Tolpuddle Martyr’s Festival
- Tim Roache
- Jul 31, 2018
- 2 min read
After a fantastic weekend in Durham at the Miners’ Gala, I made my second trip to the Tolpuddle Martyr’s Festival, where Southern Region organised a fantastic weekend for members across the whole union, including a big contingent from NW and Irish Region and my good friend Paul McCarthy.
On the main field at Tolpuddle (we have our own field because so many of us attend) there were fringe events, speeches and bands. I spoke at a fringe meeting about public ownership, at which I was able to talk about our Take Back the Tap campaign - that campaign goes from strength to strength and isn’t off the front pages.
Everyone there agreed about the need to take our essential services back into public ownership, although I have to say not everyone was as receptive to our views on energy and Heathrow, but as always I stood firm on our policy and for our members - we exist to defend and advance GMB members’ jobs, rights and interests, that’s what we’ll always do.
This year I had to miss the actual march, but I followed it on social media and it looked like our biggest showing yet. GMB banners were everywhere; we had our Bhangra band (to which members taught me some Bhangra dancing last year) and a protest against how Amazon treat their workers. The ‘We are not Robots’ campaign is definitely going to go from strength to strength.
Also over the weekend, we have a superb Young Members’ History School, which helps to teach our current young members about past struggles. I was able to sit in on one of the workshops on working class women’s history and was blown away.
Throw in some camping, some music, plays and Paul Maloney and I barbecuing for the entire field (I’m told no one got food poisoning...) it was an absolutely fantastic weekend that shows what being part of the GMB family is all about. Thank you to everyone who was there and everyone who put so much work into organising it.
