postscript

I just want to add an excerpt of what zelda wrote about her feelings about the Communist Party after she left in the 1980s.

This is what I feel about the Party now - I was conned and I'm angry with myself for having allowed it, and even angrier with myself for suspending my disbelief and convincing myself they were acting froom the best of motives. Who are they? They are those in leading positions who knew but didn't tll me, who were dishonest. They used me. And what hurts me most is that those who I admired and put my trust in, didn't trust me - didn't give me the chance to make up my own mind how to act. They didn't allow me the proper information for me to act upon in my work in and for the Party.
I feel ashamed that even when I had doubts and when I saw for myself what was wrong, I, too, tried to find some good reason for it at first. I, too, wanted to believe. I did try to change things, but the hardliners were too entrenched. I had for a long time tried to fight against the lack of democracy within the Morning star and within the Party, but had been too foolish and hasty in my strategy and actions, and often chose the wrong allies. I was, and still am, ashamed of myself for keeping my head in the sand for so long and for turning a blind eye to so much.
But one thing I am not ashamed of - I still believe in socialism. I still believe in collective action and eschew "bourgeois individualism". Iwant a fair and just society based on equality of opportunity. My fight is still against discrimination, racism, anti-semitism, and against censorship. I still want a world where the arts are encouraged, and where each is given the opportunity to develop their talents to the full. The only problem is that I no longer know how to get it!
I comfort myself that in the work I do with older women I am at least effecting some small changes for the better, that I am at least giving support to some people so that they can develop their talents. And certainly I am stil trying to develop my own. But sometimes, in fact more often than not, I stop for a moment and think, "Who the devil am I to think I can change the world?" A short while ago I was absolutely certain that I could.

On being ill

Zelda (right) with her sister Norma (left) and cousins Cynthia and Mona, in the garden of the residential care home where she spent the last 7 years of her life.

Pride comes before a fall. All my life I had taken pride in my good health. Until I was in my forties i had never had anything other than the usual childhood maladies. But then I began to have gynaecological problems. They were finally resolved by having a hysterectomy, from which I recovered quickly and easily and had not further health problems. I expected, therefore, to tay active and well to a very old age.
I had never been one to dwell on ill-health, and indeed felt little sympathy toward those who complained of aches and pains. I didn't find other people's illnesses easy to contend with. Then Parkinson's disease struck me and now I have more understanding of others' suffering.
Jerry died in October 1983 and by the end of that same year my hand started shaking in the familiar parkisons manner of pill-rolling. When I went to see the neurology consultant, the clinic was full of long-term sufferers, the sight of whom made me fearful of my own future. Many could only shuffle along with heads bowed down and expressionaless faces. Others were in wheelchairs with head and limbs shaking and writhing, mouths oen and dribbling. in one sense seeing the worst early on was to the good. It made me more determined to make the most of what active life I had left. It made me face up to reality with no false hopes.
At first I decided not to take the pills offered me because I realised the amount of time they could effectively help me was finite. The later I started on them the longer I could be helped, so I struggled on. It was not long, however, before I realised that I could not type well enough any more and that was essential for my work. My fingers became clenched and would not work properly. My handwriting got smaller and smaller and almost impossible to read. i gave in and took the pills. Their effect was almost miraculous. They did not help my handwriting but they did free my clenched fingers and to a certain degree controlled the shake. Unfortunately there were side effects, a feeling of queasiness, nightmares, and an odd but painful effect on my toes. I suffered badly with cramp and my big toe tended to shoot up stiffly.
I joined the Parkinsons Disease Society and was asked to start a local group for Islington and Hackney sufferers. With their help a venue was found and we got ourselves organised, having speakers on subjects related to our problems. But I found that such a group was more helpful to the carers than the sufferers, who were no longer able to benefit either from the information or the socialising. Confined to their wheelchairs, and with their senses impaired, they found little pleasure from others' company it seemed. For the women carers, however, it was a night out. We laid on transport for them and gave them light refreshments. They were able to shar experiences with the other carers and enjoy a chat quite happily. there was only one woman sufferer beside myslef, and she was cared for by her son.
As a new sufferer I could find little help from such a group and, in fact, it made me feel depressed, so I left it in the good hands of the society and soe of the carers. But that experience gave me an insight into the problems and needs of carers, which I put to good use o the Islington Carers Committee.
Partly to put myself more at ease and partly to make others more aware of the disease, I always inform an audience, if I am speaking in public, that I am a Parkinsons sufferer. Doing that has enabled people to come up and ask me questions or to tell me of some of their relatives who suffer from the disease. Some young women have even asked me to meet with their mothers who are sufferers and are very depressed. They hope that I can talk them out of it.
I have tried not to allow parkinsons to stop me from any activity. I walk and swim and try to remember to do some exercises each evening. When alone I do quite a lot of dancing to tapes I like, or to Top of the Pops. But I get very tired and very stiff after a lot of exertion. It can be quite painful and i have to admit I get a little depressed at times. I keep going as much as I can and on the whole it hasn't interfered too much with the way I like to live, but the future does worry me.
Recently I joined in the hospital's experiment with some different pills. Initially their control of the shake was remarkable and I was very happy despite the greater side effects of sickness, bad dreams, cramps and writhing. My friends had a good giggle when I told them what I dreamed - the nightmare was that I was in bed with a young lover and was just about to climax when the door was flung open and my two daughters appeared. My daughters tell me not to worry as they would approve not disapprove. When I asked what nightmares others had, I was told they usually dreamed of savage animals.
Now however, my body's response to that new drug is not as good as before. I realise i have to be grateful for small mercies, but it is hard to live with no real hope for a good future.
No hope? Well, people are always trying to comfort me with tales of new cures being found and alternative treatments that can help. The one thing that the doctors and consultants have made me understand is that they know very little about Parkinsons and that each sufferer is unique in syptoms and response to treatment. In general medicine is a hit and miss business, not an exact science. They do not even know the cause of Parkinsons, though they now think it may be environmental.
The pills they give me try to replace the natural dopamine lost to my body through certain brain cells dying. That controls some of the symptoms but does nothing to stop the disease's course. I am lucky in that my deterioration is slow. However, there is one treatment suggested for the terrible cramps I suffer which I can approve of. Quinine is the prescription but the doctor says that tonic water is the best form to take it in - and especially with a little Gin in it. Can't be bad.

[Comment from Sue - Zelda carried on coping with the disease into her late seventies but increasingly fell over, often injuring herself badly. The pills she took brought on hallucinations and her mental health began to suffer. She moved for a while to live with my sister Joan, and then with her friend Stan, but they both realised that the unequal struggle of caring for her, when she barely slept at night and could not tell hallucination from reality, was beyond them. With great regret, we found a residential care home for her in 2005 and she ended her days there.]

The pensioners movement

Zelda with Stan Davison, long term friend and "comrade-in-arms" in the pensioners movement

When I finally retired from paid work, I walked into the office of the Greater London Pensioners Association (GLPA) to sign on the dotted line and casually asked if there was any way I could help. I had to open my big mouth! Hardly had the word "help" left my lips than I was told I was unanimously elected Treasurer. Their idea of that job was not the conventional honorary one. I did the Income Tax, kept the books, helped run a bazaar and jumble sales and became their fundraiser. They had just lost their funding when I came on the scene and Harry Mundy, their President, was desparately anxious. Together we decided to make an appeal to the Trades Union movement, and the GLPA memberhsip rose to the task magnificently. They followed up our written appeals with verbal pressure at their branches and the response was very good. Others, out on street corners in all weathers with their petitions against welfare cuts, called for donations and we were pleased to see that young people, in particular, gave us their support.
These efforts kept us going while we continued putting the pressure on the London Borough Grants Committee to restore our grant. The fight was long and hard and at one memorable meeting the Committee's vote was a tie. The Chairman then used his casting vote - against us! Undaunted we hung in there until a change of political power in one Borough gave us the certainty of a vote for restoring our grant. Once that was achieved, and we were more financially secure, I resigned as Treasurer.
[Stan told me a funny story of how Zelda tried to resign as treasurer, but the secretary of the group died and the Chair was very ill. Zelda thought it would be impossible to resign under these circumstances, at which point Stan said "The lengths they'll go to to keep you as Treasurer!"]
I had found the lack of in-depth discussion of policy very frustrating and felt it was absolutely necessary to make time to think anew, in the light of changing times, about the different needs of pensioners, and to examine the possibilities of new methods of campaigning and of new allies to be wo. I was certain, too, that all ages needed to discuss together the future of the welfare state.
Having joined the "Democratic Left"(DL) I spoke to some of the members about my concerns and was pleased to find that some of the members had been thinking along the same lines. It was decided to try to develop a discussion group made up of all ages, which would examine thoroughly all the different arguments around pensioners issues. Once set up it was called AgeSpan (a name thought up by Stan Davison, its present Chairman), and its aims to challenge the age discrimination so rife in our society. But the major part of my time is devoted to working with older women through AGLOW (the Association of greater London Older Women). It has been rewarding to see the way the work has empowered some of the most disadvantaged older women and encouraged their talents to bloom. The variety of work is mind-boggling; from conferences on the issues of physical and mental health, housing, transport and education;self-defence and assertiveness;drumming, dancing, and drama. We helped women in Hackney to write and publish a book on the experience of Caribbean women coing to Britain; helped a woman in Brent set up a self-help group for those suffering from depression;and brought together older refugee women to discuss their health issues. We are now lobbying MPs for legislation against age discrimination and we are involved with European older women's groups.

on being a widow

zelda and jerry on holiday in france 1962

after all the mad political whirl, here's a bit more about zelda's personal life

Jerry had been happy that Saturday morning. He had been running a fund-raising stall at Friends’ House and just as we were packing up to go for lunch he had a heart attack. Whisked quickly off to the Whittington hospital, he recovered well enough by Tuesday for Sister to tell me he could go home by the weekend. Yet by 3.30 the next afternoon he was dead, from another massive heart attack. It was such a shock to me that I became very angry and screamed at the doctor “How could it happen? You told me he was better.” The doctor kept repeating over and over, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Thus I became a widow. My daughters, my sister and my friends rallied round, but despite this cushioning, I knew I would have to face up to the problems ahead some time. People warned m of the loneliness ahead and advised me to keep busy to counter it. But loneliness is not the prerogative of the widowed. The harsh truth is that most couples live together in shared loneliness, in shared busyness that keeps them from facing it. They remain together whatever the quality of their relationship, clinging to the warmth and comfort of any human presence, unable to face a lone existence. [Although this is written in a general way, I am sure Zelda is talking about herself and her own marriage here.]

From that knowledge I drew the strength to live alone. And soon I found I was enjoying the freedom of having my own space and of not having to be responsible for another’s happiness or comfort. I gave myself permission to be selfish, to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, but I have to admit I haven’t managed it yet.

One problem you face when widowed is dining out alone. It takes a lot of courage to walk into a restaurant by yourself, and, as it that isn’t enough; you then have the waiter lead you to a small table right at the back, in a dark corner, where you won’t be seen. The final insult is then they serve you quickly, so that you can be pushed out fast, or else ignore you.

You become very aware that couple friends don’t seem to like odd numbers at their dining table, so if you do get invited, you are likely to find yourself coupled with some quite inappropriate character. And then, when it’s time to leave, everyone tries to get out of giving you a lift home. What an embarrassment you are to them all.

I know several widows who have rushed foolishly into a second marriage just to acquire status again or to avoid that moment when you shut the door and you’re alone. Personally I savour the moment more and more. I may talk back to the television or dance alone to the radio, but I am enjoying myself on the whole.

Holidays were a problem at first. But I was saved from having to worry about that for a while by my daughter Joan, who took me off to Tunisia for a week and by the Jempson family, who took me under their wing and whisked me off to Malta. But I couldn’t expect them to be there for me all the time. After 39 years of marriage and shared holidays it was difficult, even a year after Jerry’s death, to venture forth alone. I gave it a lot of thought and decided a coach trip might be the answer, so I booked for a week’s tour of Andalucia.

My coach companions were mainly couples, but there were also three women on their own and an American man, Harry, with his student son. By the first lunch stop in Jerez, Harry asked me if I would care to join him and his son for lunch. For the rest of the trip we were constant companions. At that time he was 66, just the same age as Jerry would have been and though Harry was a Jewish New Yorker from the Bronx, I was surprised to find how similar his background was to Jerry’s.

We had much in common, from the books we liked, the community work we did, and the politics we shared. He had been head of the New York family services department and was now lecturing in a community college on social work.

We had a good week together. Each night we danced and by day we talked together without pause. At the week’s end we were quite sad to leave each other. He had another week’s holiday left in Spain. But on returning home via London, he knocked on my door and before I had time to say “hallo”, he was propositioning me.

He told me how much he missed me in his second week in Spain, and begged me to go with him to New York. Flattered and greatly tempted by his invitation I said I would think about it. Later I did take u his invitation, but it took only three days of living with him to be sure – quite, quite sure –that I could never live with anyone again. I valued my independence too much. I left New York and went home, happy in the knowledge I would be living alone. But harry did not give up easily. He pursued me, and each year for about four years, he visited me. To this day we still correspond.

Naturally there are times when living alone becomes lonely living. It is then I feel most grateful for the wonderful friendship, understanding and support I get from my friends. I can count on them too, for constructive criticism and help to find my way through problems. My daughters are still a great source of pride and pleasure for me, and my grandchildren give me great joy. I am very close to my sister and to some of Jerry’s family, so I am not short of people to turn to when sad.

Most of the time I’m far too busy working (both paid and unpaid) to have much time for feeling sorry for myself. I’m certainly never bored. There always seems to be a new avenue opening up for me whenever I feel I’m getting stale, always a new challenge. Life is good to me.

older women - an article

I am not sure this is part of the memoir, but it gives a bit more detail of work with the older women's project.

When I was 59 I decided to change career from being a journalist to becoming a community worker and I found a job in Camden working with older people. Part of my job was to give support to the Camden Pensioners Action Group where I soon noticed that although at least 80% of the members were women, guess who held all the positions of power in the group? Yes, men. So, with the support of my team and central office, I set about getting funding from the GLC to set up an older women's project, which is now, 11 years later, still flourishing and called AGLOW, the Association of Greater London Older Women. We are still only funded to work in London. In Britain as a whole there are 7 million women aged over 60, 7 million citizens who have been rendered iinvisible and whose voices have been silenced by the ageism and sexism in our society. The contribution made by older women to the economy through their unpaid work in the home, as childminders within the extended family, as volunteers staffing charities, as the carers and good neighbours, goes unrecognised. Our society devalues age, it devalues women once they are past child-bearing, child-rearing days. This combination of ageism and sexism means that little heed is paid to older women, low priority is given to their needs and too little research is done into the specific issues that affect their lives. Is it any wonder then that they also suffer low self-esteem and have low expectations when they have been so marginalised? Especially when you learn that only 17% of women retire on a full basic state pension, 80% of all lone women over 60 live in poverty, 60% over 65 have a long-standing illness or disability and around 700,000 people over 65 suffer from dementia, the vase majority of them being women. The women now aged 70 are of a generation that suffered from the negative social attitudes towards the education of women. Many of them left school at 14 and they feel the lack of education has rendered them powerless. The empowerment of disadvantaged older women is one of the main aims of AGLOW. In the workshops that we organise, older women share their experiences, explore their personal and collective needs and determine action to take to fulfill them. We try to increase their confidence. Last year we convened an older women's conference on Community Care and around 80 women shared their experiences as users. One of their main conclusions was that there is a need for more information. Whilst information is available it does not seem to reach the eople who need it most, and information is the key to proper choice. The complexity of the assessment process for Community Car worries them too and especially the questions about their finances. Older people have bad memories of means testing. But most complaints were about the charges for services now. They are finding some of the services they need are too expensive. Chiropody and eye tests are examples. Because of this, certain eye problems, like glaucoma, are not being picked up. They are also concerned about those with mental health problems. Older women are rarely given access to "talking treatments", psychotherapy groups and counselling. They find themselves fobbed off with tranquilisers and anti-depressants. Through AGLOW we have set up some self-help support groups for older women suffering depression. But the awful reality is that more older women are becoming drinkers and are sleeping rough in the streets.
Everyone wanted more information on the complaints procedure and it was stressed that some older people worry about complaining, so they need advocates. A complaint we often hear is that people from black and ethnic minority communities are still not getting culturally appropriate forms of support in many areas, and lesbians are discriminated against in residential homes. The high cost of nursing homes is also a real worry and the fear that they will have to sell their homes and have nothing to leave for their family. [It is ironic that Zelda herself had to sell her home to pay for care and that nearly all the money she had went to the pockets of shareholders in a private care provider!]
User involvement in decision making is always a point of issue. Whilst attempts have been made, user involvement remains more in the wish than in the reality. The users should be involved in the monitoring of services. On housing, the important points raised were the long waits for transfer, the need for more emergency housing for sufferers of violence, because the incidence of elser abuse is very high. There is also the need to carefully monitor conditions in residential homes. And for women to be able to stay in their own homes, they need help with repairs, decoration, odd jobs, window cleaning and gardening. Transport availability and the continuation of the free travel pass are also very important issues for older women.
After that conference, AGLOW arranged a meeting of around 40 of the women to meet women MPs in a committee room of the House of Commons to discuss their concerns. We have also spoken separately to Clare Short. Now that Tessa Jowell has taken over from Clare Short we are arranging another meeting with her at the House in December to lobby for legislation against age discrimination. [Clare Short and Tessa Jowell were both ministers in the 1997 labour government - RIP!] This is blatant in the NHS with operations, screenings and treatment being denied to older women. The ongoing work that AGLOW does is to run courses on assetiveness, self-defence, computer courses and How to produce a newsetter. But we're not all work and no play - we also have had drama sessions, drumming classes, belly-dancing, keep fit and reminiscence workshops. We want women to be able to live life to the full, to fulfill their otential. Towards this aim, AGLOW also works with the Older Women's Education Group. We organise 3 or 4 study days in a year and the most recent one was on relationships. We have also taken ourselves into Europe for campaigning through the Older Women's Network, Europe, which was set up last summer. Through that we sent a representative to Beijing for the International Women's Meeting.

[I think Zelda was about 73 when she wrote this. Being 64 myself now, it is interesting to see if anything has changed for older women. I think many things have, but there is still the looming problem of care in later life, and whether the services will be there and be affordable - especially as in the UK our government is determined to turn back the clock of the national health service to 1945!]

Working among older people

Below, Zelda speaking at older people's forum, and above, at Grey Power workshops drumming and Indian dancing.


After leaving East End News life took anothe twist, pushing me ino a new area of work. Somebody somewhere must love me, as they say, because yet again I landed on my feet in a very interesting job and with some very fine colleagues. In November 1981 I became one of the four-woman team of Camden Task Force, a voluntary sector organisation working with older people. My team mates were nicky Jane and Susan and when I was first introduced to Nicky she showed me the double headed axe hanging from her silver neck chain and asked if I knew its significance. Not wishing to show ignorance I just nodded. however, it didn't take me long to realise that she was a lesbian. The four of us became good friends and we often would go out together to try out a new restaurant for dinner. The table talk spanned feminism, homophobia and party politics, interspersed with friendly gossop about other Task Force staff in other local boroughs. We met up with them regularly at staff meetings and union meetings. They were a lively bunch.
I worked in Area 1 and 2 of Camden which took me from Kings Cross to Swiss Cottage and most of the time I walked to my visits to housebound pensioners or to groups and luncheon clubs. We had an office care and a bike but I couldn't drive and I found London traffic terrifying when I ventured on the bike.
Our tasks involved making sure the older people in our patch had the information and the services esential for their independent living. We encouraged them to join social and camaigning groups, organised health courses, tarted up yoga classes and set up reminiscence groups. We also encouraged young people from the local schools to befriend an elderly person who was housebound, and facilitated discussions in the schools on ageism. At one school I was talking to 11 year olds about the stereotypes of older people and mentioned that many young people thought that old people were no longer secually active. Straightaway a boy's arm shot up, I nodded toward him and he said, "Please Miss, my grandma's never had sex!"
What first attracted me to the job at Task Force was their emphasis on self-help groups and collective ways of working in teams. I was not disappointed either in the work or in my team. I found our weekly team meetings both helpful and interesting. There were always new ideas to discuss. I had a lot to learn and especially about the gerentological philsophy underpinning the work we did. New ideas were permeating the voluntary sector and affecting the ways of working. Language was changing, too. No longer was patronising behaviour or language to be tolerated and we were challenging the too prevalent dismissal by some doctors of the treatable complaints of older women with the phrase "it's your age". They fobbed them off with sleeping tablets. Still today there are those who have no time to treat older people as human beings, and others, too, who want to fit them into a mould they can work with more easily. As one woman complained: "I dread being forced to sing music hall songs and wear a paper hat while I drink my tea." Changes don't come quickly or easily and still too often they are treated like children.
We worked with Pensioners' Action Groups and in Camden the Pensioners' Liaison Committee was set up to meet regularly with an officer fro the Social Services Department, and a councillor on the Social Services Committee, to tell them what the pensioners said they needed. Their persistence influenced the Council to give much-needed special services to some of the frail elderly people. The Liaison Committee was the forerunner of today's Local Forum.
Inevitably changes began to affect the Task Force itself. A new director decided it needed a new image and therefore a change of name. Thus it became Pensioners Link and I was asked to set it up as a membership organisation with a quarterly magazine called Link Up. Then I was given fund-raising responsibilities to enable us to expand our work. I true "Pensioners Link" fashion, representatives of each team worked on applications to the GLC for new projects, such as the two successful ones, the Health issues of Black and other inority ethnic communities and an Older Women's project. The one worker on this latter project was Pam, who launched it with a weekend festival for older women. With hard work and showing great initiative she made it into a successful project. I was on the Working Group right from the start, and later, when Pam moved on, I becae the worker and have been associated with the project ever since. It is now autonomous and renamed AGLOW - the Association of greater London older women -[Zelda herself coined this title], of which I am the Chairperson.

Comment from Sue - Zelda was writing this in the early 1990s, but I am pleased to say, that long after she ceased her own involvement, the project still thrives and many women from the project attended Zelda's funeral and still remember her fondly.

North London Older Women's Group

In the ate 70s the London Conference of the Women's Liberation Movement decided to hold a workshop for older women. Intrigued, I decided to attend. The first surprise was to find women in their early thirties there. Hardly old, I thought, so I asked them why they were attending. Their first answer was that they felt they had very different problems from younger feminists because they were already in steady relationships and had children. "The younger feminists don't want to talk about babies," they said. Their other concern was about the menopause - it was the end of life, they thought. An interesting discussion ensued.
Inspired by that workshop, a few of us who were over 50 decided to continue meeting to discuss our attitudes to ageing. We met regularly for a few months but over the summer holidays the group disbanded. As I had found it a mind-expanding and enjoyable experience, I decided to advertise in Spare Rib for older women to contact me if they wished to meet with other women their own age for discussion. Ten of us eventually settled down together to explore our feelings about ageing and to discuss feminist issues.
We talked of personal problems;exchanged experiences of loves and life;raged at sexism;laughed at men's conceits;supported the abortion campaign; and demonstrated at Greenham. Being working women, many of the problems we brought to the group were work oriented: the lack of promotion; the sexism and ageism we encountered; the someties problematic relationships with our colleagues because of our age; and the difficulties of getting a job at our age. And as most of us were mothers, the fraught relationships with our children were sometimes a subject of discussion, but as one of the group who did not have children herself complained, we tried to respect her feelings.
I sometimes felt we were bending over backwards to accommodate all the wishes of the members, to make us all feel comfortable within the group. I later found out that one woman felt intimidated by some of us; some felt the discussions lacked structure and depth;others felt there was too much structure; one felt like an observer - and they were the ones that stayed with us! Others felt the group had seen them through a difficult period of their lives and they could now move on - so they did. Some of us would have liked the group to be more study-oriented.
A highlight in our early days together was when we were invited in 1983 to produce a half hour film for the Open Space programme on BBC2 television. We called it "Invisible Women" and it was inspired by an article written by Flo Keyworth, a journalist on the Morning Star. We explored the virtual invisibility of older women in the media; why they were the butt of male comedians' humour; why they are portrayed as feeble and dimwitted; and why, if they have relationships with younger men, they are mocked, when older men are applauded for their affairs with young women. The Times review amused us. It said, "This passionate little film may have echoed at times with rather silly overstatements but only male bigots could deny the truth of its main contentions". The Daily Express commended us for "hanging on to our good humour as we discussed with frankness and insight the problem of ageing in a man's world." [Zelda doesn't mention that she commissioned me to write and perform the songs featured in this programme - just had to get that in!]
After that success I did a number of other TV programmes. One I particularly enjoyed doing was on the "representation of women in advertisements for washing powder over the past 20 years", which was filmed in a launderette in Bloomsbury. Another one I did was on education and, more recently, a film was made of my visit to Philadelphia to meet Maggie Kuhn and the Gray Panthers.
It is with some pride that I tell you that the Older Women's Group kept together for over 12 years.

feminism - zelda style!

Zelda and friends at Greenham Common

I had always thought of myself as a feminist and equal to any man. I was out there with the boys, beating them at their own game. Not for me those Party women's groups making things for the Bazaars throughout the year. I went out to work, an independent woman, and I prided myself on taking the decisions in the family. At work, too, I was nicknamed "Queen Bee". Only later did I question that view of myself and become uncomfortably aware that I carried more than half the world on my shoulders. What a fool for not recognising my oppression. Then came the Women's Liberation Movement and my awakening, my recognition of my weaknesses as well as my strengths, that enabled me to look honestly at myself and my position in society. It was a painful process. Consciousness-raising groups gave real meaning to the slogan "the personal is the political". We learned that what we had thought was our problem alone was in fact shared by many other women. Through the sharing of experiences we uncovered and discussed the impact of male power or patriarchy. It became a two-way process of women putting their personal feelings into a political perspective and of Party political women getting more in touch with their personal feelings. And for me it meant having to acknowledge my own mistaken attitudes and practices. I also had to look more closely at the Party and recognise its mistaken attitudes and practices. Feminism was difficult for women of my age to embrace because it invalidated so much we had valued in our lives before.
[Note from Sue: I feel sad that any woman felt their values invalidated by feminism. I know what Zelda means, but in my view, if the movement made her feel that way, there was as much wrong with the values of the movement as with her own.]
Within the Party, discussion had centred around the belief that all would be well for women once we gained socialism. "We should be fighting shoulder to shoulder with our male comrades to defeat capitalism", they claimed, "there's no need to organise in separate groups". We should subsume our struggle for liberation from our oppressioon within the greater struggle to free the working class from their oppression, it was said, ignoring the fact that so many liberation struggles have exposed this argument as false. Women would be urged to support the freedom struggle and encouraged to play a full part in the frontline battle alongside the men and seemingly fully equal to the men. "Look at us," the men in command would say to the world, "we have given the women equal status" and then when the battle was over, the sacrifices made, the women would be pushed back into the home, into servicing the male head of the family, into a second-class citizenship yet again.
The slogan for me was "Women's right to Choose". It should apply not only to the question of abortion, but to every sphere of life. I want control over my own body, my own mind and my own life, and for that I need the fullest information to enable me to make the right choices about my life. [I feel desperately sad reading this, given the complete lack of control Zelda had over her body, mind and life in her last few years!] I want equality of opportunity. I want co-operation, not competition.
Those early days of the women's movement were filled with exciting discussions. I felt I was living on the edge of new discoveries all the time. i was caught up in all the passionate arguments on sexuality and the ectivity around the demands for abortion on demand and free 24 hour nurseries. I was reading Betty Friedan's "The Feminist Mystique", Shulamith Firestone's "Dialectics of Sex", Germaine Greer, Kate Millett and Dale Spender on man-made language. Women's books became very important to me. I read them voraciously. Alice Walker and Maya Angelou broadened my vision; Susie Orbach's "Fat is a feminist issue" gave another dimension to the struggle, as did Barbara McDonald's "Look me in the eye", about lesbians' invisibility even within the women's movement. I was searching, searching, searching all the time, looking into myself and sharing the experiences of other women through the groups. But it wasn't all discussions - theory and practice were joined. Women's Centres and women's safe houses were opened, empowerment projects sprang up, anti-discrimination legislation, easier divorce and abortion were all fought for, and educational changes were wrought. To this day I am still re-examining the world in the light of both feminism and Freud.
I meet so many older women nowadays having relationship problems with their daughters. It is worrying too that each generation of women seems to make the same mistakes as their mothers did and have to re-examine their views on relationships, marriage and child-bearing. Dale Spender was so right when she said "women's ideas about the relationship of women and men are either co-opted or lost by men and have to be recreated every fifty years or so".
Arguably the feminist revolution is the only successful revolution in the 20th century. But now women are arguing amongst themselves as to whether feminism is dead. We may not have achieved all we hoped, but it is recognised that feminist ideas have radically changed society in many ways. Feminism is not dead, it may be just lying dormant for a while in the minds of millions of women. I like Rebecca West's answer in 1913 when she was asked what feminism means: " I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is;I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentimens that differentiate me from a doormat."

East End News

I wanted the job at the East End News so desperately that I was very nervous all the way to the interview. The offices were in a rather grand looking but decrepit old house behind the Bethnal Green Museum, and next to the Centre for Communty Studies which had produced "Family and Kinship in the East End". I waited anxiously for the big black door to open. When it did, there tood a man I immediately recognised as Charlie Goodman, a veteran of the Cable Street battle to stop the Moseley fascists from marching through the East end in the thirties. his welcome was warm and my nervousness vanished as we sat happily swapping news of mutual political acquaintances. He was just teling me of the work he did as a local volunteer giving support to the paper, when Mike Jemson, the Secretary of East End News Co-operative, came to escort me to the interview room.
With his thick black moustache, full beard and wild shock of hair, Mike looked fierce. It was not until we were seated round the table with the other panel members that I noticed his eyes were smiley and encouraging. I began to feel more comfortable and long before the interview ended I sensed the job was mine.
The East End News was run as a cosumers' and workers' co-operative, independent of any political control, and it aimed to provide a focus for the progressive forces in the East End. As such it gained the backing of the TUC and a number of trade unions gave financial help. Progressives throughout Britain welcomed the initiative. They bought shares and gave generous donations. They were keen to support an "alternative" newspaper, one that would not have anti-working class, sexist and racist bias of other papers. The paper had grown out of the previous effort locally to keep the "East Ender" which had been taken over by the company that ran the East End Advertiser, which promptly shut it down.
I started work there in january 1981 as the administrator, and the first issue of the paper was launched in March. Right up to the eve of the launch there had been a team of top=notch journalists and local activists working on the first issue. It was vital to get it right. They had worked into the night for weeks, discussing, planning, arguing the finer points and preparing layouts. There was an air of excitement that kept the adrenalin flowing. Throughout this period none worked harder than Aidan White and Mike Jempson. They made a good team. Aidan had the greater experience as a journalist whilst Mike, newer to the profession, had a deeper knowledge of and long involvement in local community action. Together they put the first issue to bed and it was presumed that Aidan would then become editor. What a shock we had when he said he couldn't give so much time to the East End News in the future because of his job at the Guardian. So Mike was thrown in at the deep end and became editor.
In that first issue we proudly printed our policy: to provide a local news service excluding discriminatory material; to campaign for better services and living standards in the area; an to provide a right to reply to those unfairly treated by the paper. It was these policies that had gained the support of many local organisations from the start. My first task was to set up the financial and administrative systems ad then, far more enjoyable, to organise and co-ordinate the work of the volunteers as well as corresond with the members and donors. We set up training sessions and the volunteers worked in every sphere of the paper's production and distribution. The few paid workers took only £75 a week from the coffers at first but later their salary was raised to £100. Every worker and volunteer did whatever job was needed at any time, and after I set up the required organisational systems I was asked to change my job and become the features editor.
The atmosphere in the office was highly charged. We all felt we wre i at the start of something great. The paid worker were few but the volunteers were many and the newsroom was always crowded with people. You would find yourself tripping over volunteers like Vicky and Viv, sitting on the floor looking over their notes and giggling over their experiences. Both of them were exerienced journalists, having worked on reputable newspapers in Johannesburg, their home town. Fiercely anti-apartheid and undestanding of the need for real press freedom after their experiences in South Africa, Vicky and Viv were eager to put their talent to good use at the East End News.
Everything was done on a shoestring. We had little furniture and far too few typewriters. They were snapped up eagerly whenever anyone left them ungurded for a moment. There was never enough to go round and being very old models they clattered noisily. I fet at home in that atmosphere as I was used to the chaos of left-wing offices. In fact I thrived on it.
Some of Fleet Street's finest journalists gave us their support. they mucked in with the subbing, the reporting and feature writing, and even taught their craft to local people who were eager to play their part in making the East End News a success. Beulah, who had previously been a local nurse, started to write a health column for us. Her ambition was to become a journalist and she worked hard to achieve that goal, studying at the North London Polytechnic. Her husband Pat, a local teacher, was very supportive of her, and they both played a role in the development of the paper. We were all delighted when she obtained her degree and went on to do a PhD at the London School of Economics. She then went on to play a significant role on the NUJ's Black Members Committee. Many other local people throughout the East End wrote on wild life, local history and on tenants' issues. The newsroom was always buzzing with conversation and Mike's patience was often sorely tried, but he buzzed with the best of us. The area we covered in our columns was large, ranging fro hackney, through Tower hamlets to Stratford and beyond Just as a would-be taxi driver goes on the "knowledge", so I walked to every corner of our constituency, getting to know the community groups and local characters. There were many new community organisations springing up, but so were fascist groups. Our columns were filled with reports of racist attacks on housing estates where police turned a blind eye. We tried always to give good coverage to the many issues raised by black community groups.
There was also a flourishing cultural life in the area, with the Half Moon Theatre, the Theatre Royal Stratford and all the alternative comedians and theatre groups performing in the local pubs and clubs. There were poetry societies, film and photography workshops, pub music of every kind and the Rio Cinema, as well as Urban Farms and nature walks. a rich life to savour. We publicised it all and involved many local people in reviewing events.
Spirits were high at the paper. Everyone was committed, but commitment was not enough. As our financial difficulties increased, splits and factions became obvious at the Co-op shareholders meetings. When you consider that East End News was launched with only £26,000 capital, you will understand the enormous task we had taken on.
[At this point, the aforementioned Pat, who had been asked by Zelda to read these memoirs, goes into quite a lengthy diatribe about what went wrong at EEN, how it lost its organiic connection to its readership and their everyday concerns by being too politically correct, not supporting things like wedding announcements and beauty queen competitions, and being generally too censorious. No doubt this points to one of the splits and factions that Zelda talks about]
We had to fight every inch of the way for readers and advertising. There was fierce competition from other long-stading traditional local papers. They were shored up by huge financial resources, whilst the East End News suffered chronic cash flow problems. That was partly due to our advertisers not paying their bills within the month as agreed. We considered every possiblity including becoing a free sheet, but finally we had to shed staff and with a very heavy heart I left the paper in November. The paper continued to be published for a short time, run entirely by volunteers, before it finally folded. It could never be thought of as a failure, despite its short life. [Another note from Pat utterly disagreeing with this statement].
Through the paper's columns, funds were raised to buy a good second-hand taxi for the Tower Hamlets Out and About group of people with disabilities, and when we handed it over there was great rejoicing and straightwaway two of the group's members were able to spend an enjoyable vening at a concert transported by their very own taxi from door to door.
We produced two local history calendars, a book of cartoons by local artists, and helped promote cultural and sporting events. The paper even formed its own football team.
We who worked on the paper gained greatly from the experience and some of the people we trained went on to become respected professionals. It is good to see George Alagiah, once a young East End News volunteer reporter studying journalism, is now a TV correspondent reporting from all the hotspots of the world. Another of our volunteers was Val McCalla, who is proprietor of The Voice newspaper. [Well known Black newspaper in the 1980s].
Yes, the East End News made an impact and even today people speak of it with admiration. They remember it as a brave experiment.

War on Want

A couple of months before I left the Morning Star I moved to Caledonian Road and started to scour newspaper ads for a job. The first to catch my attention was for a publicity/fund-raiser vacancy at War on Want, the development agency, and the address was Caledonian Road. Fate was playing its hand again. I went for the interview feeling very positive, but one of the panel members was very anti-communist and very aggressive in his questioning. I left the interview room feeling quite certain I wouldn't get the job, and was really surprised when I received the phone-call confirming my appointment.
The director mary Dines put me to work straightaway on her pet project in Eritrea. She asked me to produce a leaflet publicising the effects of the Ethiopian bombing of their villates. she gave me photos of small children with their limbs torn off by the bombs and my task was to appeal for money for hospital equipment. I used one of her more harrowing photos and pulled at the readers' heartstrings in the text. When I showed it to the staff, expecting praise, I was roundly abused for exploiting the victims and putting over a Charity image. I tried to ward off their proper anger by saying I had been briefed by the Director, upon which the staff rep went in to berate her, and I was instructed to change the leaflet. A salutary lesson.
During my first year at the agency we organised a tour of Britain for representatives of the Aboriginal peoples of Queensland, Australia, who were trying to win support for their campaign on land rights. When they arrived in this country the cold hit them badly and they had no winter clothing, so they had to borrow my husband's long-johns.
When later a new director was appointed, he aimed to get money out of Europe to expand our work in Central America, Bangladesh, Southern Africa and the Horn, as well as starting up a UK programme. I was uneasy about his plans. I believed that small is beautiful and I feared that the agency would get too big too quickly.
He gave me the job of setting up the UK programme. We were concerned about the growing poverty and unemployment in Britain. Thus we promoted and supported projects such as workers' co-operatives; Unemployed Workers' Centres; and the Centre for Alternative Iindustrial and Technologica Systems, which aimed to produce socially useful goods. Recognising that women remained among the most disadvantaged in our society, we also supported women's employment projects and training schemes, and Back Women's Co-operatives.
The expansion of our work meant the arrival of new staff and the office politics began to change. They opposed the equal pay policy for all workers which we had been trying to achieve, and they were against servicing themselves as we had previously done. Hierarchical structures were set up and I was no longer happy in the office.
Despite our differences, Terry, the new director, invited me to go to Somalia with him to see if War on Want could work there. I hoped to give support to women's craft co-operatives. En route to Mogadishu we had to stop overnight in Rome and there I met an Italian man who was also going to Somalia. He gave me his card and invited us to visit his banana plantation ot too far out of Mogadishu. When Somalia was under Italian "protection" he had owned the plantation, he told me, but now it had been taken over by the government. However, recognising his expertise, they had asked him to oversee its management. As Terry and I had a heavy schedule I doubted whether I would be able to visit, but when we arrived in Mogadishu w found there was an official two day holiday so Terry suggested we might as well take advantage of my friend's offer of hospitality. I phoned him and he happily came to pick us up in his car. When we reached the plantation we saw little groups of women and children standing at the entrance to their small thatched huts all smiling at us. The land around their huts was parched and dusty, but when we rreached the Italian's bungalow, it was set in gardens full of brightly coloured flowers and shrubs and his verandah was lined with well-watered potted plants. An outhouse was used as the kitchen and his cook/housekeeper lived there with her children. H called her to bring food and she came in with her head bowed and eyes down as she was a Muslim. She seemed frightened and he told us that her previous boss had raped her.
The plantation looked very neglected but was still productive - four sections growing bananas and a patch filled with coconut trees in which lived a colony of monkeys. As we walked through their territory they pelted us with stones and nuts.
When we did start work, Terry went up north to visit the refugee camps and i went to meet women being trained in different crafts and to visit a small co-operative that had already been set up. The training centre was in an old Montessori school where they were being taught to cook by different methods fro traditional through to a modern cooker. An American woman was teaching them tye-dying and others were showing them how to use sewing machines and knitting machines. In another workshop they were making traditional baskets and in another they were making children's clothes. Just outside the school the co-o ran a small shop where their crafts were sold at very high prices.
I became very friendly with my interpreter, Fatima, from the Women's Ministry. She was a Muslim and very proud of the fact that she had been educated, which was unusual for women. Her mother, a widow, was very worried that her daughter was still unmarried. It had been her uncles - "enlightened men" she called them, who had insisted she take the educational opportunities offered her under the supposedly marxist regime of President Barre. She also discussed with me the issue of female circumcision which she had undergone and which was still common practice in Somalia even though the government did not approve.
I was unhappy about a lot of things I saw in Somalia, particularly the bribery and corruption. Ships full of much-needed grain were left waiting outside the harbour for days until the palms of several harbour officials were well greased. Food meant for free distribution was being sold in the market. And it was disheartening to see tractors and other vitally necessary machinery left rusting in the fields for lack of spare parts. So we decided against getting involved in supporting projects in Somalia. We would never be able to be certain that our money and goods would reach the intended destination and we did not have the resources or personnel to be able to check it.

holidays in the eastern bloc

Bulgaria
"Drop everything" we were told. "You're off to Bulgaria on Saturday". The Black Sea resorts were then just opening up to western tourists and they were not yet attracting the numbers needed to fill the planes. That was why Jerry and I found ourselves, along with a few other full-time Communist Party workers, being whisked off to Sunny Beach. The only duty we had to fulfill was to meet with the local Communist Party officials on Thursday before we left for home. We had to tell them of any criticisms we had, in order to help them cater better for future holiday makers.
Each of us had specific criticisms but there was one that we all shared - the small pile of 2 inch square, rough, grey toilet paper that was sparingly placed in the cubicle beside a warning not to flush them down the lavatory but to put them in an already overflowing small bin. There was used toilet paper scattered all over the floor. As you can imagine, it was not a pretty sight and nor were the toilets the most fragrant of places.
When I said I was going to comment on this, my companions said it wouldn't go down well and that I should remember the generous hospitality they had offered us. Thursday came and I braced myself for the moment of truth. When the Bulgarian comrades asked for our comments mine was the oly voice heard. i sweetened the pill by firstly telling them of all the things that Jerry and I had really enjoyed, but then told them that they must clean up their act on the toilet front and that the 2 inch squares of toilet paper were too small for western bums.
There was a long silence and my heart pounded. Then the Bulgarian chairman rose from his chair, fixed me with his eyes, and stabbing the air with his index finger, slowy said, "Ah, yes, comrade, but you must admit that there are no sharks in our waters".
What a conversation stopper! For ever after jerry and I used it to stop bores in full flood. It's most effective.

A Day on Bear Mountain
It was thought that after five years of full-time work for the Communist Party you would need your revolutionary batteries recharged. So the Soviet Union and the other so-called "Eastern democracies" offered such comrades throughout the world a month's hospitality. For two weeks we had to go to a sanitorium for health checks and treatments and after that we were given a choice of cities to tour.
Jerry and I, with eight other British comrades were sent to a sanitorium in Yalta where we joined others from America, Finland, France, Germany and Italy. Each day we had early morning exercises before breakfast and then various courses of treatment were booked for you according to what ailed you. There were: hydrotherapy, physiotherapy, massage, salt baths, mud baths, saunas and steam baths and for those of us who were fit there were tennis and badminton courts, rowing, climbing and aerobics to choose from.
One day jerry and I decided to volunteer to clamber up Bear Mountain with the German comrades. We soon wished we hadn't. The Germans were all there wearing their lederhosen and all the gear, whereas we didn't even have proper boots, only plimsolls. We had such a job keeping up with them. They literally leat up steep, thickly wooded slopes like mountain goats. As we staggered the last few yards to the top, the leader of the group blew her whistle and ordered the men to the right and the women to the left. I didn't realise why at first, until I saw the women crouching down behind trees with their skirts up. We joined in the mass toileting and then all of us raced down the other side until we reached the sea. How wonderful it was to plunge straight in after that long, hot climb.
From Yalta we went overnight by train to St Petersburg - (Leningrad in those days). In each sleeping compartment there were four bunks and at the end of the corridor sat a woman in charge of a steaming samovar of tea. I had ust one problem. I had been allocated a bunk in a compartment with three Soviet generals, each resplendent with sword and gun, but all very polite. I kept my clothes on and they just took off their swords.
On arriving early next morning we were met by a band playing and people waving flowers. How very nice, I thought, only to discover the welcome was not for us but for a young newly-wed couple on the train.
St. Petersburg is one of the most beautiful cities I have seen, ith its well-proportioned buildings coloured apple-blossom green, yellow ochre and a pink that glowed in the sunlight. Canals criss-cross the city and every bridge is a work of art in itself. The splendid St. Isaacs Cathedral, towering over the city with its large dome, its enormous malachite pillars and superb marbles, stood across the street from our hotel. In Tarist days the hotel had been used by visiting royalty and it had a chaise longue in the bathroom.
After our organised trip to the Hermitage and Peter's Palace with its trick fountains, Jerry and I left the others and visited the "anti-religion" museum. It showed big bibles with guns inserted into the ages; bullets from many different countries but each inscribed with "For God, King and Country"; relics of Rasputin and other monks who influenced the Tsars. We loved walking along the banks of the Neva at night, where the young lovers met, and as tradition dictated, the man would present a single rose to his loved one..
The street scenes were endlessly entertaining: the group of people stood reading the wall newspapers and discussing the news animatedly, then tut-tuttig as they turned to read the poster warning of the dangers of drinking vodka, while drunkards lay in a stupour in the gutter behind them; and the crows that gathered to remonstrate with a husband beating his wife in the street, while a policeman stood nonchalantly by on the corner, not interfering.
I also carry a vivid memory of the cook at the Party Hotel coming out of the kitchen to talk to me because I ate so little. She thought it was because I did not like her cooking and was close to tears. Jerry put her mind at rest by saying that her cooking was just like his mother's. Thank goodness, she took that as a compliment.

East German Mountain Retreat
We were in a chalet high up on a wooded mountainside and our companions were comrades from many different countries, but this story is of three who came from Argentina. One was a famous poet, Don Juan; another a full-time Party worker, Albert; and the other a peasant, Luis, who had never ever been out of his own small village before.
In the chalet our bedrooms were sited around a small hall, in which there was a small billiard table. Each evening before dinner all the men were to be found playing very seriously - except for Luis who had never played and was carefully watching each move they made. They asked him to play and tried hard to encourage him, but Luis would always shake his head. However, there came a day when I was woken by a click, click, click sound outside my bedroom door at about 4 o'clock in the morning. I tried to ignore it, to get back to sleep but the continual click, click was very annoying. Eventually I got out of bed and opened the door just an inch. Luis was there practising the game of billiards. That evening before dinner he proudly joined the other men in their game.
Another day the three Argentinians joined Jerry and I for a long walk down the far side of the mountain to a famous hostelry in a small village. Jerry had a map and a pocket compass, as none of us had ever been there before. We were all chattering away, occasionally stopping to examine an interesting plant. We even caught a glimpse of a wild boar. Then, as we stopped to study a particularly interesting fungus, I suddenly realised that Luis was not with us. I called out his name - no response. I went back a little way to see if we'd left him behind - no sign of him I became anxious. I knew he could speak neither German nor English and he had no map with him. The others laughed at my concern. "Luis is a peasant" they said. He could find his way without a map or compass - he could work out the direction by the heightand position of the sun. he would find a path and and know by how well trod it was that it led to the village. "You'll see" they said, "He'll be there long before us".
And they were right. As we turned into the village, there was Luis grinning at us over the top of a steine of beer on a table outside the hostelry.

Star Turn

Daily Worker, which at the end of the 1960s became the more blandly named Morning Star, where Zelda had two stints, both working in the People's Press Fighting Fund.


When I first joined the staff of the Daily Worker, Johnny Campbell was the editor. It was just after the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and many journalists had left the paper. But not only was the paper depleted of staff, it also lost much of its support. I was in the Fund department and we had our work cut out to raise the money needed to sustain the paper. Too many of the wealthiest and most generous supporters had stopped their donations. Without advertising that supported other newspapers, it was vitally necessary to win the financial support of the labour movement and the readers, and we literally rought for every penny. As far as I was aware there was no Soviet gold at that time, though rumours were rife. But being a member of staff did not mean you were privy to any special knowledge.
We were a happy band in the Fund department, unlike the newsroom, where the atmosphere was heavy with anger, criticism, reproach. Elsie Gollan [wife of John Gollan who succeeded harry Pollitt as general secretary of the Communist Party] and Monica Millner worked with me and we enjoyed each other's company and were often to be heard singing our favourite songs while working. I was well known for my rendering of "I'm only a bird in a gilded cage".
Barbara Niven was then head of the department and had a small office of her own decorated with her own paintings. She was a "Grande dame", a statuesque figure, a talented artist and writer, admired and respected by all. Johnny Campbell never found his way into our office. There was a divide between the journalists and administrative staff. The canteen was the only place in which we mixed with each other. At lunchtime a select group of us gathered round David Ainley to do the Times Crossword. He was the champion. We merely contributed a word or two. David was the secretary of the People's Press Printing Society, the co-operative that owned the paper. Johnny Campbell stomped into the canteen for his lunch too. His awkward gait was due to the frostbite he suffered during the first world war. A sad-looking figure, he usually sat alone with the Times spread out before him, not inviting anyone to speak to him. I don't think I ever said more than Good morning to him, but I was told he had a sense of humour.
By the time I returned to work in the fund department after nearly six year at the labour Monthly, the editor was George Matthews. George, the "gentleman farmer" of the party and lover of opera, was a very different editor from Johnny. He was far more relaxed and friendly than his predecessor. But the paper was in crisis again Its name was being changed to the Morning Star and it was to have a different format. Many of the readers did not take kindly to either change and it was at such a time that I took over from the much -loved Barbara. I was sure the readers would consider me a young upstart. Despite the boost of sales figures of the Morning Star by a large order of copies from the Soviet Union, it still had to rely heavily on the support of its home readers. Their letters to me, often personal and revealing, were a constant inspiration. I felt that each writer of the hundreds of letters I received nearly every day was a personal friend. Indeed, some of them did become so, and my office was like a Mecca to readers and visitors from abroad, and I had to be a good listener. For the good of the paper I had to show no partiality - or so I thought at the time. With so many different strands of thought surfacing in the Party, my task was seen as keeping the Morning Star readers united around the paper.
Every factio and each individual variation of the Party line was represented in the letters that fell on my desk, and each writer presumed I hald the same view as they did. I was the public face of the paper, not a real person with my own views. In fact I was deeply concerned at the lack of democracy within the Party and the paper and along with many another member of staff was trying to get my voice heard. But that was in the confines of staff meetings.
Part of my job was travelling round Britaiin to meet the readers and whip up further support from other orgaisations. I also had to storm the male bastions of the trade union movement to get funds. i remember one lunchtime appointment I had with an East Midlands miners' leader in a local Working Men's Club where they were meeting. When I arrived that Sunday morning i was a little early and their meeting was still in full swing. I could see through the window the serried ranks of men listening to their leader's words of wisdom as I waited outside the door. Then, the meeting over, they all rushed past m to the bar to get the drinks. I sat down in a corner talking about the need for money for the paper to the accompaniment of the Club's lunchtime entertainment - a stripper! She was difficult to compete with for their attention.
Through a reorganisation of the staff that had to be made, I was given an extra task, the formidable task of organising the Festivall Hall Rally. It was a family event that used t attract around 2,500 people and they were entertained by touring artists from the Communist countries. The performers would stay on for a couple of days before continuing with their tour and we organised culltural outings for them - only to find they had skived off to go shopping in Marks & Spencers and Mothercare at marble Arch.
The first time I made the suggestion to the Festival Committee that we shoud have entertainment more in keeing with the timmes and the new readership we had won, I was laughed out of court. But gradually the committee was won round for a compromise. I was given my head each alternate year, so long as I had visiting East European artists in between. I booked Roger McGough and "The Scaffold". They recited poetry and sang Lily the Pink, their hit song which was well received by the audience. Another time I booked 7:84 Theatre company and they shocked our readers with their swearing. I felt I had struck a blow for freedom of thought. It was after this that the Party began to change the nature of their events too, and organised the Ally Pally rallies, thanks to Dave Cook. They were very popular.
Another venture I was rather proud of was my encouragement of new artists by giving our readers the opportunity both to see and to buy their work. I organised an exhibition of the Naive Painters of the East End at the National Theatre, and I also persuaded some of the artists to sell signed limited editios of their prints and posters through my office, publicised in the paper. We took a small commission on each sale for the Fund. Dan Jones' print of "Blair Peach" [killed by police in London at an anti-racist demonstration] was particularly popular.
As the financial situation of the paper worsened, we were forced to examine the possibilities of moving out of London. Bobby Campbell and I were allies on the committee charged with the responsibility of safeguarding the paper's future. However, before we could fulfill our task, Party Headquarters sent in Reuben Falber to wield the big stick. His word was law. We did not know then that he was accepting "Moscow Gold" despite the continual denials in our columns.
When we set up a Women's group at the paper, it created a furore. But with women like Flo Keyworth, Mikki Doyle and Bea Campbell all behind the idea, our women's group survived all criticism and disfavour.
Later, when Tony Chater became editor the staff meetings began to liven up as the "gloves came off". The discussions on democracy flared into fighting words. There were also Union battles to be fought and I was Mother of the NUJ chapel [National Union of Journalists equivalent to trace union shop steward], so I had many a brush with him I found him to be anti-feminist, not democratic in his working practices and arrogant to boot.
The controversies within the confines of the Star building spilled over into the public arena when the election of the Management Committee took place. When I was first at the paper and attended such meetings, there would be only around 20 or so of the Fund faithfuls there. By the time I resigned the numbers had risen to 150-200 and there had to be an overflow meeting outside the hall. The "hard-liners" would whip up their supporters and, getting wind of that, those advocating change also whipped up what support they could muster. They never mustered quite enough to wi the day As a public face of the paper, I was expected to exhort the readers to support the paper - a job i found increasingly difficult to do as my ideas changed and I found myself at odds with the policies of the paper. I had been uncomfortable in my job for too long and i could no longer live such a lie. i knew I had to leave.
I left and joined a collective of journalists on the newly formed East End News. [Here she worked with Mike Jempson, George Aligayah and other well known journalists]. Whilst at the East End News, one of the Star's journalists, John Flowers, came and asked me to join him, Bea Campbell and Simon Partridge to campaign to open up the Management Committee of the paper to more non-Party members. I agreed and the four of us stood for election to the Committee on the one ticket. That was anathema to the "hard-liners" because they wanted to keep strict control of the paper - no factions, thank you and no "undisciplined" non-Party members. So, from being a celebrity that every reader wanted to know, I suddenly became a pariah that everyone shunned. Many who had professed to be my bosom pals would not even look at me, let alone say hello. To them I was a traitor.

Raji Palme Dutt and Salme

Greetings card to Rajani Palme Dutt from all the staff at labour Monthly, including Zelda Curtis


Whilst Raji Palme Dutt was hated by Harry Pollitt, then general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and an arch political rival, he was greatly revered by many rank and file comrades. During the war comrades serving in India set up groups to discuss his Notes of the Month and these Labour Monthly Readers' Groups influenced great numbers of soldiers who later swelled the ranks of the Communist Party on their return to Britain. They speak, even today, of labour monthly having been their lifeline to sanity in a mad, mad world.
Even his political adversaries recognised in Raji not only a giant intellect but a man committed devotedly to a cause; a man whose influence affected events throughout the world. Nehru, Kenyatta, Nkrumah, all sought discussion of their problems with him and history will record the roles these men played and the part Dutt had in the events they shaped.
Dutt's father, an Indian, had been a country doctor here, doing his rounds in a pony and trap. He often took the young Raji along with him and it was witnessing the poverty of his father's patients that turned Raji into a socialist, he told me. Seeing the squalor of their lives, the dreadful housing and cramped conditions in which they lived, and the tuberculosis that ravaged their lives, he pledged himself to fight for a better society. The irony was that he also suffered from TB.
Raji often spoke to me about Salme, his wife, and it was to me he entrusted the task of publishing her poems after her death. A beautiful woman, a poet and a political activist all her life, Salme was fluent in French, German, Russian, Swedish, Estonian and Finnish. She had been a brilliant scholar. Born in Estonia in 1888, she took part in the Russian Revolution of 1907. During her University years she was banished to Siberia for her underground activities, and it was that ordeal that caused her health to suffer. She was never really fit throughout the rest of her life.
In 1919 she asked Lenin to assign her a task in whichever country the battle was toughest. "Lenin looked at me with his usual quizzical smile" she told her friends" and replied that in that case I should go to England as that was the toughest place for communism. So I did."
She came to England in 1920 and while working here with Willie Gallacher she was introduced to the young Raji. He was much younger than she was, but within two years they were married. In a poem she wrote in 1936 she said her longing was "to swim where the waves are wildest, And moor a red flag on the whirl."
When I met her in 1965 her health was failing fast and she was in bed most of the time, looked after lovingly by Raji. The day she died I was phoned early in the morning by Raji's secretary at the Party Headquarters. I rushed round to his flat to be with him As he opened the door I saw his sadness. i held his hand for a moment and kissed his cheek. Then my eyes fell on the breakfast tray on the small hall table. A silver teapot and cream jug stood beside a delicate bone china cup and saucer resting on a plate. Two slices of toast stood in a rack alongside a small ot o honey and a tall, slender deep red rose stood in a silver, single-stem vase. Propped up against it was a birthday card. "It was her birthday" he sighed as tears welled up in his eyes.
This was the man the press called "Arch villain", the "intellectual doyen of the international communist movement". Here he was, lover of Salme, crying at his loss, clinging to me in his grief.