Shoulder to Shoulder
Edited by Alan McGuire, Culture Matters, £12

THIS May sees the 100th anniversary of one of the biggest clashes ever between workers and the Establishment in Britain, the 1926 General Strike. My own grandfather took part in it, as an employee of Great Western Railways. This was no ordinary strike, but really did pose the big question of who runs the country and for whom.

Shoulder to Shoulder marks the occasion with more than 90 poems. These not only respond to the General Strike itself, and to all the major industrial struggles since, but also many before, given the first piece is about the Tolpuddle Martyrs and there are two on the Match Girls Strike, a major contributor to the expansion of trade unionism in the 1880s.

So this anthology is not so much intended as a showcase of poetic technique as a history of struggle, one that still continues of course, as the preface by Unite’s Sharon Graham points out. There are several poems on the Grunwick strike in which Asian women workers showed amazing courage and élan, there’s one on Greenham Common women, the 1973 strikes under Ted Heath, a Barking hospital strike by cleaners in 1984. And, of course, the miners’ strike of 1984-5.

There is a lot of anger, and a lot of lived experience here: in Stewarding in Winter, a union rep supports a member; Inheritance is a reflection on the lives of the poet’s own parents. There is also anger and frustration: at everyday poverty and everyday injustices, the crime of dangerous workplaces, the environmental damage caused by the drive for profits. And a wide and varied testimony to the energy and commitment of ordinary people fighting against oppression.

Read these pieces and be encouraged that in spite of the power of capitalism and its upholders, there is always a fightback that no authoritarian measures, imprisonment or police brutality can expunge. Read it and be aware that this is our history and that when you join a struggle you will never be alone, but will stand on the shoulders of so many others.

These poems present a rich history of struggle that will continue until the people who make society run, also run society.