Leftist books

I was not brought up in a left-wing home.  Far from it. My mum came from a rural working-class family who lived in a world where the lord of the manor still ruled – even though he’d become Lord Iliffe by owning newspapers. My grandad worked as one of his gardeners and the house they lived in came with the job. Rebellion was out of the question. The Bosley family accepted their lot and Jean Bosley, though bright, had no aspirations beyond earning a living and raising a family. She left school at fifteen, worked as a servant on a farm for a while, then at the outbreak of war turned a lathe at the Theale ordnance factory – I’m not exactly sure of her hours but it was common for munitions workers to work 10 to 12 hours a day with a weekend off once a fortnight. After six years of this and a broken engagement she got a job at the Hatchgate Bakery in Burghfield serving in the shop and café and delivering bread. In 1946 the bakery was taken over by new owners and her boss was now my dad.

My dad was a Londoner, born in Hampton to Hetty and William Blake. Bill came from a working-class family in Islington, lost both brothers in the Great War, started out as a salesman for a printing firm and progressed to become sales manager at their Reading branch. Despite periods of what we now understand to be mental illness, he made a comfortable living, which is how he was able to set my dad up as village baker. The business went bust in the early 50s due to the popularity of sliced bread and Ken scraped a living as a travelling salesman before an attempt to set up his own business selling fridges on the Isle of Wight. When this failed he became a telephone operator (and shop steward) before a lucky break saw him providing electricity to the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival and building a relatively successful business as an electrical contractor on the back of this.

As a young man Ken had been quite left wing. He also had an unconventional upbringing, going to dame schools and never being institutionalised. But as an only child and later a one-man-band businessman, his outlook was very much me-against-the-world – what Marxists call petit-bourgeois individualism. He had no fondness for those above him – royalty, the officer class etc – but equally (despite his years as shop steward) no fondness for unions, who frequently caused him problems as a contractor. Nor was he keen on “the queers”, “the coloureds”, or “the yids”, although he was not aggressive about these prejudices.  However, like his dad Bill, he was a Conservative voter and an enthusiast for Enoch Powell. My mum shared most of the old man’s prejudices, but she also represented many of the greatest virtues of the working class: sociable, industrious, life-affirming and generous. Anyone who came into her house, regardless of these prejudices, could guarantee she’d make them feel welcome.

I should also mention that, unlike their parents, both my parents were atheists. I always say that my dad was a republican because he wasn’t king and an atheist for a similar reason, but the truth is that the old man had a massively cynical view of life in general, and an underlying anger which surfaced frequently, including the time he booted me out of the family home while I was in the middle of a major life crisis.

There were numerous sources of this anger. Like many men he had a problem expressing grief, particularly over the death of his mother: despite being an atheist he responded to this by shaking his fist at the sky. The other constant was his frustration that he was an intelligent, cultured man with a big ego but no social status to match: no A-levels, no degree, little wealth, no professional standing.  And it is this lack of status, as much or more than lack of money, that has fuelled the anger of so many others and made them so malleable in the hands of the self-seeking hate-merchants who have sought to convince them that others less deserving are getting a better deal than they are.

Enoch Powell, of course, was a classic upper class anal retentive and his “rivers of blood” speech was typical of the far right: warning that something bad was going to happen, but in reality wanting it and intentionally promoting it. We’ve heard the same from Farage and his acolytes on GB News about today’s migrants. In reality Powell’s warnings have proved to be nonsense, or there would be rivers of blood in the changing room every time the England football team prepare for a match.

Inevitably I internalised some of the old man’s insecure worldview. We lived in a bungalow on the edge of a large council estate in Southampton and us kids were often scolded for ‘sounding like the people in the council houses’. But most of my friends at school lived in these council houses (including the wonderful intelligent girl who became my first girlfriend), and one day this led to a road-to-Damascus moment which changed my worldview forever. I was walking home with a friend and said to him “You know how people in the council houses can shout”. “Yes”, he said knowingly, and I realised we were standing outside the house he lived in. I felt utterly ashamed and embarrassed. Later his family emigrated and he is now one of Australia’s most celebrated artists.

My own peculiar background has made me very aware that people are full of contradictions. The right like to say that the categories ‘left’ and ‘right’ mean nothing anymore, but this is nonsense – it’s just that left and right voices are competing inside people’s heads, so that they may at the same time blame Thatcher for what’s happened to the country yet rail at asylum-seekers. And when the establishment put everything into a propaganda campaign, such as the antisemitism smear against Jeremy Corbyn, even some on the left will end up joining in.

It took me many years to sort out my own contradictions, but eventually it was crystal clear to me that people like my mother should never be treated as inferior to anybody, and that everybody who eliminates the voices of our lords and masters from their heads will be so much better for it.