Lewisham Council plan to bulldoze Community centres and close more librarys.

Hello all,

As usual please feel free to circulate the following to everyone.

****  Reminder:  Have you all e-mailed/written to the Mayor, your local councillors, MP, the Press?  The numbers game is really important.

Panel:  Director of Community Services, Aileen Buckton; Cabinet member for Community Services, Cllr Best; Head of Library and Information Service, Antonio Rizzo.

The same presentation concerning budgetary shortfalls was made again.  There was an admission that the Lewisham voluntary sector was being approached (soft marketing), being asked ".. in theory, are you interested ...?"  As well as the main consultation meetings other smaller meetings will be held, Focus Groups.  Included will be the young Mayor's office, schools, outreach organisations, Pensioners' Forum.  Library Staff will be consulted.  It was an exceptionally well-attended meeting, over 60, but that may be as the information has circulated and more people know.  The questioning was underpinned by sound knowledge of what was going on and disbelieving the fundamentals of what they were being told.

Again Ms. Buckton repeated that the consultation information had been trailed in the Autumn Lewisham Life.  It was not.

Questioning focussed on what the offer was.  Volunteers will be trained.  This raises further questions of costs, the turnover, constant recruitment, volunteers who cannot always appear.  There will be the usual security checks.  But, we do not know if the Council  expects volunteers to be the answer as we have been told future "community" libraries will not operate as the current "community" libraries operate.  Reports back from these libraries refer to not opening on time and non-opening, due to lack of volunteers.  The council was warned the chosen model in 2010/11 would not work, and it has not.  How can we be sure they are choosing the right option now?

The organisations chosen to run the 3 buildings (Manor House, Torridon Road, Forest Hill) in future will be non-profit and likely to run services complementary to a library service, with special connections to the local area of each library.  They could be connected to Education, Community organisations, Arts organisations.  There was a great deal of detail from Ms. Buckton concerning families, mothers, children at Torridon Road, until muttering revealed other users e.g. the elderly, teens, the middle-aged .....

We are an intelligent, informed, thoughtful bunch, when we try, so others asked why we were at a talking shop, being faced with a fait accompli so our views and opinions were irrelevant to the process?  What if all views were against the chosen option?

How could we ensure the new management would reflect diversity needs?  Diversity needs must be met.

How long would the contracts last?  The length of contracts would rely on the nature of the building and what group wants to take it on.  The council will have the final say and, it is just laughable to have to type the following, local people will be involved!  There will be no capital investment in the building (no, the tax-payer has already footed that bill.)

And here is the quote of the evening, the panel, on being told it was all pointless gave Cllr Best an opportunity to state that the status quo cannot continue.

There, you have it!

The value of professional staff in libraries was felt to be key to improving literacy, as well as being of great value to the rest of us so how would a reduced staff run 3 hub libraries for 85 hours per week, each?  Plus, enough staff for peripatetic visits to 9 "community" libraries, not sure if that includes Catford (unstaffed), which could become a zombie library and the best take away in town.  In addition they will still service commitments to schools, doctors' surgeries etc.  Meanwhile, they will be travelling back and forth across the borough, by bus, walking (running?), driving, using up time, not usable in libraries.  Don't even mention the traffic congestion and expenses.  Mr. Rizzo then played his master card - staff would be promoting opportunities, engaging in promoting all library services.  This presupposes you are not going to be able to distinguish between what you had and what you will get.

Our natural cynic in the audience could only conclude that outsourcing to the voluntary sector was meant to make everything look OK.

More detail revealed that the contracted voluntary organisations would meet the overheads of the buildings, but there was equivocation about maintenance.  Depending on what that would require could mean that the council would have to step in with funding.  Questions on how this new model would work were not answered clearly enough, if at all, for any of us to be sure what would happen.

Further points were raised over the non-working of self-issue/return machines, the collapse in borrowing figures for the "community" libraries and who would have caretaking/security responsibilities.  Points were raised, but not answered.

A key question was why the council could not organise least harm for the money available.  Lewisham is a recognised deprived borough so would it not be optional to use some of the reserves?  As we have seen with "community" libraries if the council's decision/policy back fires who picks up the pieces?  Officers would have to face the consequences of their actions, as will the public.

Yet again statements were made that volunteers would not be running the library service.  There would be a time table of staff visits made to "community" libraries, but the solution for each library would be different and a focus for the neighbourhood.  The organisations chosen will take up the service as the council is not seeking to make a profit and will not take rent on a commercial basis.  They will come as funded organisations.

Therefore, the question was raised about how these organisations would be funded.  A staff member of a funded organisation pointed out how it was increasingly difficult to raise money from elected authorities, local councils, the Arts Council, grants organisations, private funding etc, as money is drying up elsewhere.  If this is policy huge numbers of organisations will be chasing the same pots of money!  Thus we have the right to be most concerned about the long term sustainability of what is chosen.  Not only do we not know, neither do the officers, who will make the recommendation to the Mayor and Cabinet.

regards to all,

Patricia Richardson

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Kath Duncan Scotts and Deptford Civil rights activist. Can you help me trace her History?

In am presently working on a book about Kath Duncan and the Civil rights movement and protests in the 1930s. Can you help with any events. dates. place of birth? Pictures, family connections? Kath Duncan Kath Duncan was a legendary Communist in Deptford in the 1930s. A teacher, she became a redoubtable organiser of the unemployed. A remarkable orator, she was a woman of obvious personal magnetism, with an attractive demeanour. The local Deptford press felt unable to refer to her with mentioning her “blazing red hair”! Katherine Duncan was born about 1889 in Scotland, a descendent, she claimed of Rob Roy who she stated “would never steal from the poor”. In her youth she was much influenced by the Suffragette movement and joined her village Independent Labour Party. A teacher and member of the NUT, she moved with her husband Sandy, also a teacher, in 1923 to London, initially to Hackney. There, they joined the both the local ILP andHackney Labour Dramatic Group, early in 1926.  Husband and wife remained ILP members until the 1926 general strike, when they joined the Communist Party Kath was elected to the Party’s Central Committee in 1929 for one term. Kath and Sandy moved to Deptford, in South London in 1930. Soon afterwards, Kath threw herself into work on behalf of the National Unemployed Workers Movement becoming a powerful and prolific street speak, a small women making powerful speeches. She organised Unemployeddeputations sometimes as large as 5,000 to the Deptford Urban District Council Council Offices.Alf Lucas, Deptford NUWM Organiser would often speak at these. Kath herself headed one such mammoth local deputation, which specifically demanded action to clear the slums and provide work. Children on the march held posters saying: “Daddy’s on the Dole”. Such was the size of the deputation that the Council was forced to suspend its standing orders. In 1931, Kath Duncan stood as a Communist in the parliamentary elections for the Greenwichconstituency. During May and June of 1932, hundreds of workers frequently marched to the docks (often through the Blackwell tunnel) to urge dockers not to load “murder ships” ships with military equipment destined for Japan, which was then in the process of invading mainland China. On one Sunday in June 1932 a group of marchers returning back from a 3,000 strong meeting inWoolwich, at which Kath and Sandy had spoken, were informed by a police inspector that they must stop singing the `Red Flag’. When they refused, a large number of police appeared and laid into the crowd with batons, making numerous arrests including Alf Lucas. Sandy Duncan washospitalised and the events became known locally as the “Battle of the Deptford Broadway”. The news of the unprovoked attack was met with great indignation in Deptford. The next day, as a direct result of the Police attack, unemployed men at the Unemployed Training centre went on strike. An eight thousand strong crowd gathered in the Deptford Broadway. Kath demanded the dismissal of the Inspector and the police responded with a mounted police charge, batons raining down on the crowd. On Tuesday the Daily Worker reported “groups of police patrolling about and the place is liked an armed camp”. Later, pictures of those arrested were sold to raise money for the “defence fund”. Some were released in early October. Two of those jailed, Albert Crane, a 24-year old hosiery worker, and George Childs, a 24-year old clerk, were met by “a small band of DeptfordCommunists” on their release from Brixton prison, going on to address a meeting of 400 people in Deptford Broadway where they “said they would not be afraid to go back if there was any chance of it doing any good to the working classes of Deptford”. Six months after the main events, on 19th December 1932 Kath appeared in court under laws originally used against the leaders of the 14th century peasant revolt on a charge of  being “ a disturber of the Peace of our Lord the King”. She refused to be bound over or stay out of politics and was sentenced to six months in Holloway Prison. (Coincidentally, the 76 year old Tom Mann was also in Brixton Prison at the same time for the very same reason!) While in prison, Kath was forced to make shirts, she herself was “convinced no one would wear”. On her release the people of Deptford flocked to greet her in the Broadway. However the LCCEducation Committee wrote to her a few days after her release to inform her they were going to remove her from the list of approved London County Council Teachers. A campaign, spearheaded by the NUT and other unions, secured 5,700 signatures in opposing the attempted victimisation inDeptford alone, and as a result the attempt to remove her was defeated. By 1932, Kath was now the acknowledged leader of unemployed in Deptford and her open air meetings had become feature of political life in South East London. She spoke on platforms withNUWM leader Wal Hannington and at a major NUWM rally in Hyde Park in February 1933. She was involved in securing accommodation in Deptford for Kentish unemployed marchers on their way to Hyde Park in October 1932 and two years later accommodating 30 Scottish unemployed marchers. Kath stood along with NUWM South East London organiser Vic Parker as Communist candidate for the 1934 LCC elections. She recalled how a bunch of red carnations arrived at the Communist Party committee rooms at Tanners Hill, sent with best wishes from the boys at Surrey Commercial Docks. Kath appreciated the gesture greatly as dockers had once thrown “ochre”, a red dye, over her. In 1935 Kath, now living at Ommaney Road, New Cross was once again arrested for refusing to move her meeting from outside the local Unemployment training centre at Nynehead Street, New Cross, when asked to do so by Police Inspector William Jones. The case provided what is now known as Liberty, or more formally the National Council for Civil Liberties, founded in 1934 at a time when workers’ protests were subject to severe civil liberty constraints, with its first test case. As disturbances had occurred at a similar meeting over a year earlier, Jones claimed that he was duty bound to prevent it happening again. But this potentially created a precedent that the police could ban any political meeting in public places at will, simply by expressing a fear of disorder. Not only was Duncan v Jones [1936] the first case taken up by the NCCL, it was a landmark in the law on public order. Despite representation from D N Pritt KC and Mr Dingle Foot MP, Kath Duncan was fined 40 shillings and costs of five guineas. But her case has gone down in legal history. What had happened was that Kath was about to make a public address in a situation in which the year before a disturbance had been incited by her speaking, when she was stopped by the police on the grounds that she would destabilise civil peace by the strength of her words. Even though Kath was arrested while peacefully speaking to a small crowd, she was charged with police obstruction. This raised the question not directly of the quality of her conduct but of the reasonableness of the constable's understanding of it. What the constable had to evaluate was the reality of the risk of a breach of the peace. The Chief Justice's judgment at the end of the trial made clear that the much vaunted British democracy, in the absence of a written constitution guaranteeing the right of free speech, is a construct of propaganda. His view was that: “English law does not recognise any special right of public meeting for political or other purposes. The right of assembly is nothing more than a view taken by the court of the individual liberty of the subject.” In other words – it all depends! Even so, for much of the rest of the last century the practical effect of Duncan v Jones was to support the notion that free speech was an absolute right, unless the situation was genuinely likely to get out of hand. Kath lost the case but won the war for us – at least for sixty-odd years. Of course, in recent years, as the `war against terror’ has taken priority, public order legislation has got tougher. Kath’s ready reliance on direct action methods were in sharp relief to the image conveyed by Beatrice Drapper, Deptford’s Labour Party pioneering woman councillor. First elected in 1919 and only finishing as a councillor in 1956, she was also Deptford’s first women mayor in 1927. Kath spoke regularly of the threat of fascism and was involved in the famous Battle of Cable Streetin the East End and Battle of Bermondsey.  On one occasion, the Fascists singled out Kath for special attention but, thanks to a tip-off, local anti fascists successfully were able to chase them off. She was heavily involved in the Aid to Spain Movement, organising door to door collections on Sundays throughout Deptford and raising £100 towards an ambulance. She also interviewed men who wished to fight in the International Brigade in Spain. Les Stannard (see separate entry) was considered to young to fight in Spain but he and other Deptford YCLers were inspired by Kath Duncan’s commitment. Sandy died in Scotland towards the end of the war. However, by 1945 Kath, albeit now crippled by arthritis, was working for the local Labour MP. Around 1953 Kath’s sister took her home to the Scottish village where she was born and it was here that she died in August 1954. After her death the London District Committee of the Communist Party produced a pamphlet, “Deptford’s tribute to Kath Duncan”, in which the author stated: “Where there was a job to do, Kath was always with us… She would march off at the head, leading the way, full of vitality and purpose. She was always a striking and imposing figure with her neat black costume, spotless white collar. And a black wide-brimmed straw hat, worn at an angle showing her auburn short cropped hair”. Sources: South London Press, June and October 1932; South London Press 3rd December 1954, Michael Walker; “Turning the Tide - the history of everyday Deptford” by Jeff Steele

 

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