Campaigning for Socialism: Memoirs of Max and Margaret Morris: Published by AUSTIN MACAULEY PUBLISHERS

This is a remarkable book, and it is difficult to do it justice in a brief review.  It explores the life and work of two committed and dynamic socialists and provides insightful and illuminating commentary on the political events that were the backdrop to their various campaigns.   
 
Underpinning the book is the contrast in style of the two contributors.  The sections written by Max Morris are challenging, fact-driven and oratorial.  While those written by Margaret Morris are gentle, intuitive, and full of historical detail but no less passionate and persuasive.  At times the book is humorous.
 
A thread that runs throughout is their separate relationships initially with the Communist Party and later with the Labour Party.  Max was refused a school headship on the grounds that he was a communist and Margaret Thatcher, then Secretary of State for Education, refused to go to his induction as President of the NUT in 1973, for the same reason.  Margaret Morris left the Labour Party, as many did, over Iraq, but subsequently re-joined to campaign vigorously alongside Max for Labour in power at both local and national level.   
 
I began teaching in 1972 when the influence of Max Morris was at its height. He \was a magnetic force. His powers of oratory were unsurpassed.  He fought passionately for comprehensive education, for teachers’ salaries, for respect for the profession, for the rights of special needs pupils, for a broad and balanced curriculum and for parity of esteem for technical and academic education.  Campaigns still so vital in education today.
 
I met Margaret in 2003 when I joined the SEA and she and Max were on the national executive.  Margaret has a background in Housing and Higher Education. Margaret was active in the Hornsey Housing Association. She campaigned tirelessly against Rachmanism and for the provision of decent homes for all. The Association produced a set of radical proposals, the first of which was the target of 750 new homes a year in the Hornsey area, a decidedly modest target considering the housing crisis from which we are now suffering. In Education Margaret lectured at Queen Mary College, PCL and finally became principal lecturer and Director of Social Sciences and Admissions Tutor Her passionate commitment to widening participation, modular degrees and inclusion are powerfully explored in the book.   
 
At times it reads like a Who’s Who of politics.  Margaret met Khrushchev when she headed up a delegation to Russia of the Women’s International Democratic Federation. She also met Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, in the hairdressers. Max worked with Butler, Gaitskell, Wilson and John Smith and declared Margaret Thatcher the most ‘capable adversary we have seen in many years’.  Jack Jones, the trade union leader once described as ‘the most powerful man in Britain’ was a personal friend.   
 
Max was one of the founders of the comprehensive school movement. Within the NUT a number of members formed the National Association of Labour Teachers, the precursor to today’s Socialist Educational Association. He wrote a pamphlet, ‘The People’s Schools’ in 1939. After military service ended in 1945 he returned to teaching and to fighting for comprehensive education against the prevailing view that children could be divided up into different types and levels of ability, as set out in the 1944 Butler Education Act. Max continued to pour scorn on the system of ‘selection by clerical error’ as he called it but it wasn’t until 1965 that legislation was passed ‘by which time the case against the 11+ appeared irrefutable’.
 
The setting up of Willesden High School with Max Morris as Headteacher as the prototype for a truly comprehensive school is also a very inspiring chapter.
 
Each chapter is riveting in its own way but in the current climate the chapter ‘From strike leader to President of the NUT’ is the most exciting. Max Morris was responsible for dragging the NUT out of its polite lethargy onto the battlefield of industrial action. He railed against the mandarins of Whitehall and championed the classroom teacher. ‘It must be remembered that there had been no experience in the Union of strike action since 1924’. In 1969 dustmen had been offered 16%, airline pilots 15%, firemen 12%, miners 9%, teachers 3.5%. Max went into action. There was ‘a magnificent demonstration the Royal Albert Hall’. There were rallies and strikes all over the country. It was agreed that there would be a strike in the summer term which would affect exams. There was a national day of protest on March 3rd and 10,000 teachers marched on parliament. The government climbed down and the value of the award was £42 million. The cost of the action was £3 million. ‘Not bad business’, Max calculated. Max was jubilant that the teaching profession had stood up and been counted. There was no other way of driving home to the public, which backed the strikes, that the professional expertise of teachers needed to be valued
 
The book also has an international dimension.  When Max was president of the NUT, they visited many different countries.  Margaret recalls how when they were in Russia they were shown around ‘a neighbourhood comprehensive school’.  The ‘neighbourhood’ was a housing estate for diplomats and high foreign officials.  The children were being groomed for the foreign and diplomatic service.  The delegation was singularly unimpressed and commented ‘unselective my foot’.   
 
On a personal level Margaret tells of her early years. She was born in 1930 and enjoyed a happy life until 1939 when war was declared. She was then ‘whisked away from home to live in the countryside’. When her period of evacuation ended she asked her father how he was going to vote in the 1945 election. His reply, ‘Labour, of course’ was her first introduction to politics. She also speaks of her struggles with tuberculosis, Max’s Jewish background and childhood poverty, their marriage, adoption of Georgia their daughter, their pride in their grandchildren, and the sad death of Max at their beloved home in Menton, France.  These chapters, interwoven with the powerful political content of the book provide the reader with a rounded, humane and sensitive understanding of their life together.   
 
Credit must go to Margaret for the collation and illumination of chapters written by Max.  She is an established historian in her own right having written the book ‘The General Strike’ which Professor Peter Hennessey described as ‘one of the best books on the subject ever written.’
 
The final chapter, ‘In Retrospect’ is less a retrospective than a call to arms.  It is a historical analysis of how the Labour Party has been plagued by factionalism and a passionate plea for proportional representation.  For me one of the most striking things about the book is the modern-day parallels: the housing crisis, the teacher shortage, the need for a broader-balanced curriculum, respect for technical education and for a Labour government committed to a socialist agenda.  We owe Max and Margaret a debt of gratitude for their tireless and successful efforts to change the face of education and of society as a whole. It is a must-read for those of us committed to the politics of education and a fairer and more equal society.
 
It is a moving memoir and inspiring manual for a life campaigning for socialism.   
 
Sheila Doré   SEA NEC

Post Views : 76