Review 'Her People'

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Kate Dayus's book reviewed sored march from Oxford to marchers are being arranged Greenham Common, to pro- in Oxford, Abingdon, Didcot test against Cruise inissiles and Greenham Common, coming to Britain in 1983. and there will be free food The march takes place on and overnight accommodathe weekend of March 19.20 tion on the march. Contact: and will pass through Abing- Cathie Brown, 10 Cunliffe don and then Didcot, where Close, Oxford (tel. Oxford the marchers will stay over- 52590).

Subscribe! If, as John Bloxam surgests (SO, January 20th), the ILP is such a damp squib, why does it need such a flat and heavy load of old cobblers to douse it?

Could it be that the damp members there voted consistently with ILP perspective. The derision with which John. Bloxam says that the ILP only voted against the others (i.e. Clause 4/Peter Hain) once register suggested a consistency amongst a majority of the membership. Is John suggesting some grouping manipulated these votes? If so he should come clean and say so; if not, what on earth is he bleating about? Dear S.0, We invite readers to send us their letters, up to a usual maximum length of 400 words.

Send to Socialist Organiser. c/o 28. Middle Lane. London N8. KATE Dayus was born in 1903 into Camden Drive, part of the slum area of Birmingham. For a few, it was an era of Edwardian opulence and gracious living, for Kate, however, luxury was tuppence worth of fish and chips, and an outing with her father and the two youngest of her five brothers and sisters to the music hall was a rare and memorable treat.

More commonplace for her was a scolding or a blow from her domineering and irascible mother -photograph of her shows a veritable "battle-axe'! - or going hungry for the day after being late for the meagre breakfast served at her school.

Kate's Birmingham was not that of the civic splendour of Joseph Chamberlain. Her family, together with Gran for a while, lived in a three-roomed dwelling; water was obtained from a stand pipe and it, like the five lavatories, served the ten families around the cobbled courtyard, back to back with dozens similar.

Kate and her family, at least, were not as badly off as many. Work was sporadic, and her father was in more or less regular employment so they could at least afford chairs to sit on. Nonetheless, you grew up to be 'street wise? -to know where you could earn a few coppers by running errands, but woe betide you if Mum got hold of you with the money!

For all the hardship, OXFORD Youth CND has night. announced plans for a sponhowever, "Her People" is not a throughgoing, earnest catalogue of gloom and miséry. Kate Dayus is a natural storyteller, with an acute eye for the telling detail that brings her story vividly to life. The disappointment of her Christmas, where her mother cannot resist a cruel punishment for a stocking left undarned, the dire results when all the kids scoff the free samples of ExLax left on the doorsteps by a promoter, relishing the treat and not realising its purpose or effect!

The climax of the story Kate's hop-picking 'holiday" with her Mum and neighbouring families, which results in her eldest brother's appearance in court for alleged pig stealing. This episode is a genuine comic masterpiece, down'to the witnesses = Kate's neighbours - 'dressed to kill' in bedraggled wigs and furs and Gran's search for the loo in unaccustomed surroundings.

Kate Dayus is still alive today, living with her daughter and son-in-law and playing bowls for Warwickshire. She certainly needed all the wit and cunning she learnt in Camden Drive to help her raise her family of five after the early death of her husband. Kate's story of 'Her People" is a testimony to the indomitability of her spirit.

WENDY FRANKLAND Rallies in support of the