probably never see again, but he is marvellously cheerful.... He is perfectly sensible in every way and I don't think there is the very least doubt that he will live. He said that the last few days had been rather bitter. He hasn't given up hope himself about his sight."

Vera arrived in London on 28th May 1917. The next ten days she spent at Victor's bedside. As Alan Bishop points out: "His mental faculties appeared to be in no way impaired. On 8 June, however, there was a sudden change in his condition. In the middle of the night he experienced a miniature explosion in the head, and subsequently became very distressed and disoriented. By the time his family reached the hospital Victor had become delirious." Victor Richardson died of a cerebral abscess on 9th June, 1917 and is buried in Hove. He was awarded the Military Cross posthumously.

Edward returned to the Western Front in June 1917. Vera decided she wanted to be as close to her brother as possible and in July she returned to duty with the Voluntary Aid Detachment and requested a posting to France. On 30th June 1917 Edward wrote to Vera: "The unexpected has happened again and I am in for another July 1st (Battle of the Somme)... You know that, as I promised, I will try to come back if I am killed. It is all very sudden and it is bad luck that I am here in time, but still it must be. All the love there is in life or death."

On 3th August 1917, Vera joined a small draft of nurses who were being sent out to the 24th General Hospital at Étaples. She wrote to her mother on 5th August: "I arrived here yesterday afternoon; the hospital is about a mile out of the town, on the side of the hill, in a large clearing surrounded on three sides by woods... The hospital is frantically busy and we were very much welcomed.... You will be surprised to hear that at present I am nursing German prisoners. My ward is entirely reserved for the most acute German surgical cases... The majority are more or less dying; never, even at the 1st London during the Somme push, have I seen such dreadful wounds. Consequently they are all too ill to be aggressive, and one forgets that they are the enemy and can only remember that they are suffering human beings."

Vera had to deal with men suffering from mustard gas attacks. She wrote to her mother on 5th December 1917: "We have heaps of gassed cases at present who came in a day or two ago; there are ten in this ward alone. I wish those people who write so glibly about this being a holy war and the orators who talk so much about going on no matter how long the war lasts and what it may mean, could see a case - to say nothing of ten cases - of mustard gas in its early stages - could see the poor things burnt and blistered all over with great mustard coloured suppurating blisters, with blinded eyes - sometimes temporally, sometimes permanently - all sticky and stuck together, and always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke. The only thing one can say it that such severe cases don't last long; either they die soon or else improve - usually the former; they certainly don't reach England in the state we have them here, and yet people persist in saying that God made War, when there are such inventions of the Devil about."

In her autobiography, Testament of Youth (1933), Vera recorded: "Sometimes in the middle of the night we have to turn people out of bed and make them sleep on the floor to make room for the more seriously ill ones who have come down from the line.... The strain is very, very great. The enemy is within shelling distance - refugee sisters crowding in with nerves all awry - bright moonlight, and aeroplanes carrying machine guns - ambulance trains jolting into the siding, all day, all night - gassed men on stretchers clawing the air - dying men reeking with mud and foul green stained bandages, shrieking and writhing in a grotesque travesty of manhood - dead men with fixed empty eyes and shiny yellow faces."

In September 1917 Edward Brittain took part in a major offensive. He wrote to Vera on the 23rd: "We came out (of the front-line) last night... had about 50 casualties including one officer in the company - the best officer of course. I ought to have been slain myself heaps of times but I seem to be here still. Harrison has arrived back and it is quite a relief to hand the company over for a bit."

The following month Edward was sent to Ypres for the offensive at Passchendaele. He wrote to Vera on 7th October 1917: "My leave seems to have been stopped for the present for some reason or other and also we are probably going up to Ypres again tonight to provide working-parties etc. which is as unexpected as it is objectionable; it is filthy weather, cold and pouring with rain and I have just caught a bad cold and so am not particularly pleased with life."

In November 1917 Edward Brittain and the 11th Sherwood Foresters were posted to the Italian Front in the Alps above Vicenza, following the humiliating rout of the Italian Army at Caporetto. On 15th November 1917, he wrote to Vera: "We marched through the city yesterday - it is old, picturesque and rather sleepy with narrow streets and pungent smells; we have been accorded a most hearty reception all the way and have been presented with anything from bottles of so-called phiz, to manifestos issued by mayors of towns; flowers and postcards were the most frequent tributes."

While she was in Étaples Vera received a letter from her father informing her that her mother had suffered a complete breakdown and entered a nursing home in Mayfair, and that it was her duty to leave France immediately and return home to Kensington. Vera arrived back in England in April 1918 and arranged for her mother to return home. According to the author of Letters From a Lost Generation (1998): "Vera... took charge of the household. But it was with a strong air of resentment that she tried to reaccustom herself to the dull monotony of civilian life."

On 15th June, 1918, the Austrian Army launched a surprise attack with a heavy bombardment of the British front-line along the bottom of the San Sisto Ridge. Edward Brittain led his men in a counter-offensive and had regained the lost positions, but soon afterwards, he was shot through the head by a sniper and had died instantaneously. He was buried with four other officers in the small cemetery at Granezza.

Alan Bishop points out that his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Hudson, had ordered an investigation into Brittain's homosexuality: "Shortly before the action in which he was killed, Edward had been faced with an enquiry and, in all probability, a court martial when his battalion came out of the line, because of his involvement with men in his company. It remains a possibility that, faced with the disgrace of a court martial, Edward went into battle deliberately seeking to be killed."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jbrittain.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWbrittainE.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWleightonR.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWrichardsonV.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWthurlow.htm

Winifred Holtby and Vera Brittain met at Oxford University in 1919. Brittain explained in her autobiography, Testament of Youth (1933): "I was staring gloomily at the Oxford engravings and photographs graphs of the Dolomites which clustered together so companionably upon the Dean's study wall, when Winifred Holtby burst suddenly in upon this morose atmosphere of ruminant lethargy. Superbly tall, and vigorous as the young Diana with her long straight limbs and her golden hair, her vitality smote with the effect of a blow upon my jaded nerves. Only too well aware that I had lost that youth and energy for ever, I found myself furiously resenting its possessor. Obstinately disregarding the strong-featured, sensitive face and the eager, shining blue eyes, I felt quite triumphant because - having returned from France less than a month before - she didn't appear to have read any of the books which the Dean had suggested as indispensable introductions to our Period."

Winifred and Vera graduated together in 1921 and they moved to London where they shared a flat in Doughty Street. They hoped to establish themselves as writers. Vera's first two novels, The Dark Tide (1923) and Not Without Honour (1925) sold badly and were ignored by the critics. However, Winifred had more success with Anderby Wold (1923) and The Crowded Street (1924).

In June 1925, Vera married the academic, George Edward Catlin. As Mark Bostridge has pointed out: "When Brittain and Catlin set up home in London after their marriage, Holtby joined them as the third member of the household. Catlin never overcame his resentment at his wife's friendship with the woman Vera described as her second self. He knew, in spite of all the gossip to the contrary, that the Brittain-Holtby relationship had never been a lesbian one, but its closeness still rankled."

Vera and her husband moved to the United States when her husband became a a professor at Cornell University. Vera found it difficult to settle in America and after the birth of her two children, John (1927) and Shirley (1930) she moved back to England where she lived with Winifred Holtby. The two women were extremely close and Vera once described Winifred as her "second self".

Winifred helped to bring up Vera's two children. Shirley Williams, later wrote: "She (Winifred Holtby) was tremendous fun and understood, better than any other grown-up, children's fantasies and fears. We had a dressing-up box full of discarded hats and dresses, scarves and masks and wooden necklaces from Africa. We would perform for our parents the plays Winifred wrote for us... I was a boisterous child, so Winifred, despite her frailty, joined in our rougher games as well. She would crawl around the nursery, balancing cushions on her back, while I rode on top, pretending to direct an elephant from my howdah."

Holtby was a socialist and feminist. She wrote that: "Personally, I am a feminist... because I dislike everything that feminism implies.… I want to be about the work in which my real interests lie... But while injustice is done and opportunity denied to the great majority of women, I shall have to be a feminist." Like her companion, Vera Brittain, Winifred was a pacifist and lectured extensively for the League of Nations Union. Winifred gradually became more critical of the class system and inherited privileges and by the late 1920s was active in the Independent Labour Party.

Winifred's relationship with Vera created a certain amount of gossip. Vera's daughter, Shirley Williams, argued: "Some critics and commentators have suggested that their relationship must have been a lesbian one. My mother deeply resented this. She felt that it was inspired by a subtle anti-feminism to the effect that women could never be real friends unless there was a sexual motivation, while the friendships of men had been celebrated in literature from classical times. My mother was instinctively heterosexual. But as a famous woman author holding progressive opinions, she became an icon to feminists and in particular to lesbian feminists." However, Vera's husband, George Edward Catlin, did not approve of the relationship. He wrote later: "You preferred her to me. It humiliated me and ate me up."

In 1926 Winifred Holtby became one of the directors of the feminist journal, Time and Tide. In an article published in August of that year she wrote: "Hitherto, society has drawn one prime division between two sections of people, the line of sex-differentiation, with men above and women below. The Old Feminists believe that the conception of this line, and the attempt to preserve it by political and economic laws and social traditions not only checks the development of the woman's personality, but prevents her from making that contribution to the common good which is the privilege and the obligation of every human being. While the inequality exists, while injustice is done and opportunities denied to the great majority of women, I shall have to be a feminist, and an Old Feminist, with the motto Equality First. And I shan't be happy till I get it."

Holtby took a keen interests in the struggle for equal rights in South Africa. She criticised General Jan Smuts when he failed to stop the introduction of racist legislation. Holtby argued that the reason for this was that "because for Smuts and his contemporaries, the human horizon does not yet extend to coloured races, as, for Fox and his 18th-century contemporaries, it did not extend to English women."

Vera's daughter, Shirley Williams, enjoyed living with Winifred: "What I remember above all about Winifred Holtby is her radiance. She was a ray of sunshine in the intense and preoccupied atmosphere of home life in my early years.... She was Viking-like in appearance, impressively statuesque with bright blue eyes and very pale flaxen hair."

Winifred Holtby published another novel, The Land of Green Ginger, in 1927. However, as Alan Bishop has pointed out: "Holtby's lively, stylish, witty articles and reviews soon gained her a high reputation as a journalist. She wrote for The Manchester Guardian and a regular weekly article for the trade union magazine, The Schoolmistress. Books publishing during this period included, Poor Caroline (1931), a critical study of Virginia Woolf (1932), Mandoa, Mandoa! (1933) and a volume of short stories, Truth is Not Sober (1934).

In her first volume of autobiography, Testament of Youth (1933) Vera Brittain wrote about her struggle for education and her experiences as a nurse during the First World War. It also told of her relationship with her brother, Edward Brittain, and her love of Roland Leighton, Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow. The novelist, Margaret Storm Jameson, reviewed the book in the Sunday Times and said that as a representation of war from a woman's perspective "makes it unforgettable". It was an immediate bestseller in Britain and the United States.

In the early 1930s Winifred began to suffer with high-blood-pressure, recurrent headaches and bouts of lassitude. According to Shirley Williams: "She was subject to bouts of serious illness, the consequence of a childhood episode of scarlet fever that led to sclerosis of the kidneys". Eventually she was diagnosed as suffering from Bright's Disease. Her doctor told her that she probably only had two years to live. Aware she was dying, Winifred put all her remaining energy into what became her most important book, South Riding.

Vera Brittain later recalled that she asked Harry Pearson to tell "Winifred he loved her and always had; that he'd like to marry her when she was better". She added that on 28th September, 1935: "At about three o'clock Hilda Reid rang up to say that Dr. Obermer had been round to the home and had already put Winifred under morphia; she was now unconscious and would never be permitted to come back to consciousness again. Later I learnt that Dr. Obermer did this because after Harry had been with Winifred she was so happy and excited that he feared a violent convulsion for her, with physical pain and mental anguish; and that he thought it best to let her go out on that moment of happiness, with the cruel realization that what she was hoping could never be fulfilled."

The following day Vera went to visit Winifred at the nursing home at 23 Devonshire Street in Marylebone: "Shortly after six o'clock I realised that she was breathing more shallowly, while her pulse was slower and weaker. After almost a quarter of an hour her pulse, which I was holding, had almost stopped, and her breathing seemed to come from her throat only... It was strange, incredible, after all the years of our friendship and all that we had shared together, to feel her life flickering out under my hand. Suddenly her pulse stopped; she had given two or three deeper breaths and then these ceased and I thought she had stopped breathing too; but after a moment came one final, lingering sigh, and then everything was at an end."

Winifred Holtby died on 29th September, 1935. Vera Brittain was Winifred's literary executor, and was determined to make sure South Riding was published. However, as Mark Bostridge has pointed out: "The major obstacle she faced was the indomitable figure of Holtby's mother, Alice, the first woman alderman of the East Riding. She feared that her daughter's depiction of local government, allied to the vein of satire and puckish mischief familiar from her earlier books, might expose her own job to criticism and ridicule... Alice Holtby remained obdurate in her opposition to the book's publication, forcing Brittain to adopt a strategy of mild subterfuge, negotiating the uncorrected typescript through probate in order to have the novel ready for publication by Collins in the spring of 1936."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jbrittain.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jholtby.htm

Bill, I share your excitement at the possibility of democracy coming to the Middle East. Unfortunately, we are still a long way from this. Two dictators have been removed but they still have military governments and still no timetable for elections. The US and UK have been very quiet about the protests in Bahrain. Could it be because they have military bases in this country? The government in Bahrain is also hostile to the regime in Iran. The best hope in Libya is a revolution led by young military officers who are willing to listen to the demands of the people.

Publicity from Amazon:

Jerry Ray: A Memoir of Injustice

No one knows Jerry Ray or the true story of James Earl Ray and the injustice of his wrongful conviction than T Carter. Her new book, A Memoir of Injustice by the Younger Brother of James Earl Ray, Alleged Assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr. as told to Tamara Carter, is the result of her meticulous historical research and her years of discussions with the brother of the patsy accused of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. She also discusses the history of our efforts since 2000 to create a Martin Luther King, Jr. Records Act with the help of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and it’s current revival in Congress by Senator Kerry and Representative Lewis. Even if you are not a student of the King assassination this book is a first person history of people caught up in the machinery of injustice that marks far too much of our legal, media and political system. The book can be pre-ordered now on Amazon.

Recently, the great writer G. William Domhoff (author of the classic Who Rules America) wrote an online article, addressing the unequal distribution of wealth in America. Here's the link:

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Just one important (and frightening) fact from this article; while the top 1% of all Americans possess nearly 35% of all real wealth in the country, and the top 20% possess 85% of the wealth, the bottom 40% have less than 1% of real wealth. Think about that; nearly half of all Americans have virtually no wealth, while the top 20% has 85%. Wow.

We have the same situation in the UK. The main problem is that it is getting worse. One of the reasons for this is that governments allow these rich individuals to pay very little tax. The donations they make to the political parties is money well spent.

Winifred Holtby's South Riding is on TV tonight. The book has a lot to say about local government. It includes the following quotation:

But when I came to consider local government, I began to see how it was in essence the first line defence thrown up by the community against our common enemies-poverty, sickness, ignorance, isolation, and social maladjustment. The battle is not faultlessly conducted, nor are the motives of those who take part in it all righteousness or disinterested. But the war, is, I believe worth fighting... we are not only single individuals, each face to face with eternity and our separate spirits; we are members one of another.

Winifred Holtby died aged 37 on 29th September, 1935. Vera Brittain was Winifred's literary executor, and was determined to make sure South Riding was published. However, as Mark Bostridge has pointed out: "The major obstacle she faced was the indomitable figure of Holtby's mother, Alice, the first woman alderman of the East Riding. She feared that her daughter's depiction of local government, allied to the vein of satire and puckish mischief familiar from her earlier books, might expose her own job to criticism and ridicule... Alice Holtby remained obdurate in her opposition to the book's publication, forcing Brittain to adopt a strategy of mild subterfuge, negotiating the uncorrected typescript through probate in order to have the novel ready for publication by Collins in the spring of 1936."

Alice Holtby immediately resigned from the East Riding County Council when South Riding was published. It received excellent reviews. One critic claimed: "The most public-spirited novel of her generation."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jholtby.htm

Mr. Simkin, Could please take the time to answwer my other questions about any extant Journal American issues on microfilm or in any other format: are there any in the New York area or on the east coast? Is there some way for us to read them? Have any FOIA suits been filed based upon chemical tools used for killing or assassination by CIA?

Thanks for your time

I do not know the answers to these questions. I am no longer interested in JFK research. However, I am sure there are members of the forum who could answer these questions.

Doug, you may wish to take a look at this thread:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5314

Vera Brittain, who lost the four men she loved during the First World War: Edward Brittain, Roland Leighton, Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow, was a leading figure in the Peace Pledge Union. From September 1939 she began publishing Letters to Peace Lovers, a small journal that expressed her views on the war. This made her extremely unpopular as the journal criticised the government for bombing urban areas in Nazi Germany. In her books, England's Hour: an Autobiography (1941) and Humiliation with Honour (1943), Brittain attempted to explain her pacifism in her book Humiliation with Honour. This was followed by Seeds of Chaos, an attack on the government's policy of area bombing.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jbrittain.htm

First, let me state for the record that I have only made a fast and cursory review of this book; when time permits, I will read it more thoroughly. But my first take on it is as follows:

While Mr. Farrell seems to come to a quasi-conclusion that Johnson was behind the assassination, he then waters that down by including him as only one of the many other groups that have been implicated, in ". . .his essential role at the center of it all". (p. 4). Again, at p. 294, he says "Lyndon Johnson is tied to all of them and only Johnson would have had the authority both before and after the assassination to order the Secret Service and other Federal agencies to lift normal security protocols and to tamper with the evidence, as he clearly did." So far, so good.

But it might be helpful if you went to the following link, making sure your speakers are on, before going any further. . .

In addition to the list of all the "Usual Suspects" we now add such phenomena as alchemy, UFO people, the Occult, Freemasons (Hoover, James Webb and others) and, through that group, many former Nazis some of whom (Werner Von Braun) were now employed by that very suspicious bunch of engineers at NASA. Oh yes, let us not forget capitalism itself, which permitted, according to Mr. Farrell, ". . . one individual, acting in the capacity of the corporate person and at the pinnacles of corporate power, can damn the whole. We know the doctrine well, for it is the doctrine at the core of western Christendom: original sin, and Adam is in that doctrine the original corporate person. . . It is this doctrine that is the basis of all occult and magical working of the ritual sacrifice in general, and in particular the alchemical transformation of the American consciousness that played itself out that day in Dealey Plaza, involving all in American's "original sin" by the act of consent. Such power cannot be had nor exercised without the presupposition of the corporate person who stands, as one, for all."

Well, excuse me, Mr. Farrell, but having given your book admittedly only a "quick read" I must admit that it leaves me cold. The conclusion of your book was not Lyndon Baines Johnson, acting as the key provocateur, who caused the assassination of John F. Kennedy to happen, but that all these other "otherworldly" phenomena, based upon "deep parapolitical powers that planned and executed the Kennedy assassination" and the "original sin" of the American people--and using as a springboard the capitalist system of the Western world, were the real cause.

I expect that this book will be lauded by the folks at "Deep Politics Forum" (except for the fact that LBJ's name in the title will no doubt be one strike against it). Meanwhile, it is now placed at the bottom of my reading list so I do not expect to comment further on it for awhile.

He makes the same points in the radio interview. I was very unimpressed with him. If one looks at his past he has never shown any interest in the JFK case. He admits he wrote the book as a favour for his publisher after the original author dropped out. He says his publisher was upset because he had already paid for the "front cover artwork". It was therefore a rush job. He says that the most important evidence that he discovered for the conspiracy was the Torbitt document (William Torbitt is the pseudonymous author of Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal that was first published in 1970). As researchers know this document is highly controversial and could never be used as "evidence" by any respectable researcher.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKtorbitt.htm

Farrell boasts about studying at Oxford University but it is clear his subject was not history. In the radio interview he gave the impression that "association" is the same as "evidence". He provides no new evidence and all his research appears to be from the internet (no doubt a lot of it came from this forum). Farrell is really only interested in linking the JFK case to his theories concerning the influence of "Nazis" on American culture and his view on UFOs and aliens.

Geoffrey Thurlow in 1916

Victor Richardson in 1915