The video below is of the talk that Ian Bone gave a opening of Hydra Books on 26th November. Below that is a video of the talk by Steve Higginson from the following day.

Below is more audio from the week of talks to mark the opening of Hydra Books at 34 Old Market.

Lessons from the Tredegar Medical Aid Society

Speaker: John Desmond

The Tredegar Medical Aid Society was founded in Tredegar in South Wales in 1890. In return for a contribution from its members it supplied free health care. This society contributed the model which established the British National Health Service

The provenance of John’s talk is a series of events which began last year. After recounting these events, he will discuss the lessons which he has learnt from his research into, and his reflections about the Tredegar Medical Aid Society. He will conclude by touching upon his current work about the health sector in Wales, which is informed by these lessons.’

John throws into sharp relief the contrast between the provision of a health service by the Tredegar Medical Aid Society and its current provision by the State.

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Hydra books opened with a talk by Ian Bone on Saturday. Around 70 people turned up to listen to the talk and smell the still wet paint. Also, on Scouse Sunday Steve Higginson gave a talk about the 1911 dockers strike in Liverpool and Sheila Coleman from the Hillsborough Justice Campaign gave an update on the parliamentary debate, the Hillsborough Panel and the BBC’s freedom of information request.

Below you can find audio of all of these talks.

Ian Bone – 1919 – Year of Revolution’

Maria Spiridonova, Jaroslav Hasek, Gabriel D’Annunzio,Percy Fisher,Simon Radowitzgy, Gustav Landauer, Max Holz.

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Steve Higginson – Liverpool 1911, A City On The Edge

“Rhythms That Carry”

<em>“You need not attach great importance to the rioting in Liverpool last night. It took place in an area where disorder is a chronic feature”.

- Winston Churchill</em>

When Churchill made this statement to Parliament, Liverpool was under martial law: a gunboat was moored on the Mersey, dockers, seafarers, and transport workers were on general strike.

Rhythms that Carry, will explore and illuminate new histories concerning the events of 1911. In 1886, a magazine described Liverpool as being the “New York of Europe,…..

A World City”. The open-ended nature of the port gave Liverpool a cosmopolitan edge and had a profound impact on the industrial, artistic, educational, cultural and social life of Liverpool.

However, there are questions that have remained unanswered with regards to the spontaneous nature and causes of the strikes that engulfed Liverpool across that long hot summer.

Rhythms that Carry, will attempt to answer these questions and much more besides.1911 represented the birth of Speed-Up Capitalism. A natural tide and motion was being replaced by time and motion. The prominence of women and people of colour left a lasting imprint and symbolised Liverpool as the epicentre of new interlinking cultural and social movements………What was the influence of Liverpool 1911 on Charlie Chaplin?

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Sheila Coleman

The recent debate in the House of Commons which culminated in a decision to release all Hillsborough documents was generally  perceived as a victory for those fighting for justice. The debate arose because of an e-petition to release documents. The e-petition was initiated after the Hillsborough Justice Campaign issued a statement condemning the government for appealing the Information Commissioner’s ruling that it was in the public interest to release (under Freedom of Information), the minutes of a cabinet meeting, held under Margaret Thatcher in the days following the Hillsborough Disaster.

Sheila Coleman of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign does not think that the result of the debate was a victory for either truth or justice. Rather she believes that a potentially dangerous precedent was set when the government agreed to hand over documents to the Hillsborough ‘Independent’ Panel.

Sheila will review the BBC’s FOI request in light of subsequent developments including how it led to Hillsborough being the subject of the first e-petition ever to be debated in the House of Commons. She will also tell of the reasons why families and survivors of the HJC remain unconvinced by recent promises and how the HJC remains marginalised in spite of being at the forefront of the campaign for justice.

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Two articles have  been recently added to the archive:

Forest Riots And Are You Wearing That T-Shirt – Ian Wright (Sept 2011) - News from The Forest (pdf).

Why have you come to Mourmansk? – G. Tchitcherineand and N. Lenin (October 2011) - A poster handed out to British troops how had been landed at Mourmansk towards the end of WWI.

Saturday 5 November – 11.00am startSt. Mary’s Institute, Stow Hill, NP20 1JJ

A Newport surgeon (Roger Morgan, re-enactor) will report on the injuries sustained in Newport on the morning of November 4th, 1839 and demonstrate how the wounded were treated.

And there will be ‘time travelling’ lecturers with ‘magic lantern slides’:

Karin Molson, on behalf of Shire Hall ‘Campaign’ Project, will show DVDs made with young people involved in ’active citizenshi’ that has been inspired by the Chartist Story.

Colin Gibson (archivist) on the survival and importance of Chartist Trial documents that Gwent Archives have been digitising during 2011.

Ruth Waycott and Les James, authors of a new book – Voices for the Vote: Chartism in south Wales - about the struggles of the Chartists to gain free speech and political rights for all.

Soup, rolls, coffee, tea available at good prices.

The Convention has no dealings with Truck or Tommy (Company) shops.

2.00pm at Newport Museum and Art Gallery

- The South Wales Record Society is launching its latest volume, William Downing Evans (1811-97): Poetry and Poverty in Nineteenth-Century Newport. Authors, Ian and Wendy Dear, will be talking about this Newport man who lived through the Chartist era and was local Registrar and Clerk to the Poor Law Guardians for half a century and strove to improve the town’s sanitation.

Details of this and other Newport events can found on their flyer.