n By Duncan Milligan
On a chilly evening a packed hall in Braunston Northamptonshire heard about a 14-week strike by canal boat workers. It is a mostly forgotten dispute, although it halted traffic on the Oxford Canal and the Grand Junction Canal (later known as the Grand Union canal) for nearly four months.
The 1923 dispute was sparked when employers Fellows, Morton Clayton cut wages by 15 per cent and threatened a further 10 per cent cut. Working and living conditions of workers and their families were already appalling.
The small barges were largely taken up by space for industrial cargo. The families lived in the cramped space left for a tiny cabin.
While the families worked, only the man was paid. Wages were very poor, around the equivalent of £70 a week in today’s money.
Hours were long, with 12 hour working days, 7 days a week. Women and children were unpaid and got no compensation payments if they were injured at work on the barge.
The kids who travelled, worked and lived on the barges, had almost no education. Many of the parents were themselves illiterate.
The story – on the 100th anniversary of the end of the strike – was told through a visit to the nearby wharf where barges moored up for the duration of the strike called by the then recently formed Transport and General Workers Union, a Unite legacy union.
The canal trade carried coal, grain, sugar, tea, timber, bricks to the industrial centre of Birmingham and the Black Country. Even in the 1920s the canal trade on this route amounted to over one and a half million tons a year.
Sean Kettle, Unite regional officer told the audience, “It’s a sad fact that workers’ history is barely taught in our schools, so much can be so easily forgotten. If the Braunston strike had happened in Ireland there would be three songs and several poems, marking it. “All too often the story of workers’ struggle and union organisation is not told, or even
remembered. Unite Community are helping to bring those struggles and stories back to life, starting in the communities in which they took place.
“Despite a strong police presence and threats to sack them and evict them from the barges on which the lived, these workers stayed united. Not a barge moved for 14 weeks, when the dispute was settled by arbitration.”
What did Imperial Britain look like for workers in the aftermath of World War One? The 20s might have roared for the wealthy in the United States, in the UK, the decade whimpered.
The promised land for the returning heroes of World War One? Didn’t happen.
Some of this may sound familiar; a flatlining economy, one in 10 unemployed, high interest rates, high levels of government debt. An Empire battered by war and fighting demands for independence clung to artificially boosting the exchange rate of the pound against other currencies, making exports uncompetitive and imports cheaper.
The response from UK employers was wage cuts, the response was strikes opposing them. The economic pain got worse with increasing poverty and mass unemployment up to the outbreak of World War Two.
Russ Hickman from Unite’s Northants community branch explains why rediscovering the past and telling its stories is important: “Unite’s Northamptonshire community branch is remembering the county’s fascinating radical history. It’s an opportunity to learn about the past and think about how it can help us campaign and win in future.”
The highlight of telling the story of the strike is a wonderful one act,
one hour play Rats, Ropes and Revolution written and performed by Kate Saffin (pictured) and Janul who wrote and performed three
songs. The play, by Alarum Productions, transports you back to the strike, the story principally told
through the words and actions of ‘Eliza’, one of the boat women.
23 uniteLANDWORKER Winter 2023/24
Beautifully written and brilliantly researched, Saffin plays a range of characters distinguished by small costume changes, movement and the way they each talk. One actor, a tiny stage and half a box of props create an hour of magic.
Braunston as a village comes to life. Strikes are about human beings, not simply as unions portrayed as faceless organisations.
For an hour I felt I was back in 1923 in the middle of the dispute. Living the story of the terrible living conditions, the rats and the cold in winter, the hope and the despair.
The solidarity, the strike pay, money raised to support the strikers. The kindness of most of the village which saw a huge increase in population for the strike duration.
The detail of hearing about the teacher, Ms Hays, brought into teach the illiterate kids of the boat workers. The play brings the village
to life, the strike organiser Sam Brooks to life, but also the village shopkeepers, inn keepers.
The role of union lawyers also portrayed. Fighting off sacking threats, fighting off threats to evict, legal moves resulting in arbitration. A multi-faceted union response subtly told in the play. A forgotten story brought to life by theatre and music. And a bittersweet ending.
A staged 5 per cent pay cut – rather than 15 cent – was the result of arbitration. The threatened further 10 cent pay cut, abandoned. The union recognised. Better education provision for families which are mobile. Access to injury
compensation for accidents at work.
And now a history brought back to life by a union that understands the power and importance of storytelling.
• For more information of where you can see Rats, ropes and revolution see
alarumproductions.org.uk
Mark Harvey
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