Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
A socialist heroine
DAVID NICHOLSON is fascinated by one of the early pioneers of the women’s movement and of the early days of the Labour Party
Minnie Pallister: The Voice of a Rebel
Alun Burge
Parthian Books, £20
AN ADOPTED daughter of Wales, a dimly remembered heroine of the labour and peace movement, and a renowned broadcaster and journalist makes for the fascinating tale of the life of Minnie Pallister. Alan Burge’s biography of Pallister is a story of the labour movement itself.
One of three daughters born to Durham coal miner William Pallister, who became a Wesleyan Methodist minister and took his young family to live in Haverford West in Pembrokeshire in 1899. The young Minnie was the middle daughter and became a confirmed socialist and pacifist and campaigned against the Great War alongside her friends Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald.
Similar stories
MAT COWARD recalls the communist and pacifist aristocrat whose commitment made a difference in the Spanish civil war, the Blitz and WWII Europe
From swimming pool soviets to piano factory occupations, early 20th-century radical organiser Lillian Thring chose street battles and mass action over the electoral path, writes MAT COWARD
Taking up social work after being widowed transformed a Victorian liberal into a lifelong fighter for causes as wide-ranging as Sinn Fein and Indian independence to the right of women to drink in pubs, writes MAT COWARD



