Tuesday, 30 October 2018
#budget2019 #RayWoolfords Interview before the #Budget with RT News
https://youtu.be/eAM2YzmmyzU Just click the link watch, interesting i recorded this Friday before the budget , and bank Monday the Government say no more #PFI , not that this is due to me, but it is uncanny the number of times i have given interviews as a broadcaster only for my thoughts to become reality..
Monday, 29 October 2018
#Deptford #Heritage #History #International #Festival #Drama #Theatre #Poetry #Talks #Music #Play #LocalHeroes. #Working Class #Stories #Walks
I am so pleased people are supporting the call for Kath Duncan in the year we celebrate 100 years of #Women #Activism to be recognised as the National #WorkingClass #Hero she was. i just hope YOU come see this extraordinary production with the most diverse and talented cast to be found on any stage..hear her story, get a ticket .https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/deptford-heritage-festival
The McMillan Sisters
The McMillan Sisters and the ‘Deptford Welfare Experiment’
Dr. Pam Jarvis, Bradford College
The McMillan sisters, Rachel and Margaret were born in Westchester County New York in 1859 and 1860 respectively, but following the death of their father and youngest sister in 1865, their mother took them back to her family home in Inverness. Elizabeth Bradburn describes Margaret’s first five years in the US as ‘probably the happiest of her life’1, spent in a large wooden house with a wild garden that ran down to an estuary that Margaret remembered as ‘a mere shelter in summer. It seems less a house than a roofed series of gateways opening on the wide sunlit world’2.
The sisters grew up in Inverness, moving to London in the late 1880s, during which time Margaret developed her skills as a writer and orator for the Labour movement. She gave a well-received address on the Socialist platform at Hyde Park corner on May Day 1892, after which her employer, a wealthy Park Lane aristocrat, promptly dismissed her. The sisters subsequently moved to Bradford, where Margaret spent the next ten years, contributing to the birth of the Parliamentary Labour Party in Bradford in 1900.
Margaret travelled the Pennine area giving lectures for the socialist cause, and served on the Bradford School Board, where she came to the conclusion that that it was impossible to educate a tired, dirty, infested, diseased and hungry child, and the height of adult cruelty to insist against such odds that poor children entered a public education system that did not concern itself with their holistic welfare. She waged various campaigns within the city, with the result that Bradford became the first School Board in Britain to provide medical inspection, free/low cost school meals and school baths in some of its poorest areas. However in 1902 new legislation abolished the School Boards and gave the responsibility for education to local authorities, to which women could not be elected at that time.
Rachel had left Bradford to become a travelling health inspector located in Bromley, Kent in 1895, so by the end of 1902, Margaret moved to live with her. The sisters planned to work together to improve conditions for poor children in the London area. Margaret was appointed as the manager of a group of Deptford elementary schools in 1903. She and Rachel led a deputation to Parliament in 1906 to lobby for the compulsory medical inspection of school
1 Elizabeth Bradburn Margaret McMillan: Portrait of a Pioneer (London: Routledge, 1989), p.62 Margaret McMillan ‘After the Echoes of the Congress of School Hygiene’, The Labour Leader, 30th August
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Dr. Pam Jarvis, Bradford College
The McMillan sisters, Rachel and Margaret were born in Westchester County New York in 1859 and 1860 respectively, but following the death of their father and youngest sister in 1865, their mother took them back to her family home in Inverness. Elizabeth Bradburn describes Margaret’s first five years in the US as ‘probably the happiest of her life’1, spent in a large wooden house with a wild garden that ran down to an estuary that Margaret remembered as ‘a mere shelter in summer. It seems less a house than a roofed series of gateways opening on the wide sunlit world’2.
The sisters grew up in Inverness, moving to London in the late 1880s, during which time Margaret developed her skills as a writer and orator for the Labour movement. She gave a well-received address on the Socialist platform at Hyde Park corner on May Day 1892, after which her employer, a wealthy Park Lane aristocrat, promptly dismissed her. The sisters subsequently moved to Bradford, where Margaret spent the next ten years, contributing to the birth of the Parliamentary Labour Party in Bradford in 1900.
Margaret travelled the Pennine area giving lectures for the socialist cause, and served on the Bradford School Board, where she came to the conclusion that that it was impossible to educate a tired, dirty, infested, diseased and hungry child, and the height of adult cruelty to insist against such odds that poor children entered a public education system that did not concern itself with their holistic welfare. She waged various campaigns within the city, with the result that Bradford became the first School Board in Britain to provide medical inspection, free/low cost school meals and school baths in some of its poorest areas. However in 1902 new legislation abolished the School Boards and gave the responsibility for education to local authorities, to which women could not be elected at that time.
Rachel had left Bradford to become a travelling health inspector located in Bromley, Kent in 1895, so by the end of 1902, Margaret moved to live with her. The sisters planned to work together to improve conditions for poor children in the London area. Margaret was appointed as the manager of a group of Deptford elementary schools in 1903. She and Rachel led a deputation to Parliament in 1906 to lobby for the compulsory medical inspection of school
1 Elizabeth Bradburn Margaret McMillan: Portrait of a Pioneer (London: Routledge, 1989), p.62 Margaret McMillan ‘After the Echoes of the Congress of School Hygiene’, The Labour Leader, 30th August
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1907
children3. This aim was subsequently realised in the Education (Administrative Procedures) Bill of 1907, and on the strength of this success, the sisters secured a substantial £5000 bursary from a socialist philanthropist, Mr Joseph Fels, with which they determined to open a school clinic in a suitably ‘needy’ area of London.
Suitable premises became available at The Old Vestry Hall, 3 Deptford Green, and the clinic opened on 21st June, 1910. Margaret reported that immediately, ‘the children began to attend in torrents’4. Expansion of capacity was swiftly achieved when, in 1911, John Evelyn, a descendent of the famous diarist, put 353 Evelyn Street at the sisters’ disposal. The sisters also moved into rooms at this address, becoming residents of Deptford for the remainder of their lives. A comment from one of the clinic staff soon led them to consider an ambitious extension of their work:
Nurse Spiker at the clinic said ‘It’s all a waste of time. These children come here, are cured and go but in two weeks, sometimes less, they are back again. All these ailments could be prevented; their cause is dirt, lack of light and sun, fresh air and good food’5.Tickets for Festival ;https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/deptford-heritage-festival
Figure 1: The Dentist at work in the Deptford Clinic6
3 Margaret McMillan, Life of Rachel McMillan (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1927), p.1154 Margaret McMillan, Life of Rachel McMillan, p.120
5 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/34: script of a programme broadcast by the BBC Home Service 27thNovember 1960. The source for the quote appears to have been Emma Stevinson, the first Principal of the Rachel McMillan Teacher Training College, who died in 1959.
Suitable premises became available at The Old Vestry Hall, 3 Deptford Green, and the clinic opened on 21st June, 1910. Margaret reported that immediately, ‘the children began to attend in torrents’4. Expansion of capacity was swiftly achieved when, in 1911, John Evelyn, a descendent of the famous diarist, put 353 Evelyn Street at the sisters’ disposal. The sisters also moved into rooms at this address, becoming residents of Deptford for the remainder of their lives. A comment from one of the clinic staff soon led them to consider an ambitious extension of their work:
Nurse Spiker at the clinic said ‘It’s all a waste of time. These children come here, are cured and go but in two weeks, sometimes less, they are back again. All these ailments could be prevented; their cause is dirt, lack of light and sun, fresh air and good food’5.Tickets for Festival ;https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/deptford-heritage-festival
Figure 1: The Dentist at work in the Deptford Clinic6
3 Margaret McMillan, Life of Rachel McMillan (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1927), p.1154 Margaret McMillan, Life of Rachel McMillan, p.120
5 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/34: script of a programme broadcast by the BBC Home Service 27thNovember 1960. The source for the quote appears to have been Emma Stevinson, the first Principal of the Rachel McMillan Teacher Training College, who died in 1959.
6 University of Greenwich A94/16/B7: The Dentist at work in the Deptford Clinic, ND
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The McMillans subsequently determined that they would open an experimental overnight camp in the garden at Evelyn Street, for the use of local girls. They provided showering facilities, which Margaret described as ‘a hot water apparatus... rigged up in the garden fence communicating with a neighbour’s boiler’7. The sisters made sure that the children washed thoroughly before going to bed, and helped the older ones to cook a nutritious breakfast of porridge and milk in the morning.
Figure 2: The Girls’ Camp8
The camp soon became a local success, and the sisters determined to provide a night camp for boys, which proved more difficult. In 1912 they made their first attempt at a Boys’ Camp in the churchyard of St Nicholas, with the vestry as the shelter in bad weather, but some local people objected, one proposing that ‘to think of taking living children into a burying ground [was]... disgraceful”’9 The vicar of St Nicholas subsequently bowed to pressure from his parishioners and asked the sisters to move the camp to a different location. Eventually they found a patch of waste ground in nearby Albury Street, and the boys’ camp thrived here.
7 McMillan, M, The Camp School (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1917), pp.80-818 University of Greenwich A94/16/B7: The Girls’ Camp9 Margaret McMillan, The Camp School, p.95
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Figure 2: The Girls’ Camp8
The camp soon became a local success, and the sisters determined to provide a night camp for boys, which proved more difficult. In 1912 they made their first attempt at a Boys’ Camp in the churchyard of St Nicholas, with the vestry as the shelter in bad weather, but some local people objected, one proposing that ‘to think of taking living children into a burying ground [was]... disgraceful”’9 The vicar of St Nicholas subsequently bowed to pressure from his parishioners and asked the sisters to move the camp to a different location. Eventually they found a patch of waste ground in nearby Albury Street, and the boys’ camp thrived here.
7 McMillan, M, The Camp School (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1917), pp.80-818 University of Greenwich A94/16/B7: The Girls’ Camp9 Margaret McMillan, The Camp School, p.95
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Figure 3: The Boys’ Churchyard Camp10
On judging that the night camps had improved the children’s behaviour and health, the McMillans then decided to start a Camp School for boys and girls from six-to-fourteen years old, to see if instead of spending long hours in over-crowded classrooms, children could receive a more holistic education in the open air. This they managed to do, engaging three pioneering teachers to work with fifty seven children. During this time, the sisters created a motto, which Margaret attributed to Rachel in the dedication of her book The Nursery School: ‘educate every child as if he were your own’. They subsequently applied this throughout the remainder of their lives.
In 1914, aided by a national drive for childcare that would allow women to undertake work outside the home during World War I, the McMillans opened a ‘Baby Camp’ at 232 Church Street, Deptford11. The piece of ground was lent to them by the London County Council (LCC). It was (and is still) known locally as ‘The Stowage’, local legend insisting that smugglers had stored precious goods there in the days when Deptford had been a bustling international port. Such a history was very apt, given that the area now became the location for education and care of the most precious goods of all- the district’s youngest children.
A ‘Baby Camp’ had been Margaret McMillan’s dream since one of her Night Camp girls had been permitted to bring her ailing little sister along: ‘”We must open our doors to the toddlers,
10 University of Greenwich A94/16/B7: The Boys’ Churchyard Camp
11 Margaret McMillan, The Camp School, p.51Page 4
In 1914, aided by a national drive for childcare that would allow women to undertake work outside the home during World War I, the McMillans opened a ‘Baby Camp’ at 232 Church Street, Deptford11. The piece of ground was lent to them by the London County Council (LCC). It was (and is still) known locally as ‘The Stowage’, local legend insisting that smugglers had stored precious goods there in the days when Deptford had been a bustling international port. Such a history was very apt, given that the area now became the location for education and care of the most precious goods of all- the district’s youngest children.
A ‘Baby Camp’ had been Margaret McMillan’s dream since one of her Night Camp girls had been permitted to bring her ailing little sister along: ‘”We must open our doors to the toddlers,
10 University of Greenwich A94/16/B7: The Boys’ Churchyard Camp
11 Margaret McMillan, The Camp School, p.51Page 4
Rachel”, Margaret said... “We must plan the right kind of environment for them and give them sunshine, fresh air and good food before they become rickety and diseased”’12.
The Baby Camp, which soon became known locally as ‘The Nursery’ thrived during the war, but the transience of staff and sporadic but harrowing attacks by German Zeppelins took their toll on the sisters, now both in their middle fifties. In the last full year of the war, Margaret suffered a devastating personal loss: Rachel died on her 58th birthday, 25th March, 1917. Margaret renamed the Baby Camp ‘The Rachel McMillan Open Air Nursery’ during the same year and it remains on the same spot, under the same name to this day.
Margaret often reflected sadly that all her greatest successes came after Rachel’s death. Less than a year before her own death, she wrote: ‘I wish it had been Rachel that lived and got the decorations’13. These decorations (a CBE and a Companion of Honour) were received in the light of a growing national and international interest in the ‘educare’ (education + welfare) delivered by the Deptford Open Air Nursery. In her book The Nursery School published in 1919, Margaret described the Deptford that she knew:
The Nursery-School of which I have experience, and of which, therefore, I must often speak, was started in a very poor, very crowded district in the south-east of London. The workers of this place are largely casual, and, save for such training as is given in large factories for the making of boxes, tin cans, packing cases, and the like, unskilled. There are a dozen public-houses within a stone's throw of the school, and some of the streets are quite dark and very noisy after dusk14.
Margaret served on the Education Committee of the LCC for a term beginning in 1919, and in 1921, the LCC gave a substantial grant to the open air nursery, which permitted it to expand its numbers to 216. Queen Mary presided at the opening of the new building (Figure 4).
Margaret was subsequently elected first president of the national Nursery School Association in 1923. She gave a national BBC radio broadcast about the Deptford nursery on 17th November 1927, where she seemed to evoke the experience of her own early childhood:
12 Emma Stevinson, Margaret McMillan: Prophet and Pioneer, (London: University of London Press, 1954), p.813University of Greenwich A94/16/ A1/86: letter from Margaret McMillan to ‘Mr Mackenzie’, 7th July 193014 Margaret McMillan, The Nursery School (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1919)
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The Baby Camp, which soon became known locally as ‘The Nursery’ thrived during the war, but the transience of staff and sporadic but harrowing attacks by German Zeppelins took their toll on the sisters, now both in their middle fifties. In the last full year of the war, Margaret suffered a devastating personal loss: Rachel died on her 58th birthday, 25th March, 1917. Margaret renamed the Baby Camp ‘The Rachel McMillan Open Air Nursery’ during the same year and it remains on the same spot, under the same name to this day.
Margaret often reflected sadly that all her greatest successes came after Rachel’s death. Less than a year before her own death, she wrote: ‘I wish it had been Rachel that lived and got the decorations’13. These decorations (a CBE and a Companion of Honour) were received in the light of a growing national and international interest in the ‘educare’ (education + welfare) delivered by the Deptford Open Air Nursery. In her book The Nursery School published in 1919, Margaret described the Deptford that she knew:
The Nursery-School of which I have experience, and of which, therefore, I must often speak, was started in a very poor, very crowded district in the south-east of London. The workers of this place are largely casual, and, save for such training as is given in large factories for the making of boxes, tin cans, packing cases, and the like, unskilled. There are a dozen public-houses within a stone's throw of the school, and some of the streets are quite dark and very noisy after dusk14.
Margaret served on the Education Committee of the LCC for a term beginning in 1919, and in 1921, the LCC gave a substantial grant to the open air nursery, which permitted it to expand its numbers to 216. Queen Mary presided at the opening of the new building (Figure 4).
Margaret was subsequently elected first president of the national Nursery School Association in 1923. She gave a national BBC radio broadcast about the Deptford nursery on 17th November 1927, where she seemed to evoke the experience of her own early childhood:
12 Emma Stevinson, Margaret McMillan: Prophet and Pioneer, (London: University of London Press, 1954), p.813University of Greenwich A94/16/ A1/86: letter from Margaret McMillan to ‘Mr Mackenzie’, 7th July 193014 Margaret McMillan, The Nursery School (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1919)
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Figure 4: Queen Mary Visits the Deptford Nursery15
[in the nursery school] everything is planned for life. The shelters are oblong in shape. The air is moving there always... healing light falls through the lowered gable and open doors. This world... is full of colour and movement... the children just emerging from the long sleep of pre-natal life and fitful dream of the first year, waken at last to a kind of paradise16.
In 1960, the centenary of Margaret McMillan’s birth was celebrated by an appeal for memories from children who had been cared for and educated within the various Deptford initiatives. A small selection of these follow:
Margaret McMillan gave her whole life to us children. She was truly a wonderful person in so much that she never thought of herself one bit. I can see her now, a determined figure with a head of lovely silver hair, not always very tidy. I often did it up for her and saw to it that she had no slip showing, that was Miss McMillan. Her whole life was
15 Elizabeth Bradburn, Margaret McMillan: Framework and Expansion of Nursery Education (Redhill, Denholm House, 1976), p.144
In 1960, the centenary of Margaret McMillan’s birth was celebrated by an appeal for memories from children who had been cared for and educated within the various Deptford initiatives. A small selection of these follow:
Margaret McMillan gave her whole life to us children. She was truly a wonderful person in so much that she never thought of herself one bit. I can see her now, a determined figure with a head of lovely silver hair, not always very tidy. I often did it up for her and saw to it that she had no slip showing, that was Miss McMillan. Her whole life was
15 Elizabeth Bradburn, Margaret McMillan: Framework and Expansion of Nursery Education (Redhill, Denholm House, 1976), p.144
16 Mansbridge: full text of a broadcast given by MM on BBC radio, on 17th November 1927, pp.104-106
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centred around us children ... I can still hear her now saying “You may be poor now but if you want, there is nothing to stop you sitting in the Houses of Parliament”17.
One cannot think of one’s school days and its happy memories without thinking of Miss McMillan ... she made one see Wordsworth’s daffodils fluttering and dancing in the breeze.... was there ever a school where the children were showered with so much love?18
Miss McMillan came and opened new and wonderful doors for us ... thank you Miss McMillan19.
These feelings were obviously reciprocated; one respondent with adult memories of Margaret McMillan remembered her discussing these very children with obvious pride:
The first time I met Margaret McMillan was at an educational conference.... [When she spoke] we seemed to see her Dorothy- her Gladys.... heard their very voices. The theories we had been debating seemed vague or artificial, now we heard the truth ...20
The same respondent also contributed to a range of memories of the Open Air Nursery Garden in which McMillan recreated ‘the wide and sunlit world’ of her own early childhood21:
[When I visited Deptford] I had to ask my way through smelly streets, but all whom I asked became eager friends as soon as I mentioned Miss McMillan’s name. At last I came to a door in the paling and when this was opened I saw a garden full of delphiniums. In among the flowers were many little children, like flowers themselves, with gay overalls and coloured ribbons in their hair22.
17 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/35: in a manuscript marked ‘Miss Davies’ broadcast 7th June 1960. These paragraphs are circled, with a handwritten note ‘omit’. Comparing the contents of Archives A8/24 and A8/16 with information contained in Margaret McMillan: The Children’s Champion (London: Museum Press, 1960), p.71-73, where the comments are presented anonymously indicates that either Dorothy Lob or Gladys Woodhams may have contributed this paragraph
18 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/24: letter from Dorothy Lob, Camp School19 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/16: letter from Gladys Woodhams, Camp School
20 University of Greenwich A94/16/A 8/22: letter from F. Hawtry from Darlington, who became the Principal of Avery Hill Training College Eltham in 1922.
21 Margaret McMillan ‘After the Echoes of the Congress of School Hygiene’, The Labour Leader, 30th August 1907, quoted in Bradburn, p.6.
One cannot think of one’s school days and its happy memories without thinking of Miss McMillan ... she made one see Wordsworth’s daffodils fluttering and dancing in the breeze.... was there ever a school where the children were showered with so much love?18
Miss McMillan came and opened new and wonderful doors for us ... thank you Miss McMillan19.
These feelings were obviously reciprocated; one respondent with adult memories of Margaret McMillan remembered her discussing these very children with obvious pride:
The first time I met Margaret McMillan was at an educational conference.... [When she spoke] we seemed to see her Dorothy- her Gladys.... heard their very voices. The theories we had been debating seemed vague or artificial, now we heard the truth ...20
The same respondent also contributed to a range of memories of the Open Air Nursery Garden in which McMillan recreated ‘the wide and sunlit world’ of her own early childhood21:
[When I visited Deptford] I had to ask my way through smelly streets, but all whom I asked became eager friends as soon as I mentioned Miss McMillan’s name. At last I came to a door in the paling and when this was opened I saw a garden full of delphiniums. In among the flowers were many little children, like flowers themselves, with gay overalls and coloured ribbons in their hair22.
17 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/35: in a manuscript marked ‘Miss Davies’ broadcast 7th June 1960. These paragraphs are circled, with a handwritten note ‘omit’. Comparing the contents of Archives A8/24 and A8/16 with information contained in Margaret McMillan: The Children’s Champion (London: Museum Press, 1960), p.71-73, where the comments are presented anonymously indicates that either Dorothy Lob or Gladys Woodhams may have contributed this paragraph
18 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/24: letter from Dorothy Lob, Camp School19 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/16: letter from Gladys Woodhams, Camp School
20 University of Greenwich A94/16/A 8/22: letter from F. Hawtry from Darlington, who became the Principal of Avery Hill Training College Eltham in 1922.
21 Margaret McMillan ‘After the Echoes of the Congress of School Hygiene’, The Labour Leader, 30th August 1907, quoted in Bradburn, p.6.
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22 University of Greenwich A94/16/A 8/22: letter from F. Hawtry from Darlington
I came to the tall wooden gate... and passed through it to what seemed to me a veritable paradise23.
The opening of [the garden] door was symbolic of the place her nursery held in the community. Outside all seemed dark and hopeless, but inside there was the promise of fresh growth and beauty ...24
In the final years of her life, Margaret McMillan campaigned for a teacher training college attached to the nursery, to train early years teachers in the ‘educare’ methods that the sisters had pioneered.
The Rachel McMillan Teacher Training College was formally opened on 8th May, 1930 by Queen Mary. Margaret McMillan gave the inaugural speech, characteristically proposing ‘the real object of our work is nurture ... we are trying to to make a place which shall be a training ground for the happier generations of the future’25. She had succeeded in her mission to stake a claim in the future for her unique mixture of child education and welfare, and subsequently died less than a year later, on 29th March, 1931. Her philosophy of ‘educare’ in the early years is still alive today in England, enshrined in the national guidance document for early years education and care, the Early Years Foundation Stage.
A respondent to the Margaret McMillan centenary memories archive concludes:
It was difficult to make people realise what a wonderful person Miss McMillan was unless they knew what Deptford was like many years ago- then they would understand what she was up against... the children had no shoes – they played in the streets, sat in the gutter and were very dirty... she was stern but when you got to know her she was very kind and gentle... in my opinion, there will never be another Margaret McMillan26.
Figure 5: Margaret McMillan with the Queen and students at the opening of the Rachel McMillan Teacher Training College, 8th May 193027
23 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/18: letter from Helen Edwards, Bradford, student 1923-26.24 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/28: letter from Jessie Porter, Dundee, student 1917-20
25 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/7: extract from Margaret McMillan’s speech at the opening of the Rachel McMillan Teacher Training College 8th May 1930.
26 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/30: handwritten note, no date or address, signed ‘Mrs Stiggear’.
27 University of Greenwich A94/16/B7: Margaret McMillan with the Queen and students at the opening of the Rachel McMillan Teacher Training College, 8th May 1930
The opening of [the garden] door was symbolic of the place her nursery held in the community. Outside all seemed dark and hopeless, but inside there was the promise of fresh growth and beauty ...24
In the final years of her life, Margaret McMillan campaigned for a teacher training college attached to the nursery, to train early years teachers in the ‘educare’ methods that the sisters had pioneered.
The Rachel McMillan Teacher Training College was formally opened on 8th May, 1930 by Queen Mary. Margaret McMillan gave the inaugural speech, characteristically proposing ‘the real object of our work is nurture ... we are trying to to make a place which shall be a training ground for the happier generations of the future’25. She had succeeded in her mission to stake a claim in the future for her unique mixture of child education and welfare, and subsequently died less than a year later, on 29th March, 1931. Her philosophy of ‘educare’ in the early years is still alive today in England, enshrined in the national guidance document for early years education and care, the Early Years Foundation Stage.
A respondent to the Margaret McMillan centenary memories archive concludes:
It was difficult to make people realise what a wonderful person Miss McMillan was unless they knew what Deptford was like many years ago- then they would understand what she was up against... the children had no shoes – they played in the streets, sat in the gutter and were very dirty... she was stern but when you got to know her she was very kind and gentle... in my opinion, there will never be another Margaret McMillan26.
Figure 5: Margaret McMillan with the Queen and students at the opening of the Rachel McMillan Teacher Training College, 8th May 193027
23 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/18: letter from Helen Edwards, Bradford, student 1923-26.24 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/28: letter from Jessie Porter, Dundee, student 1917-20
25 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/7: extract from Margaret McMillan’s speech at the opening of the Rachel McMillan Teacher Training College 8th May 1930.
26 University of Greenwich A94/16/A8/30: handwritten note, no date or address, signed ‘Mrs Stiggear’.
27 University of Greenwich A94/16/B7: Margaret McMillan with the Queen and students at the opening of the Rachel McMillan Teacher Training College, 8th May 1930
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Figure 6: Margaret McMillan with a child in the Rachel McMillan Open Air Nursery Garden, circa 193028
Moving images of the Deptford Nursery in the 1930s can be viewed on the following links: British Pathé Archive, video file: Nursery Days! Video Newsreel Film, 21st August, 1939
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=11403
28 University of Greenwich A94/16/B7: Margaret McMillan with a child in the Rachel McMillan Open Air Nursery Garden, circa 1930
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Moving images of the Deptford Nursery in the 1930s can be viewed on the following links: British Pathé Archive, video file: Nursery Days! Video Newsreel Film, 21st August, 1939
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=11403
28 University of Greenwich A94/16/B7: Margaret McMillan with a child in the Rachel McMillan Open Air Nursery Garden, circa 1930
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British Pathé Archive, video file: Her Majesty the Queen opens the Rachel McMillan Teacher Training College. Video Newsreel Film, 12th May, 1930http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=8281
Reflecting on this piece ....
Reflecting on this piece ....
- Whether/how do you think the influence of the McMillan’s resonates in today's practice?
- How does what is written chime with your own philosophy/values?
- Can you recognise the influence underlying/within specific parts of the EYFS
documentation? - If you’re international, how does the McMillan’s philosophy/values chime with those
underpinning your own frameworks/curricula?
Saturday, 27 October 2018
Why is it that NO Human or Civil Rights lawyer in UK seems to be aware UK .#CivilRights #LGBTQ History? Is that not truly shocking?
As i write this having spent 5 years researching my book #Liberty about how the Uk Civil Rights and LGBTQ civil rights movement , fought and won and the inspired activism of one women #KathDuncan in 1930s Britain what shocks me most, is that her two jail terms or the terrible injustice of the time, but TODAY those struggles and battles are forgot, in fact had i not written my Book and the forthcoming Biography of Kath Duncan The Last Queen Of Scotland out 2019 or wrote the Play Liberty her story or would i should say OUR history story would be erased.
I have given up expected a law firm to Sponsor the play , what they spend at one Christmas Dinner would fund this play and run the school holiday programme the festival profits pay for an entire year.As a Gay man its even more tragic #Pride #LGBTQ is no longer about Struggle, Solidarity , Heritage. History again before i wrote this many #LGBTQ would moan that Pride is about Banks and Big Business no longer a campaigning event after all i was told, what history do we have ? Stonewall , Martin Luther King, Mandela other countries heroes , but OUR own? .
In the year we celebrate 100 years of Women in activism is it not just legal point to argue that Kath Duncan has served her time and that every one that claims to be marching with all feminists also call and march to the calls for Kath Duncan the most important Scot And UK civil rights activist to become the National Treasure she is so worthy of? or is it still that Money has bought our #LGBTQ community silence, and that because she was #LGBTQ #Women #Poor #Communist #Left ,Women like this are still unworthy? this play #Liberty should be staged at every #LGBTQ history and #Pride event, every lawyer with love of the game should be buying tickets NOW to insure ALL and everyone on the team is aware this case , and should not everyone be buying this #Christmas #Tickets to teach themselves and those they love about the importance of #Struggle #Solidarity and how tough the world is TODAY whilst reflecting and learning from the past, #Liberty is not just the most extraordinary play production to be staged in #London #Theatre 14-28 February 2019 with a dedicated #cast of some of the UK finest acting talent , but is a story that needs to be told a #WorkingClass #Hero a #Women and remembered in every class room, at every #pride #Women #CivilRights #humanRights event with Pride . At £15 a ticket what many of you in the city will spend on a Coffee and a Muffin , many of you have achieved in no small part, to the brave and inspired activism that cost her liberty, 2 jail terms, and her health, she died from the illness caught in Jail. Get Tickets from @SeeTickets and @TicketSauce if we can sell out the 14 dates by Christmas we get to do a UK Tour..Yes you can make it happen..
The webpage www.KathDuncan.com Happy to give talks across the UK. Looking to work with everyone who things Working Class Heroes stories especially Women needs telling, whilst hoping the moment you stop reading this you book tickets or buy the book #Liberty
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Buy tickets for Deptford Heritage Festival 's forthcoming events. Click the link for further information and to secure your tickets now!
This the link to buy the book #Liberty that makes a wonderful Christmas, Birthday, Thank you gift if you include a theatre ticket, which also gives YOU Free entry to all the Deptford Heritage Festival events except the Deptford History tour Bus
by Raymond Barron-Woolford
Friday, 26 October 2018
#Hamilton #Misty #TheJungle ad to the list of #breathtaking #LondonTheatre #Theatre #Liberty set 2B the MUST see #Show of 2019
The main cast characters of #Liberty the must see production-play of 2019
Emily Carding plays Kath Duncan , the most important Scot and Uk civil rights activist the past 100 years. Emily trained at Bretton Hall and the University of Exeter where she gained an MFA in Staging Shakespeare. She has appeared in versions of over twenty of Shakespeare’s plays, both on stage and screen. Her recent starring role as The Officer in Franz Kafka’s Apparatus was received with great praise from the press, with The Stage saying, “Emily Carding is a byword for a must-see” and the Telegraph remarking “her performance as the Officer is captivating; her devotion both to the "apparatus" itself and her previous superior, the Old Commandant, as convincing as it is unnerving.”
She has, together with independent theatre company Brite Theater, created a number of challenging and innovative shows including Shakespeare in Hell, Hamlet (an experience)and Richard III (A One Woman Show)which has won multiple awards and rave reviews internationally, including the first and only instance of all awards on offer at Prague Fringe going to one company. Richard III was awarded the “Bobby” award at Edinburgh Fringe 2015 and Hamlet (an experience)and Caliban’s Codexwere both nominated for the Performance, Creative and Inspiration awards at Prague Fringe 2018 with Hamlet also being nominated for the Infallibles award at Edinburgh Fringe 2018. Richard III (a one woman show)has toured to New York, Italy, Iceland, Slovakia, Romania and Pakistan, with Hamlet (an experience)due to tour internationally also, including the world-renowned Encore Series at the Soho Playhouse New York which features the best of the best of world fringe performances.
A number of films in which she appears were released in 2018 including the comedy-horror Scareycrows, a green screen adaptation of Macbethand Ghost Stories(opposite Martin Freeman).
AMY WHITROD BROWN takes on the huge role of playing the Labour leader George Lansbury. Amy is a Leeds - born actress with a BA Honours in Drama from the University of Manchester. Having studied a semester abroad at Rutgers University, NJ in BFA Theater she returned back to the US to study the Conservatory program in Acting at the New York Film Academy. She worked in NYC in film and theatre before moving to London almost two years ago where she became Advanced trained in BADC Stage Combat. Her most recent theatre credits include The Cagebirds (Guzzle), A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes), The Lion in Winter (Alais Capet), and Dracula (Lucy Westenra). Amy has recently worked on short film, Victim, as the lead, which is being entered for screening at Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals; for the BFI, Grim Resolve, and fantasy short, Peregrine’s Hymn. She is currently in production for Feature concept All Against All and Feature film V vs V: Odin’s Abomination. She is excited to work with such talented cast members and for this very unique opportunity.
Ana Luiza Ulsig is an established well known big star in Brazil , and takes on the role of Sandy Duncan and the Prison Governor. The political upheavel in her native Brazil in which the first Women leader has kicked out without any evidence leading the way for a new fascist President insured this play whilst set in 1930s, was very much a production of OUR time . Ana Danish Brazilian performer, has been acting since the age of 11, with more than 10 years of experience in Improvisation. She came to London for an MA at Rose Bruford College. In the past year, Ana performed at the Edinburgh FRINGE Festival 2018 with the play “UR Medëa”; In London, she co-wrote, co-produced and acted in "F♀UR - Four Women, Four Stories”, a show inspired by the feminist pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft; In Denmark, Ana participated in Aarhus European Capital of Culture 2017 with “All This Coming and Going”, a play produced by Teatret Gruppe 38, and in the film “Lifeboat”, a story about the current refugee crisis in Europe.
Back in Brazil, Ana performed in more than 20 productions, with substantial roles such as Mary in “Passion of Christ” and Linda in “Chão de Estrelas” (floor of stars); street theatre productions; TV soap operas and commercials; besides being a co-author of five theatre plays.
Rona Topaz is this productions Musical Director , although this is NOT a musical, it does have some powerful songs, Rona also plays the role of Kath Mama and a Comrade. Rona is a singer, actress, facilitator and political activist.
Theatre includes: Lucy in Sweeney Todd (Bridewell) Ensemble in Les Miserables (London Palladium) Films include Bright Young Things, Alien Autopsy, Mrs Lees and Her Ladies. Further info: www.spotlight.com/2253-5641-0859
As a singer she has supported artists including John Cooper Clarke, Frank Chickens, Billy Bragg and the Pearlfishers, as well as contributing vocals to a number of projects, including 80’s House hit, Ride The Rhythm. Currently she is about to take over the musical direction of the Watford Palace Theatre Choir, as well as vocal coaching and facilitating a variety of projects for people with dementia and learning difficulties.
Rona rejoined the Labour Party in 2015 after hearing a speech by (journalist) Owen Jones, and within a year she had joined Disabled People Against Cuts and contributed evidence to a number of select committees. She is a founder member of Disability Equality Act Labour, which campaigns for the implementation of the Equality Act Legislation throughout the Party. She is also a volunteer with Stop the War as well as an EC member of Conscience, Taxes for Peace. She is also about to train as a welfare benefits advocate with the CAB. She is thrilled to be a part of this project.
Alex Reid is currently known for being one of the uks most decorated professional mma fighters and for his celebrity status, winning celebrity big brother with the highest ever vote.
Since graduating from Guildford school of acting in 2000, Alex has continually starred in many tv series, soaps, plays, and films from Hollyoaks and Drifters, to just recently “A Dangerous Game” & “Retribution”.
Alex is really looking to get stuck into the play “Liberty”, with strong feelings about the topic concerned, helping those without a voice
Alex plays the hugely important role of Fred Copeman the boxer, kid from the work house, Communist leader , Civil rights activist who was jailed 3 times, and who was a leader of the Invergordon Mutiny the biggest Mutiny in British History of the past 100 years. , the Hunger marches , a brigade leader in the Spanish Civil War , a close friend and house mate to Kath and Sandy Duncan who would later go on to become a friend and advisor to the Royal Family,Labour Leader Clem Attlee and against the odds honoured with an OBE and become an elected Labour Councillor on Lewisham Council
Since graduating from Guildford school of acting in 2000, Alex has continually starred in many tv series, soaps, plays, and films from Hollyoaks and Drifters, to just recently “A Dangerous Game” & “Retribution”.
Alex is really looking to get stuck into the play “Liberty”, with strong feelings about the topic concerned, helping those without a voice
Alex plays the hugely important role of Fred Copeman the boxer, kid from the work house, Communist leader , Civil rights activist who was jailed 3 times, and who was a leader of the Invergordon Mutiny the biggest Mutiny in British History of the past 100 years. , the Hunger marches , a brigade leader in the Spanish Civil War , a close friend and house mate to Kath and Sandy Duncan who would later go on to become a friend and advisor to the Royal Family,Labour Leader Clem Attlee and against the odds honoured with an OBE and become an elected Labour Councillor on Lewisham Council
Alex Reid is better known as the Winner of Celebrity Big Brother ,with many actor credits to his name having stared in HollyOaks , the film Killer Bitch and is a World Combat fighter with huge media profile
James Ruston is a born and bred local Deptford gay actor and singer who will play the character of Charles Thomas Partner , Henry Ward who like Charles was jailed 5 times and served 12 years just for looking Gay. Its power to this production that 80 years on Deptford gay men will play the rolls of Gay men whose Jail term lead to the freedoms they can enjoy in 2018 , why this production so important to be seen by all #LGBTQ , Women and any one with an interest in Human and Civil rights and Social Justice.
Giorgio Borghes Ak Claudia F , is a Deptford based gay actor, drag artist , singer , who will play the gay resident in 1930s Deptford Charles Thomas whose arrest and 5th jail term with his partner just for looking gay, kicked of these events, and as tribute to fellow former local resident the transvestite Percy Duke who was jailed for wearing a dress , will tell his story whilst reflecting on the fact every week in USA a Trans person is murdered just for being Trans.
Claudia F is the queer club queen that is taking the stages by storm! A vocal powerhouse, dancer and live performer with an high energy presence!
Originally from Italy, where she started her career in various venues, in 2012 she moved to London and entered Drag Idol UK that introduced her onto the British scene. She performs regularly in the gay/cabaret scene in London and all over UK, hosting also variety and charity shows.
She is also a songwriter and have already released two EP,“Am I wrong?” and “Here and Now” on all major online platforms, you can find them on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play Music, Spotify, Deezer and many more.
You can follow Claudia F on Twitter, Facebook, Soundcloud and Instagram: @ClaudiaFDQ
Originally from Gorizia, Italy, Giorgio graduated from the Bernstein School of Musical Theatre in 2007 in Bologna. In October 2012 Giorgio moved to London, here some credits:
Musical Theatre: “One night only” (Hippodrome Casino and Proud Cabaret), “Elegies for angels, punks and raging queens” (The white bear), “From up here” (Camden Fringe and Brighton Fringe) and “Rent” (Halfway to Heaven).
Plays: “Moments”, “Minor Planets” (Chelsea Theatre), “The Wedding Party” (Actor’s Centre), “One flew over the Coocko’s nest” (Lord Stanley), “Ken” (Hampstead Theatre)
Physical Theatre includes: “Liberation” (The Vault Festival, The Place, Zoo Southside Edinburgh Fringe)
Opera: “Aida” (South Downs Opera)
TICKETSOURCE.CO.UK
Buy tickets for Deptford Heritage Festival 's forthcoming events. Click the link for further information and to secure your tickets now!
Liberty: The untold story of the struggle to establish civil rights
by Raymond Barron-Woolford
Launch of Londons largest heritage festival and the extraordinary play-Production #Liberty that for the first time in 80 plus years tells the true story based on real historical evidence of how the LGBTQ and Civil rights movement was established in 1930s Britain and its leader Kath Duncan whose 2 jail terms laid the ground work for The National Council Civil Liberties ( Liberty today ) and the freedoms we ALL enjoy TODAY.
The 3rd International Deptford Heritage festival will be Londons largest Heritage festival from 1-28 February 2019 and will encompass the global #LGBTQ history month.
The Deptford heritage festival brings together the countries leading experts on the people whose lives in Deptford from Lord Nelson, Christopher Marlowe , Peter the Great, MacMillan Sisters, Kath Duncan, Olaudan Equiano have not just shaped Deptford history but whose impact has been felt Internationally.
Traditionally held over the first bank holiday in May , The Deptford Heritage Festival brings together huge numbers , schools, local residents of all ages and diversity , community groups, choirs, artists, writers, performers, poets, musicians, historians like no other festival to celebrate community , working class history and the people who have shaped all of our lives during their time in Deptford and in a period in our history in which Gentrification seems to be growing rapidly without any thought of its impact on the areas awesome heritage , identity , sense of community and its place and importance in world history.
Liberty, the book and Now a highly acclaimed play, being staged by the newly reformed 1930s local Theatre company, The Red Blouse Theatre , telling the true story of how the LGBTQ and Civil Rights movement was established in Deptford and lead by the most important Scot and UK civil rights activist past 100 years Kath Duncan in 1930s Britain which laid the ground work for The National Council Of Civil Liberties will be staged with an all star Gender fluid International cast.
It does seem extraordinary that whilst most people would in part be aware of Nelson Mandela , South Africa, Martin Luther King and Stonewall USA and Gandhi India , you will be hard pressed to find any one in the Uk including Human and Civil rights lawyers, aware of how the LGBTQ and Civil rights movement was fought and won here in London , and in the year in which we celebrate 100 years of Women activism, is it not time Kath Duncan the most successful activist of her time is bought out of the shadows ? is it just that her gender, her sexuality, her class, her politics have insured that the past 80 plus years her heroism has been until this book and play almost erased from History?.
Tickets for Liberty cost £15 and give you free access to ALL other festival events ( except the History Tour Bus )
The Opening night celebrity gala 14 February 2019 Valentines day will be a tribute to the Countries leading inspirational Women who are activists TODAY and although this is NOT a musical one of the songs from the play Forbidden Love between the two gay characters in the play whose 5th jail term a total of 12 years for looking gay lead to the events in this extraordinary play- production Staring Emily Carding as Kath Duncan and Alex Reid as Fred Copeman will be £25
All profits from the Festival will fund a School Holiday Project that keeps kids fed and safe during the school holidays, run by the local community the project gets no state or council funding despite its growing need.
Tickets on sale Now with SeeTickets and Ticket Sauce and make fantastic Christmas presents that if you buy for Opening Gala also double over as Valentines day gifts.
Press Interviews Text 07871187162
Email raymondwoolford@aol.com
Twitter @BlouseRed @DeptfordHeritageFestival
Festival Office 0203 632 196
Website www.KathDuncan.Com
A long overdue biography of Kath Duncan , The Last Queen of Scotland has been written by Ray Barron-Woolford and will be published by New York Publisher Austin McCauley in 2019 .
www.InsideFilm.org are about to go into production of a film about Kath Duncans life based on this play Liberty and Ray Barron-Woolford biography of her . Contact them direct to get involved.
The Festival and the Platy Liberty are still looking for Sponsorship so more of the funds raised can go directly t to this kids project.
TICKETSOURCE.CO.UK
Buy tickets for Deptford Heritage Festival 's forthcoming events. Click the link for further information and to secure your tickets now!
Twitter: @BlouseRed @DeptfordHeritageFestival
Telephone (Festival Office): 0203 632 196
Website: Full listings and Info . ( t-shirts & Mugs ) www.KathDuncan.Com
A long overdue biography of Kath Duncan, The Last Queen of Scotland, has been written by Ray Barron-Woolford and will be published by New York Publisher Austin McCauley early in 2019.
www.InsideFilm.org are about to start production of a film about Kath Duncan’s life based on Ray Barron-Woolford’s play and biography. You should contact them direct if you want to get involved.
Contact us to sponsor the festival or the play part or full . To be a friend of the festival with listing and free guest pass is £250 per year per Company . Organisation.
To donate-support the aims and projects the festival support by local Charity We Care . account sort Code 089298 Account Number 65659328 bic code OPBK GB22 International code GB10 OPBK 0892 9965 6593 28. Receipt – Invoice by request .
TICKETSOURCE.CO.UK
Buy tickets for Deptford Heritage Festival 's forthcoming events. Click the link for further information and to secure your tickets now!
This the link to buy the book #Liberty that makes a wonderful Christmas, Birthday, Thank you gift if you include a theatre ticket, which also gives YOU Free entry to all the Deptford Heritage Festival events except the Deptford History tour Bus
Liberty: The untold story of the struggle to establish civil rights
by Raymond Barron-Woolford
by Raymond Barron-Woolford
Tickets ; https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/deptford-heritage-festival
I am so pleased people are supporting the call for Kath Duncan in the year we celebrate 100 years of #Women #Activism to be recognised as the National #WorkingClass #Hero she was. i just hope YOU come see this extraordinary production with the most diverse and talented cast to be found on any stage..hear her story, get a ticket .https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/deptford-heritage-festival
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