WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:03.319 Jack Hilton was a plaster trade unionist, survivor of World 2 00:00:03.359 --> 00:00:06.960 War One, and local activist in Lankash's Unemployed Workers' Movement 3 00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:11.160 who turned to writing while banned from political activity. But 4 00:00:11.240 --> 00:00:14.119 despite being celebrated by some of the most respected writers 5 00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:17.839 of his generation, Hilton and his work faded into obscurity, 6 00:00:18.359 --> 00:00:21.679 only to be rediscovered now, some ninety years after he 7 00:00:21.800 --> 00:00:25.160 was first published. This is Working Class Literature. 8 00:00:27.199 --> 00:00:41.079 Alamatina Happena Oh, very large Child, Very large Child, Very 9 00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:46.479 large child, Child Child, Alamatina. 10 00:00:47.240 --> 00:00:49.119 Before we start, a quick note to say that we're 11 00:00:49.119 --> 00:00:52.359 only able to continue making these podcasts, both Working Class 12 00:00:52.439 --> 00:00:55.679 History and Working Class Literature because of the support of 13 00:00:55.719 --> 00:00:58.560 our listeners on Patreon. If you like what we do 14 00:00:58.640 --> 00:01:00.920 and want to help us with our work, join us 15 00:01:00.920 --> 00:01:04.159 on patreon dot com slash working Class History, where you 16 00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:08.280 can get benefits like early access to episodes, exclusive bonus content, 17 00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:12.519 discounted books, merch and more. For instance, Patreon supporters can 18 00:01:12.560 --> 00:01:15.519 listen to both episodes about Jack Hilton now and also 19 00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:19.319 have exclusive access to a special Patreon only bonus episode 20 00:01:19.400 --> 00:01:22.719 where we discuss more passages from Jack Hilton's brilliant novel 21 00:01:22.840 --> 00:01:26.680 Caliban Shrieks. Patrioon supporters also get access to our two 22 00:01:26.760 --> 00:01:31.359 Patreon only podcast series, Radical Reads and fireside Chat link 23 00:01:31.480 --> 00:01:34.400 in the show notes. In this double episode, we're going 24 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:36.439 to look at the life and work of British working 25 00:01:36.439 --> 00:01:39.439 class author Jack Hilton, with a particular focus on his 26 00:01:39.560 --> 00:01:44.439 nineteen thirty five auto biographical novel Caliban Shrieks. To do that, 27 00:01:44.560 --> 00:01:47.560 we spoke to Jack Chadwick, who chanced upon Hilton's novel 28 00:01:47.599 --> 00:01:50.239 back in twenty twenty one, and through what can only 29 00:01:50.280 --> 00:01:53.439 be described as an incredible feat of literary detective work, 30 00:01:53.799 --> 00:01:56.359 managed to track down some of Hilton's old friends and 31 00:01:56.400 --> 00:01:59.480 get his book back into print almost ninety years after 32 00:01:59.519 --> 00:02:02.920 it was first published. We discussed this incredible story of 33 00:02:02.959 --> 00:02:05.599 how Jack got the book back into print in Part two. 34 00:02:06.439 --> 00:02:09.240 So turning to Jack Hilton himself, then it's fair to 35 00:02:09.240 --> 00:02:12.039 say that he had an extremely difficult start in life. 36 00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:14.400 One of the things that makes him easy to sort 37 00:02:14.439 --> 00:02:18.080 of date is he was born in nineteen hundred. For 38 00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:21.080 someone who's not particularly good at mental maths, that makes 39 00:02:21.080 --> 00:02:22.960 it a lot easier to sort of work out how 40 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:27.120 old he was at any given point. So born in 41 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:32.039 a slum terrace in Rochdale, the house where he was 42 00:02:32.039 --> 00:02:34.199 born and is still standing. The only difference is but 43 00:02:34.719 --> 00:02:36.400 it's no longer pact. But I think it would have 44 00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:39.159 been two families. Now it's I presume just one. I've 45 00:02:39.159 --> 00:02:41.639 not knocked on to check, but yes, so he was 46 00:02:41.639 --> 00:02:44.520 born into this one room, but his two parents lived 47 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:47.439 in he was I've never been able to work out 48 00:02:47.560 --> 00:02:50.000 where he was exactly in the order of the children born. 49 00:02:50.479 --> 00:02:54.560 I think he was about maybe the third, the third child, 50 00:02:54.639 --> 00:02:58.960 and potentially the first son. Part of why it's impossible 51 00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:01.199 to know exactly where he came in the order of 52 00:03:01.240 --> 00:03:05.840 a family is because of his siblings, so many of 53 00:03:05.879 --> 00:03:08.879 them died within the first you know, before they even 54 00:03:08.919 --> 00:03:12.199 reached adulthood. I think only one of his siblings out 55 00:03:12.199 --> 00:03:17.080 of seven reached adulthood alongside him. I think a lot 56 00:03:17.080 --> 00:03:20.680 of his siblings were even missed out by the censuses 57 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:24.719 because obviously they were born and died within a period, 58 00:03:24.919 --> 00:03:26.520 so unless they reached ten, they were sort of like 59 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:30.639 missing from the records. His dad was from what Jack 60 00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:33.560 Hilton described as being it's a sort of a lump proproletariat, 61 00:03:33.560 --> 00:03:35.719 the lowest of the low. 62 00:03:36.039 --> 00:03:37.919 But despite that, he was at. 63 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:42.039 The forefront of for sort of a meager early efforts 64 00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:46.120 of socialist organizing in Rochdale, and so his dad had, 65 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:48.479 you know, quite like Jack Hilton went on to achieved. 66 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:51.360 He'd sort of scraped a little bit of an education 67 00:03:51.479 --> 00:03:53.919 for himself, but it's not the kind of thing that 68 00:03:54.039 --> 00:03:57.800 his father's work allowed him to pass on to his children. 69 00:03:57.879 --> 00:03:59.120 So Jack Hillson would have. 70 00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:03.319 Got, you know, little scraps of his father's knowledge because 71 00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:06.800 obviously his father was working hard with all these children, 72 00:04:06.840 --> 00:04:09.319 with all this death around him. But it still is 73 00:04:09.400 --> 00:04:12.560 the case that Hilton was sort of given this sort 74 00:04:12.599 --> 00:04:17.720 of early orientation towards socialism and towards the working class 75 00:04:17.759 --> 00:04:19.800 and sort of knew he stood up and put on 76 00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:23.480 firm ground. It was a solid foundation for what he 77 00:04:23.759 --> 00:04:25.800 went on to do and what he went on to 78 00:04:25.839 --> 00:04:28.240 do in terms of his own efforts to educate himself 79 00:04:28.319 --> 00:04:32.600 and and as we'll talk about later, the direct inputs 80 00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:36.040 he had into building the movement that his father was 81 00:04:36.079 --> 00:04:38.600 sort of a father of in Rochdale. 82 00:04:39.480 --> 00:04:41.720 As was common at the start of the twentieth century, 83 00:04:41.959 --> 00:04:45.399 Jack Hilton was denied in education and forced into employment 84 00:04:45.439 --> 00:04:46.120 as a child. 85 00:04:46.639 --> 00:04:50.319 So Hilton grew up and like all of the kids 86 00:04:50.680 --> 00:04:53.839 of his class and age in Rochdale at that time 87 00:04:54.360 --> 00:04:57.959 went under the halftime system, went to work at the 88 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:01.920 age of nine, and there one small victory for a 89 00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:05.199 working class around that time was that when you went 90 00:05:05.240 --> 00:05:07.639 to work at the age of nine, you weren't since 91 00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:11.160 for mill. Yet you got a bit of a grace 92 00:05:11.199 --> 00:05:13.519 period of two years before you were sent to the 93 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:16.240 local mills. I say the local mills was about I 94 00:05:16.279 --> 00:05:21.600 believe our three towering, dark buildings covered in black ash 95 00:05:21.759 --> 00:05:25.000 smoke that you know, we're blackening the skies of rushed Owe. 96 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:27.720 All of these buildings within a stone's throw of where 97 00:05:27.800 --> 00:05:31.240 Jack Hilton grow up. They're no longer there, but Hilton 98 00:05:31.399 --> 00:05:33.920 was after about two years. I think he worked for 99 00:05:33.959 --> 00:05:38.240 a grocer's. He did some sort of errand boy kinds 100 00:05:38.240 --> 00:05:41.839 of jobs in his afternoons after school, and then he 101 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:44.519 was sent for mill at the age of eleven, waking 102 00:05:44.600 --> 00:05:47.959 up at at you know, five point thirty in the 103 00:05:48.079 --> 00:05:51.720 dark and carrying himself you know, up for Hill Downhill 104 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:56.720 to the local mill to do labor. That left him 105 00:05:56.759 --> 00:06:01.240 absolutely knackered, to say the least. By the time he 106 00:06:01.319 --> 00:06:04.040 was supposed to start what really has no right to 107 00:06:04.079 --> 00:06:05.600 call itself an education. 108 00:06:05.560 --> 00:06:06.920 Which would have been in the afternoons. 109 00:06:07.399 --> 00:06:12.920 So he speaks about what this education entailed in Caliban Shrieks, 110 00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:15.560 and if the image he gives of it is so 111 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:20.120 distinct and so different to what any kind of ideal 112 00:06:20.240 --> 00:06:23.439 sense of what that word means now, or you know, 113 00:06:23.519 --> 00:06:27.439 even at the time, it was jingoistic, it was patronizing. 114 00:06:27.720 --> 00:06:31.439 It was very much about teaching the kid the web 115 00:06:31.560 --> 00:06:36.279 along and under the Victorian scheme of class, rather than 116 00:06:36.279 --> 00:06:38.160 giving him any sense of what they could be or 117 00:06:38.199 --> 00:06:42.800 what the world is. So I think perhaps Jack Hilton 118 00:06:42.879 --> 00:06:46.000 had the gift of knowing the limitations of what was 119 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:48.839 being presented to him as an education because of his father. 120 00:06:49.319 --> 00:06:52.079 Even if his father wasn't able to give him any 121 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:54.600 kind of other education, he was able to let him 122 00:06:54.680 --> 00:06:57.560 know the limitations of what was on offer in this 123 00:06:57.720 --> 00:07:03.519 you know, authoritarian brutal school with its religious sealousy and 124 00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:07.839 just quite frankly brutal floggings of the kids, which I 125 00:07:07.839 --> 00:07:10.759 think he speaks about a little bit. And that was 126 00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:16.639 a really bleak early instruction for Jack too, the worst 127 00:07:17.079 --> 00:07:20.120 of capitalism, the worst of life. 128 00:07:20.160 --> 00:07:22.800 It gave him the bleakest outlook. I think you could have. 129 00:07:23.439 --> 00:07:27.319 Well Hilton's earliest experiences were already extremely difficult. They would 130 00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:29.839 be compounded by the onset of the First World War 131 00:07:30.199 --> 00:07:32.160 and the horrors that he would live through there. 132 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:35.199 He was at first too young to be sent to 133 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:39.120 the trenches, so he began a series of jobs in 134 00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:43.040 the sort of logistics and a sort of support auxiliary 135 00:07:43.519 --> 00:07:47.600 auxiliary roles in England. One of the jobs did for 136 00:07:47.639 --> 00:07:50.439 the longest was looking after the horses of a marshal 137 00:07:50.480 --> 00:07:53.920 who was sort of being kept back in England in 138 00:07:53.959 --> 00:07:58.279 preparation for being sent to Belgium. Hilton did this job 139 00:07:58.360 --> 00:08:02.120 for a while and it gave him this relationship with 140 00:08:02.199 --> 00:08:06.439 this instruction to the ruling class. He was working for 141 00:08:06.680 --> 00:08:09.240 the officer types. And I think this is another really 142 00:08:09.279 --> 00:08:12.680 important influence on the man he would become, because you know, 143 00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:15.399 unlike many of the other boys who were said off 144 00:08:15.399 --> 00:08:17.920 to fight, he wasn't around his own type from the 145 00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:21.279 very beginning of the war. The war brought him into 146 00:08:21.319 --> 00:08:24.360 the world of class and it gave him a bit 147 00:08:24.360 --> 00:08:28.920 a window onto the lives of how other richer Britain's lived, 148 00:08:29.399 --> 00:08:32.799 and I think part of why he was selected for 149 00:08:32.879 --> 00:08:35.519 his work working for the offices and why he was 150 00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:37.080 able to do it for so long, I think about 151 00:08:37.080 --> 00:08:41.480 two years, was because they recognized that there was a 152 00:08:41.519 --> 00:08:45.840 brilliant brain in this lad Even though he lacked any 153 00:08:45.840 --> 00:08:47.080 formal education. 154 00:08:47.080 --> 00:08:49.000 He could just about write and read. 155 00:08:49.600 --> 00:08:51.440 But this is again the gift of his father, who 156 00:08:51.440 --> 00:08:54.960 had instilled in this sort of advantage of I guess 157 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:58.480 you would call it a cultural capital really that enabled 158 00:08:58.559 --> 00:09:01.759 him to be distinctish from the other working class lights 159 00:09:01.879 --> 00:09:05.639 is potentially having some kind of ability to do the 160 00:09:05.759 --> 00:09:08.600 sort of more administrative taxs that were predominantly given to 161 00:09:08.679 --> 00:09:11.879 middle class boys. So he was then when he was 162 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:14.360 of age, he was sent to the trenches. 163 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:16.120 And he writes. 164 00:09:17.279 --> 00:09:19.840 Very little about this in the grand scheme of things, 165 00:09:19.960 --> 00:09:23.120 but very powerfully. And I think it's one of those 166 00:09:23.159 --> 00:09:25.720 cases where you know, a lot of the meaning is 167 00:09:26.039 --> 00:09:29.879 contained in the gaps as opposed to in what's actually 168 00:09:29.879 --> 00:09:32.679 communicated in the actual words on the page. So if 169 00:09:32.759 --> 00:09:35.200 you read between the lines of his account of the 170 00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:38.840 war and what came after for him, you get this, 171 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:45.799 I think, particularly brutal and personal explanation of the effects 172 00:09:45.799 --> 00:09:48.919 of the war on this young working class boy. And 173 00:09:48.960 --> 00:09:52.240 I say that because the following chapters, so he talks 174 00:09:52.279 --> 00:09:54.799 about the experience of being sent to the trenches and 175 00:09:55.759 --> 00:09:59.720 describes the the sort of a harrying how can I 176 00:09:59.759 --> 00:10:04.000 put the very sort of a quick fire, rapid fire 177 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:04.600 sort of weight. 178 00:10:04.639 --> 00:10:07.000 It's very visceral. 179 00:10:06.879 --> 00:10:09.120 His account of what happened, but it does only run 180 00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:13.360 maybe two three pages. But then what happens afterwards is 181 00:10:13.399 --> 00:10:18.960 you have this pair of chapters covering ten years of 182 00:10:19.159 --> 00:10:22.960 Jack Hilton's life from the end of the war until 183 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:27.200 he was mentally able to settle in Rochdale again at 184 00:10:27.240 --> 00:10:29.840 the end of the twenties. And this period of ten 185 00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:33.600 years is a direct response to what happened in the war. 186 00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:37.759 And it's clear this period of homelessness and rough sleeping 187 00:10:38.440 --> 00:10:43.759 and vagrancy which he went through, but it wasn't unique 188 00:10:43.759 --> 00:10:46.679 to him. It was actually sort of hundreds and hundreds 189 00:10:46.679 --> 00:10:49.039 of thousands of veterans from the First World War went 190 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:53.399 through this long period of wandering. That it's timeless and 191 00:10:53.960 --> 00:10:56.200 the account that he gives of this period tells you 192 00:10:56.440 --> 00:10:59.159 so much about his experiences in the war, And that's 193 00:10:59.159 --> 00:11:01.120 what I mean by you really have to sort of 194 00:11:01.120 --> 00:11:03.000 read between the lines of his account of the war 195 00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:06.039 to get a sense of how much trauma he was 196 00:11:06.080 --> 00:11:08.759 carrying around with him afterwards, and that was all he 197 00:11:08.799 --> 00:11:11.159 was carrying with him. He didn't have anything to his name. 198 00:11:11.720 --> 00:11:16.399 He was wandering the countryside from town to town, made 199 00:11:16.399 --> 00:11:18.840 it to London, made it out of London, and made 200 00:11:18.840 --> 00:11:21.320 it back to London, back up north, back down south, 201 00:11:21.720 --> 00:11:25.399 from Spike to Spike, poorhouse to poorhouse. He was carrying 202 00:11:25.440 --> 00:11:30.600 nothing but this immense trauma that completely prevented him from 203 00:11:30.679 --> 00:11:36.000 settling his own mind and settling down anywhere for at 204 00:11:36.120 --> 00:11:38.279 least ten years, potentially eleven or twelve. 205 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:41.000 In the UK, we talked quite a lot about the 206 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:44.159 First World War, but often gloss over the sheer scale 207 00:11:44.200 --> 00:11:48.200 of the horror and destruction they involved. So in total, 208 00:11:48.399 --> 00:11:51.960 around twenty million people were killed and around another twenty 209 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:55.200 million were wounded. During the Battle of the Somme, over 210 00:11:55.320 --> 00:11:59.360 fifty seven thousand soldiers died on one single day, but 211 00:11:59.440 --> 00:12:01.960 it wasn't on common for hundreds to die, even on 212 00:12:02.039 --> 00:12:05.720 supposedly quiet days, so it's not surprising that anyone who 213 00:12:05.720 --> 00:12:08.120 found themselves in the middle of all that would come 214 00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:12.519 home with severe post traumatic stress disorder, as indeed hundreds 215 00:12:12.559 --> 00:12:16.600 of thousands did. Harry Patch, the last surviving British combat 216 00:12:16.639 --> 00:12:19.840 veteran from World War One went on to describe war 217 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:25.080 as quote organized murder and nothing else end quote, and 218 00:12:25.159 --> 00:12:27.519 said that the politicians who had dragged them into it 219 00:12:27.879 --> 00:12:31.080 should have quote been given the guns and told to 220 00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:35.960 settle their differences themselves end quote. Jack Hilton lived through 221 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:39.039 all of this, as did many others, but as if 222 00:12:39.080 --> 00:12:42.120 that wasn't enough, Hilton and his generation would have yet 223 00:12:42.200 --> 00:12:46.200 another era defining catastrophe to come, the Great Depression. 224 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:48.879 He had just got to that point in his life 225 00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:52.759 where he was able to overcome the trauma of the 226 00:12:52.799 --> 00:12:55.759 war and of what he saw and begin to settle 227 00:12:55.799 --> 00:13:00.480 in Rochdale, which is where he was born. But he'd 228 00:13:00.519 --> 00:13:04.639 settled into doing you know, odd jobs predominantly in the 229 00:13:04.639 --> 00:13:09.600 construction industry. For Great Depression hits, and his entire generation 230 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:11.960 just has the worst luck when it comes to the 231 00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:14.679 sort of the ages at which they hit these events. 232 00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:17.879 You know, he's young enough to go to the trenches, 233 00:13:17.879 --> 00:13:20.759 he's young enough to be still dealing with the effects 234 00:13:20.759 --> 00:13:23.759 of the First World War as the Great Depression hits, 235 00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:27.799 and he finds himself trying to settle in Rochdale but 236 00:13:28.519 --> 00:13:32.399 unable to find work, and groups together with some of 237 00:13:32.440 --> 00:13:35.840 his friends in the local library. There's only one library 238 00:13:35.879 --> 00:13:39.759 and the whole of the town or its area. It 239 00:13:39.759 --> 00:13:42.360 had been built about thirty years before, and they go 240 00:13:42.440 --> 00:13:45.639 to this library predominantly for warmth because they have no 241 00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:50.440 they're living in I think he was in a fixed 242 00:13:50.440 --> 00:13:54.720 abode at that point, but no heating and no food 243 00:13:54.799 --> 00:13:58.240 and sharing with like five of the lads, I believe. 244 00:13:58.679 --> 00:14:00.840 So they're going to the library to sort of keep 245 00:14:00.879 --> 00:14:04.000 warm in between the odd jobs that they're able to 246 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:08.159 pick up from arrival of this work. So these lads 247 00:14:08.159 --> 00:14:11.840 were all clinging to each other out of desperation in 248 00:14:11.919 --> 00:14:15.399 the library, and as the mobs passed by, they sort 249 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:18.200 of turned towards what they can do to improve their 250 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:22.399 situation out of sheer desperation. If they think, you know, 251 00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:25.799 we're just doing nothing, what can we do to even 252 00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:28.519 to make us feel like we're doing something. 253 00:14:29.080 --> 00:14:31.799 It's worth mentioning just how bad the Great Depression in 254 00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:35.039 Britain was. In nineteen thirty one, for instance, almost a 255 00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:38.159 quarter of men and one in five women were recorded 256 00:14:38.200 --> 00:14:41.519 as unemployed. Rather than do anything to help the unemployed, 257 00:14:41.559 --> 00:14:45.279 the government introduced the means Test, whereby inspectors would visit 258 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:48.399 unemployed people's homes to see if they were living fecklessly 259 00:14:48.840 --> 00:14:51.600 or had any items that they could sell before giving 260 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:55.080 them their unemployment benefit. On top of that, the means 261 00:14:55.159 --> 00:14:57.919 test applied to the household, meaning that if one of 262 00:14:57.960 --> 00:15:01.000 the children got a job, they're earning would be deducted 263 00:15:01.039 --> 00:15:05.039 from the parents dole money. Unsurprisingly, this meant that families 264 00:15:05.039 --> 00:15:08.039 would often be broken up, with children leaving home in 265 00:15:08.080 --> 00:15:11.200 the event that they found work. It's also really important 266 00:15:11.240 --> 00:15:14.559 to highlight as well that despite these harsh conditions, the 267 00:15:14.639 --> 00:15:17.639 unemployed were never given the sympathy that you'd expect from 268 00:15:17.639 --> 00:15:21.000 the influential voices of their time. So, just like the 269 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:25.120 demonization of the unemployed today, newspapers during the Great Depression 270 00:15:25.200 --> 00:15:29.360 depicted them as irresponsible, lazy, and having brought their poverty 271 00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:33.000 upon themselves. In nineteen thirty one, The Times ran an 272 00:15:33.080 --> 00:15:35.679 article in favor of the means test, claiming that the 273 00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:39.919 doll had become quote an alternative source of almost permanent 274 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:45.000 maintenance end quote. Similarly, the Scotsmen published a piece claiming 275 00:15:45.080 --> 00:15:50.039 that quote income taxpayers are unlike the unemployed, paying out 276 00:15:50.080 --> 00:15:53.440 and getting no return directly for their money. While many 277 00:15:53.440 --> 00:15:56.679 of the workless marry and breed families while in receipt 278 00:15:56.759 --> 00:16:00.960 of the doll end quote. While many, perhaps even most, 279 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:03.879 of the unemployed responded to this situation with a deep 280 00:16:03.960 --> 00:16:08.240 sense of hopelessness, others like Jack Hilton, began to get 281 00:16:08.279 --> 00:16:09.240 politically active. 282 00:16:10.039 --> 00:16:12.960 The first thing what happens is they hear about the 283 00:16:13.039 --> 00:16:17.519 National Unemployed Workers Movement, which had been founded by the 284 00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:24.120 Communist Party of Great Britain to represent the unemployed masses 285 00:16:24.279 --> 00:16:27.080 after the end of the First World War. Now, this 286 00:16:27.240 --> 00:16:32.519 organization existed for ten years but didn't really achieve anything 287 00:16:32.679 --> 00:16:35.799 like the breakthroughs, but it managed in the first years 288 00:16:35.799 --> 00:16:38.799 of the Great Depression. I think the biggest march that 289 00:16:38.919 --> 00:16:42.919 they held was one hundred and ten thousand people in 290 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:47.159 nineteen thirty two to present a petition to Whitehall. Whitehall 291 00:16:47.200 --> 00:16:51.519 responded with seventy thousand police mobilized from across the country 292 00:16:51.600 --> 00:16:56.360 to brutally intercept this crowd of desperate people and steal 293 00:16:56.399 --> 00:16:58.919 the petition they'd gathered, and then beat them out of 294 00:16:58.919 --> 00:17:00.399 London over a few days of actively. 295 00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:03.240 The march that Jack is talking about here is the 296 00:17:03.320 --> 00:17:06.119 nineteen thirty two Hunger March, when two and a half 297 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:09.759 to three thousand unemployed workers set off from Glasgow to London, 298 00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:13.279 one of many similar cross country marches that took place 299 00:17:13.319 --> 00:17:16.319 in that period. In London, they were joined by over 300 00:17:16.440 --> 00:17:20.079 one hundred thousand other demonstrators and attempted to present a 301 00:17:20.119 --> 00:17:23.119 petition with over a million signatures to the government, but 302 00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:27.160 were stopped by police, resulting in huge clashes in central London. 303 00:17:27.960 --> 00:17:30.240 So I think this is the camera vendor would have 304 00:17:30.279 --> 00:17:34.240 got Hilton and his mate's attention in Rochdale, and that's 305 00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:37.240 what led them to attempt to found a chapter of 306 00:17:37.319 --> 00:17:41.839 the NUWM in the town. The first meeting they held 307 00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:45.559 was dire. These weren't educated men, like I say. They 308 00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:49.640 had no concept of how to make a speech or 309 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:52.640 how to explain what was going on in their lives. 310 00:17:52.640 --> 00:17:53.519 They just knew that they. 311 00:17:53.400 --> 00:17:55.480 Needed to be able to explain it. They need to 312 00:17:55.559 --> 00:18:00.799 understand themselves. So after their first meeting they go back 313 00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:04.599 to the library and they just swallow book after book 314 00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:08.440 after book. And Hilton is not alone in this. It's 315 00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:11.039 about him and about five of them mates who do this. 316 00:18:11.519 --> 00:18:15.160 Who read marks, He read the classics of the English Canon, 317 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:20.400 he read Shakespeare, and it does spare through. Their meetings 318 00:18:20.440 --> 00:18:24.799 start to pick up steam and every single new meeting. 319 00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:29.000 They talk with more eloquence, They're able to explain things 320 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:32.680 in more detail, with more credibility, and the crowds grow 321 00:18:32.720 --> 00:18:36.000 and grow riven a matter of months, these men are 322 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:40.119 giving speeches that are drawing people from all over the town, 323 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:44.759 men and women, young and old, and the meetings become rallies, 324 00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:49.839 and then the rallies become riots. And the riots, obviously, 325 00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:54.920 for the powers that be in Rochdale, were completely unacceptable 326 00:18:55.319 --> 00:19:01.240 and scary, and the local business leaders, the locals lean 327 00:19:01.359 --> 00:19:05.000 on the local judges and the local police and anyone 328 00:19:05.039 --> 00:19:06.880 who will listen to sort of put a stop to this. 329 00:19:07.039 --> 00:19:10.000 And Jack Hilton is seized in the midst of a 330 00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:13.759 demonstration and thrown in the cells and then taken to 331 00:19:13.839 --> 00:19:16.640 Strange Rays prison, and he's let out after a matter 332 00:19:16.640 --> 00:19:19.839 of weeks, but he's only let out on the privize 333 00:19:19.839 --> 00:19:22.440 over he never, for I think a period of three years, 334 00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:26.039 never make another political speech in that time, on pains 335 00:19:26.039 --> 00:19:28.880 of being sent straight back to Strange Rays. 336 00:19:29.640 --> 00:19:32.279 However, it was precisely a result of the conditions of 337 00:19:32.359 --> 00:19:34.960 Hilton's release that he would go on to write his 338 00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:36.000 first novel. 339 00:19:36.599 --> 00:19:40.000 In this period that he's bound over, having taught himself 340 00:19:40.039 --> 00:19:42.680 how to make the speeches that can move hundreds and 341 00:19:42.799 --> 00:19:47.200 hundreds of people to action, But now being completely unable 342 00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:50.440 to do this anymore, he instead turns to pen and paper, 343 00:19:50.839 --> 00:19:53.200 and the speeches that he would have been giving to 344 00:19:53.440 --> 00:20:00.000 these crowds are kept for himself and his scrappy little notebooks. 345 00:20:00.079 --> 00:20:02.079 He starts to write in these notebooks what he would 346 00:20:02.119 --> 00:20:05.359 otherwise have been saying to the crowds. And then one 347 00:20:05.440 --> 00:20:10.720 evening a night class organized by the Workingmen's Educational Association, 348 00:20:11.279 --> 00:20:13.599 which I think he started going to around the time 349 00:20:13.599 --> 00:20:15.440 but him and his mates were begin to educate themselves 350 00:20:15.480 --> 00:20:16.519 to make speeches. 351 00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:18.119 You've been going to these night classes. 352 00:20:18.480 --> 00:20:21.039 Well, whenever he went to these classes, he was either 353 00:20:21.640 --> 00:20:25.000 you know, knackered after a day of work or starving 354 00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:27.559 because he hadn't had any work. So after one of 355 00:20:27.599 --> 00:20:30.519 these classes, for whatever reason, he left his notebook behind, 356 00:20:31.039 --> 00:20:36.880 and the education or association suitor picked up the notebook and, 357 00:20:37.640 --> 00:20:41.160 being a nosy booker, took it home and leafed through it, 358 00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:44.039 and you know what he had in his hands was 359 00:20:44.279 --> 00:20:48.160 the clamoring nucleus of what would then become caliban shrieks. 360 00:20:48.599 --> 00:20:51.720 I think it equates to being about the first and 361 00:20:51.799 --> 00:20:56.400 second chapters or thereabouts. What this nosey booker does is 362 00:20:56.440 --> 00:21:01.440 he sends Jack Hilton's notebook without his permission to the 363 00:21:01.599 --> 00:21:07.559 editor of a modernist literary magazine called Viadelphi, which was 364 00:21:08.319 --> 00:21:10.519 I don't know how to promis really it was a 365 00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:15.680 sort of a haven for the misfits and the most 366 00:21:15.680 --> 00:21:19.680 sort of unpopular figures of the literary world at that 367 00:21:19.839 --> 00:21:22.720 time in England, like DH Lawrence, D. H. 368 00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:25.839 Lawrence was an author and son of a Nottinghamshire coal miner, 369 00:21:25.960 --> 00:21:28.920 closely connected to the literary avant garde of the early 370 00:21:28.960 --> 00:21:33.160 twentieth century. His works frequently dealt in themes of sexual 371 00:21:33.200 --> 00:21:37.759 desire that scandalized the literary mainstream, not to mention British authorities. 372 00:21:38.359 --> 00:21:41.119 A number of his novels were subjects to obscenity trials, 373 00:21:41.400 --> 00:21:45.519 like nineteen fifteen's The Rainbow, whose copies were seized and burnt. 374 00:21:46.119 --> 00:21:49.079 Obviously not learning his lesson, in nineteen twenty eight, Lawrence 375 00:21:49.119 --> 00:21:52.559 published Lady Chatterley's Lover, about a steamy love affair between 376 00:21:52.599 --> 00:21:56.039 the wife of a wealthy landowner and her working class gamekeeper. 377 00:21:56.680 --> 00:21:59.359 That book was similarly banned and not published in full 378 00:21:59.480 --> 00:22:02.519 until Yeah, another obscenity trial resulted in the band being 379 00:22:02.519 --> 00:22:05.720 lifted in nineteen sixty, by which time Lawrence had been 380 00:22:05.759 --> 00:22:09.440 dead for thirty years. Well, Lawrence was still alive, however, 381 00:22:09.640 --> 00:22:12.319 the Adelphi was a firm supporter of his work. 382 00:22:13.559 --> 00:22:18.440 So when Jack Hilton's notebook was sent in and they 383 00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:21.799 saw that what they'd been given was such a radical, 384 00:22:22.640 --> 00:22:27.599 unusual but brilliant piece writing, the editors jumped on it, 385 00:22:27.759 --> 00:22:31.839 especially because it was sort of one of the unspoken 386 00:22:32.440 --> 00:22:37.160 missions of this magazine after d. H. Lawrence's death had 387 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:39.599 sort of been to put it quite crudely, to sort 388 00:22:39.599 --> 00:22:44.519 of find the airs of Lawrence. It's no exaggeration to 389 00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:47.960 say that with Jack Hilton, at least John Middleton Murray, 390 00:22:48.039 --> 00:22:51.400 the editor, was so exciting and enamored of what he'd 391 00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:53.920 been sent that he thought this could really be, you know, 392 00:22:54.279 --> 00:22:57.440 the second coming of a figure that was the reason 393 00:22:57.480 --> 00:23:00.799 this journal existed. So he wrote to Jack Hilton Vivi 394 00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:03.920 Tutor asking him to write more and to expand on 395 00:23:05.720 --> 00:23:08.799 just tied you up this fragment for a publication in 396 00:23:08.839 --> 00:23:10.920 a journal, and that's what he did. About was the 397 00:23:10.920 --> 00:23:13.880 first piece of published writing by Jack Hilton. So The 398 00:23:13.960 --> 00:23:16.680 main takeaway here is that Hilton at no point ever 399 00:23:16.759 --> 00:23:20.240 believed he would ever be a published writer, and never 400 00:23:20.359 --> 00:23:25.839 sought out publication himself, despite clearly having the talent to 401 00:23:26.119 --> 00:23:31.440