While our sports shall be seen On the Echoing Green

 

Till the little ones weary

No more can be merry

The sun does descend,

And our sports have an end:

Round the laps of their mothers,

Many sisters and brothers,

Like birds in their nest,

Are ready for rest;

And sport no more seen,

On the darkening Green.

 

The Echoing Green by William Blake

 

Dear Friends,

Even as a Catholic, I can honestly say I’ve never taken much spiritual growth from hardship or found any virtue in the idea of offering up our sufferings. Sure, I get that we should all carry our crosses and I understand that the meaning of our existence isn’t to be found in comfort.

Yet, I often think on the words of Dorothy Day who described the goal of Catholic Worker as trying to create a society where it ‘is easier for people to be good’. Even when Dorothy embraced voluntary poverty for herself, she still understood that living was meant to be joyful. Dorothy goes onto say that ‘life wasn’t meant to be so hard, God never intended for there to be so many poor people, this was our doing’.

Jimmy Reid seems to have partly echo Dorothy Day’s sentiments when he was once quoted as saying ‘Only the finest things in life are good enough for the working classes’ and despite his reputation as a firebrand, hard-line trade unionist and one time Communist. I’ve always felt that there was something of the gentle Christian Socialist about Jimmy Reid’s famous 1972 address to the students of Glasgow University;” A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings...This is how it starts, and before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat-pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit. Or as Christ put it, "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?"

Similarly, a year early in 1971 Reid sounded more like Rev James Barr, Presbyterian minister, socialist, pacifist, temperance advocate and Independent Labour Party MP for Motherwell during the 1930s. Especially when Reid stood in front of thousands of workers at Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, as if in the Kirk pulpit, preaching down to the multitudes “there will be no hooliganism, there will be no vandalism and there will be no bevying”.  

Jimmy Reid seemed to be speaking of a socialism which has its roots in the Christian virtues of meaningful work, responsibility, decency and human dignity, more in line with John Ruskin and William Morris than the cold doctrinal materialism of Marx and Lenin.

This is why I’ve always supported campaigns to increase universal Child Benefit, significant increases which would not only prevent families from tipping over the edge into the despair but also provide a little extra, as to cover the costs of the occasional day out or fun activity.

Indeed, leisure is vitally important for our well being, which is why it is deeply disappointing to learn  that some city libraries and six of Glasgow’s public golf courses may now be facing closure due to a lack of funding.  This news is especially sad since some of these municipal courses have been around for over a hundred years, providing working class Glaswegians with the opportunity to ‘enjoy the finest things in life’ as Jimmy Reid would have said.

The old municipal golf courses also represent the efforts and achievements of people like George Lansbury who, during his time as a cabinet minister in the 1929 Labour Government, greatly improved public parks, golf courses, public baths and outdoor swimming pools, making them more accessible to ordinary people.

In his fine book ‘Good Old George’, the late, great Bob Holman describes how “Under Lansbury’s direction, railings were pulled down, shelters for parents put up, paddling and swimming pools for children constructed, play and recreation equipment installed”.  

Today, we in Gourock are lucky enough to enjoy one the best preserved outdoor pools in Britain, we have the Battery Park, Coronation Park, the Well Park and we still have a municipal golf course at Whinhill in Greenock but that’s not our only connection with George Lansbury.

Lansbury is also commemorated in the Gibshill area of Greenock with Lansbury Street being named after him.  As well as being one of the best loved leaders of the Labour Party, George Lansbury was also a staunch anti-war peace activist and sincere Christian Socialist.

 He also led the famous Poplar Rates Revolt which was a tax protest which took place in London in 1921 and it is also worth noting that there is also Poplar Street nearby Lansbury Street in Greenock today.

You might also be interested to learn that George Lansbury is the Grandfather of the famous stage and screen actress Angela Lansbury, star of the long running detective series ‘Murder She Wrote’.

Finally, the group of companies, collectively known as The R&A who essentially run golf, are planning to acquire both Lethamhill and Littlehill public golf courses from ‘Glasgow Life’, the charity that delivers cultural, sporting and learning activities on behalf of Glasgow City Council.

Perhaps Jessica Fletcher could investigate the mystery of how it’s possible for ‘Glasgow life’ to legitimately sell off municipal golf courses which belong to the citizens of Glasgow? Let’s hope this acquisition will save these historic golf courses from closure and continue to be available and affordable for ordinary people in the surrounding communities.