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Tag: David Frenkel
Would That the Tanks Were Pink and Fired Daisies
Varya Mikhailova
I am quite troubled by statements on this topic, because it seems really pathetic to write from Russia that you are against war if you don't do anything about it (and can't even imagine what you can do), but it's horrible to watch the video footage of tanks and realize that your country is doing this.
No matter what wing of the opposition we belong to, we are all responsible for this, and even if there is no more saber-rattling, we are all responsible for the fear that Russia sows in its midst so that none of the former Soviet countries can even think of relaxing and calmly building their own futures.
As a country, Russia is a straight-up abuser who cannot imagine that someone could live peacefully and happily without it, doing everything to prevent this. In this context, [Putin's] remark about "Like it or don't like it, [it's your duty, my beauty]" is absolutely no accident.
The photo, by David Frenkel, shows a pink tank, a symbol of pacifism, which was not allowed to take part in the 2015 May Day demo [in Petersburg].
hecksinductionhour international, putinism, war and peace, zeitgeist Leave a comment February 13, 2022 February 13, 2022 1 Minute
In his profile of badass Petersburg photojournalist David Frenkel, published today in the Globe and Mail, Anthony Feinstein focuses on Frenkel's father (Alik, unnamed here) as the source of his moral courage and love of photography, not deigning to mention his equally badass mom (Lika) and badass wife (Varya). Or, for that matter, the "family business": the St. Petersburg Jewish Community Center, one of the most incredible and welcoming places in the city, which Alika and Lika have run for many, many years. I miss all of them and the Center more than I can say.
Below the quotation from Feinstein's article I've posted links to David's, Lika's and Varya's numerous appearances over the years on this website. Thanks to Lika (Leokadia) Frenkel for the heads-up. ||| TRR
David Frenkel and Varya Mikhailova at their wedding on 23 October 2020. Lika and Alik Frenkel look on proudly in the background. Photo courtesy of Varya Mikhailova's Facebook page
That Mr. Frenkel came to find himself with a camera recording voting irregularities may be traced in large measure to his outrage at Mr. Putin's increasingly dictatorial rule and the unravelling of the rule of law in Russia today. "For some people in Russia, it has become uncomfortable just to do your job," he said. "Being a scientist, it's not enough. You do your job, you do it well, but it's not enough to be a good person any more."
In trying to understand Mr. Frenkel's evolution from physicist to photographer, it is helpful to look at his early, formative influences. His family is Jewish, and his father is a Yiddish scholar and translator who photographed his suppressed religion and culture during the Communist era. Jewish religious holidays were forbidden, and therefore celebrated secretly. Mr. Frenkel's father documented this underground resistance to Soviet orthodoxy – activities that came with their own risks. For example, his work provides a pictorial record of the life of refuseniks, Jews who were persecuted by the state for wanting to emigrate to Israel.
David Frenkel on the Russian Reader
Varya Mikhailova on the Russian Reader
Lika Frenkel on the Russian Reader
hecksinductionhour journalism, petrograd, photographs Leave a comment November 1, 2021 November 1, 2021 1 Minute
David Frenkel: The Year 2020 in Pictures
David Frenkel
I had a poor year shooting photographs: there were few events in [Petersburg], and I missed some important stories due to my arm being broken. But in the end, it seems that the photos still piled up.
January 19, 2020. Activists of the Vesna Movement say goodbye to the Russia Constitution near the Constitutional Court in Petersburg.
January 31, 2020. Authorities analyze the debris after the Sport and Concert Complex (SKK) in Petersburg collapses.
February 1, 2020. Police detain a man for a picketing against proposed amendments to the Russian Constitution on Senate Square in Petersburg.
February 9, 2020. A solo picket in Penza before the verdict in the Network Case was announced.
February 10, 2020. Defendants in the Network Case after the verdict was announced in the Penza Regional Court.
Continue reading "David Frenkel: The Year 2020 in Pictures" →
hecksinductionhour journalism, petrograd, photographs, politics, protest, solidarity, zeitgeist Leave a comment January 1, 2021 January 1, 2021 4 Minutes
Reverse Charges
Instead of filing charges against the police officer who broke Mediazona journalist David Frenkel's arm at Polling Station No. 318 in Petersburg during the recent sham "referendum," the police have decided to charge David Frenkel with "disobeying a police officer" (Article 19.3 of the administrative offenses code), "interfering with an election commission's work" (Article 5.69), and "violating the self-isolation regime [coronavirus shelter-in-place rules]" (Article 20.6.1). || TRR
Speaking of how we are doing and what has been happening with us. When I found out that David's arm had been broken, the first thing I was worried about was not his arm or his health, but the possibility of criminal proceedings against him. Not because he did anything wrong or broke the law, but because if you encounter violence from the police, expect to be charged under Article 318 of the criminal code.* And while everyone was calling me and asking about his health, I was thinking only one thing: maybe this is not the worst yet. And today, instead of apologies and criminal proceedings against the officer [who broke Frenkel's arm], we received this letter of happiness. Well heck, thanks for not charging him with a criminal offense!
* "Life- or health-threatening violence against a government official or their relatives in connection with the performance of their official duties is punishable by imprisonment for a term of up to ten years."
hecksinductionhour journalism, petrograd, regime, zeitgeist Leave a comment July 17, 2020 July 17, 2020 1 Minute
Chronicle of Current Vote Rigging
A Chronicle of Current Vote Rigging: The Russian National Referendum Through the Eyes of Observers of Petersburg
This film by Observers of Petersburg shows how such how a high turnout (74.7%) and outcome (77.7% "yes" votes) were attained in Petersburg during the 2020 Russian national referendum.
Spoiler alert! All this was made possible by six days of early voting, which were impossible to monitor.
Time codes:
00:00 Opening
00:59 How will the 2020 vote be remembered?
02:44 Coronavirus: voting in a pandemic
06:12 Early voting
09:28 Voting at workplaces
13:20 Voting rolls
17:49 David Frenkel's story: how a journalist's arm was broken at a polling station
21:35 Observers from the Public Chamber
26:09 Vote counting
31:42 Honest polling station commissions
35:24 What will happen next? The Russian national referendum's impact on future elections
Anastasia Romanova
Maria Moldavskaya
Dmitry Neuymin
Konstantin Korolyov
Olga Dmitrieva
Galina Kultiasova
Mikhail Molochnikov
Polina Kostyleva
Olga Khmelevskaya
Maria Chebykina
Natalia Yegorushkina
Ivan Kvasov
The film was produced by Yulia and Yevgeny Selikhov.
Thanks to iz0 for doing the animation.
Sign a petition against multi-day voting.
Sign up to be a polling station commission member in Petersburg: https://airtable.com/shrHdcpxEuKq9f9o2
Thanks to Leokadia Frenkel for the link. The video's title is an allusion to the Soviet-era samizdat periodical Chronicle of Current Events. Annotation translated by the Russian Reader
Counting the votes at Polling Station No. 40 in Petersburg. Photo courtesy of Deutsche Welle
hecksinductionhour film, petrograd, politics, putinism, rights, society, zeitgeist Leave a comment July 17, 2020 July 17, 2020 1 Minute
Beat the Press
While looking for an original Telegram post (cited and translated, below) by Pavel Chikov, head of the Agora group of human rights lawyers, I found these more recent entries. The latest (at the bottom of the screenshot, above) informed Chikov's readers that Agora attorney Leonid Solovyov was on his way to the apartment of activist, artist and Mediazona publisher Pyotr Verzilov, which was being searched by police and security forces for the sixth (!) time in recent weeks. Meanwhile, according to the entry above it, Agora lawyers would be representing three people at three different court hearings today: reporter Mikhail Benyash, convicted and fined for, allegedly, "assaulting a police officer" (Benyash is appealing his conviction); Lyubov Kudryashova, a 55-year-old environmentalist indicted on charges of "inciting terrorism"; and Azat Miftakhov, a young mathematician charged with breaking the window at a United Russia party office in Moscow. It's all in a day's work.
Andrey Loshak
Firs they grabbed the activists, now they're jailing the journalists. When they come for you, there won't be anyone to defend you.
Pavel Chikov wrote this on Telegram:
Attacks on the media in the summer of 2020 (disturbing)
1. Pyotr Verzilov, publisher of Mediazona, has home raided by police, is jailed for an administrative offense, and charged with a crime.
2. Svetlahna Prokopyeva, a journalist with Echo of Moscow in Pskov, is convicted of "condoning terrorism."
3. Ivan Safronov, a former reporter for Kommersant and Vedomosti, is detained on charges of "treason."
4. Police search the home of Taisiya Bekbulatova, editor-in-chief of Kholod Media.
5. Ilya Azar, a journalist for Novaya Gazeta, is jailed for an administrative offense.
6. Journalists (including Tatyana Felgengauer, Alexander Plyushchev, Sergei Smirnov, Anna Zibrova, Alexander Chernykh, Olga Churakova, Elena Chernenko, Kira Dyuryagina, and Nikita Gorin) detained for holding solo pickets in solidarity with Azar.
7. Management at the [liberal business] newspaper Vedomosti is reshuffled.
8. Policemen assault David Frenkel, a correspondent for Mediazona.
Thanks to Anna Tereshkina for the link. Translated by the Russian Reader
hecksinductionhour journalism, putinism, rights, social media, solidarity, zeitgeist Leave a comment July 8, 2020 July 8, 2020 1 Minute
Leokadia Frenkel: How to Defeat Russia's Ruling Party in Your Own Neighborhood
Leokadia Frenkel talks to local residents protesting vote rigging. Photo by David Frenkel
"I Realized They Were Getting Ready to Throw the Election": A Petersburg Woman Talks About How She Fought Three Days to Have the Real Vote Tally Confirmed
Leokadia Frenkel is a member of the election commission in Petersburg's Vladimirsky Municipal District, where not a single United Russia candidate was elected
Sofia Volyanova
TJournal
Three days after Russia's nationwide election day on September 8, the results of the municipal district council races in Petersburg had not been officially announced. In four districts where ruling United Russia party candidates did not win a majority of seats on the councils, the election commissions postponed their final meetings. In the Vladimirsky Municipal District, all the ruling party's candidates had lost, according to preliminary vote tallies. The Yabloko Party had won twelve seats, while five seats had gone to independent candidates, and three seats to A Just Russia.
At some of the polling stations where opposition candidates were leading, election officials decided to recount the votes. As a consequence, United Russia candidates suddenly took the lead, while independent candidates were robbed of critical votes.
Leokadia Frenkel, a voting member of the Vladimirsky Municipal District Election Commission, told TJournal how she and the winning candidates prevented such vote rigging in her own district. She was forced to sleep in the district council building and was assaulted by the election commission's deputy chairwoman, who attempted to lock Frenkel in an office.
On election day, I arrived at the Central District administration building, where our municipal district election commission is located, at seven in the morning. We invalidated ballots, then I got the papers I had to take to the different polling stations and I delivered them. I communicated with the polling station election commissions and monitored what was happening. At eight in the evening, I returned to the Central District building, where we invalidated the rest of the ballots that needed invalidating.
We did not receive a single complaint during the voting and the vote counts. Everything was completely fair and square. I had no complaints with the commission chair.
"The polling station election commission chairs will go with me, and we will enter the results into GAS [automated state elections system]," she said.
But then, during the night, someone told us all the election commission chairs had been sent home and no one had entered their vote tallies into GAS because it was down. We learned this completely by accident. I asked the secretary of the municipal district election commission what had happened, why the vote tallies had not been entered into GAS, and why the commission chairs had been sent home. She said something was broken, but we checked and nothing was broken. They were playing for time: they needed an excuse to do a recount. That was when we realized the fix was in and we spent the night in the administration building.
Why did I stay there? I was afraid they would convene the municipal district election commission without me. I wanted to be there and register my dissenting opinion if there was a recount.
The winning candidates slept there, too, because the ballots had been packed up and stored in the basement. They were making sure the ballots were not stolen. There were advisory and voting members of the polling station commissions who had done their jobs honestly and wanted to prevent electoral fraud.
The commission had left in the wee hours of September 9, saying it would reconvene at four in the afternoon. But it did not show up at four in the afternoon. We kept waiting, finally filing complaints with the Territorial Election Commission and the Central Election Commission.
We spent the whole day in the building. The very nice, hospital head of the Central District talked to us and gave us chairs so we would not have to lie on the floor. Our friends supplied us with food and water.
We spent over twenty fours in that building.
The head of the district communicated the City Election Commission's decision to us and said all the chairs of the polling station election commissions would be gathering and all the final vote tallies would be entered into GAS.
When the chair of the commission showed up, she summoned all the polling station chairs. At nine in the evening, they started entering the vote tallies into GAS. The results were entered correctly: there was no vote rigging.
But the fact is that the chair of our municipal district election commission did not come and pick up the results. First, she said they were not ready, although they were ready. She was supposed to collect them and hold a final meeting of the commission to confirm the vote tally and the list of winning candidates. Many independent candidates and new people won seats on the Vladimirsky Municipal District Council. No one from United Russia was among the victors, so maybe they were angry or somehow affiliated with the municipal district council.
Leokadia Frenkel sleeping outside the office of the deputy head of the Central District
After the vote tallies were entered into the GAS, I went home and the next day I was busy with my own affairs. But the final sitting of the commission had not been held nor had the documents been collected. I telephoned the chair and asked what the matter was. So I would not worry, she said the meeting would be held and everything would be fair and square.
At nine in the morning on September 11, the candidates telephoned me and said that certain polling station commission chairs had shown up at the municipal council for some unknown purpose. So I also went to the municipal district election commission, once again asking when our final session would be held and why the paperwork, which had long been ready, had not been picked up.
The deputy chair was the only one in the office, so I asked her. I saw a paper on her desk with no date or registry number. It was a complaint, filed by United Russia candidate Igor Kartsev, who requested a recount. I realized they were getting ready to throw the election. Instead of getting ready for the final meeting, they were grooming people affiliated with them to file complaints requesting a recount, as was happening in other municipal districts, in order to steal the victory from the independent candidates.
I took the complaint in order to photograph it when the deputy chair attacked me from behind. She tried to snatch the letter from me and destroy it. There were many people present, including the candidates and voting members of our commission. One of them grabbed the complaint, which the deputy chair tried to snatch from me, in order to save it from destruction. He photographed it and posted it on social media.
Зампред икмо Владимирский напала на чпрг от яблока @likafrenk, чтобы та не смогла увидеть документы и жалобы с целью пересчёта. Чпрг удалось все же сбежать, хотя ее не выпускали, но зампред теперь утверждает, что это напали на нее, уехала на скорой. pic.twitter.com/GJr3Lv8xC0
— Dave Frenkel (@merr1k) September 11, 2019
Vladimirsky Municipal District Election Commission deputy chair attacked @likafrenk, a voting member of the commission from Yabloko, to stop her from seeing documents and complaints that would trigger a recount. The voting member managed to escape despite the fact that the deputy chair tried not to let her out, but now the deputy chair claims it was she who was attacked. She was taken away in an ambulance.
The deputy chair tried to lock me in the office and prevent from getting out by holding the door shut. There was a slight tussle: I wedged my foot in the doorway, but she tried to hit me with the door so I could not get out. When she let go of the door, I escaped. I filed a complaint with the City Election Commission, explaining that I had found a strange document. I also wrote that I was afraid, since the final commission meeting had not been held, that they were planning to throw the election.
I filed a complaint with the police about the attack and the fact that the municipal district election commission had tried to destroy the documents I had turned up. And I went to the emergency room and had the doctors there document the injury I suffered when the deputy chair hit me with the door to keep me looked in her office. I ended up with a bruise on my leg, of course.
The commission is located in the building where the municipal council has its offices. The police and an ambulance were summoned. Allegedly, either someone hit someone else or I hit someone. But I could not have hit anyone because I was on the other side of the door, in an office where there was nowhere else. Complaints were filed to the effect that I had, allegedly, absconded with certain documents, but I had not stolen them. I was in the commission office and the deputy chair would not let me out. I could not have stolen the documents.
Also, the deputy chairwoman filed a complaint that someone had hit her in the hallway or something to that effect. She also had her alleged injuries documented at the emergency room, and she was taken to hospital.
I don't know what is going on here, but it all began when the incumbent council members got a look at the vote tallies. When they realized they had lost in all the districts, they postponed the final commission meetings and the announcements of the results. First, they put off entering the results into GAS, but when the actual, correct results were entered into the system, they tried to put off holding the final commission meetings.
Holding a recount is one way of switching out ballots and substituting them with fake ballots. But they still have to be signed by two commission members, at least. They want to switch the ballots and recount the votes. What are they fighting for? They want a majority on the council. They want to prevent the independent candidates for gaining a majority on the council and then electing their own chair.
Tomorrow is the last day when they can hold the final, wrap-up session, and now social media are reporting that, allegedly, the municipal district election commissions are going to be meeting at the Central District administration building and, allegedly, the election results will be confirmed in keeping with the vote tallies that the polling station election commissions arrived at fair and square.
Leokadia Frenkel. Photo by David Frenkel
It is now the evening of September 11, and a rather large number of people have gathered outside the offices of the Vladimirsky Municipal District Council, including the winning independent candidates, commission members outraged by the fact that the authorities have been trying to throw the election. These people have said they will not go home because the authorities are trying to throw the election.
The winning candidates spent the whole day picketing the municipal district election commission and demanding the immediate confirmation of the results. But just now the police detained someone here. [It later transpired that a young woman conducting a solo picket protesting vote rigging had been detained. She did not have a local residence permit, so she was put into a police car, but she was released after the police checked her return tickets — TJournal.]
I came here to see what was going on. Everything is closed, but people have gathered here all the same. The candidates called local residents who signed petitions to get them on the ballot and told them the authorities were trying to steal their votes, and so these residents have also come.
The candidates are going to stand guard at the Central District administration building. As soon as they see that the chair has shown up, I will also run over there. If a recount is demanded, a report will be issued. I will send a dissenting opinion to the City Election Commission and the Central Election Commission and tell them there was vote rigging and a recount.
All the rough stuff lies ahead of us. Now, however, I don't see anything rough happening. I see lots of young people who are determined to fight. They are proactive and positive. Of course, it would be a blow to me if everything into which we have put so much effort is declared null and void, if there is a recount and they steal the victory. But we plan to fight.
I have only positive thoughts. I did not expect the opposition to win, but win they did in all the districts. This is the first time when people who deserve to win have won. In this sense, it was fair and square. There was nothing like this in past elections. Nobody wanted to vote. Suddenly young people— the candidates, their friends and their aides—appeared on the scene, and it's great. I have seen another world, a world of young people.
hecksinductionhour feminism, petrograd, politics, society, solidarity, zeitgeist Leave a comment September 22, 2019 September 25, 2019 9 Minutes
Crossing Jordan: Day Three of the Network Trial
Jordan and Maidan: The Network Trial, Day Three
Sergei Kagermazov
Yuli Boyarshinov in court. Photo by David Frenkel. Courtesy of OVD Info
The left-wing radical community Network existed, but its young anarchists were training to fend off attacks by ultra-rightists when and if a coup like the one that took place in Ukraine kicked off in Russia. In any case, this was the takeaway message of the testimony given by defendant Yuli Boyarshinov. Echo of Moscow in Petersburg correspondent Sergei Kagermazov describes day three of the Network trial for OVD Info.
The Guerrilla School
The courtroom at the 224th Garrison Military Court in Petersburg is unable to accommodate everyone. Some members of the public are left standing on the far side of the metal detector. The bailiffs claim there is no room and do not let people into the hallway even.
Later, it transpires that several university students who had not heard of the case wormed their way into the courtroom. Someone asked them to attend the hearing, and so reporters from Novaya Gazeta, TASS, and Rosbalt are unable to get into the courtroom. Subsequently, one of the students was identified as a member of the local branch of United Russia's Young Guard (Molodaya gvardiya). Fontanka.ru would write that the FSB were behind the restricted access to the courtroom.
The highlight of day three of the trial is defendant Yuli Boyarshinov's testimony. He pleaded guilty and moved to have his case tried separately under a special procedure involving elimination of the evidence phase, but the court denied his motion.
According to Boyarshinov, he knew he was an antifascist approximately since 2009. Six years later, he met another person accused [and convicted] in the case, Igor Shishkin. Shiskin also pleaded guilty, made a deal with case investigators, and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.
"Around 2015 or 2016, I came to think a violent coup was possible in Russia. On the internet, I learned about radical right-wing groups planing something like what happened in Ukraine in 2014," says Boyarshinov, who speaks as if he were reading the case file aloud.
People ordinarily do no talk like this.
Boyarshinov insists he was interested only in self-defense in the event radical nationalists emerged in Russia. He learned to handle weapons at the Guerrilla Club, a place in Petersburg affiliated with the DOSAAF [Voluntary Society for Assisting the Army, Air Force and Navy]. Other suspects in the Network case, whom Boyarshinov identified as Yegor and Polina, also took instruction there. Boyarshinov cannot recall their surnames. The young people purchased mock-ups of Kalashnikov rifles and practiced with them. However, their only goal was self-defense. Boyarshinov emphasizes the young people were not planning any attacks.
It was also then the suspect [sic] met Alexandra Aksyonova, who introduced herself as Olya. Aksyonova is the wife of another defendant in the case, Viktor Filinkov, who is being tried together with Boyarshinov. The young woman is currently in Finland, where her application for political asylum is under review. NTV has reported Aksyonova was one of the leaders of the Network and alleged she had ties with Ukrainian nationalists.
As for the Guerrilla Club, it was also a place where future Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic volunteer fighters trained, as well as the Swedes responsible for the bomb attacks in Gothenburg in 2016 and 2017. But none of these people had yet piqued the FSB's curiosity. When Filinkov asks whether Boyarshinov knew numerous nationalists trained at the Guerrilla Club, Judge Roman Muranov disallows the question as having no bearing on the case.
Boyarshinov also testifies that, in the early summer of 2016, he was invited to a meeting in the Priozersk District of Leningrad Region. The meeting was attended by Yegor, Polina, and Shishkin, as well as Anton and Pasha, Network members from Penza (the men's real names were Maxim Ivankin and Dmitry Pchelintsev, who are two more defendants in the case), and two other people. Since the Petersburgers did not know the people from Penza, they also used pseudonyms. Boyarshinov introduced himself as Yura, Yegor as Matvei, and Shishkin as Maxim.
At the meeting, the young men from Penza showed the others a document they called "The Code." It was a draft project for a community called the Network. Boyarshinov says "The Code"{ ran to around fifteen pages, but only a couple of pages were read aloud to him. The case file contains a document resembling "The Code," but that is the problem: it only resembles it. Boyarshinov was able to read the entire text of "The Code" only during the pretrial investigation. The young men from Penza said [at the meeting in the Priozersk District] they wanted to encourage the cooperation of different groups involved in self-defense.
"So, formally, I joined the Network community," Boyarshinov admits.
Due to security considerations, it was decided to identify the Petersburg group as "Jordan 1."
Subsequently, members of the Network would choose different specialties for themselves. Since he had studied demolition and explosives at the Guerrilla Club, Boyarshinov became the group's sapper.
Another meeting was held in western or northwestern Moscow Region in the woods. Six people attended, including members from Moscow. A third meeting took place in the winter of 2016 at Shishkin's mother's dacha. There were also several meetings in the autumn of 2016.
It was at one of these meetings that Boyarshinov met Filinkov. After Boyarshinov has testified, the people in the courtroom learn that, according to the case file, the FSB was already staking out both defendants at the time.
In February 2017, another meeting was held in a rented flat in Petersburg. Shishkin did not come to the meeting, but Filinkov, the Muscovites, and Pchelintsev and Ivankin were present. It was at this meeting that what the FSB identifies as "the minutes" was left behind, finding its way into the case file.
"I cannot corroborate what is described in the minutes of the meeting: I did not take notes. But the description seems more or less accurate," says Boyarshinov.
When he read the minutes of the meeting, he realized the Network had decided not just to learn self-defense, but to try and destroy the regime.
"I don't believe in violence, in violence against state authorities. I am sorry I was in such a community," Boyarshinov repents.
Boyarshinov was detained by police. He claims to have found the smoke powder [with which police apprehended him] on the the roof of a building, since he worked as an industrial climber. He found the powder interesting, since he was studying demolition and explosives. When it was reported Pchelintsev had been detained, Boyarshinov decided to throw the powder away. He left his house and was caught by police.
"Russia's Falling Apart, We Have to Leave"
The next to testify is Stepan Prokofiev, in whose flat Filinkov lived while he was looking for a place to rent. Prokofiev's flat was searched by the FSB after they detained Filinkov.
The defendant [Filinkov] immediately points out Prokofiev might commit perjury and slander him.
"The FSB coerced the witness," argues Filinkov.
[On the day of the search at his flat], Prokofiev was awoken, forced to lie face down on the floor, and handcuffed. He would spend the night at a police station. When Filinkov's defense attorney, Vitaly Cherkasov, asks whether police explained to him why spent the night at a police station, Judge Muranov disallows the question as having no bearing on the case.
At the courthouse: members of the public holding pieces of paper inscribed with the message "NTV lies." Photo by David Frenkel. Courtesy of OVD Info
"Filinkov went to Ukraine to see his wife. When he got back, he told me he had met someone who had fought in Donbas while he was in Kyiv. Filinkov told me a couple of times that Russia was falling apart and we had to leave. He said it would happen after the [March 2018 Russian] presidential election. He would talk about leaving for Georgia or Ukraine after this happened, because it was cheaper to live there," Prokofiev recounts.
Filinkov counters that he never mentioned talking with anyone who fought in Donbas.
Prosecutor Yekaterina Kachurina is more interested in two guns that were legally registered in Filinkov's wife's name. However, it follows from the testimonies of Filinkov and the witness that, for the time being, there is nothing for the prosecution to get its hooks into. The papers for the guns were in order, and the guns were kept in a safe.
The day ends with an attack by an NTV crew on the attorneys and parents of the defendants. However, members of the pubic cover the lens of NTV's camera with pieces of paer inscribed with the message "NTV lies" and rattle the young woman holding the microphone by peppering her with absurd questions. Meanwhile, the defense attorneys are able to escape, while the parents get into taxis and quickly quite the scene.
Vitaly Cherkasov
Today, defendant Yuli Boyarshinov, while generally admitting his guilt, did not corroborate the prosecution's position.
The prosecution has insisted that the members of the Network terrorist community, via "direct involvement in training sessions" that took place in St. Petersburg, Leningrad Region, and Penza Region, mastered "tactical methods of seizing buildings, facilities, and individuals" in order to "forcibly capture and eliminate" state authorities and "change the constitutional order."
When examined in court, Boyarshinov corroborated the testimony he had given during the pretrial investigation: the goal of the training sessions was to master the skills of self-defense against ultra-nationalists. Defense, not offense!
He Admitted His Guilt But Did Nothing Wrong: Yuli Boyarshinov's Testimony at Network Trial Gives Prosecution's Case No Trump Cards
Тatyana Likhanova
Novaya Gazeta in Petersburg
The authorities decided to restrict access to the trial of the so-called terrorist community Network, which is an organization now officially banned in Russia.
The high-profile case is being heard by a circuit panel of judges from the Moscow District Military Court at the Garrison Military Court in Petersburg. The hearings have been held in a cramped courtroom with two rows of benches accommodating ten people each. It is thus out of wildly out proportion with the heightened attention paid to the case by the public and the media.
On Tuesday, journalists from several periodicals appealed to the Moscow District Military Court to provide them with normal working conditions. On Wednesday morning, the approaches to the courtroom were occupied by groups of students from the Chemical and Pharmaceutical University and Herzen University's law school.
The former said they had been sent there by a university official responsible for military training and patriotic education, while the latter claimed they had come to witness a high-profile case they had long been following, although they could not answer a single question about what was at stake in the case.
Among those crowded around the door to the courtroom was a young man bearing a resemblance to Vlad Girmanov, secretary of the military and patriotic club at the Pharmaceutical University, as well as people who had picketed the Petersburg office of [Russian opposition politician and anti-corruption crusader] Alexei Navalny.
Yuli Boyarshinov arriving at the courthouse. Photo by Elena Lukyanova. Courtesy of Novaya in Petersburg
The influx of "extras" was an excuse to limit the access of the press and the public to the trial. The bailiffs refused to let correspondents from Deutsche Welle, TASS, Fontanka.ru. Bumaga, Rosbalt, and other media outlets into the courthouse to cover the trial, as well as Petersburg Public Monitoring Commission member Yekaterina Kosarevskaya. Complaints were filed with the head of the St. Petersburg bailiff service and the chairs of the Petersburg Garrison Military Court and the Moscow District Military Court. They were asked to verify the legality of the actions taken by the bailiffs and secure a courtroom large enough to accommodate everyone interested in witnessing this high-profile case. According to Fontanka.ru, the order to restrict access to the courtroom was made by FSB officers, who thus bypassed the top officials in the Petersburg judicial system.
The hearing opened with testimony by Yuli Boyarshinov, who has pleaded guilty. He said he had been an antifascist since 2009. In the winter of 2015–2016, he concluded that riots involving violence by nationalist groups ("along the lines of the events in Ukraine in 2014") were possible in Russia. In order to acquire self-defense skills, Boyarshinov attended a month-long course at the Guerrilla Tactical and Firearms Training Center. (Its website says it is affiliated with the DOSAAF [Voluntary Society for Assisting the Army, Air Force and Navy] and "teaches civilians survival skills in local armed conflicts, social unrest, and martial law.") The course included instruction in handling firearms, surviving in the woods, first aid, radio communication, and mines and explosives.
Boyarshinov attended the classes with his friend Yegor and a young woman identified as Polina. In addition to lectures, training sessions were held at a shooting range near the village of Olgino, during which Boyarshinov used a mock-up of a Kalashnikov assault rifle he acquired. Alexandra Askyonova, co-defendant Viktor Filinkov's future wife, also went to the shooting range.
In the summer of 2016, Boyarshinov was invited to a meeting with "guys from Penza who were also interested in self-defense." The meeting took place in the woods of Leningrad Region.
"We made bonfires, discussed different social problems and issues of self-defense, and trained with dummy weapons," he said.
The attendees used fictitious names because they did not yet trust each other. One of the four attendees would later be identified as Dmitry Pchelintsev, another as Maxim Ivankin.
According to Boyarshinov, the Penza attendees talked about a project provisionally entitled the Network, designed to unite different groups for self-defense classes.
They presented their vision of the organization in a manifest of sorts, entitled "The Network Code," one or two pages of which were read aloud.
Boyarshinov claimed he did not take what he heard seriously, and when someone later sent him the entire text of "The Code," he did not bother to read it from cover to cover. He read the full text, nearly twenty pages, only when he was recently reviewing the criminal investigation case file. He was unable to corroborate whether what he read was identical to what had been sent to him earlier, but he said it seemed similar.
The document also outlines possible areas for studying self-defense skills: tactician, medic, signalman, and other roles, with no reference to specific people.
"These areas correspond to the disciplines I studied during the course at the Guerrilla Center," Boyarshinov noted.
Yuli Boyarshinov's father Nikolai in the courtroom. Photo by Elena Lukyanova. Courtesy of Novaya Gazeta in Petersburg
The second meeting that summer took place in the Moscow Region. Several young people from the capital joined the attendees of the first meeting. Boyarshinov remembered only that one of them was named Lev. There were more conversations around campfires and training sessions with dummy weapons.
In the winter of 2016–2017, the group traveled to Igor Shishkin's mother's dacha, spending their time in much the same way.
Boyarshinov stressed they worked only on fending off attacks during all the meetings and training sessions: they never practiced raids and assaults. Political issues were not discussed, and there was no talk of drilling for terrorist-like crimes.
Shishkin, who made a deal with case investigators, also noted the absence of violent actions during the training when he described the trip to his mother's dacha in his testimony.
Boyarshinov corroborated that Filinkov did not attend the first two meetings. Aksyonova introduced Boyarshinov to Filinkov in the autumn of 2016. Filinkov took part in a couple of training sessions at the firing range near Olgino. One dealt with first aid and evacuating the wounded, while the second focused on fending off attacks of VIPs [sic] by employing the methods of private security companies. No knives or firearms were used during the training sessions, only dummy machine guns.
As for the group's allegedly strict conspiratorial methods, among which case investigators identified the use of messengers and encrypted correspondence, Boyarshinov explained they had been his usual means of communication in the years prior to his involvement with the group.
The third meeting with the young men from Penza and several Muscovites took place in a rented flat in Petersburg in February and March 2017. In the case file, this meeting has been identified as a "national congress of the Network terrorist community."
Boyarshinov, on the contrary, described a two- or three-day meeting, involving approximately a dozen people. They discussed a little of everything, from music to social, environmental and antifascist events. Filinkov was in attendance, but Boyarshinov could not remember him giving a report, showing any initiative or shouldering any responsibilities for further action.
Boyarshinov could not say who organized the meeting and who kept the minutes of the meeting. (A printed file entitled "Minutes of the Congress" was entered into physical evidence.) He could not corroborate whether Filinkov was present the entire time or whether he came and went, since he had himself had come to and gone from the meeting. As far as he could remember, "The Network Code" was also discussed.
However, some of those present said the group should prepare vigorously to fend off potential violent actions when circumstances in Russia deteriorated, while others had advocated "provoking actions themselves," Boyarshinov recalled uncertainly.
Only after carefully reading the redaction of "The Network Code" provided to him by case investigators did Boyarshinov discover "it had been proposed to establish combat cells and target the authorities."
"I have never espoused terrorism and I am sorry I wound up in this community," he added.
However, Boyarshinov was unable to clarify who he believed had authored the document, how its contents were regarded by any of his current co-defendants, and whether it had been backed by someone specifically.
The next day, April 11, the hearing started nearly two hours late. (Allegedly, the armed escort bringing the defendants to court had got stuck in traffic, although it takes fifteen minutes to drive from the remand prison to the courthouse.)
The hearing was brief. The court heard the testimony of the two janitors who had served as official witnesses during the search of Filinkov's place of residence. The presiding judge then announced the trial was adjourned until May 14.
One explanation for such a long adjournment is the reluctance of Petersburg investigators to wind the case up before the scandal surrounding the lead investigator in the main part of the Network case, Valery Tokarev, a senior investigator in the FSB's Penza Region office, has been cleared up.
The previous day's evening news broadcast on state TV channel Russia 24 featured a segment on fugitive businessman Alexei Shmatko.
Shmatko, who complained he was tortured by Tokarev, has been granted political asylum in Great Britain. (The segment starts at the fifty-minute mark.)
This was not the first time the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company had discussed the vicissitudes of this Penza businessman's career. Shmatko had been on federal business ombudsman Boris Titov's list of fugitive Russian businessmen who had voiced a desire to return home. But Tokarev's name had never been mentioned on the air before. (Although Shmatko claims he had mentioned it during previous TV interviews.)
This time round, the presenter on state television was insistent, encouraging the businessman to dot his i's and cross his t's. Who had bribed him? What was the reason?
"He subjected me to torture," Shmatko said, specifying his charges against Tokarev, "and accepted a bribe from me to release me from remand prison."
Shmatko complained he had informed the Russian Investigative Committee about this incident in a written statement, but they "had not batted an eye." He also assured the news presenter he was willing to return to Russia if his case were transferred to the feds, investigated thoroughly, and Senior Investigator Tokarev were arrested.
If this happened, Shmatko would return to Russia for Tokarev's trial and testify against him.
The interview with Shmatko was chockablock with quotations from the President's Address to the Federal Assembly on the need to criminalize illegal investigations and punish those responsible for launching them.
On April 10, Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, speaking in the Federation Council, reported the number of corrupt FSB officers who had been outed had more than doubled. He also drew attention to "egregious cases of cruelty toward inmates."
Three defendants in the Network case in Penza—Dmitry Pchelintsev, Ilya Shakursky, and Arman Sagynbayev—complained they had been tortured with electric shocks in an attempt to force them to incriminate themselves and others, including the Petersburg defendants.
Translated by the Russian Reader. You can find links to my previous coverage of the Network case here.
hecksinductionhour antifascism, journalism, petrograd, politics, putinism, regime, solidarity, youth, zeitgeist 1 Comment April 17, 2019 April 17, 2019 14 Minutes
Cannon Fodder for the Fatherland
"Give birth to meat!" Photo by David Frenkel. Courtesy of Activatica
In Petersburg, Feminists Bring Meat Disguised as Infants to Draft Board
Activatica
Feminists in Petersburg have carried out an anti-war protest. They brought bundles meant to look like suckling babies to the Military Commissariat for Leningrad Region. The bundles were tied with St. George's Ribbons and khaki-colored ribbons. The bundles were filled with ground meat.
"Feminists brought infants to the military commissariat, although there was raw meat in the bundles instead. 'Women are forced to bear meat that the state enjoys eating. Today we say no to the coercion of women. We say no to violence against men who don't want to serve in the army. We say no to war,'" wrote photographer David Frenkel on Twitter, apparently communicating the message of the women who organized the protest.
Later, the well-known feminist activist Leda Garina published a post about the protest containing a slightly modified (updated) communique from the feminists.
"Women are called upon to have children even as the right to abortions is threatened. But what happens to our children? They serve as cannon food for Russian militarism. They are turned into corpses in the senseless wars Russia has unleashed. Woman are forced to bear the meat that the state enjoys eating. Today we say no to coercion against women. We say no to violence against men who don't want to serve in the army. We say no to war."
Garina also noted the protest had been carried out by "unknown feminists."
Yesterday, February 23, Fatherland Defenders Day was celebrated in Russia. Women are expected to congratulate men for "defending the Fatherland," although they have done nothing of the sort for nearly seventy-five years. In Soviet times, the holiday was celebrated as Red Army Day. Translated by the Russian Reader
hecksinductionhour feminism, nationalism, petrograd, photographs, protest, war and peace Leave a comment February 24, 2019 June 2, 2022 1 Minute
No Justice, No Peace: Petersburg's Kangaroo Courts Revisited
Russian political prisoner Yuli Boyarshinov, a "suspect" in the FSB frame-up known as the Network case aka the Penza-Petersburg "terrorism" case, lookng like a human being amidst the combined armed guard of regular police and riot police at Petersburg's Dzerzhinsky District Court this past Friday. Photo by David Frenkel. Courtesy of Telegram channel Angry Defender (Zlaya Zashchitnitsa)
Reporters Kicked Out of Dzerzhinsky District Court
Zaks.ru
Reporters and people who have come to support the accused have been kicked out of Petersburg's Dzerzhinsky District Court, where Network case suspect Igor Shishkin's custody extension hearing is currently underway. Court bailiffs have explained the decision was dictated by the court's shortened working day, our correspondent reports.
Today, the Dzerzhinsky District Court has already held two custody extension hearings involving suspects in the Network case. Viktor Filinkov and Yuli Boyarshinov were again remanded in custody until January 22, 2019. The hearings took place in closed chambers. Only reporters and relatives of the suspects were allowed to go up to the floor in the courthouse where the courtroom is located. Court bailiffs forced the men's supporters to stay on the first floor.
When Mr. Boyarshinov was led away after hearing the court's ruling, friends and activists who had come to support him sang a song by the group Truckdrivers on the first floor of the courthouse.
We don't want freedom in handcuffs.
We want crystal-clear truth.
You can ask for it on the barricades
Or trust in law and order.
Angered by the supporters' behavior, the bailiffs detained activist Yevgenia Kulakova and took her to their office to write her up for violating Article 17.3 of the Administrative Offenses Code (failure to obey a judge or court bailiff's for maintaining order in the court). However, civil rights activist Dinar Idrisov came to the young woman's aid, and the bailiffs let her off after issuing a warning.
Later, the bailiffs ordered everyone to exit the building, even the relatives of Network case suspect Igor Shishkin, who could have been called as witnesses. According to the bailiffs, the court was open only until 4:45 p.m. today. It is a common practice in Petersburg courts to kick out members of the public and reporters.
Viktor Filinkov, Yuli Boyarshinov, Igor Shiskin, and eight residents of Penza have been accused of involvement in a "terrorist community" that was, allegedly, planning to carry out terrorist attacks and overthrow the Russian state. Several of the accused have claimed they were tortured into incriminating themselves and their fellow suspects.
If you have not been following the Penza-Petersburg "terrorism" case and other recent cases involving frame-ups, torture, and violent intimidation by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and other arms of the Russian police state, read and disseminate recent articles the Russian Reader has posted on these subjects.
"No Justice, No Peace: Petersburg's Kangaroo Courts Revisited," 21 October 2018
"Shakursky and Pchelintsev Indicted for Organizing 'Terrorist Community,'" 11 September 2018
"Arman Sagynbayev: I Was Tortured by the FSB," 8 September 2018
"Yana Teplitskaya: Wonderland," 6 September 2018
"Network: Parents versus the FSB," 2 August 2018
"Is Maxim Shulgin an 'Extremist'?" 26 July 2018
"Moscow City Court Affirms Anna Pavlikova's Remand in Custody," 26 July 2018
"Is Lydia Bainova an 'Extremist'?" 24 July 2018
"Anna Pavlikova: Enemy of the Putinist State?" 22 July 2018
"A Funny Thing Happened in Pryamukhino," 20 July 2018
hecksinductionhour antifascism, journalism, music, petrograd, putinism, regime, solidarity, youth 1 Comment October 21, 2018 October 21, 2018 6 Minutes


The Bird Sanctuary is just north of the Greek Theater. From Loz Feliz Blvd., head north on Vermont Ave. into Griffith Park. There will be pull-in parking on your right. Park in one of the spots further up the hill. The Bird Sanctuary is at the first bend in the road. Look for Griffith Park Storytelling Series signs and arrows! There will be restrooms, and the entrance to the Bird Sanctuary is through the fence just to the left of the restrooms. We will be set up slightly up the trail.
On Vermont Ave., there will be pull-in parking on your right.
Park in a spot further up the hill, before the bend in the road.
Look for the Bird Sanctuary sign, and for Griffith Park Storytelling Series' signs!
There are restrooms just before the short trail to the reading. Go through the fence just left of the restrooms. Look for chairs in one of the dried out stream beds!
Tom Dibblee's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Glimmer Train, the LA Review of Books, and The Point. He edits Trop at tropmag.com.
Brittany Goode is a writer and publisher living in LA. Currently she is managing her obsession with pseudonyms.
Joseph Mattson is the author of Eat Hell (Narrow Books) and Empty the Sun (Barnacle), a novel with soundtrack by Drag City recording artist Six Organs of Admittance, and finalist for the 2010 SCIBA Fiction Award, and also recently chosen by the LA Weekly as one of the best L.A. novels of all time. Mattson is the editor of and contributor to The Speed Chronicles (Akashic Books), which also features the work of Sherman Alexie, Beth Lisick, William T. Vollmann, James Franco, and more. Mattson's work has appeared in Slake, The Rattling Wall, Pearl, and others, with two recent works acknowledged in Houghton Mifflin's 2012 Best American series. He was the recipient of a prestigious 2011-2012 COLA Individual Artist Grant for his novel-in-progress, Hexico. Mattson is also at work on a memoir of his mother's death by homicide. He can be reached at josephfmattson@yahoo.com.
Zoe Ruiz is the managing editor of The Rumpus and staff member of FOUND magazine. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Two Serious Ladies, and Trop. She's working on her interview project, "Learn People Better," and curates READINGS, a Los Angeles based reading series. When she is not writing, she teaches yoga.
Brandon Som is the author of the chapbook Babel's Moon, winner of the Tupelo Press Snowbound Prize. His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, Black Warrior Review, and Octopus Magazine. He has been awarded fellowships to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. His full-length collection The Tribute Horse was selected for the 2012 Nightboat Books Poetry Prize and will be published in the spring of 2014.
RSVP on Facebook: Griffith Park Storytelling Series - Bird Sanctuary Edition!


After the 160 pound match, Central trailed 26-15. Grayson Neuharth started things going Central's way with a 12-7 decision over Wyatt Resmen at 170. Neuharth led 5-3 at the end of the first period and 7-4 after two periods. The sophomore wrestler added an escape and two takedowns in the final period for the win.
"Grayson went out there and wrestled really hard and then Aaron (Henley) and Sam (Schaunaman) got pins right in a row and that was definitely what got us the win. A key was the bigger guys wrestling well and we capitalized on some points," said Burkett.
"I was very happy and very excited to get back and wrestle at home finally. As a team we came out and had some matches that weren't all that great and had some other matches that we did well in," he said.
Sophomore Sam Schaunaman secured the Golden Eagle win with a pin of his own at 220 pounds. It took Schaunaman just 12 seconds for a takedown on Aaron Eggebrecht in the opening period. With 50 seconds remaining in the first period Schaunaman picked up two near fall points and worked his way to a pin at the 1:34 mark. Aberdeen led 36-26 with one match left. Brookings' Justin Behrend pinned Aberdeen's Hayden Grote at heavyweight for the final four point win.
"We weren't quite as aggressive as we wanted to be. We had a really good warm up. They matched up with us really well and when we lost some key matches, they were right there. They almost got us. We just have to be ready to go next time," said Burkett.


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text:
import pygame
import sys

# Set up a button class for later usage
class Button:
    def __init__(self, x, y, w, h, img):
        self.x = x
        self.y = y
        self.w = w
        self.h = h
        self.img = img
        self.surface = w * h

    def buttonHover(self):
        mouse = pygame.mouse.get_pos()

        if self.x + self.w > mouse[0] > self.x and self.y + self.h > mouse[1] > self.y:
            return True

def start_program():
    # Imports
    import Rules
    import Instructions
    import Game

    # Initialize pygame and music
    pygame.init()
    pygame.mixer.music.load('music.ogg')
    # pygame.mixer.music.play(-1, 0.0)

    # Load in the images
    startButtonImg = pygame.image.load('img/StartButtonWhite.png')
    startButtonGrayImg = pygame.image.load('img/StartButtonGray.png')
    quitButtonImg = pygame.image.load('img/QuitButtonWhite.png')
    quitButtonGrayImg = pygame.image.load('img/QuitButtonGray.png')
    backGroundImg = pygame.image.load('img/BackDrop.png')
    buttonInstructionImg = pygame.image.load('img/ButtonInstructionWhite.png')
    buttonInstructionGrayImg = pygame.image.load('img/ButtonInstructionGray.png')
    buttonGameRulesImg = pygame.image.load('img/GameRulesWhite.png')
    buttonGameRulesGrayImg = pygame.image.load('img/GameRulesGray.png')

    # Set up a display with title
    gameDisplay = pygame.display.set_mode((800, 600))
    pygame.display.set_caption('EuroMast v0.2.0.420')

    # Create instances of the button
    quitButton = Button(430, 220, 100, 50, quitButtonImg)
    quitButtonGray = Button(430, 220, 100, 50, quitButtonGrayImg)
    startButton = Button(280, 220, 100, 50, startButtonImg)
    startButtonGray = Button(280, 220, 100, 50, startButtonGrayImg)
    gameRulesButton = Button(280, 326, 250, 50, buttonGameRulesImg)
    gameRulesButtonGray = Button(280, 326, 250, 50, buttonGameRulesGrayImg)
    buttonInstruction = Button(280, 273, 250, 50, buttonInstructionImg)
    buttonInstructionGray = Button(280, 273, 250, 50, buttonInstructionGrayImg)

    # Initialize game loop
    phase = "menu"
    loop = True

    while loop:
        # Check if user wants to quit
        for event in pygame.event.get():
            if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
                pygame.quit()
                quit()

        gameDisplay.fill((0, 0, 0))

        if phase == "menu":
            gameDisplay.blit(backGroundImg, (0, 0))

            # Display the created buttons
            gameDisplay.blit(quitButtonGray.img, (quitButton.x, quitButton.y))
            gameDisplay.blit(startButtonGray.img, (startButton.x, startButton.y))
            gameDisplay.blit(gameRulesButtonGray.img, (gameRulesButton.x, gameRulesButton.y))
            gameDisplay.blit(buttonInstructionGray.img, (buttonInstruction.x, buttonInstruction.y))

            # Check if mouse hovers over button
            if Button.buttonHover(quitButtonGray):
                gameDisplay.blit(quitButton.img, (quitButton.x, quitButton.y))

                # Check if the quit button has been pressed for exit functionality
                if Button.buttonHover(quitButton):
                    if event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN and event.button == 1:
                        pygame.quit()
                        quit()

            elif Button.buttonHover(startButtonGray):
                gameDisplay.blit(startButton.img, (startButton.x, startButton.y))

                if Button.buttonHover(startButton):
                    if event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN and event.button == 1:
                        phase = "game"

            elif Button.buttonHover(gameRulesButtonGray):
                gameDisplay.blit(gameRulesButton.img, (gameRulesButton.x, gameRulesButton.y))

                if Button.buttonHover(gameRulesButton):
                    if event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN and event.button == 1:
                        phase = "rules"

            elif Button.buttonHover(buttonInstructionGray):
                gameDisplay.blit(buttonInstruction.img, (buttonInstruction.x, buttonInstruction.y))

                if Button.buttonHover(buttonInstruction):
                    if event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN and event.button == 1:
                        phase = "instructions"

        elif phase == "game":
            Game.startGame()
        elif phase == "rules":
            Rules.displayRules()
        elif phase == "instructions":
            Instructions.startInstructions()

        pygame.display.flip()

start_program()

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Lo Mo Cave Expedition | Ba Be National Park
Mr Linh has had a Very Big Adventure and has discovered a huge cave in the Hoang Tri Commune, in Ba Be District in the north of Vietnam. Although there are several huge caves in Central Vietnam, this is a major discovery in the north and another great reason to visit Ba Be National Park, which is a area of limestone karsts. Any visitors will feel that they are true explorers as nothing in the cave has yet been documented by geologists. The cave is 3-5 km in length and rises to a height of 40 metres. The water course comes from two different sources which meet at a junction. One stream is about 1.5 km and the other 2-4 km. Further exploration is needed to establish this. There are the most incredible rock formations, many stalagmites and stalactites, and huge stone columns, with unbelievable shapes and colours. There are bats, and other insects and also plants, so plenty to interest the naturalist. The entrance to the cave is in the middle of the mountains and well concealed by the jungle, so was very difficult to discover.
Cave entrance from inside
The first 200 meters from cave entrance where you can see many stalactites
After 300 meters we meet a stream
Underwater passageway
Next 200 meters we meet a waterfall, the water course comes from two different sources which meet at this junction
Water spider net on the cave celling
Upstream Lo Mo continues for 200m through areas of rock collapse
A small passage entering the Lo Mo streamway can be followed up to another cave that we haven't discovered yet.
A high-level passage opens about 40m above with a huge column
Another narrow passage takes you to the backside of Lo Mo
Water drips from the ceiling of Lo Mo, this part is ended by wall rock with 1500 meters from the entrance and believe that after the wall is another stream
Upstream leads after 400m from waterfall to a sump, we believe this water flows from other stream
After the sump, we couldn't believe our eyes!
Continues for 200m through areas of rock collapse
The streamway continues underneath for a further 300m to an upstream sump and a stream which disappears into rocks on the surface.
Continue for 350 meters follow the stream is another wall rock. We decided to stop!
- Our Lo Mo Cave Expedition will take you deep into the heart of Ba Be National Park in Bac Kan Province. Vietnam, on one of the most thrilling adventure tours in the north Vietnam.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
An Oral History of Hinckley
By Permission of Colin Hyde & Westfield Community Centre
Born in Hinckley Out of Hinckley Down on the Farm Remembering Hinckley World War Two And finally
2. Out of Hinckley
An army wife in South Africa and China
Hinckley Territorials answering the 'Call of their Country 9 August 1914'
Ireland, Royal Victoria Barracks, Belfast, 29 September 1887 was it? I'm not sure now, I shall be 107 years old on the 29 September. Father was an army Captain, Mother's from farming people in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh. He was sent over from England.
The first time I went from England to Johannesburg, Pretoria, was from Chatham Barracks. Mary was about 9 months old... we had to go out there hurriedly, something was on there. It's a very nice place... a lovely country.
Proper houses, the people who were out there first were the Dutch people. They were quite nice people too, someone you could speak to, better than the darkies - I wouldn't trust them. Breakfast in the morning, have your bath. Then you go out and do your shopping. If you want anything from the canteen, they'll send it up, you go down the canteen and order it. Then the day's your own 'til lunch time. All I do is to cook the dinner, and dish it up because I won't let the boys touch it. They clean the vegetables and that's all I want, after that I won't have them in the kitchen. All the married women there... they had an easier life, they made the Blacks do it - they were Welsh, they were artful. My mother used to write to me and say, be careful of what you eat and look at all you food if you have the Black people touching your food. I do the cooking but nothing else in the house.
The Dutch and what Blacks there were in quarters had to pay for what they wanted before they got it - there was no trust. They army had nothing like that - we used to make our order out and phone it through to London clothing and everything we wanted. To dress a little kiddie, say a twelve month old, it cost you to buy from the Dutch in the drapers shops about £7 - not worth it - it's hideous, a lot of money. 'No fear,' I says, Til send to London.'
As regards working I didn't. All the housework and shopping was done, I used to go out and do the shopping and they'd send it up from the canteen, one of the soldiers would bring it up.
They'd got their verandas all round the house, and they'd got their beds... swing cots, you know. People... they have a bath... no one could see them not even the people in the house, they'd get out of their bath, get into their swing in the hammock until they're dry and then get up and dress.
You'd got your own quarters, army furniture, arm-chairs for the grown-ups, what they call saddle chairs and you'd got your beds, blankets and sheets, everything provided. When you pack up and you've got to go to another country to do service you leave your things behind, you mustn't take anything with you, and if anything was lost we'd got to pay for it.
They'd tell you, keep the children away from the huts, I mean their prisons, where the snakes are, keep them away from there... cobras, pythons, cor they are a size. They'd go under three houses together. You'd stand there and have a good laugh at them - one of the sergeants came along and says, 'You wouldn't laugh at them if they were loose.
The only thing you'd find is, if a snake had got out you might find a dead body... but you could always tell because they'd been poisoned or else they'd get a tail end of a snake - they'd leave something from the snake. The amusements they used to have, the boys, was to get a snake and dig a deep pit and put a snake in and a couple of scorpions and see them fight 'cos the snake can't get over.Jt'd get it's head up to make a bite. The troops liked that every evening, they never missed. All those who wanted to go for a long walk across the veldt and then they used to come back again, 'Sit down before we have our supper,' they said, 'and we'll watch these, 1 Nice, gentle swearing, the sergeant major says, 'You'd better be careful, the flag's wife's over here. Tell the boys to keep their dirty news to themselves.' I've had a good many laughs out there.
The only thing we didn't agree with, say the Dutch and the Blacks, if they'd done anything they were put in prison, an underground prison. They used to make them send them down, undo the gates, they had to... catch as many snakes as they can while it was daylight for the people who were working in and out so any of them won't get bitten by them. Underground, I don't know what they were after, whether they were looking for diamonds...! don't know...I wasn't interested enough to ask. If they robbed, burglaries... if you could catch hold of them they'd give them any... God's quantity of punishment for perhaps a trifle... silly little things. My husband said, if that had been our men they'd have thrashed them and let them go, but they don't do that out there, not what we call punishment. The Dutch would think no more of getting the Blacks together and shoving them down in with the snakes. That's the difference with the two, the Blacks wouldn't do that.
Thunderstorms and lightning - it's a picture. See the sky, it just seems as if it's going to come down on you, and when the thunder goes... talk about the army drums, that's how the thunder sounded there. 'Course it's all open plains.
A different view altogether in China, straight across China... Peking. Yes, it would be about 1910. They don't tell you what's going on, you've got to read it in the papers. We went from Johannesburg across the water to China we landed in Peking; we were stationed at Peking, Shanghai and the other places - there were nine of them.
The people were all right, if they hadn't been as friendly it wouldn't have been so nice. I think myself, 'cos that's me, I'm a bit suspicious of people. I liked them (the Chinese) I got on very well with them. They wouldn't let you hit the children. They'd got their own place, they mustn't come into our part. Only those you'd got, if you'd ordered a cook for the duration. I had a four room bungalow - two bedrooms, sitting room and a dining room, all furnished.You could watch them... but you mustn't go into the gate, Peking's gate... it's all gated in. You can see them do marching and they were cruel. They'd got these boys...my husband said they were twelve years old... just time to go out riding on horses and if any of them fell off they put the whip on them, it was like a cat-o-nine-tails, leather on the end of a stick.
They were in Peking, a different part... they buried the Prince down there when we were there. The Prince, the son died, a young fellow of about 25 I think he was. He died and they had this black thing put across the railings so no-one could see the mourners I suppose.
Only one parade I think it was the day my girl was christened - and the royalty came and that was a little while after the son, the heir to the Chinese throne, he died. Bags of flowers, people in their cars, and I don't know how many trying to walk behind... it just looked like coming from a football match, whole crowds of them.
Oh yes, it was a marvellous place (The Great Wall). You wouldn't think they could ride a car on it. Motor cars on the top, I don't know if they do it now. You'd got to watch out though, they were a bit of a careless lot.
We used to go into the church - well, what they call a church. They used to have animals in there, mixed up with people, it used to stink like anything. I said, Tm not going to church today. I got out of it I went twice.
A medical officer said don't let the children go near the Chinese children 'cos any disease he says they'll only take it, keep them away. So the children would run over and I'd say, 'No! No! Our children would have played with them nicely, I said, 'No you mustn't, they are sick and you don't want to take pills. No, well you mustn't go near them. That's the way we used to stop them from going 'cos otherwise they used to sneak out through the legation, get out in amongst the Chinese town. They're all singing and dancing there and of course our kids would do the same.
I liked Peking because you were in with the elite - toffee nosed. Chinese - the old men are worse than the young men. Crafty - the look on their face. I came in, he (her husband) says, 'Did you have a nice afternoon?' I say, Those crafty old devils.' He said, 'What have they been up to, say anything to you they shouldn't?' I say, 'No, it wasn't for the sake of getting pinched.'
There was no association. If they had have done they'd have had them up. They were very strict on anything like that. Unless you actually live inside with them you don't know what's going on.
We were getting all ready for a dinner and dance with the Germans. They came to us the night before on the Monday, on the Tuesday we were going to them. A cable came through from England, stop all leave at once, get packed up. The next thing we know we were on our way up here to England to fight - The Great War (World War One).
Well, the telegram came. We went by boat from Peking, then we had nearly two days journey in the train. I didn't mind, I was longing to get there and see my people. I had three killed in one week - my father's nephews. There was Will died on the Monday, on the Wednesday Charlie died and on the Friday or Saturday, I'm not sure which now, Douglas died, all within the one week. They were fighting - the '14-'18 war.
Growing up in the Potteries
New Buildings, Hinckley
I was born at Stoke on Trent... 1921. Me dad, he was a printer in the pottery trade - prints as you used to put on plates and what have you. He had women working for him as was transferrers, they used to put them on the plates for him. It was a poor job in them days, all the pottery, it wasn't like it is today, no money it.
Seven of us... originally they were army barracks but that's going back, I can't remember them as a barracks but that's what they used to tell me. So it was in a square and there were about 15 or 16 houses in this square. When they were all full there were no end of kids... They were all big families, like ours, seven at a time, so you can imagine how many kids there were about. The toilets were 20,30 yards away. We used to have to come out the front door and walk all the way round to the square. About every winter all the bloody toilets were frozen over - terrible in them days.
Most of us - there were no end of kids growed up together and we all finished up in the potteries, you know, in the different trades in the potteries, warehouse lads and one thing and another. I were a polisher. When they used to fire them in the kilns and the little tiny bits come off and stuck to the plates we had to grind them and polish them off.
I went in the army when I were 19 or so I had five or six years in the trade. I was constricted I was... didn't like going in the army. I went to India to start with. From India I went to Iraq, Iran and all the way round the Middle East, I think it were about 13 or 14 different countries as I visited.
We got married and I came to Hinckley to live, that were in 1942 I think. It were all right, different altogether to Stoke...what with the different factories. At Stoke... it's all in them days what we used to call pot banks... in other words they were all factories which made pottery.
I came from out the potteries into the hosiery. Piece of cake, easy, nowhere near the hard work of the potteries, nowhere near it. It seemed to be more heavier. We either used to have to carry them (the pots) on our head or on our shoulders or in the arms - plates, you'd pile them on top of one another and put your arms under 'em like that and carry them... two or three dozen at a time stacked up. Cups, you used to put a tray on your head, a big long un and fill it all with cups and carry that from one place to another. Same with saucers, you used to carry them in a big round basket and you used to put your arm in it and swing it up and put it on your shoulder. Many time you'd drop them, you'd pay no attention to them.
Much better here than it were in Stoke. I think when I first went in... when I were 14, it were about 18 bob (90p) a week but when I went into the hosiery that 18 bob turned into about three or four quid, much better pay here. I thought I were well off money wise. It's a bit better here than it is in Stoke, I think so anyway.
Hop Picking in Kent
London Road, Hinckley
I was born in Woolworth (London) originally and then we moved to a place called Peckham.
When we used to go out into Kent that was really thoroughly enjoyable. Used to go out on the back of a van, you know, what you'd do, at the time the hop picking season started you'd be advised from the farmer that it was about to start and then one or two of the families would group together and organise a van to take you down, but if you couldn't manage a van they had these special trains that used to run from London Bridge down to Kent.
During the period that you were hop-picking you lived in a wooden hut. We used to sleep on straw beds, you'd get inside the hut and there'd be a big bale of straw, sometimes there were two bales of straw depending on the size of the hut. You'd shake all the hay out and then what we used to do the first morning that you were there, one of the farmer's hands would come round with a big cart load of sticks - what they call faggots - they'd be about...two or three feet long and whilst he weren't looking you'd get one or two of these faggots off the back of the van because what he used to do was to dish two faggots per day to each family you see and if he had any left over then you'd get these faggots and push them under the stove to give it a lift sort of thing. It's for doing your cooking and that on you see because you had to build your own fire-place you know. Oh it were really nomadic if you like but quite enjoyable - it's something you get used to like everything else.
You used to sit at a thing they called a bin and I suppose it would be, what, two or three yards long and it would be this hessian sacking...and what you'd do, you'd pull down these vines from the top of the wires. I don't know whether you've every seen a hop field, the wires run all the way across, well they must be what, ten, 15 foot high I suppose and you pulled 'em down and just sling one of these wires over the bin as quickly as you could and every so often someone would yell out, 'Get your hops ready.' What you had to do was pick out all the leaves because sometimes when you pulled the vines down the big leaves would fall into the bin so you sorted all those out... then the measurer would come round with a bushel basket and measure your hops out into a big sack, which they used to call a poke, and they used to fill those with ten bushels of hops and he'd mark your card with how many bushels you'd picked and at the end of the season you'd go up to the farmhouse and collect your money, you know, or if you liked... you could draw your cash each week. And then on Sundays, if you wanted a roast dinner rather than over the... outside fire, you used to go to a local bakery with your potatoes and your meat and whatever you wanted cooking...and they'd cook it for you... oh, great fun.
Used to have various vans coming round selling sweets or cake, you know, it was a recognised thing. Milkmen used to come round into the hop fields, you didn't really have to go outside the hop field because all the vans used to come round periodically. It was only if you wanted certain things that you'd go into the local village.
You don't know what you missed! When it was nice, we used to get some really beautiful weeks in September, 'cos that's when the hop picking really starts, about the 2nd or 3rd September and it usually goes on to about the end of September, but there were times when the weather wasn't quite so good, but you still had to out. I mean, we used to start at seven o'clock in the morning 'til twelve and I think it was half an hour lunch we had and then it was half-past twelve to half-past four I think it was, or five, but we were always up at half past five in the morning, you know... 'cos what we used to do, we used to get the fire all ready first thing in the morning. I always remember the tea we used to drink - you'd probably say ugh! I wouldn't fancy that - but what we used to do, a pot, an aluminium pot, and you'd get the water boiling, in would go the tea, in would go the milk, in would go the sugar and give it a good old stir... beautiful, beautiful tea.
What used to happen was...the summer holidays used to... finish at the beginning of September. Well I always used to be missing the first three weeks didn't I, see, well me and my brothers and sister and we always used to get told off for missing the first three weeks of the term. It wasn't our fault!
A Life in the Hosiery Trade
The Hollow, Earl Shilton
My father used to carry the night soil in those days (in Mansfield) from the toilets - used to call it the night soil. Well, it was a job you see, it'd got to be done. There were no water toilets but all there was, was a huge tin and there was a huge cart that used to come - an awful filthy job but a job that had to be done.
I was the youngest of five. My sister was a seamstress and a mender - she worked in a hosiery factory. My brother was a master butcher, he slaughtered for Walkers in Leicester in later years. My other brother, he started work at spinning mills and then he went onto the train, first as a cleaner - there were engine sheds in Mansfield - and then as a fireman and finished up as an express driver for the IMS. My other sister worked in the cotton mills and died early.
My sister worked in the factory and there was an opportunity for what they call a belt boy. I left school at 14. Some of them went to grammar school but I didn't 'cos I knew I had to go to work. I knew very well that my father and mother could use the money.
All the machines were driven by belts - no chains, all belts. You had one huge AC motor with a huge flywheel and the complete thing was driven by one main shaft that went right from one end of the room to the other. It was all a mass of belts. You may have a row of machines and then a belt came from the machine onto a set of hangers and then the shaft was on the floor. Some of the belts were huge and long and I learnt how to mend them. Sometimes they'd last for ages but when the main belt went, it was six inches wide and it had to be made, laced, by a proper saddler. I only knew that break twice the time I was there. When they did break you had to have... these were like that with a big stud, about half an inch - imagine how big they were, to go right through the belt with two prongs. You get them on purses and all sorts of other things.
The first day at work I can remember my mother brought me some overalls but they had to cut them down because they were too big. And the smell, that was another thing, I had to get used to the smell of a factory, it had got a smell of its own. It's hard to describe but it's a factory smell - if you went in - it's a smell of oil, it's a smell of waste, it's a smell of yarn, bobbin, fabric, all together. You can't hear yourself speak. People who work in factories have got a language all their own. People say I couldn't work if it's this loud', but you get used to it. That's another marvellous point in a factory. You can have all this machinery and it's loud as anything and yet two men can talk or just shout to each other. Once the machinery's still it seems eerie, it seems funny. I started in 1923. I was seven years there and of course from belt boy I started to watch the machines and learn how they worked. There were other men there I used to go round with and all the time when they were doing jobs I used to watch them. I'd got a flair for being in the mechanics shop and I supposed the flair carried me through and I enjoyed it, I understood the machines and got on well. I was in a factory where there were such a lot of different machines and I learnt to be on the shop floor, I learnt how to use a vice, how to drill, how to file properly, how to use a grindstone and all that sort of thing.
After seven years there was a bit of the start of the depression of course and from there I went up to various factories in Yorkshire, Leeds, Bradford, Keighley and then I came down to Leicester. Then of course this job came at Arthur Bolsworth's at Hinckley. I was able, without a family, to move around, I had no commitments you see.
Lower Burbage
Everybody knew of Hinckley, it didn't matter where you was, what Hinckley did everybody followed suit. If Hinckley was a bit quiet everybody else was quiet. All the new attachments, all the new styles, they all started in Hinckley - whatever Hinckley was doing everybody else was doing the same. Their methods were more up-to-date which I could see was the reason why what Hinckley said was the thing to do. Their ideas were better, their methods were better.
The best job I ever had in my life - the ICI fine jerseys at Shilton. They made these huge body machines, not stockings, they made fabric. I loved that and of course I'd been in the trade, I'd been on the bench and so forth and they sort of welcomed me with open arms because a lot of them were from college. There's a big difference between working in college and going out in the open world - know what I mean? There's a limit to what they can teach you - they can give you a certain amount of knowledge in college regarding machines but the thing is a lot of things that happen to machines don't happen to them while they're in college. Therefore you're in a mess you see. I used to say to some of them - they used to have these big motors come out and bearings had to be taken out, proper tools had to be used to get the bearings off, and I used to say, 'You know you're safer with a revolver than doing that! I've seen it change from a girl working four machines and working hard, to a man with new ideas in hosiery, work 60.
I've seen the girls when their mums used to teach them or they've come to learn, they're perhaps been for two or three days or more than that - I've seen girls cry. I've seen girls go home, 'cos they couldn't find it (the Whale). Then all at once there'd be hell of a hullabaloo - she'd got it. That was the secret of the whole thing, you were looking for a hole that in the first place you thought wasn't there and then you got your eye in and that hole became as big as a football and from then it was all plain sailing. Of course the mothers used to pay, I mean Atkins at one time used to accept money so I understand. Years ago, mothers could pay Atkins so much for their daughters to come along and show them how to link, 'cos a linker was marvellous.
When the war had gone, people were ready to buy stockings, nylon was just coming in, cotton and wool and so forth. The girls of the day, the war gave them different ideas, I mean, a young girl had passed through the atmosphere of war and she was a woman - you know what I mean? The war had given them a different standard. Stockings were becoming more elegant and beginning to get different colours, different shades, blacks were going out, every colour under the sun was coming, different sorts of styles of heels, shoe factories were altering their things, clothes factories altered the style of things and so forth. So therefore, those that hadn't got the up-to-date machinery to make all these different things... were in trouble and that's what happened. That's the story of Hinckley. A lot of them couldn't be bothered to spend the money and make the machinery more up-to-date.
Coming from Wales, looking for work during the depression
Barwell High Street, Top Town
I came up from Wales 55 years ago when I married, I was 21. My husband went to work at Burgess Products 'cos the work was in the Midlands, there was not work in Wales, there was a deep depression on.
My father, he ran away from London when he was 14. His father married again and he didn't like his stepmother so he ran away, you see, and he came up to Wales. He went on board ship... and he was a seaman all his life. He met my mother...there were seven of us altogether. When he was 42 he was drowned. Of course my mother was left a widow at 38 with all us children to bring and they wanted her to put some of us into a home but she wouldn't. And you didn't have help in those days... you'd got nothing like that, they had what they called public assistance - you had to go cap-in-hand and more or less beg to these Board of Governors as they call them. If they thought they'd give you two and six, (12p) they'd give you two and sixpence. Oh it was hard times, hard times.
When I was a child I was very ill with pneumonia, double pneumonia and I can remember them fitting up this tent to give me oxygen, 'cos you can't breathe, your lungs are terrible. They give you penicillin now don't they, in those days they just fixed up a tent to give you oxygen. I was very very ill and it's what they call the crisis, you either live or you die. My mother told me after they put all sand outside the front door and under the window so you wouldn't hear the noise and they wrapped an old piece of flannel round the door knocker so it just gave a thump instead of a bang,
I was top of the class at school but my mother couldn't afford to pay for the books and rulers and things for me to go on... so I left at 14 and I went to work in this sweet factory. No - first of all I went to work on a farm on the outskirts but my father didn't like me working there 'cos there were too many men there, he says, for a young 14 year old girl so I came back home and I went to work in this sweet factory. All the young girls worked there and I used to get ten shillings a week.
There was no work in Wales, everyone was out of work, and he (her husband) went to Birmingham and he learnt the metal trade and he went to Burgess Products, got a job there. He finished there and then we took the shop in Trinity Lane - there were some argument with the management. It was a VG shop - we sold everything.
We bought a house on Sketchley Hill. George Clark was building there then and we thought it was ever such a lot of money - £675 for a three bedroomed house - brand new, bathroom, kitchen and there was an outdoor toilet and an upstairs toilet - it was marvellous. And I know our mortgage was £3.17s.6d (£3.88) a month and I used to think, an awful lot of money.
Growing up in Earl Shilton
The Atherstone Hunt
I was seven when I had the first pneumonia, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and that was just the time when I should have gone to (school)...! was thin as a rake. They put poultices on you - red hot poultices front and back. It was a paste from the chemist... they'd leave it on for so long...'cos you were tight... and of course it used to make you sweat and go delirious, you know, and they gave you ten days whether you lived or not. When I first got out of bed the doctor said she'll be alright now. Me dad carried me down the stairs, put me against a big guard - the hobs were like this, there was that there for the water, that for the fire and the other for the oven and a big rack where your head were, so there were a big guard - he put me against the guard and my legs buckled and I said, 'Ooh I can't stand Dad.
If you ever wanted to know anything, what you wanted to do was just get your dolls or whatever, pretend you was interested in the dolls and listen to their conversation, I knew no end of scandal about (Earl) Shilton that my mother and her friends talked about and they used to think I wasn't listening.
Well, I tell the truth, I always thought you busted open, you know, like an orange, and one day, I don't think I'd be ten.,.and I said to mother I'm going down the toilet, well you had to come out the back door and down to the toilet that was a pan lavatory. We had to put us coat on you see and she said, 'Don't go in that stock yard, your dad's got the sheep in there.' So I went with all full intentions not to go in, got halfway down to boiler and this here sheep were going, 'BaaaaP and I thought poor thing, it's poorly. I just looked over and as I looked over there were popping out a head, all blood and head. Well of course I watched until it all come out and I thought oh I'm going to be sick.
So I went to school and the lady across from one of my friends had a baby and she used to housekeep for this wireless fellow, you know, electrical. So this girl said, 'Oh you know Mrs so and so, she's had a baby, it's come by wireless/ So I said, 'Don't talk so silly, don't you know where they come from?' She came back to school and she said, I told my mam what you told me and she said, 'Oh yes it's true." I says, 'Oh my goodness!' Her mother was ever such a nice lady you know and I was supposed to be a nice girl.
That's what they thought in them days, 'Boys don't bring the trouble home so let things go'. They didn't bother you know so much with boys as daughters. And I tell you what a lot of the older women did do these illegal abortions. I do know one girl, she was engaged to a fellow in the Navy, I don't think it belonged to him. She got pregnant, she had an illegal abortion and she died. They took her to the infirmary too late. Now someone knew something about that didn't they. Yes. We knew one woman, we used to call her Mrs Stop'um. They said she used crochet hooks - now isn't it wicked - come to think of it you know. And even taking stuff, you're poisoning something aren't you? Oh no, it was hush hush 'cos they could have been had up couldn't they? They tried to find out who done it with this girl but she never spoke. It was common knowledge, I don't know how many people in Shilton remember it now. Some families weren't talked to but this family weren't disliked, it wasn't a wicked family you see.
My mother said, 'What you going to do?' so I said, 'I think I'll be a hairdresser.' I never thought about going in an office 'cos it wasn't very well paid in those days - office kids only got ten shillings (50p) I think. There was a lady hairdresser in Shilton but she wanted paying and there weren't a lot of scope then I should have had to have gone to Leicester - and my mum said no way are you going to Leicester, so I had a month where I didn't go to work did I, 'cos I didn't want to go work; so some lady, I mean, I could smack her really, she said, 'You got any work?' So I said, 'No1 I hadn't been after any - so she says Bradburys the hosiery want girls. So my mum done no more than turns round and takes me there, 'cos you went with them then you know, like little dogs, so I went with her. 'Oh yes, we'll set you on, start on Monday'. I didn't say I didn't want to go I went. I didn't want to go at all, I didn't like it at all, but I got on and I was earning about 36 shillings (£1.80) a week which was good 'cos my dad's farm labourers were only getting that. I only had ten shillings for start but when they put me on my own time, you see I was with a lot of older women, I earnt 36 shillings, mind you they were on £2 odd.
So I was doing alright but they didn't have any work, so I was having half days and days off, so when it came to going to work I didn't want to go did I 'cos I didn't really enjoy it, I only enjoyed the money. One of my mum's friends, her husband was a pattern cutter down at Eatoughs (Shilton)...! was 17 nearly then so of course he got me a job and I've never looked back from there, never lost any time - got on a machine soon got going and earnt the money and I went back and forward to there until I was about 59 and then they retired you.
Oh yes it was horrible, it had a horrible smell, see the shoeing had got a smell, and the hosiery, and it smelt of oil. I thought, oh dear, I shall never eat my lunch but do you know, I ate my lunch every day and I started to get fat. I enjoyed it really at times. The women were a bit rough and ready and they used to tell me no end of tales you know, like they do, and I used to...ha ha, oh I do remember it, some of the things they used to tell you.
I told her I'd been going with him - it was my husband you see, I don't know how I could go with him without telling her 'cos he'd got to come up from this farm you see, so I said, 'Mam, I've got a boyfriend. She said, 'You're not old enough.' I thought to myself, I've been old enough for a little while. I said, Is it alright if I go with him, I've been going with the four of us. 'No it's not alright,' she said so I had to stop going with him. Well when I was about 19, I thought, well I'm going to defy her now so I just came home one night and I'd met him and was going out with him on my own and I said, 'By the way I'm going out with T.W. tonight,' and she never said anything 'cos if she had have done I'd have said well I'm going whatever you say. Course we got married in the finish. They didn't want me to get married, they wanted me to stop at home and look after them didn't they.
I got married soon after I was 20 and then I came to live at Hinckley but I had no luck - work was ever so bad you know in them days - it was '36 and '37. Well, I'd got a job at Eatoughs, the slipper firm. You could always get a job there if you'd worked there and got a good name, so I went back to Earl Shilton to get my job back.