From London’s holly-sellers to Engels’s flaming Christmas centrepiece, the plum pudding was more than festive fare in Victorian Britain, says KEITH FLETT
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An eloquent lesson in classroom resistance
JOHN GREEN remembers the moment when Stepney Words, a book of poetry by working-class schoolchildren, rocked the East End of London
FIGHTING FOR THEIR RIGHTS: Pupils of the Sir John Cass Foundation and Red Coat Church of England Secondary School demand the reinstatement of Christopher Searle
Once the bustling heart of Christian pilgrimage, Bethlehem now faces shuttered hotels, empty streets and a shrinking Christian community, while Israel’s assault on Gaza and the tightening grip of occupation destroy hopes of peace at the birthplace of Christ, writes Father GEOFF BOTTOMS
From a lockdown digital project to a vital tool for class solidarity, ROBERT POOLE and HENRY FOWLER reflect on half-a-decade of struggle
After years hidden away, Oldham’s memorial to six local volunteers who died fighting fascism in the Spanish civil war has been restored to public view, marking both a victory for campaigners and a renewed tribute to the town’s proud International Brigade heritage, says ROB HARGREAVES
The June 2025 attacks on Iran have heightened the risk of a wider war, exposed the fiction of a rules-based international order and left ordinary Iranians trapped between external aggression and internal repression, says the Committee for Defence of Iranian People’s Rights
While pretending to seek peace, Europe is heading toward a collision course with Russia – using security guarantees, troop deployments, expropriation and censorship as tools, writes SEVIM DAGDELEN
A WWI hero, renowned ornithologist, medical doctor, trade union organiser and founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain all rolled in one. MAT COWARD tells the story of a life so improbable it was once dismissed as fiction
THIS month marks 50 years since Chris Searle, a young English teacher at the Sir John Cass school in London’s East End, hit the headlines after being sacked for encouraging his pupils to write poetry about their own lives and neighbourhoods.
The school’s pupils came from a variety of cultural backgrounds, black and white, virtually all working class and very often poor. From the word go, these children had been treated as incapable of going far in life, as barely educable and told repeatedly that they were thick, so any hopes or ambitions they might have had for their lives was stymied before they had a chance.
Searle refused to accept this view, knew that these children had more to offer and could be enormously creative if they were given the chance.
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