The Clarion - September 2008

Newsletter of the National Clarion Cycling Club 1895 (North Lancs Union) September 2008

Vets Rally at Oakhill National Clarion 1895 welcomes the Northern Counties Veteran and Classic Cycle Club Over the weekend of September 26th /28th the Northern Counties Section of the Veteran and Classic Cycle Club plan to hold their second Autumn Meet at our headquarters of Oakhill College. Members will arrive on Friday evening after the end of the school day and set up camp.

Camping is free; tents, camper vans and caravans are all welcome.

At 8pm members will be entertained by our friends from the Mikron Theatre who will perform one of their plays ‘Fair Trade’, the Story of the Co-op Movement.

Saturday will begin with a cycle jumble in the Millennium Hall which will run from 9am to 1pm.

All of the indoor stalls have been sold but we have plenty of space for outdoor pitches and bike sales on the all-weather sports area. Our North East Lancs Cycle Jumbles have become well established amongst both sellers and buyers. If you have never attended a cycle jumble please come along. For only £1 admission you get to spend loads of money purchasing lots of cycle related items you either don’t want, don’t need, don’t know what it is or already have plenty of in the shed at home. Jumbles are a really good social occasion not to be missed Following the jumble there will be a led ride into the Ribble Valley, which will visit at least one café, quite possibly two or three and no doubt several pubs but only those of historical interest. When the riders finally return to Oakhill they plan to share in a Jacob’s Join.

The Mikron Theatre Company is a small touring company, who over the past 25 years have gained a large reputation for the vivid and lively way they present topics of a social historical nature. In Fair Trade four multi-talented actors/musicians will tell the story of the Rochdale Pioneers. This event is open to the general public and there will be an admission charge of £5.

Sunday morning there will be a number of led cycle rides taking a variety of routes (all hilly) to the ILP Clarion Tearoom at Roughlee for pint pots of proper tea. Riders will then return to Oakhill midafternoon in order to break camp.

Whether you are in the Vets or not why don’t you (and your comrades) pay us a visit over the weekend. Please consider supporting the jumble, but be warned the jumbles can become an addiction. Come along to the play, I guarantee you will enjoy it. Join us on one of the rides or on both.

On the march The Clarion Cycling Club was formed by six young Socialists in Birmingham in 1894, a year later at the first Easter Meet held in Ashbourne it became the National Clarion Cycling Club. A Club whose objective was ‘to combine the pleasures of cycling with the propaganda of Socialism’. Today National Clarion CC 1895 remains committed to that historic objective and is proud to be seen on the streets campaigning with our Trade Union brothers and sisters for a New Society with justice as its foundation and love as its Law. Over the passed months as well as riding the lanes we have contributed at a number of political events.

Sarah Reddish’s Grave On Sunday the 4th May along with comrades from Bolton Wood Street Clarion we cycled to Heaton Cemetery in Bolton to pay homage to this great Socialist speaker who had travelled on the first women’s Clarion Van tour of 1896. Two years later she formed Bolton Socialist Party by merging the local ILP and SDF branches into a single Party, an independent Socialist Party which still exists today.

Before departing for the tearoom at Rivington we left red flags flying above her tombstone.

Palestine Lives, Free Palestine

On Saturday 7th June members of Stockport Clarion and National Clarion 1895 manned a Club stall in Albert Square at an event titled Palestine Lives.

This was a celebration of Palestinian art, culture, history and experience of a people who have endured 60 years of occupation. Some would ask why were we there? The answer in its simplest terms was to show solidarity to a people who don’t enjoy the freedoms we take for granted. The campaigning Clarion newspaper, which gave birth to our great Clarion cycling club was all about highlighting and fighting injustice wherever it occurred. There are no road blocks or check-points in the Ribble Valley where we ride, there should be none in Gaza, the Hebron or on the West Bank.

The CTC York Cycle Rally Once again we had a stall at what is now titled the ‘York Cycle Show’ much to the general disgust of most of those CTC members who have supported the event for years. Did no one ever tell them: ‘that diluting your product to make it more commercial will just make people like it less’? A feature of this year’s show was the presence of not one, but TWO National Clarion Cycle Club stalls, albeit one was National Clarion 1895. Fears that this may have led to confusion amongst the cycling public were quickly laid to rest as our stall bore the Clarion legend of old ‘Socialism ~ The Hope of the World’.

Our stall was shared with Robin Hathersall from Ribble Valley Clarion, Robin is an authority on Hill Specials ~ the Rolls Royce of cycle frames built at the Calrion Cycle works in Padiham in the 1950’s.

If you see a Hill Special bike or frame buy it immediately and please give Robin a ring with the frame number, he would be most grateful and you will receive a Hill Special Christmas card from him.

(Tel: 01200 423691).

Unfortunately for the organiser and his hard working team of volunteers the weather was foul, with heavy rain and gale force winds, factors which clearly affected the attendance. The wind was so strong on the Saturday night that many of the trade stall were severely damaged and the main sponsor’s marquee was destroyed. Also very sadly a CTC member was killed and his comrade seriously injured in an incident with a car whilst cycling to the event. Nevertheless we must judge the weekend a success, a good deal of political and cycling literature was sold and many new friends made.

Summer Gatherings July 6th Clarion Sunday revived

Following the news of the formation of the first Clarion Cycling Clubs in the 1894’s, a number of other Clarion organisations quickly sprang into life.

Clarion Vocal Unions and Clarion Rambling Clubs being amongst the most popular. Denis Pye’s book: ‘Fellowship is Life’ tells us that ‘by the middle of 1895 more than a dozen of these choirs had been formed’. The first Clarion Sunday, a meet of Clarion choirs, took place at Hardcastle Crags on the 1st June 1895 with over 100 members in attendance. The second Meet just twelve months later attracted more than 2,000 to listen to the massed choirs. Last year Bolton Wood Street Choir and Burnley Clarion Choir met on the first Sunday in June at the Nelson ILP Clarion Tearoom in order to revive this Clarion tradition. This year’s meet, again held on the first Sunday of June, attracted over 36 members from four different Socialist Choirs. Unfortunately much of the singing had to be done under umbrellas and the planned picnic was forced indoors. Nevertheless firm foundations have been laid for future ‘Clarion Sunday’s’ up at Roughlee. Our comrades from Bolton Socialist Club where the choir is based are most confident that next year’s event will attract choirs from a wider area. P.S. In 1899 the Board of the Clarion newspaper presented an ivory and gold baton which Clarion choirs annually competed for at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. If anyone has this baton in their loft or sees it on Ebay please let us have it.

The South Yorkshire Festival This annual Trade Union gathering takes place every year at Wortley Hall, the Worker’s Stately Home, just north of Sheffield. The event is basically one large garden party with singing, dancing, a few speeches, lots of food and lots of stalls from every section of the Labour and Trade Union Movement.

The Clarion whose history can be traced to the very foundations of Socialism in Britain always receives a warm welcome at this event from our many friends on the political left. Once again the weather was not as good as one had hoped for and many of the outdoor events had to be moved inside for reasons of safety, at which point the weather immediately brightened up.

The Tolpuddle Martyr’s Rally The Clarion’s largest contingency to-date travelled down to Dorset for this annual gathering. Once again our Clarion stall attracted a great deal of support and many new friends were made from within the ranks of the Labour and Trade Union Movement. Bolton Wood Street Clarion Choir performed and 23 members marched in Sunday’s grand parade of Trade Union banners.

“Lanterne Rouge” Longevity, cycling and strong ale

Trade Union Organised Cycle Sportive

We have recently been sent an old photograph of a very old Clarion man, Richard Crack of Brierfield.

On Saturday, 20th September our comrades in the Communication Worker’s Union (CWU) are running a Cycle Sportive event from their Education and Training Centre at Alvescot Lodge which is located close to Oxford. There are two distances 20 miles and 60 miles, the entry fee being £10 and £20 respectively. All proceeds are being donated to the Trade Union International Solidarity Fund. There is free camping on the site and a BBQ after the event. We plan to travel down in our Clarion Van on the Friday evening and stay until the Sunday morning. Anyone interested in joining us should contact Charles as soon as possible.

Clarion Van

Richard died in 1921 one week before his 104 th birthday. He outlived 7 of his 14 children and could claim 140 direct descendents. Given his age he must have joined the Clarion sometime after his 77th birthday. In September 1920 a reporter found him to be ‘still hale and hearty, as well as ever apart from a little rheumatism in his fingers and toes which stopped him from riding his bike’ He said ‘I have never been a teetotaller, but always knew when I had had enough’

Thanks to the support of Oakhill College and our friends and supporters in the Labour and Trade Union Movement we have been able to convert one of the College’s mini buses into the Sarah Reddish Memorial Clarion Van. Ken Hartley, President of Blackburn CTC converted the roof rack so it will carry 10 bikes stood upright. Thank Ken!!!!.

Another old timer in the news: This time the bike rather than the rider. At the 52 nd Annual Rally of the Veteran Cycle Club held at Pocklington in the Yorkshire Wolds one of our members Merlin Evans was awarded The Rea ‘Ordinary’ Trophy for the best ‘Ordinary’ or to you and me Penny Farthing at the rally. Merlin rides a 1886 Singer Challenge a bike that pre dates the founding of the Clarion.

Footnote: Pocklington, a small market town on the edge of the Vale of York was the birth place in 1878 of George Herbert Stancer jnr who in his later years held the position of Secretary of the CTC for 25 years.

Writing in the local Weekly News he complained about the cheapness of bicycles in general and solid tyred safeties in particular. They were attracting a rabble into what was a highly respectable and gentle form of recreation causing orderly wheelmen to exercise utmost caution’. His solution: ‘a tax to be imposed on cycling the proceeds of which should be used for keeping the roads in proper condition, no cyclist worthy of the name would object to paying in, and this irresponsible rowdy element would be completely sifted out’ God help us the workers will be wanting bikes next. It’s no surprise that Tom Groom and his Socialist chums didn’t join the CTC.

Runs List All rides depart Oakhill College at 8.30 unless stated differently. Distance usually about 60 miles, don’t forget to bring money for your breakfast; Sunday 28th Sept. Vets Run to Clarion House 9.30 Sunday 19th Oct. Rivington Tearoom Sunday 16nd Nov. Clapham Tearoom Sunday 30th Nov. Chipping Tearoom Sunday 14th Dec. Fancy Dress Time Trial Sunday 21st Dec. Slaidburn Tearooom For

further details on any of the above

contact:

National Clarion Cycling Club 1895 (North Lancs Union) Secretary: Charles Jepson, Aysgaard, Beardwood Brow, Blackburn, Lancashire. BB2 7AT. Tel: 01254 51302 Email: clarioncc@yahoo.co.uk