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HEIGHT GATE
by Steve Booth of Green Anarchist
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I really want to tell you about the informal Yorkshire meetings organised
by the English 'Anarchist Information Network' (=AIN). These are not like
your traditional, boring anarchist get-togethers. There is no agenda, no
set topics for discussion, nothing like that at all. Indeed, no one would
be surprised, or shocked, or would object if nothing much was discussed
at all. And yet.. And yet I think these meetings are perhaps the most productive
and hopeful thing happening on the anarchist scene in the North of England.
Perhaps I shouldn't call them 'meetings' - rather they are parties, not
in the sense of political parties, but more in the sense of fun.
Height Gate is a remote farm house and barn high up on the wild and windswept
moors above Hebden Bridge in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Hebden Bridge
itself is that small town set in a steep sided wooded valley, made famous
by the 1963 suicide of Sylvia Plath, the American poet. Some time in the
late 1990s, Height Gate farm was converted into a basic, spartan youth hostel
by the 'Woodcraft Folk' peace group, and is now rented out to people like
the AIN and other voluntary groups for residential weekends.
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GETTING THERE
There have now been three Height Gate meetings. The first was just after
the 11th September 2001, the second in early July 2002, and the third at
the end of July 2003. Picture the scene; a main road, a railway, the River
Calder and the Rochdale Canal twist and turn through the valley between
Hebden and Todmorden, but you have to leave this behind, as you pass up
through Stoodley Glen, a steep dirt track behind the factory and houses,
over the canal next to the locks, and then up and up through the woods.
Eventually you come out on the wide open tops, pass through the small white
gate by the sharp bend in the track, and cross the steep meadow between
the sheep and the mushrooms towards the farm.
BRINGING IN THE FOOD
Mostly it is just talk, food, wine drinking. The meetings are organised
by Jonathan Simcock and Mike Hamilton. Jonathan is quietly spoken, and lives
in the East Midlands. He edits 'Total Liberty', a small, independently minded
journal dedicated to evolutionary anarchism. Mike comes from Leicestershire
and is involved with allotments, community work, and cooperatives. It was
touch and go with his exhaust this, but Mike brought all the food supplies
up here in his truck.
LAUGHTER THERAPY
In the first Height Gate, Dr Peter Good gave a lecture on 'laughter therapy'
in the cold, vast, echoing empty barn. Imagine a wide, high rooved, empty
space, with a huge window giving a view down into the wooded valley. The
stone flags, black stone walls soak up every morsel of heat. An unconvivial
venue for our prospective mirthster. Peter is slightly chubby, with thick
eyebrows and is given to wearing a pale cream coloured, stylish homburg
hat. For this lecture, the Good Doctor wore snazzy red braces, a huge false
nose, clown's wig and bow tie. In real life, of course, Peter edits and
produces 'The Cunningham Amendment', an incredible hand printed anarchist
booklet from Bradford: 'Dedicated to Revolutionary Acts of Joy and Irreverence
in a World Increasingly Weighed Down by Sterile Bureaucracies'. I cannot
now precisely remember what Peter said in his lecture, because I was too
busy laughing at the time.
MAINSTAY
Mainstay of the Height Gate farm events are locals Harold Sculthorpe and
Gwen Goddard. Quiet, bald headed, sun tanned, and softly spoken with a solid,
sensible type of wisdom, Harry told us he is 80, a veteran political activist,
long term associate of Freedom Press, the London anarchist magazine, and
involved with CND. Brisk and businesslike, Gwen was once a school headmistress,
but she was also involved with CND back at the start, when it was first
formed and back in the Aldermaston March days. In that first Height Gate,
Gwen and Harry brought up an amazing display of photographs of painted political
slogans seen around Hebden Bridge. It is almost a tradition, Gwen brings
out her quiz, and we all have to re-arrange the letters. PINOOTKKR gives
us 'Kropotkin'. KBOIONHC results in boos and sparks off a political discussion
when the letters are found to be concealing 'Bookchin'.
STOODLEY PIKE
On the Saturday morning, part of the Height Gate tradition is to climb to
the top of Stoodley Pike. We go across the low lying pastures, over the
low stone footbridge, and then up, up up the steep blank, empty mountain
side. At the top is a huge stone obelisk, with carved Freemason symbols,
put up to commemorate the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Knackered from the
climb, we sit down in the sunshine and admire the view. You can see Hebden,
the trees, the valleys, houses, churches, factories, and hills going off
to the horizon. On the other side is a small television mast, and further
over towards Burnley, the pylons. The spread of wind farms across the tops
inspires a discussion about the coming collapse of the oil economy and the
transition to hydrogen. Will it be a smooth, or a rough ride?
Rested, we decide to climb the inside of the monument, a spiral staircase
seemingly carved through the black coal like stone of the tower. In here,
there is no light. Tentatively, we tread upwards in total darkness. At the
top on the observation platform, we can see as far as Ferrybridge Power
Station, the cooling towers and rising steam clouds twinkle in the early
morning light. We marvel at the huge CND symbol painted high up on the obelisk,
some time back in the 1980s, judging by the paint's weathering. Somebody
must have dragged ladders up here to do this.
FREEDOM
Perhaps the most important part of this year's Height Gate was the talk
with Toby Crowe, one of the four editors of the London based 'Freedom' magazine.
Now 'Freedom' has a long back-catalogue to contend with. Opinion polarises
sharply. Founded in 1886 and published fortnightly, it can either do no
wrong, or it is criticised as the flagship of the English Anarcho-Establishment.
People criticise it for its entrenched conservatism, for its rejection of
direct action, refusals to report it, or for particular sleights towards
individual contributors. Some people believe 'Freedom' is really published
by the state to discredit anarchism. For years there was bad blood between
it and the Albert Meltzer / 'Black Flag' bloc. All that appears to have
been smoothed over, so now the new dispensation of homogenised, centralised
'official' anarchism appears bland.
THE GAP OPENS
In a long term tendency, anarchists in the North of England are pulling
away from 'Freedom'. The Northern Anarchist Network (=NAN), AIN and loose
alliances of people have moved away from 'Freedom' since the 1990s. NAN
is the longer established forum, and is dominated by class struggle anarchists,
like the Solidarity Federation (formerly DAM) and Anarchist Federation (formerly
ACF). AIN was founded in 1997, and is not class struggle. Somewhere in between
these is the 'Mack the Knife Affinity Group', publishing 'Cock O' the North',
and hostile towards 'Freedom', though this has somewhat divided NAN, and
now 'Northern Voices' is a new magazine, intended to supplant Freedom's
now defunct 'Raven' journal. NV is edited by Brian Bamford, from Rochdale,
who famously reduced a government office to total chaos by herding goats
into it.
VIEW FROM THE COCKPIT
The main room where discussion takes place is dark, with one narrow ancient
mullioned window. We sit around the table, which fills most of the room.
There is a wood burning stove, periodically someone opens this up to feed
more scraps into it, or traipses out through the kitchen to the woodshed
for more. At first people are nervous, shy. The talking starts. We decide
to go round the table, each giving his or her view. Quiet, thoughtful, Jonathan
mentions Freedom's new found closeness to the class struggle anarchists.
There is Martin Gilbert, the secretary of NAN, long term peace activist,
bearded, in a red chequered shirt, strongly for 'Freedom'. In earlier discussion,
when it was suggested 'Freedom' be ditched, Martin pleaded passionately
for it. 'How can we desert our parents?' He asked. Then there is Dick Frost,
avuncular, with a large white Father Christmas beard, argumentative, the
author of the 'The Social Gene' book, which argued (on similar lines to
Kropotkin) that mutual cooperation, not competition, is the driving force
behind evolution. Dick says he doesn't like it, that 'Freedom' is boring
and irrelevant. Bearded, owl like, inscrutable, there is no surprise when
Brian Bamford announces he is agin' it. 'Freedom' ignores the north. Peter
Good said about it not caring about the readership. I said I don't think
it can ever be reformed, that it is a lost cause. Gwen says it is too old
fashioned.
INSTITUTION
Then there is a general discussion. Toby said he regards 'Freedom' as an
institution, and several of us pitched in against this. He also declared
it to be the centre of anarchism. The new rapprochement between 'Black Flag',
the Solidarity Federation and other class strugglers was cited as a Great
Leap Forwards, but the quantity of class struggle articles written by somebody
called Iain McKay was condemned. Yet another makeover was mooted, jeeringly
people compared this to when the Guardian newspaper changed its typefaces.
Afterwards, people discussed the session, and came to the conclusion that
nothing would change. All the London crowd amounts to is the October anarchist
bookfair. 'OK then, we keep on developing our separate northern anarchist
movement, and fuck the southerners' was the gist of what people felt. Toby
was well liked, but people felt that he is just the front man / fall guy
for all the same old faceless anarcho-establishment as before.
LEAVING
I remember how it was the first time I went to Height Gate, leaving, early
in the Sunday morning before most of the people in the real world were up.
I remember following the drover's track down off the mountain between the
ruined walls of an abandoned, roofless building. Along the high ridge overlooking
the valley, and down, down, down through the trees. I remember the main
road back through the valley, a derelict pub, the children's playground
on the edge of town, the quiet, empty streets of Hebden, the cinema, the
shops. Coming to the railway station, the quiet country station with its
two platforms, the wall posters. I remember the trees up the high, steep
sides of the valley, the leaves just starting to turn, right on the edge
of Autumn. I remember the blue sky, that same deep blue sky as all of you
will remember, for this is September, just five days after the World Trade
Centre attack. I remember the rust stained ballast, the railway sleepers,
the railway tracks going off into the distance, shining in the sun, and
the rumble of the Preston train as it approached along the curve.
- – Steve Booth
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