This is the first volume in the autobiographical trilogy (Stardust and Coaldust) of David John Douglass, a coalminer for 40 years. It tells the fascinating story of the radicalisation of a working-class Geordie 'baby-boomer' during the first twenty years of his life and provides a unique and valuable insight into the political and cultural movements of the 1960s.

A great American author once advised anyone wanting to become a real writer to tell the truth until it hurts, and then to go on telling it. I don't know if Dave Douglass has ever come across this advice, but his autobiography is far and away the most honest piece of writing I have read for many a long year. And whether or not it hurt him to write it, it certainly hurts to read it but only in the sense that page after page is so hilarious that the reader laughs aloud. Personally, I laughed until I gasped for breath and I'm not even a Geordie, but the sort of hard to impress Yorkshireman who will gloomily say of a comedian, 'Aye, he's alright, I suppose, if you like laughing.'

Not that Douglass sets out to be a comedian. Far from it. His book has a serious purpose. He dips his pen in vitriol as he describes his childhood in a damp pit cottage and the dismally barren schooling that turned him into a rebel at an early age. And what else could a highly intelligent boy become, relegated to the despised 'C' stream and told by cane wielding teachers that he was cocky because, pursuing his interests, he read books borrowed from the adult library? Soon the young rebel became a revolutionary, trying for size a succession of movements that sought, with varying degrees of realism, to overthrow the system. As a teenager he seems to have taken part in every sort of street battle that the 1960s offered him and those of a like mind, culminating in the great 1968 Battle of Grosvenor Square. He gives the best available description from inside of the 'love' movement of the 1960s, that 'raggyarsed working class hippyism.'

But some of the most effective writing in the book tells graphically of his demanding stint 'in the cauldron of hell' down the pits in Durham and Yorkshire. Dave Douglass was, and remains, a working-class fighter, fiercely proud of his north eastern roots, fiercely loyal to his friends and his class. He is a born story teller, whose characters come urgently to life on the page.

Without doubt, his frank and graphic account of his early life is destined to become a classic.

This book is published by ChristieBooks, and is available from all major booksellers.

This is how we reviewed Jake Arnott's 'He Kills Coppers' way back in issue 82 of Class War back in 2001.

He Kills Coppers by Jake Arnott, (Sceptre, £10)

Arnott's second novel takes its title from the ever popular song about your friend and mine, Harry Roberts. Roberts, re-named Billy Porter is one of three core characters - the others a policeman struggling to avoid the corruption of the Met, and a particularly odious tabloid journalist - whose lives are followed from the 1960s to the 1980s.

By taking historical characters and re-naming them for fictional stories (Arnott's previous novel The Long Firm was clearly based on the Kray Twins) one of the essential requirements for a novelist - the need to create believable characters - is removed. Equally Arnott seems incapable of writing about women, who are absent from the book virtually throughout. You do not have to be that well read to discover that Arnott has digested books like "The Fall Of Scotland Yard" by Cox, Shirley and Short, "Anarchist" by Ian Bone or that he watched the BBC series "Our Friends In The North" on video a few times before putting pen to paper.

That said the book does take you into and give you a feel for 1960s London. Moving on from the 60s, it stands (and falls) on its twist surrounding one of the three central characters. Its observations of the 1980s Anarchist scene (and Class War) are somewhat predictable and lazy - all the more disappointing in that no Anarchist group has tried harder to avoid a 'crustie' image than Class War, and that Arnott himself was allegedly involved in the movement during the 1980s.

There is a great book to be written about Harry Roberts, both as an individual and how he impacted on the lives of others. This is not it.

Whether as an author Arnott is more than a one trick pony it is too soon to tell, although the planned televising of The Long Firm will no doubt guarantee best seller status for this and subsequent books.

Two skulls out of five.

by
PETER GELDERLOOS

South End Press, 2007



The last decade has seen increasing debate over the efficacy – or otherwise – of non-violence. I don't mean non-violence as a tactic, but non-violence as a strategy. From the anti-sexist men of the 1970s, described in Martin Lux's 'Antifascist', to the fluffies of the 1990s and their descendants today, there is a counter-revolutionary liberal milieu in which opposing anti-hierarchical violence is a core plank of belief.


In this brief but fascinating book, Gelderloos looks at six aspects strategic non-violence, including considering its racist and statist aspects. Following on from where Ward Churchill's 'Pacifism as Pathology' left off, Gelderloos deals body blow after body blow to the illusions inherent in the fluffy pacifist position. It is, as he demonstrates, a bankrupt position, an anti-working class position which obstructs meaningful direct action.


We at London Class War believe that ruling out the use of violence is stupid. There are situations in which violence is the only tactic – and there are situations in which the use of violence is foolish. Gelderloos' analysis hits the nail on the head, when he calls for the use of a diversity of tactics, which allows a broad spectrum of actions to be undertaken in a campaign. Effete and ineffectual liberals, who play at anarchist politics, have long been a scourge of the anarchist movement in this country. Their pacifism isn't a principled pacifism, but an authoritarian pacifism. That is, they actively oppose people who use tactics they dislike, and people from that foul tradition have called for masked-up people to have their disguises ripped off, or to grass people up to the police.


The underlying precepts of their position, so well dissected by Gelderloos, should leave no doubt in readers' minds that these people need to be opposed wherever they raise their heads. Fluffies and their ilk are an 'enemy within', posing as radicals but in reality they have a very reactionary agenda.


This book is highly recommended – it's only £5 (+p&p) from Active Distribution.