Benny Rothman and the Kinder Scout Trespass - Our History 1 (New Series)

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HISTORY

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Benny Rothman and the Kinder Scout Trespass 1932-2012

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HISTORY

Our History No. 1

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Communist Party www.communist-party.org.uk

Pamphlet No. 1

New Series

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Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012 CONTENTS page Foreword

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Introduction Early years The Mass Trespass Consequences of the Trespass Industrial and anti fascist work Countryside Activism Later Years Conclusion

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Introduction Welcome to the first in a new series of pamphlets produced by the Communist Party History Group, which was re-established following discussion in a subject stream at the 2005 Communist University of Britain.

Although convened by the Communist Party, the CPHG is by no means restricted to current CP members.

However, the focus of the activities of the Group has been designed to provide an antidote to the `cottage industry' that some have built for themselves out of our own history. In many cases this has been regardless of the fact that they have had little or no ties to the Communist Party in the past or the present, let alone sympathy. Much of the product of this labour has been to make negative judgements about the Party's past (or even existence) by those whose antipathy to the Communist Party - from either a right or left perspective - is perhaps obscured by the seemingly 'scholarly' nature of their work. Yet a great deal of this research is contentious and often lacks a sensitivity of understanding of the nature of class struggle, much less the personal dynamics that apply in Party life.

The CPHG has begun to seek to rescue Party history from this ‘commodification’ and subject it to the - sometimes critical but always perceptive - perspective of contemporary Marxism. At the same time, it has always been a feature of the Marxist approach to history to consider not just our own history, and that of the labour and progressive movements, but to apply our theoretical approach to all strands of historical study.

Much of the initial work in co-ordinating research and writing on such themes has been conducted by e-mail and a series of some eight e-bulletins containing a range of articles, updates on work in progress, and calls for assistance on a wide area of Communist history were produced, which are still available on the Party’s Issuu account, see: http://issuu.com/ We called these bulletins “Our History – New Series” in a nod to the past heritage of Communist historical work.

Recently, a range of publishing initiatives in the field of biography and history have suggested to us that there is probable a wider appetite for more Communist and working class history in a more accessible form. In Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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particular, the publication “The CP 1920-2010: 90 Years of Struggle” by Ben Stevenson and Rob Griffiths generated much interest, with the result that we have therefore decided to embark on a range of a series of relatively brief pamphlets, which this edition begins.

The role and importance of studying working class history has long been a feature of the Communist Party. Indeed, the Communist Party’s Historians’ Group, which was founded in the immediate post-war years (note the importance of the slight name difference to today’s CPHG!), has been highly regarded for the number and quality of influential professional historians who were associated with it, although there were others involved.

Many of the better known writers were ultimately to leave the Party but most did broadly continue to work in the Marxist tradition. Such eminent historians as Christopher Hill and E P Thompson left, whilst Eric Hobsbawn and A L Morton stayed in the Party.

The Group aimed for a popular radical approach that would provide inspiration for modern times. The originality with which historical insights were explored and the emphasis on enabling marginalised voices in history to be uncovered was a model that many more mainstream historians learned from. Indeed, it may not be stretching things to say that the best of British historiography in the late 20th century broadly acquired from the CPHG an abiding interest in what Thompson famously dubbed “history from below”.

Aiding this process, in 1956 the Group launched a quarterly series "Our History". In the next few years the subjects covered by these indicated this approach in practice, as these titles suggest: The Class Struggle in Local Affairs; Luddism; Labour - Communist Relations 1920 – 1939; The Tradition of Civil Liberties in Britain; Enclosure and Population Change; Land Nationalisation in Britain; Cromwell; Tudor and Stuart England; The Working Week; The Historical Novel; Africa in World History; Party Politics in the 19th Century; Chartist Literature; Sheffield Shop Stewards 1916-1918; An SDF Branch 1903-1906; The Common People 1688-1800; Ernest Jones the Chartist; The General Strike In The North-East; The Lancashire Cotton Famine 1861 - 65; Thomas Bewick 1753-1828; Tom Mann; The Lesser Fabians; Transition From Feudalism to Capitalism; Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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Songs of the Labour Movement; Chartism and unions; Homer, etc A complete list of titles published to 1976 is available online, with some complete texts also available on: http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/ collections/shs/index_frameset1.htm.

Without seeking to challenge this precedent, the CPHG now aims to bring to a new generation of activists some insight into historical themes that we think will inspire and motivate many.

There is no specific theme to the many planned pamphlets in this new series of “Our History� pamphlets for the 21st century, but the neglect of women's history and local working class history will be key features. Some editions will be a work of original research, others more a homage to previous work that is now largely ignored or forgotten. All will celebrate history from below.

Graham Stevenson Convenor Communist Party History Group

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If you have any suggestions for pamphlets in the new series, or an original text to offer for the series, or a proposal for a reprint, please contact us at: office@communist-party.co.uk Future titles include: “From Handsworth to the Soviet Union – the tanks that stopped Hitler” “Cardiff cigar workers and the `feminine strike’ of 1911” by Rob Griffiths “The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and Chesterfield” (A reprint of a 1988 pamphlet by Shirley Clarke with a contemporary introductory account.) “Rouse Ye Women” – the Cradley Heath Chain Makers Strike of 1910 “The Coventry general strike of 1917” “The Walsall bomb plot provocation of 1892” “London Landmarks” (A reprint of a 1963 CP pamphlet describing locations associated with Marx, Engels, or Lenin.) “Keep the flag flying” - the Alice Wheeldon affair” “The martyrs of River Street – the Derby turnout of 1833-4” “The Battle of Cable Street”

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Introduction In April of 1932, a group of intrepid activists marched from two small rural towns in a picturesque part of what is now the Peak District National Park in a bid to reach the top of Kinder Scout. Their aim was not only to achieve the Warning sign against trespassing physical challenge of scaling the peak, but it served as a far bigger challenge. This was a challenge to the entrenched elitism of the landed aristocracy throughout the land whose failure to share the natural landscape with their working class countrymen and women had led to so much anger. The actions of these, mainly young, working class people were to reverberate around the shores of this country and would give extra emphasis to the movement that was already burgeoning at that time for more to be done to allow the right to roam.

This was just one of many struggles that formed part of the life of Benny Rothman, a communist and labour movement activist who has come to be seen as the leader of this brave action. This pamphlet will delve into Rothman’s life as an environmental campaigner, trade unionist, anti fascist looking at the events that have defined his remarkable life.

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Early Years

1931 Young Communist International

Born on June 1st 1911, Bernard (but always known to all as Benny) Rothman was the middle son of five children of Romanian Jewish parents, who came to Britain at the turn of the century. His father ran a hardware stall at Glossop and Shaw markets but Benny knew little of life outside the crowded, squalid environment of Cheetham, a thickly populated working-class district of north Manchester until he won a scholarship to Manchester Central High School for boys.

However, he was forced to leave just as he was about to take his matriculation exam, when a kind neighbour found a job for him as an errand boy in the motor trade at Tom Garners’. He had no option. The family was dirt poor, since his father died when he was 12, and Benny now had to help support his widowed mother and family.

He soon acquired a bike, built of spare parts. He began to explore the countryside, now giving full vent to his lifelong passion for the outdoors.

Armed with a 6p Woolworth’s map he spent his 16th birthday climbing alone to the summit of Snowdon. It was the start of a life-long

Benny Rothman on his bike!

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commitment to the outdoors and would lead to his most memorable political act. Benny Rothman would become the prime mover behind the historic mass trespass of Kinder Scout, a campaign that would eventually lead to the establishment of national parks.

Although Benny’s Uncle Arthur (Jack) Solomon’s was intensely political, he did not directly influence Benny. Jack was, for a few years the national treasurer of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), a friend of Jimmy Maxton and Manny Shinwell and also involved with James Connolly in a big 1925 Workers Olympics in clothing workers’ strike. By contrast, his aunt Ettie introduced him to some Upton Sinclair books and the “Ragged Trouser Philanthropists”. He became an avid reader of similar works.

By 1928, and still working with Garners’, he was an apprentice working in Deansgate, Manchester, and began a YMCA course in geography and economics. His interests alerted Bill Dunn, a member of the Communist Party, and he began discussing the subjects with his young workmate. In 1929 Bill invited him to a local Young Communist League (YCL) meeting.

To quote Benny, he found “they were talking his language” and he gradually became more involved, becoming more and more outspoken on socialism and communism at his workplace.

Bill Dunn also took Benny to the Sunday night forums at the Clarion Club in Market Street, to listen to the speakers there. In late 1929, Benny Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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was arrested for chalking on the Piccadilly pavement “Look out for the Daily Worker – Out January 1st 1930”. Despite the protest of Frank Bright, then organiser of the Manchester CP, Benny was taken to court and fined 7/6d. His position at Garners’ was prejudiced when the press reported the case and even more so when Benny started selling 50 or 60 of the 1931 youth march for jobs paper daily. This dwindled after a short while but he still sold a few in the garage. When Garners’ merged with Rootes, rationalisation followed and inevitably the young Communist was one of the first to go; Benny was redundant.

Now a keen rambler as well as cyclist, he joined the Clarion Cycling Club and within minutes of his first meeting became the minutes' secretary.

Benny had already become a regular on the YCL-organised weekend camps on the Derbyshire moors, held under the `respectable’ name of the Britiish Workers Sports Federation (BWSF).

In 1931, Benny helped to establish a proper group of the BWSF and soon became its secretary for the North. He organised popular Sunday rambles and camping and cycling weekends in the Peak District, involving workmates from Garners’ and friends from the Clarion Cycling Club in Cheetham. After the Easter 1932 camp at Rowarth the idea of the Mass Trespass took hold and was realised a month later.

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The Mass Trespass Arguably, the mass campaign trespassers of private property in 1932, whom we now celebrate as illustrious forebears, were consciously fighting the same battle as their forebears had generations before, when the Enclosure Acts had been resisted.

However, the ambition of the rich in this period was not to gain economically, but to preserve the moorlands for themselves alone. In contrast, the ambition of the poor was simply to get a breath of fresh air, enjoy life and glory in the beauty of nature. All the better, perhaps, to forget the horrors of the Means Test and the lack of work.

For the rich, specifically, the aim was to maintain the grouse which provided elitist shooting ‘pleasures’. Something like three quarters of the southern Pennines and the Peak District was owned privately and the rest was owned by public bodies, such as the water boards, which admitted no public access. Less than 1% of the moorland was adequately open.

It was clear to left-wingers that legislation to force land owners to permit the public to partake in their own heritage was Benny Rothman &

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the only answer. To achieve this, labour movement activists determined to embark upon a series of mass trespasses to draw attention to their case.

The campaign was strongly influenced by the BWSF, which in turn was close to the Communist Party of Great Britain. Activists in 1932 Bowden Bridge Quarry the one were often involved in the other. Now a largely forgotten movement, the BWSF had been established in 1923 and had only recently seen its prestige enhanced when it sent a British team to the second Workers' Olympiad in Vienna, coming fourth out of 21 national teams. Some 80,000 athletes took part in the games, which had around 250,000 spectators, making this bigger than the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.

So it was that, on Sunday April 24th 1932, ramblers gathered in large numbers at the quarry in Hayfield, much advance publicity having taken place. Kinder Scout, an outstanding stretch of moorland, was chosen as the site of the first mass trespass.

Rothman, not even of the then age of majority – he was still only 20 years of age in what a decidedly youthful trespass – stepped in at the last minute as main speaker, when the intended incumbent took fright at the sight of 200 police called in to intimidate those who’d intended to march. In fact, such was the reaction that one third of the entire Derbyshire Constabulary, under the personal command of the Chief Constable, poured into the Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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Communist Party village.

However, the ramblers outwitted the police, by leaving before the stated starting time by a route through which police cars could not follow. 500 people then marched on the highest hill in the Peak District.

Hundreds of young men and women streamed across moorland, heading for the plateau above Kinder reservoir. They were challenged only by some twenty or thirty gamekeepers. Largely ignoring these, the youngsters reached the top where they met another group which had come from Sheffield, via Edale. (Activists from Derby had tended to join the Manchester group, whilst those from Chesterfield went with the Sheffield contingent.) It was an inspiring moment and the whole event was a bold gesture for “the rights of ordinary people to walk on land stolen from them in earlier times�.

1932 Trespassers

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Consequences of the Trespass Six young men were arrested after the Trespass and a travesty of justice followed. They were first brought before the New Mills magistrates’ court.

Subsequently, on July 21st and 22nd, the group was brought before the Derby Assizes.

Bowden Bridge mass trespass plaque

A drunken keeper sprained an ankle whist assaulting a rambler and a noisy mêlée had ensued. Police and keepers fell over themselves to perjure each other in the resulting trial of five ramblers. The judge was beside himself with the fact that three of the defendants were obviously Jewish and that they were all so relaxed about being associated with the Communist literature that was sold on the trespass. It was as if being of East European origin was in itself a crime.

A Grand Jury of two brigadier generals, three colonels, two majors, three captains, two aldermen and eleven country gentlemen considered their case. This was no trial by one’s peers; there was not a single working class person and no rambler amongst the jury. They were charged with riotous assembly and assault of a gamekeeper. The most damning piece of evidence, it seems, was a book by Lenin which had been in the possession of one of the defendants. This fact drew the comment from the judge, amidst much laughter: “Isn’t that the Russian gentleman?”

Predictably, the ramblers were all found guilty, but sentences of six, four, three and two month’s jail were imposed. One young man was seemingly Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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extra penalised because he had been selling the Daily Worker which the Communist Party had launched only two years before.

The defendants were John Thomas Anderson (21), cotton piecer, The Quadrant, Cemetery Road, Droylsden; Bernard Rothman, storekeeper, Granton Street, Cheetham; Julius Clyne, (23), machinist, Elizabeth Street, Cheetham; Harry Mendel (22), machinist, Townley Street, Cheetham; Anthony Walter Gillett (19), student, Rothman’s book on Kinder Trespass Banborough Road, Oxford; David Nussbaum (19), labourer, Red Bank, Cheetham.

Rothman, Clyne, and Nussbaum were also charged with incitement.

Mendel was found not guilty and discharged. The other five defendants were convicted of riot, Rothman of inciting to riot and assault, Nussbaum of inciting to cause an unlawful assembly, and Anderson of occasioning bodily harm. Rothman was sentenced to four months, Nussbaum to three months, and Clyne and Gillett to two months' imprisonment, and Anderson to six.

The campaign did not end there. Apart from the demonstrations and activity designed to draw attention to the injustice of the imprisonments, there were other rambling protests. At the end of May, a massive turnout of over 5,000 ramblers demonstrated for the right of access to private lands at Whatstandwell. Whilst on June 26th, some 10,000 ramblers assembled at Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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Our History No. 1 Winnats Pass, Castleton. Another mass trespass took place at Abbey brook in the Derwent valley and a rally was held at Jacob’s Ladder. With the more pressing activities on unemployment, anti-fascism and solidarity with Spain over the following years, the issue receded from the minds of the labour movement. But it was by no means in vain. The very establishment in 1949 by a Labour Government of the Derbyshire Peak District National Park, a novel concept at the time, was no accident.

1932 Kinder Scout wanted advert

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Industrial and anti fascist work Blacklisted after serving his four months in Leicester jail Benny went at the YCL’s suggestion to North East Lancashire to try and build a branch there. He went to Burnley, to help out with the ‘No Moor Looms’ campaign.

With his zest for sport, he 1923 cartoon from Communist Review organised some factory football teams and a rambling club but difficulties resulted in their demise.

He was involved in the campaign against the 1933 bill to restrict camping to only officially approved sites. He returned to Manchester, after six months still unemployed he worked for a year during 1933 and 1934 for a comrade who had a small garage in Cheetham. He left to get a job at A V Roe’s Ltd (also known as AVRO), the aircraft factory in Newton Heath, where he thought he could do far more industrial and political work. Immediately he joined the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (AEU) Manchester 2nd branch, where he became its minutes' secretary and soon was elected to be its delegate to the Manchester and Salford Trades Council. His political activity soon exposed his Communist beliefs and before long the AVRO management found a pretext to sack him.

The political atmosphere in Cheetham with its large Jewish population was strongly anti-fascist and charged with the drive for peace. At this time Benny was active in the Youth Front against war and fascism, which later Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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merged with Cheetham YCL. He involved himself ever more in the YCL and became secretary of the Cheetham branch. He helped to build up the Challenge Club, which in addition to political activities also held social events, rambles, cycle 1936 Manchester Communist Party runs, gymnastics, Sunday night dances etc. even building a ‘Flying Flea’. This attracted some 500 members, of whom roughly half joined the YCL. About 75% of the members were Jewish. Probably the appeal of such a broad organisation coupled with the fights against the Blackshirts led by Cheetham YCL contributed to the decline of the BWSF. At a British Union of Fascists (BUF) meeting on Marshall Croft a car was turned over. At another BUF meeting opposite Crumpsall Library, Benny was arrested and bound over for 12 months to ‘keep the peace’. In 1933 he intervened when Evelyn Taylor (later Jack Jones’ wife) was physically attacked by BUF stewards as she was heckling Mosley in the Kings’ Hall in Belle Vue. He threw out some anti -Mosley leaflets but then was thrown bodily over the balcony but luckily his fall was broken by a 1931 YCLer being arrested at Blackshirt below. The brutality shown at that unemployment demo

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1931 police break up NUWM demo London

meeting was reported to a counter meeting that evening in the Free Trade Hall and later to Parliament, which led to the passing of the Public Order Act. Some 60 years later, he recalled some of these events when he was involved in a TUC education project with Danish trade unionists on tackling racism as part of the European Year of the Older Person.

Not long before he left AVROs, Benny married the mill girl he had met at a peace camp, his comrade Lily Crabtree, who came from a Communist family in Rochdale. They lived briefly in Failsworth, then settled in Timperley in 1936 so that Benny could be nearer his new job as a fitter at Metro-Vicks in Trafford Park. Soon he began selling the ‘Daily Worker’ in the factory, though not openly. He collected contributions regularly in support of Aid to Spain. At a big meeting in the Free Trade Hall he volunteered to be an ambulance driver but was frustrated by not being accepted, largely because he was an inexperienced driver. Moreover it was felt that he could better help the cause through his trade union and factory work.

Shortly before the war, he was victimised due to his politics and then worked at Metropolitan Vickers, in Trafford Park which had a large Communist Party branch. Metro-Vicks was a November 1931—Hyde Park CP speakers stand Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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conglomeration of factories, then employing some 22,000 workers, the biggest industrial complex in Europe. Just prior to World War II breaking out Benny, after two years as shop steward in his department, became the delegate to the Works Committee for the 800 to 900 workers in the West Works switchgear and about another thousand on radar work in West Works 5. He had won the support of nearly 2,000 workers as a first-class trade unionist ever alert to their interests, especially their working conditions and piece-rates.

But, when Benny condemned Chamberlain for the Munich agreement in 1938, he was called a warmonger and ostracised by his 1942 Manchester rally Labour Party workmates; although a year later there was some realisation that Munich had not brought ‘peace in our time’.

Again, when the Soviet-German non-aggression pact was signed Benny had a rough time at work, the pact being seen as a sell-out by the treacherous Russians. Benny was very strongly anti-Hitler and thought that the stand taken by Harry Pollitt as to the anti-fascist nature of the war was correct right from the start. He was rejected for the army in the Second World War, being in a reserved occupation, but joined the Home Guard.

In 1942 he helped set up the Timperley branch of the AEU and served 11 years as one of its officials. He later became the AEUs senior Works Committee delegate. Under his leadership, West Works became 100% trade unionised, a band of united shop stewards had weekly meetings and led Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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every struggle in Metro-Vicks for wage increases, against management manoeuvres to interfere with piece-rates and many other related issues.

Benny edited the bulletin to keep their department up to date with authentic information. Small wonder that instead of the agreed one 1936 Manchester Communist Party hour a day on union work he would often spend 8 to 10 hours, almost full-time. As the war progressed Benny helped to establish a Joint Production Committee and secured agreement on increased output without change to ordinary norms and conditions, which boosted production greatly. On one job the bonus rose by 600 or 700 per cent. Young women newly recruited into the factory were initially given unsatisfactory low rates. Benny immediately blasted his way through the normal procedures to see higher management. The young women then got guaranteed new prices for their work.

By 1944 Benny was selling daily 70 to 80 copies of the ‘Daily Worker’ in the factory. This was emulated by one of his stewards in another department. Some of his stewards joined the Communist Party factory branch there. Strong support was given by Benny’s department to left-wing candidates in local elections. He regretted what he considered to be the Party’s later mistake in switching from factory to area branches, considering that its leadership of the trade union movement in the MetroVicks factories was thereby much weakened. After the war Benny was on the Post-War Planning Committee. Without a change to alternative work, Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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redundancies ensued. Over the next 12 months despite Benny’s battle to save the jobs they were lost.

A dispute arose in 1951 when a welder was told to do a fitter’s job. Benny called a meeting – with management permission. The men struck for an hour and the proposal was dropped. The management seized on Benny’s taking part in the hour’s stoppage as an excuse to sack him. Nearly 3,000 men struck immediately to protest at this blatant victimisation. The AEU Manchester District Committee supported the men. They remained out for eight days. The Strike Committee printed leaflets and a small paper called ‘Unity’ in defence of the right to strike and lobbied the AEU executive to recognise the strike. This was refused, although they allowed dispute benefits. The Strike Committee then became the Re-instatement Committee and in March 1952 the 75 AEU Metro-Vicks shop stewards confirmed their view that Benny had been victimised. The management conceded that an application for re-employment for Benny could be considered ‘after a reasonable time’.

Reasonable was never defined. Benny started work at Staveley Machine Tools of Broadheath. He had won his point at MetroVicks but wouldn’t go back.

The foregoing is but a part of a much longer story. Researches are continuing into the archives left by Benny at the WorkingClass Movement Library into the years after 1951. These cover his 20 years’ service as chairman both of the shop stewards Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

1942 Manchester rally

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committee and convenor at the KearnsRichards factory (of Staveley Tools) and the Broadheath shop stewards’ forum, his service on the Manchester AEU’s District Committee, at different times as secretary and president of Altrincham Trades Council, on its executive and later on that of Trafford Trades Council and as delegate to the Lancashire and Cheshire Federation of Trades Councils.

They cover his leadership of many campaigns for wage and cost of living awards, against redundancies and closures, against the Industrial Relations, Criminal Justice and Public Order bills, his Parliamentary lobbying on these and 1941 Manchester Anglo-Russian later on pensioners’ issues. He organised friendship week strong groups in Trafford in support of the Grunwick strikers and later of the miners.

Letters from Benny were frequently in the ‘Altrincham Guardian’ and other local papers and he wrote a weekly column for the ‘Timperley Independent’. He edited the monthly newsletter of Altrincham Communist Party and was its candidate in municipal elections for Dunham ward.

Benny advised the Communist Party’s national congress, to which he was a delegate, on its resolution on ‘Access to the Countryside’. He advised also on the Party’s Pensioner Advisory Committee. After the collapse of the CPGB he was involved in the Communist Campaign Group’s work which led to the establishment of the CPB. Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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Countryside Activism In 1982 Benny formed the Kinder Scout Advisory Committee and in 1989 the Rivington Pledge Committee and was secretary of both. He led the campaign against the privatisation of water authority land and took part in Public Enquiries on Ashton Moss, Kingswater Park and Davenport Green.

He supported the efforts of Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Worldwide Fund for Nature amongst others. to protect the environment and also fought against the motorway spoliation of the countryside, as at Twyford Down. Ever vigilant on rights of way he also encouraged urban access in his ‘Aspects of Altrincham’ articles.

Prominent in the fight against the military use of Holcombe Moor and other areas of open land and in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) national action at Coulport on Loch Long, he was also active in Altrincham CND and Trade Union CND and became a delegate to the CND annual conference. He gave slide shows to peace groups to show the true picture of the Soviet view of disarmament. He was a member of the National Insurance Tribunal, the Family Practitioner Committee of Trafford Health Authority and the Pensioners’ Liaison Forum. Yet however prodigiously busy he still made time to tend his allotment and supply tomatoes and other produce to the annual Daily Worker/Morning Star bazaars – the list of his activities seems endless.

In retirement, he campaigned against restrictive legislation on access to the countryside, publishing an account of the Trespass on its 50th anniversary and carving out a significant voice for himself in the media. He was effective in such a role by winning concessions in the water privatisation bill.

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Later years Still rambling and campaigning in his early 80s Benny sadly suffered a stroke in 1994 which left him confined to a wheelchair. Not that that stopped him entirely. Together and aided by his dear wife Lily, he then fought successfully against a Council proposal to fence in and narrow a path near his home into a Benny Rothman passageway, making it difficult for mothers with prams to reach the local primary school. He then retired to Essex with her, to be near his daughter and family. Requests for his advice and help, which he always freely gave, were often been made by outdoor organisations, journalists, students and occasionally by authors. He remained a well-known figure nationally in the rambling and outdoor world and also generally in the environmental field on many different issues.

In 1990 the AEU gave Benny its highest award, the Special Award of Merit. In 1996 the Ramblers Association executive made him an honorary life member. His genial but militant leadership, always based on his close touch with the working class, ensured an immense contribution to its history. This selfless, untiring political and environmental workaholic had become truly a living legend by the time of his death, aged 90, on 23rd January 2002.

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Even in death, the honours came in. A mountain was even named after him – in eastern Greenland of all places. Jeremy Windsor and three colleagues made the first ascent of the 2,782m peak. Tent-bound for a few days, Windsor found a faded newspaper cutting of Benny Rothman’s obituary and read it to his friends. They realised that this was a man who had not shied away from the limelight and whose actions had largely gone unrecognised. They decided the best name for the peak they had conquered was Mt. Rothman. As climbers who regularly visit crags and mountains in the Peak District, they appreciated the work of Benny and others who organised the Mass Trespass and provided the foundations for the wider freedoms people like themselves now enjoy. [Ramblers’ Magazine February 2005] There’s even a train engine too! On 21st April 2007, for the 75th anniversary of the Mass Trespass led by Benny in 1932, the Environment Secretary David Milliband, at Piccadilly Station, Manchester, unveiled on the engine of the Northern Trains locomotive the nameplate ‘Benny Rothman – Manchester Rambler’. This may now be seen regularly on the Manchester – London line.

Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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Communist Party

Conclusion The Mass Trespass over Kinder Scout in 1932 has been the subject of innumerable articles in many national and local newspapers, magazines and journals etc. It has been the main theme of schools, conferences, seminars, debates and lectures.

Books, poems, plays, radio and television programmes have featured it and there is 1932 October Hunger march Benny’s own book “The Kinder Scout Trespass”, a truly fascinating historical document.

It is generally accepted now that this historic event paved the way for the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. April 24th, the date of the Trespass, has been marked over many years by anniversary reunions and celebratory rallies supported by many leading national figures in such organisations as the Ramblers Association, the Peak and Northern Footpath Society, the Open Spaces Society, the British Mountaineering Council, the Council for National Parks, the Peak Planning Board, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, the Country Commission, the Woodcraft Folk, Red Rope, Sheffield Campaign for Access to Moorlands, Benny’s old union and others, and many others in the environmental field.

All of these illustrious bodies pay tribute to the leader of the Trespass, Benny Rothman, though he would have been the first to point out that he was simply taking part in an historic movement to win the people’s right to Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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ramble freely over uncultivated land – forbidden to them by the selfish, grouse-shooting landowning classes. In 1982 Benny Rothman humbly unveiled a permanent commemorative plaque near the Kinder Scout plateau – not to himself - but to honour a protest which helped eventually bring a legal "right to roam", an important democratic right.

Sources: Guardian 8th July 1932; M S Rice “Working Class Wives - their health and conditions” Virago (1981); Benny Rothman “The 1932 Kinder Trespass” Willow Publishing, Altrincham (1982); Derby Mercury May 31st 1932; Guardian January 25th 2002; Bernard Barry “Not just a rambler!”

WCML Bulletin (1999); Graham Stevenson “Defence or Defiance – a peoples’ history of Derbyshire” - Chapter 11 (1927-1939) section: `The Mass Trespass of Kinder Scout’; http://www.grahamstevenson.me.uk/ Compednium of Communist Biographies.

Benny Rothman & Kinder Scout 1932-2012

28 manifesto

Politics and analysis, action and culture making the link between working class power & liberation

manifestopress is a new venture that aims to publish working class history, socialist theory and the politics of class struggle. It is republican and antiimperialist; secular and feminist; anti-fascist and antiracist; committed to working class political power, popular sovereignty and progressive culture.

Freedom From Tyranny The Fight Against Fascism and the Falsification of History Phil Katz £5.95 114pp illustrated Published in association with the Communist Party History Group This special new booklet published in association with the Communist Party History Group to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the defeat of fascism in Europe is a celebration of that victory and also a warning of the continuing dangers posed by fascism and the attempts to re-write history.

Phil Katz is a designer, a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. He has an MSc in Economic History from Birkbeck. His previous publications include 'The Long Weekend – combating unemployment between the wars'; 'Thinking Hands – the power of labour in William Morris' and 'The People, Organised – trade unions on the home front 1939-1945'.

The education revolution Cuba’s alternative to neoliberalism Théodore H. MacDonald £14.95 265pp illustrated Published in association with NUT, foreword by Christine Blower, Bill Greenshields & Martin Reed The singular successes of the Cuban education system are treated to a deep, comprehensive and fraternal analysis by Dr MacDonald, a world authority on human rights, a sharp critic of contemporary imperialism.

The book covers with great authority the full range of Cuba’s innovative education system, from pre school and primary education, through the secondary and tertiary sectors, the experiences of the pioneering literacy programmes and the comprehensive nature of adult education.

Dr MacDonald is emeritus professor for Global Health rights at London Metropolitan University. He has authored several books about Cuba's health & education systems.

The imperial controversy Challenging the empire apologists Andrew Murray £12.95 150pp Foreword by George Galloway MP The imperialist urge, rooted in the dynamics of the world economy, continues to cast a long shadow.

Andrew Murray subjects the leading pro-imperial historians, to a withering analysis. He presents an alternative reading of the record of the British Empire, and of other colonial powers.

The history of imperial intervention in the Middle East and liberal interventionism in general, and Blair’s premiership in particular, is located in a history of argument Rothman within the progressive & Benny movement concerning imperialism. The record and role of the “pro-war left” in relation to the Iraq war is scrutinised.

Andrew Murray is chair of the Stop the War Coalition.

The State & Local Government Towards a new basis for ‘local democracy and the defeat of big business control Peter Latham £14.95 500pp illustrated The striking continuity between Cameron s big society and New Labour s neo-liberal project for governance gives a special relevance to Peter Latham s study The state and local government.

Beneath the rhetoric of devolution and empowerment real power is evacuated to the central state and displaced to corporate capital. Latham demonstrates the foundation in the particular neo-liberal forms assumed by state monopoly capitalism of the local governance in Britain and other countries.

Theoretically, the study is located firmly in a rigorous address of Marxist theories of the state and argues that superstructural readings, which exclude political economy, misrepresent Antonio Gramsci. The author s conclusions are rooted in a long intellectual and political engagement with the theory and practice of local governance and assert the continuing relevance of Gramsci s theory of the historic bloc in devising strategies to contest the convergence of Britain s three main parties around the surrender of local democracy to big business control.

Grounded in up-to-the minute election results and policy initiatives the book includes a comparative analysis of the local governance in Britain and South Africa, a survey of socialist decentralization models in China, Kerala, Cuba, Venezuela and Porto Alegre and a detailed analysis of local election results. It concludes with policy proposals for a new basis for local democracy and the defeat of big business control embodied in the measures proposed by the Conservative-led coalition government. Published by Manifesto Press supported by Croydon Trades Union Council, SERTUC, Croydon NUT, Unite 1/1148, Croydon and South London CWU, Public and Commercial Services Union, Labour Land Campaign and Brendan Bird

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Vintage Red The story of a municipal socialist John Kotz £9.95 133pp illustrated Published in association with the Labour Research Deparment The post-war Labour government was the defining event in the life of John Kotz. Leaving school as Labour took office he lived the positive changes that it wrought in the lives of working people. His early recollections contrast an East End childhood, defined by the delights and despairs of the family and working life of the Jewish working class, with wartime evacuation to the English countryside for which he retains a deep affection. He remains rooted in real life and in the practical politics of workingclass life. His recollections throw a human cast over the post-war history of the British Labour movement and highlight the complex interplay of pragmatism and principle that challenges a left-wing socialist who accepts municipal office.

But John Kotz was no town-hall bureaucrat. His politics are drawn from a deep well of class consciousness, strengthened by a firm internationalism, militant anti -racism and anti-fascism and an enduring loyalty to the Labour Party. Labour s travails and truiumphs, the see-saw of electoral politics and the narrow territory he traced between Hackney s toy-town trotskyites and the ultimately more threatening new Labour opportunists mark his years in office. But for this municipal socialist a move to the borders of Essex and Suffolk was no retreat he threw himself into the battle to revive Labour as a party of socialism, supporting ordinary working people in their fight for decent housing, good public services and the ability to live a full and peaceful life.

Kinder Scout 1932-2012

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