I'm quite apathetic about politics, but a lot of older and wiser people have pointed out to me the legacy of Thatcherism. In the short term she may have sorted out a few percieved 'ills', but I'm under no illusion that a hell of a lot of the social problems we've got now are due to the Conservative Governement of the 80s/90s.

If you look at areas like East Durham or South Wales, where there were once proud communities centered around industry, you now have high unemployment, poor health, drug and alchohol problems, social/cultural deprivation and little in the way of prospects.

Although still a slip of a lad during her tenure, I remember well when there were only two or three kids in my class at school who weren't on free school dinners. I wasn't one of them. Me dad had O levels and plenty of nouse, but could he buggery get a job.

What Thatcherism seems to have done is create huge social divisions (north/south, have/have not) which will linger for many generations to come.

Whenever you see the 80s featured on TV, they roll out the cliched footage of yuppies in the stock market, champagne quaffing, Porshe driving etc, as if that is what is was like for everyone. I think the current economic crisis is a hangover from the get-rich-quick philosophy of the 80s - if there weren't so many greedy bounders with no idea of responsibility, the government wouldn't have had to bail the banks out.

I'm not a fan of New Labour, but there's no way I would prefer the downright vindictive style of government we endured during the Thatcher years.

Sorry mate, its the same song with a different singer.

Yes areas were decimated but ask yourself why? Invariably it was areas that were dominated by old heavy industry which were not financially sustainable. Every miner goes on about it being Thatchers fault that the pits closed and it just ain't true. In 1973 the NUM obtained a huge pay rise by crippling the powerstations and causing the 3 day week. He eventually brought the Heath government down. The unions were simply too powerful and riddled with reds. Scargill as a card carrying communist, watched Joe Gormley beat Heath and when the Tories got back in under Maggie, he wanted to emulate his old boss.

His problem was that Maggie had too watched the Heath debacle and knew Scargill would try again which is why she built up massive coal stocks at the power stations. When Scargill came calling she was ready. This scenario was replicated across British industry with just about every part of heavy industry being regularly on strike with big pay demands irrespective of the capability of the business to sustain them. British Steel, the Car makers, councils, docks, newspapers etc were all responsible but the miners are the one people remember.

The end result was lots of heavy industry closed and of course the people affected blamed Maggie rather than themselves and their union leadership. Put simply; greed and politics were responsible. The politics of Scargill and the individual greed of the miners. I mentioned earlier the institutional pilfering of the mineworkers and I wasn't joking. Every house in the areas had stolen NCB tool kits and first ad kits. Every garden was dug with NCB spades. Everyone had NCB donkey jackets whether they worked there or not. Every nut, bolt and screw that anyone needed was taken from work. They all got free coal too along with a fair amount of money poured into the community. Ask Horden CW who paid for their ground for example. The pits closed because of a number of factors but Scargill and his NUM predecessors bears a heavy responsibility.

Incidentally, why is it always quoted that the Police were Maggies army in the coal war and the other side forgotten? What about the bullying and violence of the miners? Fancy going to work to feed your hungry kids? Then you had better prepare for a kicking for you and and another for those kids when they get to school. You had better not sit in the front room because the chances are that a brick is going to fly through it. Others got it too; lorry drivers were killed because miners threw blocks of concrete onto their cabs from motorway bridges. Gangs of maurading miners travelled the country in mobs to threaten and beat up strikebreakers - these were known as the 'flying pickets'.

The North East suffered more than most simply because there was more heavy industry in the area than most others not because of some meglomaniacal hatred of the North. It was the ego of Scargill that was the problem not the determination of Margaret Thatcher.

By the way, I too lived through the worst days of that recession and yes, I was insulated to an extent but even the forces were hit with morotoriums. Nevertheless every week my mum could cash a payment book for £15 which was taken directly from my pittance of a wage. Without that money she would have been in dire trouble.

Maggie wasn't perfect and she did make mistakes but her legacy is that she turned a bankrupt country around, crushed over powerful unions and made the rest of the world respect Britain again.

I agree the unions and the Labour party got many things wrong. That doesn't mean their purpose was fundamentally mistaken. There'd been centuries of exploitation of working people, without whose labour the country wouldn't have amassed wealth in the first place. So when Mr I is talking about pinching a few spades and tools, the comparison is laughable. People in previous centuries lived at starvation level so that their managers could live in ease and comfort.

Redressing the power of the unions shouldn't (and needn't ) have meant that the entire labour movement should be dismantled and the working class effectively disenfranchised, or that so many of it should be marginalised, as it is to-day. A PM can't be called great who writes off whole swathes of legitimate citizens like that. She can be called many other things, however.

Again, economists like Will Hutton argue that it wasn't the unions' demands that did for industry.
It was the desire of the owners to make a fast buck, failing to plough anywhere near enough profit into training and investment. Nothing changes.

Oh please, what a crock of shiit. Now there's a reasoned argument if I ever heard one.


Barely a day goes by without a reference to Thatcher’s legacy.

But Thatcher can still excite strong passions among everyone who lived through her years in office. I would bet scarcely a day passes without her name being mentioned in a debate somewhere in the country.

Some will say she dragged the UK out of an economic shiitpile.

Some will say she shattered the manufacturing sector and institutionalised greed.

(You can work out for yourself which I believe she was responsible for)
Most people of the UK did not like her.

There was never a majority in the country for her policies and her assaults on the mining communities, unions, cutting top rate of taxes for the very rich were all without popular support.

With the closure of the pits, she and her movement destroyed the industrial heart of our nation. The destruction of our communities was not an economic inevitability.

It was a political choice; a choice to plough ahead with an ideological economic policy which ignored and in some instances punished people in places where the Conservatives are rejected by the electorate

I was 20 in 1979 but I remember the disappointment and the sense of shock and distress upon her election.

A very real sense that things would get worse and that there would be some very real strife and social dislocation. The reality was a lot worse than anybody expected or feared.

Her guiding ideology was to reduce the role of the state and increase individual choice and freedom.

This she spectacularly failed to achieve. In economic terms she did not reduce the overall size of the state. The public sector was basically the same size when she left office as it was when she entered Downing Street. The tax take as a proportion of the nation’s income was pretty unchanged as well.

She claimed to be in favour of the free market then joined the European Monetary System and controlled interest rates. ( Seems hypocritical to me)

The NHS was a national institution but locally managed and locally accountable. She destroyed this local management and local accountability.

Her contribution to Britain was negative.

Anyone under 39 could NEVER have voted for Thatcher.

There’s a huge SWATE of our generation who I think have forgotten about her.

I think we should forget about her. It’s good for the oldies perhaps but it is stagnant rhetoric.

I'm on my way out of house so I don't have time to reply fully but this one jumped out at me. Worse, how could it be worse... Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah.

Cast your mind back to the winter of discontent and the strikes when Heath was in power. Nothing in Maggie's tenure was up to the madness of the Callahan years or the Gormley/Heath battles.

"The winter of discontent". Forgotten and repressed.

The only time people bring themselves to mention it is as their ultimate horror scenario that must never happen again. The occasions it is mentioned it’s usually accompanied by images of mile-high piles of rubbish, crawling with rats.

Most people know very little about it. But it was the last great mass success of the class struggle for the employed section of the working class in this country ,although it has to be said, that many of those who struck during it lost or won little, particularly the lowest paid.

From being the low productivity capital of Europe in the 60s – 70s the U.K. has become its long hours/low wage capital. A few years ago a South Korean company planned to relocate a factory to Wales because labour costs were cheaper ! Productivity is still somewhat lower than countries like France, but nowadays this must have more to do with poor investment.

Those Tories who, pursued political careers through the 60s and 70s detached from, despising and fearful of the social struggles breaking out all around them, reapped their revenge during the Thatcher era.

However, in The Winter of Discontent, the working class had good reason to be optimistic: the possibility of failure didn’t even enter people’s minds. At that time, The Winter of Discontent was a autonomous class movement becoming ever more so in open struggle.

Christ, you sound like Wolfie Smith from the Tooting Popular front! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!!

For You Mr I


http://members.fortunecity.com/folkfred/redflag.html

The working class
can kiss my arse,
I've got the foremans job at last.

How apt, a bunch of miners away on their toes with something that doesn't belong to them.

So we are agreed. She was a disaster.

Almost agreed, I said she inherited a disaster.

[quote="Mr I"quote] Almost agreed, I said she inherited a disaster.[/quote]

But turned your so called disaster into a major disaster.

I wont disagree that things in 1979 weren't bad, the unions were a problem, NOT the only problem. But dealing with the unions and restricting their power could have been done without unleashing the chaos of a giant and ultimately destructive free market experiment.

But that doesn't justify the set policies Thatcher foisted on us.

While Britain was in chaos, Germany thrived under a more social economy. A union representative could have sat on the board of every company. This arrangement worked well in Germany and led to far less intense labour disputes.

This is the model that could,no should have been adopted.

I wouldn't wish a painful death on anyone, but when she finaly pegs it I'll get the round in.

Some folk on this thread have said that Britain in the 1970s was a terrible time and that we needed Thatcher to bring us to our senses. Certainly that's what The bitch would have said herself. But as bad as the 'Winter of Discontent' was, it was only one winter. Every winter under Thatcher was a Winter of Discontent unless you lived the affluent South. And let's not forget the Summers of Discontent either when towns and cities were put under the torch and unemployment started pushing towards 4 million. Luckily for Thatcher she had North Sea oil. But what a f***ing waste.

And has any political leader in Britain ever hated people so much?

Maybe Enoch Powell and Oswald Mosley, but they never had real power (thank god).

Thatcher hated half the country and she let them know it. 'Enemy within' - remember that Mr I ? Some of this 'enemy within' were folk who'd fought in the bloody war. Others had a lifetime of hard work behind them and, of course, weren't going to surrender their jobs because that suited Thatcher's political plans.

She was not fit for office because of all that bile and all that contempt. It's no wonder that most folk don't have sympathy for her now, when it's she who needs help.

To stop people complaining, Thatcher simply took their votes away of course. Directly by abolishing local authroities (GLC). Indirectly, by the Poll Tax. As for Scotland and Wales, well the Tories were reduced to NIL POINT, no seats. But that didn't matter to her. She didn't need their votes in order to destroy their economies.

To repeat myself, the decision to close down the coal industry in Britain was taken on political, not economic, grounds. And, like everybody told her, if you shut down the pit you'll also have to shut down every other industry and service in the area.

She should be made to spend her last days in a council flat in Darlington, with a crackhouse next door.

Bob, I respect your opinion but I disagree vehemently. I guess we've got to leave this here because we're going to go round and round in circles and never ever agree. You dislike her, I idolise her. There ain't much common ground there.

Idolise? You are from Hartlepool! WTF?

I also respect your opinion and also vehemently disagree. You have given your opinions with the reasons you believe to be correct.

We have at the end of the day done what boards like this are designed to do. And that is to have a reasoned discussion, without a need to resort to simply throwing insults at one another.

And for Obefemi's information it was won in either an election or by-election by the Conservatives, in the following years

1868...1874...1880...1895...1918...1924 (year of the first Labour Government) ...1929...1943...and 1959

It's traditionally not as Labour as many think.

Great post Bob.

Seconded!

Whisper it, but we agreed on something during the Margaret Thatcher thread :)

Why???

Is it bollocks lower than in France.
This is the typical kind of nonsense I regularly hear from people who can't see beyond their own borders. The grass is always greener... yawn.
Here's the truth: France is a country totally obsessed with getting a "my employee can't fire me" contract.
The UK is a country that now says (assuming you're willing to work) ) "I don't need laws to prop me up".

That's not my opinion: it's an observation communicated to me by the French (whom I think I probably I know very much better than anyone else on this board). They look at Britain and see us better off in every way (except for good food and fast trains) than they are.
Certainly since I came back here a year ago I'm amazed at how well off I am.
Yes, it's true I'm not exactly poor. But there's a reason for that. Work it out.

Totally agree about training. My question is what the hell is someone called Grabec doing posting on this board?

What, what? I re-invented myself for a while, true, but it didn't work out

Just though it encapsulated a lot of my thoughts on Thatcher better than I could. As was stated later, this is a pretty pointless thread as entrenched opinions hardly ever change on subjects as divisive as this. Mr I and others feel that she offered leadership and direction at a time when we needed it and raised the profile of our once great country / empire. Others feel that she was an idiologically motivated zealot, whose legacy will be felt for decades and decades and set back the rights of individuals and moderate thinking people.

Neither opinions will probably change.

Personally Ill never understand her admirers - I wouldn't p1ss on her if she was on fire.

This is an excellent debate.

No it's not. Mr I is oblivious to the fact that Mrs Thatcher didn't 'mend' the economy in any way that lasted, once N Sea on ran out. Also he is immune to the fact that the majority of the population were unable to benefit from the reforms she did bring about.

Like many bunker debates, ethics seems to be a casualty here

How am I oblivious? I used expressions like 'she made mistakes' and 'she wasn't perfect' but neither was she the devil woman some would paint her as.

Maggie didn't break the pits or other heavy industries, they were already broken. The anti's always point to some wierd sense that she hated the North, it just wasn't true.

Britain was knackered. It was bankrupt. It was overrun with over powerful union bosses who held companies to ransom time after time after time and obtained wages rises that made the company unsustainable. Work to rule and restricive practices made businesses completely inflexible and unable to compete on the world market. Polish coal, foreign steel, etc etc etc were all substantially cheaper than UK products. It could not go on the money had run out. She faced down the Scargill's and Derek Hattons of this world and beat them mercilessly which led to more reasonable unions which these days generally work with the companies rather than against them.

Thatcher left a legacy of growth along with a fair slice of greed admittedly. She lay the foundations for the economic recovery this country had since - except for a self inflicted slump in 91/92. Blair and Brown took over an economy that was in great shape. That economy can be directly traced back to the work done by Maggie.

All that said - she wasn't perfect and she made mistakes.

As I'm only 21 and don't really have an informed opinion, i wont give it, but i would like to ask one thing...

Mr I, were you in the South of the country during Thatchers reign?

I was all points on the compass, but I did experience the hardship of the time in Hartlepool too.

Mr I, don't waste your time trying for a reasoned debate with Grabec cos she just makes stuff up to suit herself.


And as for the Poll Tax, I'd bring it back tomorrow. Taxing people on the value of their house is possibly the most unfair system of taxation ever implemented in a civilised country.

I think my main point is (and that of other people on the thread) that policy decisions affecting a country shouldn't be for the benefit of only a minority class, to the long term detriment of other classes. I don't think this is just making a mistake Mrs Thatcher's part. People who 'weren't one of us' simply didn't matter. That was her policy. I think everything else pales into insignificance
When I say you're oblivious to this, I mean that when people have pointed it out, you've resorted to sarcasm, as if you think the 'underclasses' don't matter.

Can't agree Grabby, I grew up in the 'underclass' but I also know that there's an awful lot of people in that class who simply would not get out of bed in the morning irrespective of the job. That was what Maggie hated not some vague geographical dislike - she hated idleness.

I didn't mention geographical dislike, Mr I.
Also, there are an awful lot of people in the moneyed classes who do very little but live off the wealth their employees have created. Mrs Thatcher like these people a lot

Something I realised some time ago is that except for a very few, nobody gets rich working for someone else. The nature of business is that the money goes upwards and the higher up the tree you go, the more you get.

However, someone had to start, grow and operate the businesses. To be a good Chief Executive you need a great PA and some presentational skills. End of story.

The alternative is a communist utopia like ermmm... Cuba or Russia or ..... oh hang on.

No - she hated the working classes and the North.

Ah ok. I stand corrected. She hated people who hold the vast majority of the votes.

The one problem, I (and I think many others found with Thatcher), was her arrogance.

Now I know Mr I will disagree with me calling her arrogant. To the point (IMHO) were she showed it to her successor, John Major. And further aligned to that an arrogance to her own party, once she become nothing more than a backbencher.

Probably (and ,yes I'm summassing here) a positon she saw as below her.

This arrogance, as I saw it, came to the for, on visits to the USA in speeches made by herself. In these speeches she denounced plans for a European monetary union. She attacked the decision to bring the pound into the European exchange-rate system which her own Government made before she was forced out.Hypocrite or arrogance , it's one of them (IMHO) . The country at the time was in a recession, now unless it happened overnight we can't balme Major for that.

Unemployment stood at between 8%-10% and manufacturing output was down, while labour costs had rose.

Fat cats got fatter, think it was chairman of BT who got nearly a 50% pay rise and chairman of British Gas got nearly 70% ( Those figures may be slightly out my memory not what it was , but they close)

The NHS suffered( I dont even think Mr I can disagree with that statement) Waiting lists for operations reached a year

Her creation of the internal market in the NHS led to cost cutting stratagies and MRSA ,CD and other infections. (IMHO).

The Falklands conflict was of her own making. She was warned by both Jim Callaghan and David Owen(yes you may not listen to your opponents)And also Nott,her own defence Secretary that withdrawing the survey ship Endeavour would encourage Argentina to believe Britain was not interested in the Falklands

She ignored them all and Argentina invaded. Why does that not surprise me ?

When the forces returned and paraded through the streets of London, it was Thatcher, I repeat Thatcher, who took the salute, not the Queen , Now that is arrogance.As I'm 100% certain it's the Queen who is the actual Head of our Armed Forces.

She ,once more IMHO then adopted presidential delusions of grandeur.She became more arrogant, rude, dismissive of any point of view that differed from hers. She was contemptous in public of her Cabinet and Parliament.

She sanctified greed and created the "gimme, gimme, gimme" society.

Instant credit may have helped industry but it paved the way for greedy banks to create a debt ridden society, today it is revealing destructive consequences.

Example in public life matters. Example from the top matters even more.

Thatcher made the people of this country greedy, rude, intolerant, and with no respect for anyone else.

Whenever there is a street mugging or a knifing , we see Thatcher's legacy in action.

I lived through her and I loathe her for it.

Right I think I made my views and opinions on this subject known, and unless something completely different or controversial is said on it then, this is my last posting on the matter.

Though as I said in a previous post when the grim reaper comes for her, I hope I'm off work. Because as soon as that news breaks I'm off to the nearest pub for a celebratory beer.

By the way before I do stop posting on this thread , did I say how much i loathe that B****

A great post Bob, good to see a bit of passion in these passionless days. Whether anyone agrees or disagrees with you no-one could say that you don't care.

I've been invited to a labour club near Watford to partake of a glass or two from ten cases of champagne which have been put by to mark a forthcoming historic day and will be doing every I can to be there at the time. Not a way that I would normally behave, but somehow for me it's personal as well as about all of us.

You know what Bob, replace the Falklands with Iraq and you could easily have been talking about the Blair/Brown government.

I was on that parade, it was a great great day. Maggie took the salute on the balcony of the Mansion House with JJ Moore and Admiral Woodward. We then marched off to the Guildhall for lunch.

Salmon Mousse
Sirloin Steak
Cheescake

Fairly simple fare but very nicely done and washed down with copious amounts of alcohol.

I will reply in more depth later.

Maggie invaded the Falklands simply to win a General Election. Fact.

A touch of subtlety with your wind ups would be appreciated. That one was like a farking sledge hammer.

Thats a bit of a romantic view like.

I was working in Liverpool at the time and the working class struggle as you call it involved having dozens of dead bodies stacked up in coffins in an empty factory building in Wilson Road Huyton cos the Grave Diggers and Crem Attendants went on strike.

Unfortunately their working class relatives had their grieving severly disrupted.

Being so closely involved I'm not in a position to make judgements but the image of the brave working classes marching under colouful banners to secure control over their own destiny was definitely what it wasn't.

Frodraff I take your point of view, that my view has ,as you put it is a "romantic" view, and my intention is not to dishonour anyone who lost their life during the "winter of Discontent" and it is certainly not intended to offend any grieving relatives or friends of the people who died and could not be laid to rest. Unlike you I was not closely involved. Points I made were made through what I can remember of the period in time. More to the point what I believe was a class struggle. Those who went on strike, did so for what they believed in, as I have also been on strike for what I believed to be right at the time. I used what I believe to be valid arguments, views and my opinion, to debate the rights or wrongs of Thatcherism, those points I stand by, she was arrogant, vindicative callous to a point in my opinion.

I'm man enough and big enough to apologise on here if my views and opinions have offended you, or anyone else, that was the last thing on my mind when i began to put my views across.

I previously stated that I had made my last posting on this thread,unless something different or controversial appeared on it.Now I'm not saying your post is either of those two, but I do believe due to your closeness to some of the issues raised ,mainly by myself, you do in fact deserve a reply.

Once more if I offended you, due to your circumstances my heartfelt apologies are given. Maybe I can buy you a few drinks before a match sometime.

Can we just correct one point here, Hartlepools heavy industry was decimated in the late 70's... under a Labour government, we were told at the time it was 'rationalisation' much more efficient, but no more jobs ....... now we have our hospital being 'rationalised', again, much more efficient, but no more hospital ..... who's in power? even old mother Thatch wouldn't have dared try that one...who to dislike most eh...?

Good point Snowy.

Whichever political side you are on the soldiers are sent to do their bit, which quite often involves their death or maiming. The Generals don't like it when something like this happens.....



Christmas Eve in 1914
Stars were burning, burning bright
And all along the Western Front
Guns were lying still and quiet.
Men lay dozing in the trenches,
In the cold and in the dark,
And far away behind the lines
A village dog began to bark.

Some lay thinking of their families,
Some sang songs while others were quiet
Rolling fags and playing brag
To while away that Christmas night.
But as they watched the German trenches
Something moved in No Man's Land
And through the dark came a soldier
Carrying a white flag in his hand.

Then from both sides men came running,
Crossing into No Man's Land,
Through the barbed-wire, mud and shell holes,
Shyly stood there shaking hands.
Fritz brought out cigars and brandy,
Tommy brought corned beef and fags,
Stood there talking, singing, laughing,
As the moon shone on No Man's Land.

Christmas Day we all played football
In the mud of No Man's Land;
Tommy brought some Christmas pudding,
Fritz brought out a German band.
When they beat us at football
We shared out all the grub and drink
And Fritz showed me a faded photo
Of a dark-haired girl back in Berlin.

For four days after no one fired,
Not one shot disturbed the night,
For old Fritz and Tommy Atkins
Both had lost the will to fight.
So they withdrew us from the trenches,
Sent us far behind the lines,
Sent fresh troops to take our places
And told the guns "Prepare to fire".

And next night in 1914
Flares were burning, burning bright;
The message came along the trenches
Over the top we're going tonight.
And the men stood waiting in the trenches,
Looking out across our football park,
And all along the Western Front
The Christian guns began to bark.


There are many who will tell you that this never happened or that if it did it was wildly exaggerated, but there are so many accounts of the incident in writings of the time that only the wilfully blind would doubt the truth.
The First World War has dominated my imagination since I was a child. The stupidity of all wars was here made doubly stupid by the ineptitude of leaders who were prepared to see men die in millions in the mud, facing each other across a few hundred yards of barbed-wire and shell holes. Two great industrial nations had strutted on the stage of Europe striking warlike postures for so long that when a crazed student assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo it was too late for the fools to back down. And so the whole crazy steamroller got under way, supported as ever by the profiteers, the racketeers and the arms manufacturers.
Between 1914 and 1918 a whole generation was killed, gassed and maimed. Anzac troops were slaughtered at Gallipoli, Sikhs were blown to pieces on the Somme, Canadians were massacred at Verdun, Americans shot to bits at Passchendaele, volunteers from both the north and south of Ireland were killed in their thousands. And boys from villages and towns in every comer of England, Scotland and Wales were waved off at the station by mothers, wives and sweethearts never to retum, and if they did they were often mutilated, gassed or shell-shocked so that their lives were ruined.
When you see the old men at the Remembrance Day services it's difficult to see them as the sixteen-year-old boys who lied about their age so that they could join with their pals in the Great Patriotic War. Like all wars, it produced heroism and courage on an incredible scale. While the fat brigadiers and generals were safe behind the lines, VCs and MCs were won by young boys and men facing the most unbelievable horrors.
The war produced an outpouring of literature, poems, novels and plays. The poems of Wilfred Owen with their quiet unsentimental concern that the truth be told contrast greatly with all the jingoistic trollop that was appearing in the Boy's Own paper and Young England. While the comfortable warmongers safe at home were hurrying the young men on to the troop trains, Owen was telling it like it was.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we fumed our backs
And towards the distant rest began to trudge.

The Great War for Civilisation brought forth a whole body of literature from the poetry of men like Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen to the accounts of life at the front such as Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That and Henry Williamson's The Patriot's Progress. But there was a sub-literature of the war, too, diaries and journals that were kept by the ordinary footsloggers and Old Contemptibles. They give a picture of life in the trenches from the viewpoint of the common soldier. These diaries and journals are tremendously valuable for their sheer immediacy and for the light they throw on the Old Sweats' way of life and death in the trenches. Three such journals that are well worth reading are Old Soldiers Never Die by Frank Richards, The Bells of Hell by Eric Hiscock and Tom Green's Joumal, to be found in the Imperial War Museum (when, oh when are we going to have a peace museum?).
The story of the first Christmas of 1914 that inspired me to write the song was one I found in Frank Richards's book. The generals denied that it ever happened, fearful that the desire for peace might spread like an epidemic along the trenches, but the diaries and journals of the men who were there and the photographs that were taken on that historic occasion when men said 'no' to war and embraced their enemy prove beyond doubt that it did indeed happen.

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