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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Suffering for art: Legends on the breadline
Chris Searle on Jazz
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
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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
Stan Tracey Alone and Together with Mike Osborne
THE 1970s: it was a decade when, for adventurous jazz musicians, choosing jazz meant choosing poverty. Brilliant and risk-taking jazz virtuosi like Stan Tracey of South London and Mike Osborne of Hereford regularly played for virtually nothing — both their boundary-breaking music and regular gigs.
One of their regular weekly haunts was a very ordinary-looking pub called the Plough in Stockwell, south London. Avid listeners could sit down in its seedy saloon bar with half a pint of bitter and hear Britain’s most luminous jazz musicians until throwing-out time with no admission or cover charge. For them and their families it was often an intense struggle to survive without severely compromising their music.
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