Looking to our history - August 2023 Issue
Welcome to the August 2023 Issue of The Norwich Radical! Ahead of the annual rally in commemoration of the legendary Burston School Strike - this year recognising its 109th anniversary - the third issue of our new model presents a selection of articles that put working people's struggles of 2023 in conversation with the last century or so of UK workers' history.
Some years, history looms large in the mind. 2023 marks 100 years of Mile Cross, Britain's oldest large-scale social housing estate. 75 years of the NHS, the realisation of Aneurin Bevan's dream to spread the worker-won social benefits of the South Wales valleys across the isles. And more than 40 years of concentrated effort by corporate-minded governments to dismantle the security, safety and health that working people built for themselves in this country.
In this issue, we remember what they ripped away from us, and we look to local efforts to build it anew. Rowan Gavin learns the inspiring tale of Mile Cross and the power of community theatre to inform, engage and organise. Jonathan Lee takes us back to the radical worker movements of 19th century South Wales and traces the roots of the NHS to the mutual aid of Tredegar. After a decade of sustained attack on that great institution, Kasper Hassett explores the complexities of diagnosing neurodivergent conditions amid a decimated NHS and the false promises of private healthcare. And contributions from ACORN Norwich, the community union, and Caracol Books, Norwich's newest radical bookshop, remind us that even in these grim times, many of us are taking action to improve the worlds of our communities.
You can support our work financially by visiting our Steady page to set up a recurring donation. If you'd like to volunteer with us as a writer, editor or artist, or to pitch a one-off piece, you can reach us at thenorwichradical@gmail.com.
CARACOL BOOKS - A NEW RADICAL BOOKSHOP FOR NORWICH
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FINDING PURPOSE WITH COMMUNITY ACTIVISM: ACORN NORWICH
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NEURODIVERSITY DIAGNOSES: HELP AND HARM IN A DECIMATED HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
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HOW WELSH RADICALS ‘TREDEGAR-ISED’ BRITAIN AND CREATED THE NHS AND THE WELFARE STATE
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BRICK BY BRICK: MILE CROSS, THE GREAT ESTATE, AND THE COMMON LOT
by Dan of Caracol Books
Caracol Books is a new radical bookshop and education project based in Norwich. In the tradition of many radical bookshops,we are a not-for-profit project and run exclusively by people freely volunteering their time, energy and resources. Our aim is to provide access to revolutionary texts that inspire people to imagine and build different and better worlds. We specialise in texts from across the revolutionary, autonomous and anti-authoritarian traditions including but not limited to communism, anarchism, and socialism. We are hoping to continue expanding our selection as we grow to include practical guides on ecology, fiction, and books for children and young people.
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by Adam Walker
Part of me died in 2019. I suspect some part of you may have too. In a burning world, a dark world, full of fascism and fear and fumes, it’s easy to feel hollow. But today, I feel more alive than I did then, more full of hope, more invigorated, more connected to my community. And it’s all because of an acorn.
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by Kasper Hassett
In recent months, private clinics for diagnosing and treating Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have been a topic of debate that has sparked scrutiny into not only the service providers, but also the patients using those services. Some have questioned whether testing under the NHS would result in the same diagnoses, and whether private ADHD clinics are overly eager to provide diagnoses to paying customers. In reality, all of this stems from a broken healthcare system: nationalised healthcare is being decimated to give private healthcare validity, and this harms patients of both streams.
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Mile Cross, Norwich: Britain’s oldest large-scale social housing estate. A hundred years ago this autumn, the opening of Mile Cross Bridge linked the then-new estate to the city at large. Always keen for an excuse to delve into local history, Norwich’s mischievous community theatre company The Common Lot got to work with Mile Cross residents to celebrate the centenary. After months of community story-finding, the Lot took to the boards in locations around Norwich earlier this summer with their new show The Great Estate: 100 Years of Mile Cross, drawing crowds of thousands to laugh, cry, sing and learn about the unfairly maligned estate. A few weeks after the production wrapped, I sat down with Common Lot writer and Director of Theatre Simon Floyd to hear some of the stories behind the show.
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In 1947, British Health Minister and founder of the NHS Aneurin Bevan announced “All I am doing is extending to the entire population of Britain the benefits we had in Tredegar for a generation or more. We are going to Tredegar-ise you.”
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the creation of the National Health Service (NHS); still an outlier in Europe for providing healthcare that is completely free at the point of care. Three quarters of a century after its creation, the steady trickle of privatisation and chronic Tory underfunding now constitutes the greatest sustained threat to the existence since the attacks of the British Medical Association (BMA), when it was first struggling to come into being in the 1940s. Ironically it is now the BMA sounding the alarm that the NHS “is experiencing some of the most severe pressures in its 75-year history” and advocating a medium-term £7 billion funding injection to keep the service functioning.
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Thanks for reading. We encourage you to join the rally at Burston this Sunday if you're able to, or if you're reading this in the future, to get down to your nearest picket line whenever you get the chance.
In Solidarity,
The Norwich Radical Team
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