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The 2019 Somerset Socialist History Conference is taking place in Bridgwater on Saturday September 14th. Hosted by Bridgwater Trades Union Council, the event is seeking to attract a wide variety of local, regional and national enthusiasts who have a left-wing view of our past, present and future. Sessions will be held on Bridgwater Women shirt makers on strike in 1912; the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, an event which for many historians began the beginning of the end of the British Empire; Riot and rebellion in Somerset Guy Fawkes and Carnival celebrations; Coal mining and communism in the Rhondda Valley; “Britain’s Brown Babies”-the story of Somerset children born to fathers who were WW2 black USA soldiers; and finally a film with commentary on the Portuguese uprising of 1974-“The Carnation Revolution”-when the Portuguese people overthrew the last of their fascist dictators.
Saturday 14th September
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The Somerset Socialist History Conference will be held at the GWRSA Club, Wellington Rd, Bridgwater, TA6 5HA, from 10am to 4pm on Saturday 14th September.
Full Programme
9.30am: Registration, tea and coffee
10am: Welcome from Sister Glen Burrows, Bridgwater TUC
10.10am: Dave Chapple, Bridgwater TUC: “Slaves to the shirt:
The Bridgwater women garment workers’ strike of 1912”
10.40 am: Ivor England, NUM, Porth, Rhondda Valley:
“Memories of a Coal-miner and Communist”
11.40am: John Fletcher, Unite, Pilton: “Carnivals, Guy Fawkes Processions and popular protest in Georgian and Victorian Somerset”
12.20pm: ‘Amarjit Singh, CWU, Cardiff: “A not-so glorious Empire:
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919”
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1pm: Buffet Lunch (Free of charge)
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2pm: Professor Lucy Bland, UCU, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge:
“Britain’s ‘Brown Babies’: The Holnicote House Story”
3pm: A FILM FROM THE REVOLUTION: “Bom Povo Portugues”
Director Rui Simoes, 1981, with commentary from Carlos Guarita, Unite, Bridport, who was living in Portugal during 1974/5
4pm: Conference closes