Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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A bonfire on a Welsh hillside. The Cambrian combine strike and its aftermath
ROB TURNBULL looks at one of the most bitter and divisive strikes in British labour history that resonated far beyond the narrow confines of the Rhondda Valley
CLASS CONFLICT: Police officers blocking a street during the
Tonypandy Riots of 1910-1911
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
THE Cambrian Combine strike of 1910-11 was one of the bitterest industrial disputes ever to take place in Britain.
Initially a dispute about what were known as “abnormal places,” where the coal was difficult to extract, miners had long been paid a con, or consideration payment, to compensate.
This system was entirely at the discretion of management and was subject to widespread abuse. It was this and a new price list for cutting coal, at the Ely pit of the Naval Colliery Company in Penygraig, that sparked the dispute.
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