On A Picnic [Darley Dale, 1899]

We had set out from Leeds on our iron steeds [bicyles], three of us, casting dull care aside, wanting to feel untrammelled, to be natural, to frolic, to think, to be serious. We did all, and well – at least we thought so. But, decide as we might to leave behind the bitterness of life, it would obtrude itself everywhere; no sooner had the lovely contour of scenery, the wood-clad uplands, the pleasant dreamy meadow land enthused us; made us glad that we were alive and were a part of this beautiful nature, than our breasts were fired with bitterness and revolt at the sight of those poor outcasts –tramps. Ah, me! to what depths of hypocrisy these poor beings are driven! Professional or not, the grades are only a question of degree, here were people – strangers in their own country, homeless, foodless. We felt guilty; we pictured the wife and bairnies of this man-obviously a worker – anxiously awaiting the news of the sought-for work, wanting at this very moment food, dragged lower and lower into the human cesspool. Alas! how helpless we were to help them! ‘God bless you,’ whined one poor old man, who should have been surrounded by his children’s children in one of those cosy cottages that we had passed by the roadside, smoothing his old grey hairs with love. ‘– God!’ and our machines sped the quicker as our hearts welled up and our muscles strained as though to tear the Moloch to pieces.

At last – Darley Dale and its Anarchist picnickers.[1] Leicester, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Leeds – eighty in all. The welcomes and inquiries and chats with all the well-loved faces that one has been associated with so long! Comradeships renewed and strengthened; how time passes, a whole day, and yet not one half of the conversations you had promised yourself have been held! Here’s Gorrie – who has not taken our photos this year – with Archie and Elsie, who, bye the bye, has developed into quite an orator (I heard her discussing non-resistance with a certain bloodthirsty Leedsite of my acquaintance), Ben and Clara Warner, Kate Barclay, all of them valiant propagandists in the days of old.[2] ‘How’s propaganda in Leicester?’ ‘Nothing doing.’ The old complaint: no speakers. Gorrie has arranged a few lectures; Kenworthy[3]has been there, the Brotherhood group hold a few discussions, some of them are Anarchist. ‘Where are all those big meetings in Russel Square, in Humberstone Gate and in the Market?’ ‘And the Group?’ ‘All sleeping.’ ‘Leicester, Leicester, wake up;’ and she has decided to wake up, and willy nilly is going to do some more propaganda. Good; for when Leicester stirs, one hears about it. 

And here’s Alf Barton,[4] who’s busy endeavoring to resuscitate the fallen glories of Sheffield. What a fine old group there was there, some fifty strong in the times when they used to publish the now almost forgotten Anarchist.[5] But, somehow or the other, propaganda has been neglected and a deal of energy wasted in futile wishes that Creaghe would come back. Alf has great hopes of the recently-formed Socialist Society, and the provisional committee, with Carpenter and Mapleton[6] on it, seems to bear out his hopes. 

Hard by are the Manchester contingent with their small army of young Anarchists; and Liverpool, those harum scarum [wild] lads and lasses. And so the time passes, flitting from one comrade to another, filling oneself with the glorious nectar of fraternity. 

Then tea, with its visions of stewed fruit and brown bread, provided by those voracious vegetarians – the Salford group. What awful appetites these gory revolutionists have! Our hunger appeased, we look expectantly to the ‘conference’; and are sorely disappointed. We have none of the discussions that have marked previous years; just a dry decision as to the place for the next picnic; a collection for the Walsall comrades,[7] and for Freedom, and hey, it is time for them to hurry to the station, where with a hoarse shriek the engines bear them back to civilisation, work and woe. Alack-a-day just one short glimpse into the future, and a year of sordidness and toil! 

Well, the picnic is over; and so; with sore hearts, we pursue our course toward the limestone highlands of the Peak. We are going to spend a few more days here – until all our ‘necessary’ [money] is gone. The hills around close in upon us, higher and higher we ascend, breathing the pure mountain air, exhilarating, free. The trees disappear; rocky ledges, heather-covered slopes appear, breaking here and there into precipitous escarpments. We fling ourselves down upon our backs determined to drink our fill. Over yon hill-top we hear the screech of an eagle calling its mate, and involuntarily we find our thoughts travelling from the poor sheep that has become its prey, to capitalism and its numberless victims. And we thought of the picnic and of the movement and of its present condition, and we wondered. It is of little use hiding it, the movement has shared in the general apathy. At our picnics we no longer talk about the interchanging of speakers, or about what we are going to do; no, we have eaten, have made merry, but the hideous vampire of commercialism has stalked around us and we have not heeded it. We must wake up and the groups must bestir themselves; while it is true that they can do little outside work owing to a the small number of speakers, there are means of developing speakers, or if not there are other means of propaganding. But move we must or, perforce, we’ll rust. Why can’t the comrades meet regularly and, if they cannot arrange outside meetings, discuss among themselves, educate themselves; prepare the ammunition that will be needed when the awakening comes again? We have a place apart from ordinary work; we should be the intellectual advance guard of the Revolution! Those words of Morris keep ringing in my ears: 

Hear a word, a word in season; for the day is drawing nigh, 
When the Cause shall call upon us, some to live and some to die! [8]

We meant that in the days when the welkin [heavens] used to ring with it; and let us mean it now; for the Cause is calling upon us now and very earnestly, too. H. M. Kelly was right[9] when, in the last Freedom, he appealed for more solidarity. We want it that we may be brought closer and closer that we may fight the better. 

But I’m croaking, like yon black-coated crow. Let’s away to some old-world hostelry and bathe our heads in a pint of home brewed. 

I can not tell you of all our adventures, it would take too long; of how we discussed Anarchy with the astonished natives of that mountain village, or of our talk with the village policeman, of his amazement on hearing that the Duke of Devonshire was a thief, of how he offered to take us on a poaching expedition; no, we must reserve all these little yarns until we can see you, and can get you to laugh and to feel enthused as we did. 

It’s all over, we are back to work now; but I wish that you had been there and could feel as we do; for our frames are bursting to work all the harder for Anarchy because of the comrades we have met, because of the hills and the dales we have been among, because of the bitterness of our return to the beastly routine of commercial life.

W. M. 

Freedom: a Journal of Anarchist Communism August-September, 1899.

Notes

1, ‘THE MIDLAND COUNTIES ANARCHISTS will hold their Annual PICNIC at DARLEY DALE, in Derbyshire, on MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 1899. All are welcome.’ - Freedom July 1899

2, Leicester anarchists: Archibald Gorrie [Leicester . See the Gorrie Collection at Leicester University library https://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p16445coll1 and https://www.nednewitt.com/whoswho/G.html#Archibald%20Gorrie Archibald James Gorrie and Annie Elsie Gorrie were his children. Archie was killed in the First World War.
Ben Warner See https://www.nednewitt.com/whoswho/W-X-Y-Z.html#Benjamin%20Warner  and which tells us that Clara was his daughter and spoke at anarchist meetings.
Kate Barclay is mention in a biography of her brother Tom: https://libcom.org/article/barclay-tom-1852-1933

3, John C. Kenworthy, Tolstoyan Christian anarchist 

4, Alf Barton see https://radicalmanchester.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/alfred-barton-19th-century-anarchism-and-the-early-20th-century-labour-party/

5, The Sheffield Anarchist was published by Dr John Creaghe (who left Sheffield in 1892). See https://libcom.org/article/creaghe-dr-john-odwyer-1841-1920 and With The Poor People Of The Earth : A Biography Of Doctor John Creaghe of Sheffield & Buenos Aires by Alan O’Toole.

6 Edward Carpenter, Sheffield anarchist and gay activist, his papers are in Sheffield city library. Hugh Mapelton was secretary of the Sheffield Free Communist Group based at the Communist Colony at Norton (see Free Commune No.2 https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/qftwdr )

7, the Walsall comrades: This issue of Freedom contained an article ‘The victims of the Walsall Plot. Release of [Fred] Charles, [Victor] Cailes and [Jean] Battola. See also https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/msbd27

8, ‘All for the cause’ by William Morris from Chants for Socialists

9, Harry Kelly’s article ‘Solidarity’ appeared in Freedom July 1899. Early issues of Freedom have been scanned by the Archives Autonomies comrades https://archivesautonomies.org/spip.php?article5656