THE BREAKING WHEEL

I follow your blog. And I liked very much your article THE BREAKING WHEEL. I´m Rosa Ulpiano from Spain. And I´m art critic. Nice to meet you.

This is the place of torture.

Life is not easy.

Look at your own face,

it is lined with the worries

of those long flown away;

their lives,

for what they’re worth,

lie stretched across history,

stinking of injustice.

This is more agony

than smiles.

Sip your coffee

and think

of those who died making it.

Soak up the warmth of the sunshine

in this carcass of a town

for we are just fleeting meat

on the Catherine Wheel of centuries,

simply dust

on the sheen of the river.

That man walking

across the marketplace

looks kind

but underneath it all

he is a murderer of insects,

an officer

who’ll break you on the cross

with his sturdy provincial mallet.

It’s a race of rats

scurrying past the Stiftskirche window

in a frenzy stripped of meaning.

Do not trust a judge,

he will crush you

to save his own wig and skin.

The Law is an ass

and lawyers are donkeys

in fancy gowns,

feasting on slaughter

and leering

among the carnival crowds.

And don’t even think

of trusting a crow,

it will feed on your pathetic verse

and hockle out the crumbs of words

into the Lange Gasse gutter.

Can you even board a plane

without thinking of the dead on battlefields?

Can you sit in an airport lounge

without seeing the severed limbs

strewn around you?

Is that a swastika logo

in McDonalds?

Helmut Herzfeld eat your heart out

for they are still

going about their duties,

breaking spirits with missiles,

hammering the humanity

from loving communities.

Let me show you

the hillside

where they displayed the broken body

for the world to scoff at.

Let me remind me you

how cruel the bastards are,

how ugly that Nazi is at the bar.

You know we are fragile,

passing butterflies

in the appalling rush hour

of the dying day.

Please please cling to me,

cling on to the immense value of your own dark dreams;

instead of a simple carnage,

think of your complicated beauty.

That way it wil be easier

to walk along Wilhelmstrasse

in the flowing rain,

to love a girl called Catherine

for her caring spirit

and a refuge seeker

for his marvellous poems.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

The breaking wheel, or Catherine Wheel, was a torture device used for capital punishment in the Middle Ages and early modern times for public execution by cudgelling to death.

It was a crude implement of torture reserved for commoners who had killed their families, committed murder during the course of theft, betrayed their lords, or otherwise outraged the community with excessive crimes. The condemned prisoner was lashed to a large stout wagon wheel and an executioner broke all of the prisoner’s limbs and joints with a cudgel or metal bar. The broken limbs were secured to (or threaded through) the spokes of the wheel and the prisoner was hoisted into the sky on top of a pole to contend with dehydration and the birds.

In a window on the north east side of the Stiftskirche in Tuebingen

(today the Protestant Collegiate Church and, before that, the Catholic Church of St. George) is the carved stone image of a man on a breaking wheel.

Legend says that two journeymen went on tour in the woods near Tuebingen, but only one came back. As he had a dagger with him that the other man had once received as a gift, he was thought to have murdered his missing companion and the Duke of Wuerttemberg had him broken on the wheel. When the other man turned up alive and healthy a week later, the Duke was directed to do penance by paying for a window to commemorate the martyrdom of St. George, which also took place on the wheel.

The window was used by the exiled German printmaker and photomontage artist John Heartfield (Helmut Herzfeld) in 1934 as a template for one of his political photo collages - "As in the Middle Ages ... so in the Third Reich" - against the Nazi regime.

Heartfield (1891-1968) is now regarded as the inventor of political photomontage.

He skillfully adapted the swastika (itself an image adopted and misused by the Nazis) to picture what was happening to the German people under the guidance’ of Adolf Hitler and his cronies. Some might say that this image of suffering is a little generous to the German people, portraying them as the victims of Nazism, but once Hitler had secured absolute power for himself and with no way of democratically – or governmentally - relieving him of his position then victims is exactly what they were.

Heartfield employed the actor Erwin Geschonneck as a model and instructed him to writhe naked in various poses around a specially made wooden cross.

On the finished glued two-part assembly, you look down on the wheel and also see a man, as in the church window, depicted as a martyr to the swastika.

Dear Keith, your poem is a very beautiful one, we thank you very much for it. And we sent it to some of our friends! Yours Heidi and Wolfgang

VEITCH

(in memory of Colin Campbell McKechnie Veitch, 1881-1938)

‘One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't.’ George Bernard Shaw 

Football brain,

you thought with your feet,

treading the boards

in a dynamic theatre

of passing action.

A winning way,

love of the glorious day 

and a sense of history

from Heaton Park

to socialism.

Your story,

from the pulsing Tyne

to the Geordie trophy room,

keeps us hoping

on Gallowgate,

alive with dignity

and strong respect

for the ideal of community

and the black and white love

of fairness.

Battling away,

in a skilled midfield 

and in the stinking trenches,

you fought

for your troubled lilting city

and all of those 

who ever kicked a ball

in its intimate soulful avenues.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

Colin Veitch made a total of 322 appearances for Newcastle United, scoring 49 goals. He  captained the United side which won League Championships in 1905, 1907 and 1909, the FA Cup in 1910 and were FA Cup finalists in 1905, 1906, 1908 and 1911, and also represented England on 6 occasions. 

Heaton History Group and Chris Goulding successfully campaigned for a commemorative plaque to be displayed on Colin Veitch’s former home in Heaton, Newcastle. The unveiling took place on 25th September 2013.

JACK COMMON NIGHT AT CHILLINGHAM ROAD SCHOOL, NEWCASTLE

Comments from Heaton History Group:

Hello Keith,
Many thanks for last night's interesting talk about the life of Jack Common. I especially enjoyed the poems.

Thanks again for a very enjoyable evening.
Ann Denton

Hello Keith

Thanks very much for your talk last week about Jack Common - it was a really good evening. 
Thanks and best wishes.

Jeanie

From Brian Hall:

JACK COMMON NIGHT - A PRIVILEGE TO BE THERE

On Wednesday night, after I had got rid of my 3 lovely daughters, so to speak, I landed at Chilingham Road School, Heaton, in Newcastle. Aye, I felt honoured. I had an opportunity to listen to Keith Armstrong talking about the life of one of the best writers, in my view, that ever was brought up in the world of this region.

Jack Common was his name. He was brought up in the streets of one small part of Tyneside, an area inhabited by poverty and passion, by the noise of railway engines helping to deliver all kinds of material South, and indeed, by normal but very tough lives of those who surrounded him as a bairn and teenager.

Ironically, Jack followed the destination route of some of those trains. To London. He had already learnt so much, about real community values, the socialism of the times in which he lived, and possessed an ability to be able to express that via his pen. At various stages of his life, Jack Common educated, advised, counselled - albeit, in a perhaps tense relationship, a bloke called Eric Blair, aka George Orwell. 

Of course, most people know about Orwell. Public school background. A man who tried to identify with the working class of his era - pottering into Spain, writing about being Down and Out in London and Paris, and not least the Road to Wigan Pier. George owed Jack a helluva lot on that last book alone, in terms of what it exactly meant to grow up in,  well.....the improverished but often determined communities of that England.

The honour of attending that event that commerrated the Life of Jack Common, who found his first educational experiences in the streets of old Heaton and at the Chllingham Road school itself, got better still.

You see, after hearing the excellent summary of Jack's life - this blog is far too limited in space to even outline - I had another honour. I met the Common family, the common folk, eh. The son, Peter, the daughter, Sally, and the grandson, Tom. 

Those 3 people, from their different angles and takes, are very proud that Jack Common is remembered by increasing numbers in, not just Heaton itself, but actually, across increasing pockets of North East England.

I will keep up those notes for another day, and simply, for now, put down how I felt about that special occasion. At the Chillingham school, Chillingham Road, Heaton, Newcastle, which took place on Wednesday night.

I write this from the heart. I did take a lot of notes in order to place a constructive, meticulous blog together. And I thought ..oh buggar that

Brian Hall

the ps.............too many to add, so I will stick with one. The words from Keith Armstrong himself in his talk. So-called ordinary people all have a story to tell, and some can write up those stories. Jack was certainly one of those people - common, aye. A brilliant writer generally unrecognised by the London intellectual art elite for sure. But believe you me, he was an equal in comparisons to the writings of George Orwell.   Check his works out.    tarah

Final word from Tom Furnival-Adams (Jack Common Facebook Page):

Great evening of Jack Common-related oratory treats from Dr Keith Armstrong last night. Thanks to Heaton History Group for organising, Chillingham Road School for hosting, Kiddar's Luck for their musical contribution, and everyone who came for attending.

'LE PETIT CÉNACLE' MEETS AGAIN IN TUEBINGEN!

(LEFT) HERMANN HESSE AND HIS 'PETIT CÉNACLE' GROUP IN TUEBINGEN

                                                                                                                         

A discussion group or literary clique—also, a small dining room where a literary or philosophic group meets and talks, such as the room in which the Last Supper was held.

‘We meet over some beer nearly every week, not noisily, as the students do, but joyfully nevertheless.’ (HESSE)

Pictured above: Tibor Schneider, Florian Nuener, Keith Armstrong and Sara Hauser - the new 'Petit Cénacle' group!

'HESSE RELOADED' EVENT IN TUEBINGEN NOVEMBER 2013

THOMAS SPENCE (1750-1814)

THE THOMAS SPENCE TRUST

93 Woodburn Square, Whitley Lodge, Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear NE26 3JD  Tel. 0191 2529531                                                                             

It’s good to welcome the establishment of The Thomas Spence Trust, founded by a group of Tyneside activists intent on celebrating and promoting the life and work of that noted pioneer of people’s rights, pamphleteer and poet Thomas Spence (1750-1814), who has born on Newcastle’s Quayside in those turbulent times. 

Spence served in his father’s netmaking trade from the age of ten but went on later to be a teacher at Haydon Bridge Free Grammar School and at St. Ann’s Church in Byker under the City Corporation. In 1775, he read his famous lecture on the right to property in land to the Newcastle Philosophical Society, who voted his expulsion at their next meeting.

He claimed to have invented the phrase ‘The Rights of Man’ and chalked it in the caves at Marsden Rocks in South Shields in honour of the working class hero ‘Blaster Jack’ Bates,  who lived there.

He even came to blows with famed Tyneside wood-engraver Thomas Bewick (to whom a memorial has been recently established on the streets of Newcastle) over a political issue, and was thrashed with cudgels for his trouble.

From 1792, having moved to London, he took part in radical agitations, particularly against the war with France. He was arrested several times for selling his own and other seditious books and was imprisoned for six months without trial in 1794, and sentenced to three years for his Restorer of Society to its Natural State in 1801.

Whilst politicians such as Edmund Burke saw the mass of people as the ‘Swinish Multitude’, Spence saw creative potential in everybody and broadcast his ideas in the periodical Pigs’ Meat.

He had a stall in London’s Chancery Lane, where he sold books and saloup, and later set up a small shop called The Hive of Liberty in Holborn.

He died in poverty ‘leaving nothing to his friends but an injunction to promote his Plan and the remembrance of his inflexible integrity’.

The Thomas Spence Trust organised a mini-festival to celebrate Spence in 2000 when it published a booklet on his life and work, together with related events, with the aid of Awards for All. 

Trust founder-member, poet Keith Armstrong has written a play for Bruvvers Theatre Company on the socialist pioneer which has been performed at St. Ann’s Church and other venues in the city.

Now the Trust has successfully campaigned for a plaque on the Quayside in Newcastle, where Spence was born. The plaque was unveiled on Monday June 21st 2010, Spence's 260th birthday, with a number of talks, displays and events coinciding with it. 

A book and launch events are planned for September 2014, the 200th anniversary of Spence's death, in Newcastle upon Tyne at the site of the commemorative plaque and in the Red House on the Quayside and in London near the site of the Hive of Liberty, Spence's bookshop in Little Turnstile, Holborn.

Further information from: Dr Keith Armstrong, The Thomas Spence Trust, 93 Woodburn Square, Whitley Lodge, Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear NE26 3JD. Tel. 0191 2529531.

SPEECH BY DR KEITH ARMSTRONG AT UNVEILING OF SPENCE PLAQUE:

On behalf of The Thomas Spence Trust and Newcastle City Council, I’m delighted to welcome you here today to unveil a plaque in honour of that great free spirit, utopian writer, land reformer and courageous pioneering campaigner for the rights of men and women, Thomas Spence. Myself and other members of our Trust, especially Peter Dixon and Tony Whittle, with the support of people like Professors Joan Beal, Alastair Bonnett and Malcolm Chase and activists like Michael Mould, Alan Myers and Councillor Nigel Todd, have campaigned for well over 10 years for some kind of memorial to Tom Spence and it is with great pride that we assemble here with you today.

We know that Spence was born on the Quayside on June 21st 1750, 260 years ago to this the longest day and Summer Solstice. We know that his father Jeremiah made fishing nets and sold hardware from a booth on Sandhill and his mother Margaret kept a stocking stall, also on Sandhill, but it has not been possible, all these years on, to pinpoint the exact location of Thomas Spence’s birthplace, which is why this plaque has been installed here at Broad Garth, the site of his school room and debating society and where he actually came to blows with Thomas Bewick because of a dispute over the contentious matter of property. Bewick gave Spence a beating with cudgels on that occasion but, surprisingly enough, they remained lifelong friends. As Bewick said of Spence: ‘He was one of the warmest Philanthropists in the world and the happiness of Mankind seemed, with him, to absorb every other consideration.’

In these days of bland career politicians, Spence stands out as an example of a free spirit, prepared to go to prison for his principles - the principles of grass roots freedom, community and democracy, for the human rights of people all over the world.

Spence mobilised politically in taverns in Newcastle and later in London. That is why this afternoon, after this short ceremony, you are all invited to join us across the road in the Red House to raise a glass for Tom and to hear informal talks, poems and songs in his honour. You can hear further talks on Spence tonight at the Lit & Phil, courtesy of the Workers’ Educational Association, and next Monday at Newcastle Library, along with a display of his works, and, if you like, you can join some of us at Marsden Grotto, South Shields, tomorrow lunchtime, where Thomas first chalked the phrase ‘The Rights of Man’ on a cave wall, to raise another glass for this man who in his own words ‘dared to be free.’

This plaque puts Thomas Spence on the map for all of those pilgrims who hold human rights and political freedoms dear. It does not trap his free spirit rather it gives his life and work fresh wings.

Thanks to you all for coming this afternoon on this proud day for The Thomas Spence Trust, Newcastle City Council and the citizens of this great city of ours.

HIER KOTZTE GOETHE (GOETHE PUKED HERE)

‘About Goethe, the legend says that he was invited to stay here in Tuebingen for a while but on the very first day that he was walking around he couldn't stand the smell of the open channels and did what he had to do.’ 

Goethe puked here

he did.

Poured out a tide of words

on the street.

Couldn’t stand the smell of war,

the decay of stinking empires,

ugly whiff of bad poetry.

He did,

he puked on Tuebingen,

on all the drivel 

coursing from the normal text books.

He had to.

To keep his guts open to the theory of beauty,

vomit out the wretched ugliness

from this town’s pouting ulcers.

Clear ‘Coin Alley’

for all the shouting children

to dance along,

for his mate Schiller to rhyme by,

for the swifts to sing

over it all,

over and over again

in this distinct order of loveliness. 

KEITH ARMSTRONG

FROM TUEBINGEN ARTIST MICHAEL PETERS!