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Durham E-Theses From the `freedom of the streets': a biographical study of culture and social change in the life and work of writer Jack Common (1903-1968) Armstrong, Keith How to cite: Armstrong, Keith (2007) From the `freedom of the streets': a biographical study of culture and social change in the life and work of writer Jack Common (1903-1968), Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2136/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 r FROM THE FREEDOM OF THE STREETS': A biographical study of culture and social change in the life and work of writer Jack Common (1903-1968) The copyright of this thesis rests with the author or the university to which it was submitted. No quotation from it, or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author or university, and any information derived from it should be acknowledged. KEITH ARMSTRONG PhD THESIS UNIVERSITY OF DURHAM SCHOOL OF EDUCATION 2007 - 8 AUG 2007 FROM THE FREEDOM OF THE STREETS': A biographical study of culture and social change in the life and work of writer Jack Common (1903-1968) KEITH ARMSTRONG PhD THESIS 2007 The author assesses the Hfe and work of the Newcastle upon Tyne bom writer Jack Common in the light of the massive social, economic and cultural changes which have affected the North East of England and wider society through the period of Common's life and afterwards. He seeks to point out the relevance of Common to the present day in terms of his ideas about class, community and the individual and in the light of Common's sense of rebelliousness influenced by a process of grass-roots education and self-improvement. In addition, he draws upon his own extensive experience in community arts and education, looking, in particular, at the work he and others have carried out on Common over the last thirty years and assessing its value in the light of recent political changes. The author draws together the range of biographical and literary criticism carried out by a range of individuals over this period of time and brings into print hitherto unpublished material about Common's life and work by interviewing family members and associates, exploring the Common Archive at Newcastle University and other largely ignored sources, and studying Common's significant association with George Orwell in great detail. Through all of this, he seeks to argue that Common's life and ideas remain worthy of close attention in the present day. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My heartiest thanks to Professor Bill Williamson at the University of Durham who has acted as my supervisor and guided me patiently and with imagination through the long period of study I embarked upon back in October 1999. I would also especially like to thank Peter Common, Jack's son, who has supplied me with much valuable information, kindly agreed to visit me in Newcastle upon Tyne, on more than one occasion, and allowed me to interview him at his home in Warrington. Sally, Jack's daughter, also guided me around Newport Pagnell, visited me in Newcastle upon Tyne and, several years ago, allowed me to visit her in Malvern. Thanks also to Kathleen and Stephen Phillips of Kindred UK for researching, and allowing me to use, the Common family tree appended to this thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my late father Anthony, my mother Eva and my sister Patricia who have supported me in this endeavour from the outset. Keith Armstrong, University of Durham, School of Education 2007 CONTENTS page Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION 6 Chapter 2. TOWARDS A METHODOLOGY 23 Chapter 3. STRONG WORDS FROM THE STREETS 50 Chapter 4. THE MAKINGS OF A COMMON REBEL 68 The Strange Tale of Jack and the Sons of the Battle-axe 82 Common's Learning 86 The Leaving of The Tyne 101 Chapter 5. MR COMMON AND MR BLAIR 139 Chapter 6. THE POST-WAR PERIOD OF JACK 164 The Heart of All England 194 Passing Away 200 Chapter 7. COMMON WORDS AND THE WANDERING STAR: 'KIDDAR'S LUCK' AND 'THE AMPERSAND' 220 Chapter 8. COMMON WORDS AND THE WANDERING STAR: THE ESSAYIST, 'FREEDOM OF THE STREET', AND 'SEVEN SHIFTS' 253 Chapter 9. COMMON CONCLUSIONS 287 APPENDIX 1. JOHN MIDDLETON MURRAY'S PROSPECTUS FOR 'THE ADELPHI' MAGAZINE. 311 APPENDIX 2. PETER COMMON BY KEITH ARMSTRONG, WARRINGTON, 28™ February 2000. 312 BIBLIOGRAPHY 316 Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 'Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert. That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, And soaring ever singest.' (Percy Bysshe Shelley) Jack Common (1903-68) was drawn to Shelley while still a boy and, as his daughter Sally has written (Magill, S., 1998): 'He quoted from 'the moonlight-coloured May' in his prize-winning school essay on Jesmond Dene, written when he was 14. All his life he liked to use the phrase in spring when he saw the May in blossom and thirty years after he died I still remember it each year.' 1 have pursued 'Kiddar' for over thirty years myself, ever since working with Huw Beynon and others from the "Strong Words' collective on an exhibition and event for the Newcastle Festival in 1977. Like Common, 1 hail from the Heaton area of Newcastle upon Tyne with a strong bond linking me to the history and culture of the city. I believe that this is something which stayed within Jack Common, even though he left Tyneside in his mid-twenties. When his " Kiddar's Luck" (1951) was first drawn to my attention by a schoolmate at Heaton Grammar School in Newcastle, I was struck by Common's feel for the streets of Heaton and the railway community which worked and played there. He managed to get under the skin of the locality and reading him enhanced my feel for my own local history. It was also that Common was 'a genuinely working class writer' (Groves, R., 1974), the son of a railwayman, and from a similar background to myself. His formative educational experiences fitted with a tradition of working class learning also encountered, for example, in the lives of the North East pitmen-poets Tommy Armstrong and Joseph Skipsey, the latter of whom wrote: 'I was in my fifteenth year when 1 found that an uncle of mine had a small library. I borrowed 'Paradise Lost'. They laughed at me when 1 took it away. 'Why Joe', said my aunt, 'thoo'll nivver be able to understand that'. 'Well', 1 replied, 'I mean to try'. That book was a revelation to me, 1 was entranced by it... My enthusiasm encouraged my uncle to open his whole bookcase to me.' (Skipsey, J., 1991) This is the kind of'self-education' that influenced Common himself: 'As Bill's gaze wandered along the titles on the bookshelves, he saw that they and their authors were largely unfamiliar to him. Jack London obviously was something terrific, but were all those other strange gods also true gods? If so, he had stumbled on a regular bonanza, a whole Klondyke, of literature. For Uncle Rod seemed exceedingly willing to lend his treasures.' (Common, J., 1975,p.l82) That Common achieved success in a school essay competition must have been through the individual spark of a particular teacher or through his Uncle, an eccentric with a true disregard for convention, rather than school as an institution, on which subject he is particularly savage when he asserts that: 'The one faculty with which school infallibly endows its pupils (is) that of being bored. It is very important, of course, that every child should, in the course of time, become fitted with this negative capability. If they didn't have it, they'd never put up with the jobs they're going to get, most of them, on leaving school. Boredom, or the ability to endure it, is the hub on which the whole universe of work turns.' (Common, J., 1975., p.32) Indeed, the young Common somehow managed to rise above all this doom and gloom to be strongly commended for his writing ability and to also win one of his city's essay competitions during the First World War, this time on the subject of'Thrift' and read out to the whole school by the Headmaster. Encouraged by this and with his mother's active support, he escaped the usual factory fate of his fellow schoolmates and studied for a time at Skerry's College, where he gleaned a basis of routine business training so as to be able to get a foot into the professional door. Yet Common, despite being so intimate with the streets of his Heaton community and distinctly aware of the history and heritage of his beloved city, was becoming aware of the difference between himself and those around him: 'Bill Clarts, coming this cold night from the small room of a lonely, thinking man, contraband books under his arm, felt himself engaged in a traffic which must alienate him from his kind.