With One Hand Waving Free

by Ben Soton

With One Hand Waving Free: a novel by Ken Fuller. Independently published, 2024. Pbk, 351pp, RRP: £12.99

This is the title of Ken Fuller’s latest book. Regular readers will remember him as the creator of the Red Button trilogy set in the heady days of the early 20th century. This work, however, is set in the 1970s. Roger Drummond is happily working in a bus garage when offered a managerial position in a medical supply firm Merrit &Thwaite which is thrust upon him through his socially ambitious wife.  Drummond, who also spends some of his spare time in left-wing bookshops, resembles a combination of Reginald Perrin and Citizen Smith. 
Drummond’s work for Merrit & Thwaite takes him to the Caribbean island of Arawak.  
The novel shines a light on British imperialism’s role in the Caribbean; it was in fact the slave trade that enabled the industrial revolution to take place.  Set in 1978, the 30th anniversary of the founding of the NHS we see the Callaghan Labour Government under left-wing pressure agree to fund a shipment of medical supplies.  I wonder if a Starmer Government would be susceptible to such pressure: don’t hold your breath.  Drummond’s reason for visiting the island is to oversee their delivery.
Arawak’s left-wing government, which has similarities with both Michael Manley’s Jamaica and Maurice Bishop’s Grenada is attempting to introduce healthcare to the island’s impoverished population.  On the island he witnesses attempts by US imperialism to destabilise the country and becomes involved in a passionate affair with the country’s health minister, Davinia Lee.  
 The dual role of religion is exposed in the story.  On one hand the Reverend Bassfield Thomas advocates a form of Liberation Theology and he refers to the imperialists as Pharaohs.  His followers come into open conflict with a group of Billy Graham style Evangelical Christians who object to the presence of Cuban doctors on the island and try to turn backward sections of the population against the government. 
The novel ends with a very interesting twist which readers of Fuller’s other works will understand.  However With One Hand Waving is an excellent read in its own right.  Not to say there is a possibility of a sequel.  It can be safely said that Fuller is a pioneer in the genre of the left-wing political thriller.  I hope his work continues.    
   

The Red Buttons

by Ben Soton

Red-Button Men: Red-Button Years: Volume 3 by Ken Fuller (2021). Independently published. Paperback:‎ 365pp; RRP: £12.99. Kindle: 484pp; £5.99.

This is the final instalment of Ken Fuller’s trilogy, now available on Amazon and Kindle.The ironically named novel sees the end of the London & Provincial Union of Licenced Transport Workers (LPU), known as the ‘Red Button Union’. In 1919 the LPU merged with the more moderate and less democratic Amalgamated Association of Tramway & Vehicle Workers, known as the Blue Button Union, to form the United Vehicle Workers (UVW).
    The novel’s title is a reference to those activists who attempted to continue the militant and democratic traditions of the Red Button Union into the new organisation.
    Once again Fuller introduces real historic figures such as Ernest Bevin, Sylvia Pankhurst and Theodore Rothstein, alongside fictional characters such as Mickey Rice.
    Rice is the ultimate personification of a principled trade union activist, devoid of any opportunism, either from the right or left. This contrasts with both Sylvia Pankhurst and Ernest Bevin.
    Pankhurst, a militant suffragette and socialist, formed her own party rivalling the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), and sided with the so-called left-communists who opposed Lenin’s New Economic Policy needed to re-build the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the Civil War. Bevin became a fervent anti-communist and the architect of the 1945 Labour government’s foreign policy based on subservience to US imperialism.
    The book covers the period from 1919–1922. It includes the formation of the CPGB although, arguably, insufficient attention is given to this historically important event whilst perhaps too much attention is given to the actions of Ms Pankhurst.
    Significant to the novel are the events of Black Friday 1921; a reference to 15th April 1921 when the infamous leader of the National Union of Railwaymen, JH Thomas, failed to come to the aid of the miners. Black Friday led to a series of setbacks with several unions, including the UVW, forced to accept wage restraint. This in turn led to demands for a breakaway union, the Trams Omnibuses & Tubes, known as the TOT union.
    The novel goes into considerable detail regarding the finer points of negotiations between the UVW and the employers. On the one hand, this shows extensive research on the part of the author. On the other hand however, at times I wondered if this was not too detailed for what is after all a novel and not a reference book.
    Unlike the earlier two novels, Love and Labour and Romance and Revolution there is less reference to the romantic adventures of the main character Mickey Rice, who is now happily married to Annette, the daughter of a leading Belgian Communist.
    Ultimately, the UVW amalgamated with several other unions in 1922 to form the Transport & General Workers Union (TWWU), which in 2007 formed the basis of the general union Unite. Red-Button Men is a fitting finale to both an informative and still readable set of novels.

The Red Button Year

by Ben Soton

Romance and Revolution: Red-Button Years, Volume 2: by Ken Fuller, 410pp, Independently published 2020 Paperback £12.99; 410pages, Kindle £5.99

The second volume of Ken Fuller’s trilogy continues the story of the London and Provincial Union of Licenced Vehicle Workers (LPU), also known as the ‘Red Button’ union. The story begins in 1917 where the effects of rationing start to take their toll, whilst growing industrial militancy and opposition to the war result in the draconian Defence of the Realm Act (DORA). Many working-class men, including transport workers, find themselves called up to fight in the imperialist war. Meanwhile, rays of hope appear across Europe with the Russian revolution which gave birth to the Soviet Union.
    Possibly the success of Fuller as an author is his ability to include just about the right amount of detail regarding the machinations of union politics; enough detail to inform but not enough to bore the reader. Meanwhile he is able to interweave key historical events into his story whilst spicing it up with romance.
    Fuller keeps the reader abreast of the historical reality by including imagined meetings between government officials while using interventions from Theodore Rothstein to outline events in Russia and Germany. Events covered in the novel include the 1918 London Women Transport Workers’ Strike, the Metropolitan Police strikes of 1918 and 1919, and the army mutinies of 1919.
    Mickey Rice, a rising star in the LPU, remains the central character. With the death of his girlfriend Dorothy Bridgeman in an air-raid at the end of the first novel, Mickey finds himself single again. He soon finds himself romantically entwined with his late girlfriend’s mother, Ines Bridgeman.
    Perhaps a touch of Mrs Robinson from The Graduate in reverse this relationship, which has little future, is an exploration of Edwardian morality. Dorothy’s parents had been in an essentially sexless marriage since the birth of their children; after her daughter’s death Ines finds sexual liberation with her dead daughter’s boyfriend.
    Meanwhile Mickey’s love life is further complicated when he becomes involved with Annette Fré, the daughter of a Belgian socialist living in exile. Surprisingly, Ms Fré is not at all happy with Mickey and Ines’ relationship. As the novel draws to a close there is talk about the establishment of the Communist Party of Great Britain; with this in mind we start to see more of a certain Harry Pollitt.
    The closing chapters of the book set the scene for the final novel in the trilogy. There is the prospect of amalgamation between the Red Button and more moderate Blue Button unions, although within two years the amalgamated unions would become part of the Transport & General Workers’ Union under the leadership of the notorious Ernest Bevin, who also appears in the novel.

           

 

A labour of love

 by Ben Soton

Love and Labour: Red-Button Years: Volume 1 by Ken Fuller. Independently published, 2020. Paperback: 580 pages; £15. ISBN-10: 1699092788, ISBN-13: 978-1699092781.Kindle: 930 pages; £5.99.

When this rather large novel (almost 600 pages in total) arrived on my doorstep I was admittedly not looking forward to reading it. As I read it, however, I was pleasantly surprised. What could be described as Ragged Trousered Philanthropists meets On the Buses, it begins in 1913 and takes us through the First World War, ending in 1917.
    Within the first few pages the author brings Late Edwardian England back to life. This was the world of Lyons’ Coffee Houses, stratified dress codes, a time when someone’s social position could be established by what they wore around their neck, and of course growing industrial militancy, which is a major feature of Love and Labour.
    The activities of the London and Provincial Union of Licensed Vehicle Workers, also known as the Red Button Union, is the central to the novel. Although considerable space is taken up by accounts of union meetings, a lot can be learnt from the novel. For instance, bus drivers and conductors were licensed by the police at the time.
    A major feature of the book is the romance between Dorothy Bridgeman, a middle-class left-wing activist, and Mickey Rice, a bus driver also involved in socialist politics and trade unionism. Several historical figures appear in the novel, such as Sylvia Pankhurst and Theodore Rothstein. Older readers may remember the late Andrew Rothstein – a prominent Marxist theoretician and Theodore’s son, who briefly appears in the novel.
    As World War I approaches, the novel covers the differences within the Labour movement over the conflict. Both Rothstein, a leading member of British Socialist Party, and Sylvia Pankhurst, a leader of the East London Federation of Suffragettes, took an anti-war position. The main characters in the novel adhere to this line. Bridgeman, a supporter of female suffrage, becomes a close collaborator of Sylvia Pankhurst, who was expelled by her mother Emeline from the more reactionary Women’s Social and Political Union for taking a socialist direction.
    The author was a London bus driver for 11 years, following which he was a full-time officer in the old TGWU transport union for a further 20 years before retiring in 2003. Although rather long, Love and Labour is an easy read and a pleasant way to learn socialist history through the medium of a novel. It is Ken Fuller’s first historical novel and I hope it is not the last. With the festive season approaching, it could be a good stocking filler.