Norfolk Red by Mike Pentelow
Lawrence & Wishart, £13.99
Agricultural workers have a treasured place in the annals of the trade union movement. Each year there are rallies to remember the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the Burston Strike School when the establishment tried to squash the collective action of workers. In the rich tradition of fighting back, Wilf Page is synonymous with the struggle for justice and decency.
Mike Pentelow, for many years editor of The Landworker, the radical paper of, by and for countryside workers, has now chronicled Wilf’s life. In collaboration with the Marx Memorial Library and Unite, now home of the National Union of Agricultural Workers, he has taken on the late Peter Kentfield’s original work to detail a life full of incident, commitment, principle and compassion.
It takes a gutsy character to be elected – and re-elected – as a communist councillor in true blue rural Norfolk. Wilf was that man. Norfolk Red refers to a breed of bull – as well as his political beliefs – which is an apt analogy. Pentelow tells how Wilf grew up in rural poverty and then had to move from job to job because of his political activities. A picture emerges of a man determined to do the right thing for his fellow men and women, unafraid of the personal consequences and committed to his political and trade union principles. The passage detailing his resignation from the Labour Party is particularly telling and should be required reading for the current leadership. His unwillingness to give in, especially when dealing with the iniquities of tied housing, is an example to all of us in the labour movement.
Equally his struggle to get a hearing in his own trade union and how, ultimately, his passion and dignity prevailed should be an object lesson for trade union leaders. Wilf’s life shows how holding true to principles to make things happen is often more important than differing political views. That he fought to the end of his days for just causes and received the plaudits of his peers and latter day union leaders is testament to his struggle and how ill-advised those earlier leaders were.
Union man, Marxist, councillor, pensioner’s activist and internationalist, Wilf Page deserves his place in the pantheon of great trade unionists. Mike Pentelow has captured the essence of the man as activist and pioneer. For those tempted to say today’s unions are an irrelevance, they should read this book and reflect that, without people like Wilf Page, our lives would be the poorer.
Andrew Dodgshon
