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All posts tagged Stafford Cripps
Family Britain: The Certainties of Place by David Kynaston (2009)
Two more massive 'books' contained in one hefty 700-page paperback describing Britain after the war, the first one – The Certainties of Place, under review here – covering the period 1951-5 in immense detail. The main historical events are:
The Festival of Britain (May – August 1951)
October 1951 the Conservatives just about win the general election, despite polling quarter of a million fewer votes than Labour
Death of George VI (6 February 1952) and accession of young Queen Elizabeth II
3 October 1952 Britain explodes its first atom bomb (in Western Australia)
The Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash on the morning of 8 October 1952 – 112 were killed and 340 injured – the worst peacetime rail crash in the United Kingdom
The North Sea flood on the night of Saturday 31 January / Sunday, 1 February
Rationing: tea came off the ration in October 1952 and sweets in February 1953, but sugar, butter, cooking fats, cheese, meat and eggs continued on the ration
2 June 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
27 July 1953 end of Korean War
12 August 1953 Russia detonates its first hydrogen bomb
The book ends in January 1954, with a literary coincidence. On Monday 25 Lucky Jim, the comic novel which began the career of Kingsley Amis was published and that evening saw the BBC broadcast the brilliant play for voices Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas who had in fact died two months earlier, on 9 November 1953.
Tumult of events and impressions
But reading Kynaston's books is not to proceed logically through the key events of the period accompanied by political and economic and diplomatic analysis: it is to be plunged into the unceasing turbulent flow of day-to-day events, mixing the trivial with the serious, it's to see the world from the point of view of a contemporary tabloid newspaper – the Mirror and the Express competing for the title of Britain's best-selling newspaper – with the big political issues jostling for space with the winner of the Grand National and gossip about the stars of stage and radio – and above all, to read quotes from a thousand and one contemporary voices.
Without any preface or introduction, the text throws you straight into the hurly-burly of events, festooned with comments by an enormous casts of diarists, speech-makers, article-writers, commentators, eye-witnesses and so on.
Thus at the top of page one it is Saturday 28 April 1951 and King George VI is presenting the F.A. Cup to the winners, Newcastle. Three days later, on Tuesday 1 May 1951 he is at Earls Court for the British Industries Fair. On Thursday 3 he is on the South Bank to open the new Royal Festival Hall and inaugurate the five-month-long Festival of Britain – 'a patriotic prank', according to the song Noel Coward wrote about it, 'madly educative and very tiring', according to Kenneth Williams (25).
What makes Kynastons's books hugely enjoyable is the vast cavalcade of people, from kings to coal miners, via a jungle of ordinary housewives, newspaper columnists, industrialists, famous or yet-to-be-famous writers, actors, civil servants and politicians.
a) They are fascinating on their own account b) Kynaston deploys them not just to discuss the big issues of the day but quotes them on day to day trivia, the appearance of London, the menu at posh clubs, the ups and downs of rationing, the tribulations of shopping in the High Street. The breadth of witnesses, and the range of activities they describe, helps to make the reader feel that you really have experienced living in this era.
Labour exhausted, Conservatives win
Overall, the big impression which comes across is the way the Labour Party had run out of ideas by 1951, and how this contributed to their defeat in the October 1951 general election. (It is fascinating to learn that they only held an election that October because the king told Attlee he was going on a prolonged tour of the Commonwealth in 1952 and would prefer there to be an election while he was still in the country. Attlee duly obliged, and Labour lost. Thus are the fates of nations decided). (There is, by the by, absolutely nothing whatsoever about the Commonwealth or the British Empire: this is a book solely about the home front and domestic experiences of Britain.)
Labour were reduced to opposition in which they seem to waste a lot of energy squabbling between the 'Bevanites' on the left of the party, and the larger mainstream represented by Hugh Gaitskell. The bitter feud stemmed from the decision by Gaitskell, when Chancellor, to introduce charges for 'teeth and spectacles' in order to pay for Britain's contribution to the Korean War (started June 1950).
The quiet Labour leader, Clement Attlee, now in his 70s, was mainly motivated to stay on by his determination to prevent Herbert Morrison becoming leader.
The most important political fact of the period was that the Conservatives accepted almost every element of the welfare state and even of the nationalised industries which they inherited from Labour.
Experts are quoted from the 1980s saying that this was a great lost opportunity for capitalism i.e. the Conservatives failed to privatise coal or steel or railways, and failed to adjust the tax system so as to reintroduce incentives and make British industry more competitive. To these critics, the 1950s Conservatives acquiesced in the stagnation which led to Britain's long decline.
Rebuilding and new towns
What the Conservatives did do was live up to their manifesto promise of building 300,000 new houses a year, even if the houses were significantly reduced in size from Labour's specifications (much to the growling disapproval of Nye Bevan), and to push ahead with the scheme for building twelve New Towns.
I grew up on the edge of one of these New Towns, Bracknell, which I and all my friends considered a soulless dump, so I was fascinated to read Kynaston's extended passages about the massive housing crisis of post-war Britain and the endless squabbles of experts and architects who claimed to be able to solve it.
To some extent reading this book has changed my attitude as a result of reading the scores and scores of personal accounts Kynaston quotes of the people who moved out of one-room, condemned slums in places like Stepney and Poplar and were transported to two bedroom houses with things they'd never see before – like a bathroom, their own sink, an indoor toilet!
It's true that almost immediately there were complaints that the new towns or estates lacked facilities, no pubs, not enough shops, were too far from town centres with not enough public transport, and so on. But it is a real education to see how these concerns were secondary to the genuine happiness brought to hundreds of thousands of families who finally escaped from hard-core slum conditions and, after years and years and years of living in squalor, to suddenly be living in clean, dry, properly plumbed palaces of their own.
At the higher level of town planners, architects and what Kynaston calls 'activators', he chronicles the ongoing fights between a) exponents of moving urban populations out to new towns versus rehousing them in new inner city accomodation b) the core architectural fight between hard-line modernist architects, lackeys of Le Corbusier's modernism, and various forms of watered-down softer, more human modernism.
It is a highly diffused argument because different architects deployed different styles and solutions to a wide range of new buildings on sites all over the UK, from Plymouth to Glasgow: but it is one of the central and most fascinating themes of the Kynaston books, and inspires you to want to go and visit these sites.
The other main issue the Conservatives (and all right-thinking social commentators and progressives) were tackling after the war was Education. The theme recurs again and again as Kynaston picks up manifesto pledges, speeches, or the publication of key policy documents to bring out the arguments of the day. Basically we watch two key things happen:
despite the bleeding obvious fact that the public schools were (and are) the central engine of class division, privilege and inequality in British society, no political party came up with any serious proposals to abolish them or even tamper with their status (a pathetic ineffectiveness which, of course, lasts to the present day)
instead the argument was all about the structure of the state education system and, in Kynaston's three books so far, we watch the Labour party, and the teachers' unions, move from broad support for grammar schools in 1944, to becoming evermore fervently against the 11-plus by the early 1950s
Kynaston uses his sociological approach to quote the impact of passing – or failing – the 11-plus exam (the one which decides whether you will go to a grammar school or a secondary modern school) on a wide variety of children from the time, from John Prescott to Glenda Jackson.
Passing obviously helped propel lots of boys and girls from 'ordinary' working class backgrounds on to successful careers. But Kynaston also quotes liberally from the experiences of those who failed, were crushed with humiliation and, in some cases, never forgave society.
The following list serves two purposes:
To give a sense of the huge number of people the reader encounters and hears quoted in Kynaston's collage-style of social history
To really bring out how the commanding heights of politics, the economy, the arts and so on were overwhelmingly ruled by people who went to public school, with a smattering of people succeeding thanks to their grammar school opportunity, and then a rump of people who became successful in their fields despite attending neither public nor grammar schools and, often, being forced to leave school at 16, 15, 14 or 13 years of age.
Clement Attlee (Haileybury and Oxford)
Anthony Wedgwood Benn (Westminster and New College, Oxford)
Anthony Blunt (Marlborough and Trinity College, Cambridge)
Guy Burgess (Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge)
Richard Austen Butler (Marlborough and Cambridge)
Winston Churchill (Harrow then Royal Military College, Sandhurst)
Kim Cobbold (Governor of the Bank of England 49-61, Eton and King's College, Cambridge)
Stafford Cripps (Winchester College and University College London)
Anthony Crosland (Highbury and Oxford)
Richard Crossman (Winchester and Oxford)
Hugh Dalton (Eton and Cambridge)
Sir Anthony Eden (Eton and Christ Church, Oxford)
Michael Foot (Leighton Park School Reading and Wadham College, Oxford)
Sir David Maxwell Fyfe ( George Watson's College and Balliol College, Oxford)
Hugh Gaitskell (Winchester and Oxford)
Gerald Kaufman (Leeds Grammar School [private] and Queen's College, Oxford)
Harold Macmillan (Eton)
Harold Nicholson (Wellington and Oxford)
Sir John Nott-Bower (Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Tonbridge School then the Indian Police Service)
Kim Philby (Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge)
Enoch Powell (King Edward's School, Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge)
John Profumo (Harrow and Oxford)
Shirley Williams (St Paul's Girls' School and Somerville College, Oxford)
The arts etc
Lindsay Anderson (film director, Saint Ronan's School and Cheltenham College then Wadham College, Oxford)
Diana Athill (memoirist, Runton Hill School and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford)
John Betjeman (poet, Marlborough and Oxford)
Cecil Beaton (photographer, Harrow and Cambridge)
John Berger (art critic, St Edward's School, Oxford and Chelsea School of Art)
Michael Billington (theatre critic, Warwick School and Oxford)
Raymond Chandler (novelist, Dulwich College, then journalism)
Bruce Chatwin (travel writer, Marlborough)
Dr Alex Comfort (popular science author, Highgate School, Trinity College, Cambridge)
Richard Davenport-Hynes (historian, St Paul's and Selwyn College, Cambridge)
Robin Day (BBC interviewer, Bembridge and Oxford)
Richard Dimbleby (Mill Hill School then the Richmond and Twickenham Times)
Richard Eyre (theatre director, Sherborne School and Peterhouse Cambridge)
Ian Fleming (novelist, Eton and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst)
John Fowles (novelist, Bedford School and Oxford)
Michael Frayn (novelist, Kingston Grammar School and Cambridge)
Alan Garner (novelist, Manchester Grammar School and Magdalen College, Oxford)
Graham Greene (novelist, Berkhamsted School and Balliol College, Oxford)
Joyce Grenfell (Francis Holland School and Mlle Ozanne's finishing school in Paris)
Alec Guinness (actor, Fettes College)
Frank Richards (writer for popular comics, Thorn House School in Ealing then freelance writing)
Christopher Hill (Marxist historian, St Peter's School, York and Balliol College, University of Oxford)
David Hockney (artist, Bradford Grammar School [private], Bradford College of Art, Royal College of Art)
Ludovic Kennedy (BBC, Eton then Christ Church, Oxford)
Gavin Lambert (film critic, Cheltenham College and Magdalen College, Oxford)
Humphrey Lyttelton (Eton, Grenadier Guards, Camberwell Art College)
David Kynaston (historian, Wellington College and New College, Oxford)
Kingsley Martin (editor of New Statesman, Mill Hill School and Magdalene College, Cambridge)
Frances Partridge (Bloomsbury writer, Bedales School and Newnham College, Cambridge)
Raymond Postgate (founder of Good Food Guide, St John's College, Oxford)
V.S. Pritchett (novelist, Alleyn's School, and Dulwich College)
Barbara Pym (novelist, Queen's Park School Oswestry and Oxford)
William Rees-Mogg (editor of The Times 1967-81, Charterhouse and Balliol College, Oxford)
Richard Rogers (architect, St Johns School, Leatherhead then the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London)
Anthony Sampson (social analyst, Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford)
Raphael Samuel (Marxist historian, Balliol College, Oxford)
Maggie Smith (actress, Oxford High School, then the Oxford Playhouse)
David Storey (novelist, Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield then Slade School of Fine Art)
AJP Taylor (left wing historian, Bootham School in York then Oriel College, Oxford)
E.P. Thompson (Marxist historian, Kingswood School Bath and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge)
Alan Turing (computer pioneer, Sherborne and King's College, Cambridge)
Kenneth Tynan (theatre critic, King Edward's School, Birmingham and Magdalen College, Oxford)
Chad Varah (founder of Samaritans, Worksop College [private] Nottinghamshire then Keble College, Oxford)
Angus Wilson (novelist, Westminster School and Merton College, Oxford)
Colin St John Wilson (architect of the British Library, Felsted School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge)
Laurence Olivier (actor, prep school and choir school of All Saints, Margaret Street)
Barbara Castle (Bradford Girls' Grammar School and and St Hugh's College, Oxford)
Roy Jenkins (Abersychan County Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford)
Margaret Thatcher (Grantham Girls' School and Oxford)
Harold Wilson (Royds Hall Grammar School and Oxford)
Paul Bailey (novelist, Sir Walter St John's Grammar School For Boys, Battersea and the Central School of Speech and Drama)
Joan Bakewell (BBC, Stockport High School for Girls and Cambridge)
Stan Barstow (novelist, Ossett Grammar School then an engineering firm)
Alan Bennett (playwright, Leeds Modern School and Exeter College, Oxford)
Michael Caine (actor, Wilson's Grammar School in Camberwell, left at 16 to become a runner for a film company)
David Cannadine (historian, King Edward VI Five Ways School and Clare College, Cambridge)
Noel Coward (dance academy)
Terence Davies (film director, left school at 16 to work as a shipping office clerk)
A.L. Halsey (sociologist, Kettering Grammar School then London School of Economics)
Sheila Hancock (actress, Dartford County Grammar School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art)
Tony Harrison (poet, Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University)
Noddy Holder (musician, Walsall Grammar school until it closed, then T. P. Riley Comprehensive School)
Ted Hughes (poet, Mexborough Grammar School and Pembroke College, Cambridge)
Lynda Lee-Potter (columnist, Leigh Girls' Grammar School and Guildhall School of Music and Drama)
Roy Porter (historian, Wilson's Grammar School, Camberwell then Christ's College, Cambridge)
Terence Stamp (actor, Plaistow County Grammar School then advertising)
John Sutherland (English professor, University of Leicester)
Dylan Thomas (poet, Swansea Grammar School)
Dame Sybil Thorndike (actress, Rochester Grammar School for Girls then the Guildhall School of Music and Drama)
Philip Toynbee (communist writer, Rugby and Christ Church, Oxford)
Colin Welland (actor, Newton-le-Willows Grammar School then Goldsmiths College)
Kenneth Williams (actor, Lyulph Stanley Boys' Central Council School)
Raymond Williams (Marxist social critic, King Henry VIII Grammar School, Abergavenny and Trinity College, Cambridge)
Secondary modern / left school early
Alice Bacon (Labour MP in favour of comprehensive schools, Normanton Girls' High School and Stockwell Teachers' Training College)
Raymond Baxter (BBC presenter, Ilford County High School, expelled after being caught smoking)
Aneurin Bevan (major figure in the Labour Party, left school at 13)
Jim Callaghan (Labour Prime Minister 1976-79, Portsmouth Northern Secondary School, left school at 17)
Ossie Clarke (fashion designer, Beamont Secondary Technical School then Regional College of Art in Manchester)
Hugh Cudlipp (Howard Gardens High School for boys, left at 14)
Ian Jack (Dunfermline High School, left to become a journalist)
Clive Jenkins (left school at 14, Port Talbot County Boys' School)
Stanley Matthews (cricketer, left school at 14 to play football)
Herbert Morrison (St Andrew's Church of England School, left at 14 to become an errand boy)
Joe Orton (playwright, Clark's College in Leicester)
John Osborne (playwright, Belmont College, expelled aged 16)
John Prescott (failed 11 plus, Grange Secondary Modern School and Hull University)
Alan Sillitoe (novelist, left school at 14)
There are definitely more sociologists quoted in this book than in the previous two, especially in the very long central section devoted to class, which seems to have been the central obsession of sociologists in that era. Kynaston quotes what seems to be hundreds but is probably only scores of sociologists who produced a flood of reports throughout the 1940s and 50s, as they went off to live with miners or dockers or housewives, produced in-depth studies of the social attitudes of East End slums, the industrial north, towns in Wales or Scotland, and so on and so on.
The central social fact of the era was that about 70% of the British population belonged to the manual working class. And therefore, for me, the obvious political question was and is: why did this country, which was 70% 'working class', vote for Conservative governments from 1951 to 1964? What did Labour do wrong, in order to lose the votes of what should – on paper – have been its natural constituency?
This central question is nowhere asked or answered. Instead I found myself being frequently distracted by the extreme obviousness of some of the sociologists' conclusions. Lengthy fieldwork and detailed statistical analysis result in conclusions like such as the working class are marked off from the 'middle class' by:
lower income
by taking wages rather than a salary
their jobs are often precarious
they are more likely to belong to trade unions
have distinctive accents
wear distinctive types of clothes (e.g. the cloth cap)
have poorer education
have distinct manners and linguistic usages (for example calling the mid-day meal dinner instead of lunch)
Other revelations include that the children of working class parents did less well at school than children of middle-class parents, and were less likely to pass the 11-plus, that rugby league is a northern working class sport compared with the middle-class sport of rugby union, that cricket was mostly a middle and upper middle class interest while football was followed obsessively by the proles, that the proles read the News of the World and the People rather than the Times and Telegraph.
As to the great British institution of the pub, in the words of the Truman's website:
Saloon bars were sit-down affairs for the middle class, carpets on the floor, cushions on the seats and slightly more expensive drinks. You were served at the table and expected to dress smart for the occasion. You would also pay a premium on the drinks for this and usually there would be some entertainment be it singing, dancing, drama or comedy. You would generally be served bitter and in half pints.
Public bars, or tap rooms, remained for the working class. Bare wooden floorboards with sawdust on the floor, hard bench seats and cheap beer were on offer. You didn't have to change out of your work wear so this was generally were the working class would go for after work and drink in pints, generally of mild.
Altogether this central section about class in all its forms takes some 150 pages of this 350-page book – it is a seriously extended analysis or overview of class in early 1950s Britain drawing on a multitude of studies and surveys (it's almost alarming to see how very, very many studies were carried out by academic sociologists during this period, alongside the regular Mass-Observation surveys, plus ad hoc commercial surveys by Gallup and a number of less well-known pollsters).
And yet almost nothing from this vast body of work comes as a surprise: Most kids in grammar schools were upper-middle or middle class i.e. it's a myth to say grammar schools help the working and lower working classes. IQ tests can be fixed by intensive coaching. The working classes liked football. The most popular hobbies (by a long way) were gardening for men, and knitting for women. Pubs were a place of comforting familiarity, where you would find familiar friends and familiar drinks and familiar conversations in familiar surroundings.
Compared to all the effort put into these studies, there is remarkably little that comes out of them.
Some of the sociologists mentioned or discussed in the text
Kenneth Allsop reported on Ebbw Vale
Michael Banton, author of numerous studies of race and ethnic relations
LSE sociologist Norman Birnbaum, criticising positive interpretations of the Coronation
Betting in Britain 1951 report by The Social Survey
Maurice Broady, sociologist who studied Coronation Day street parties (p.305)
Joanna Bourke, socialist feminist historian
Katherine Box, author of a 1946 study of cinema-going
British Institute of Public Opinion survey
Professor of cultural history, Robert Colls, author of When We Lived In Communities
Coal is our Life sociologial study of Featherstone in Yorkshire by Norman Dennis, Fernando Henriques and Cliff Slaughter
Mark Clapson, historian of suburbia and Milton Keynes
David Glass author of Social Mobility in Britain (1954)
Geoffrey Gorer 1950-51 People survey of what class people saw themselves as belonging to
historian Richard Holt writing about football
1949 Hulton Survey on smoking
Roy Lewis and Angus Maude authors of The English Middle Classes (1949)
F.M. Martin's 1952 survey of parental attitudes to education in Hertfordshire
Mass-Observation 1949 survey, The Press and Its Readers
Mass-Observation survey 1947-8 on drinking habits
Mass-Observation survey 1951 on drunkenness in Cardiff, Nottingham, Leicester and Salford
Peter Townsend, social researcher (p.118)
Margaret Stacy studied Banbury (p.136)
T.H. Pear author of English Social Differences (1955)
Hilde Himmelweit study of four grammar schools in London
Richard Hoggart, author of The Uses of Literacy (1957) which reminisces about working class Hunslet
sociologist Madeline Kerr's five-year study The People of Ship Street in Liverpool (1958)
Tony Mason, football historian
Leo Kuper vox pops from Houghton in Coventry
John Barron Mays' study of inner-city Liverpool in the early 1950s
Ross McKibbin author of Classes and Cultures: England 1918-1955
Gavin Mellor research into football crowds in the north-west 1946-62
Peter Miskell's study of the cimema in Wales
John Mogey, author of a study of the Jolly Waterman pub in St Ebbe's, a suburb of Oxford
Alison Ravetz, author if a study of the model Quarry Hill estate in Leeds
Doris Rich authored a study of working men's clubs in Coseley
James Robb, author of a study of Bethnal Green in the late 1940s
Elizabeth Robert conducted extensive interviews in north-west England into education (p.161)
Robert Roberts, author of The Classic Slum (1971) about Salford either side of the war
Rowntree and Lavers, author of the study English Life and Leisure
Alice Russell, historian of occupational welfare
sociologist Mike Savage (pp.148, 159)
American sociologist Edward Shils
Brian Simon, communist teacher then at Leicester University
Eliot Slater and Moya Woodside interviewed 200 servicemen just as the war ended about education
1953 report on Southamptons's housing estates
Peter Stead, author of a study of Barry in south Wales
Avram Taylor, historian of working class credit
Philip Vernon, professor of Educational Psychology at London University's Institute of Education
John Walton, historian of Blackpool landladies
Michael Young, author of Is This the Classless Society (1951) among many others
Ferdynand Zweig, wide-ranging sociological investigator of the post war years
As far as I could see all of these studies were focused on the working class, their hobbies, activities, beliefs and attitudes – as well as an extended consideration of what 'community' meant to them. This latter was meant to help the town planners who agonised so much about trying to create new 'communities' in the new estates and the new towns, and so on – but two things are glaringly absent from the list of topics.
One is sex. Not one of the researchers mentioned above appears to have made any enquiries into the sex lives of their subjects. Given our modern (2019) obsession with sex and bodies, it is a startling omission which, in itself, speaks volumes about the constrained, conservative and essentially private character of the time.
(There are several mentions of homosexuality, brought into the public domain by several high-profile prosecutions of gays for soliciting in public toilets, which prompted a) righteous indignation from the right-wing press but b) soul searching among liberal politicians and some of the regular diarists Kynaston features, along the lines of: why should people be prosecuted by the law for the way God made them?)
Secondly, why just the working class? OK, so they made up some 70% of the population, but why are there no studies about the behaviour and belief systems of, say, architects and town planners? Kynaston quotes critics pointing out what a small, inbred world of self-congratulatory back-scratchers this was – but there appears to be no study of their educational backgrounds, beliefs, cultural practices – or of any other middle-class milieu.
And this goes even more for the upper classes. What about all those cabinet ministers who went to Eton and Harrow and Westminster? Did no one do a sociological study of private schools, or of the Westminster village or of the posh London clubs? Apparently not. Why not?
And this tells you something, maybe, about sociology as a discipline: that it consists of generally left-wing, middle-class intellectuals and academics making forays into working class territory, expeditions into working class lives as if the working class were remote tribes in deepest New Guinea. The rhetoric of adventure and exploration which accompanies some of the studies is quite comic, if you read it in this way. As is the way they then report back their findings in prestigious journals and articles and books and win prizes for their bravery as if they've just come back from climbing Everest, instead of spending a couple of weeks in Middlesborough chatting to miners.
It's only right at the end of the 150 or so pages of non-stop sociological analysis of 'the working classes' that you finally get some sociologists conceding that they are not the solid communities of socialist heroes of the revolution that so many of these left wingers wanted them to be: that in fact, many 'working class' communities were riven by jealousies, petty feuds and a crushing sense of snobbery. Umpteen housewives are quoted as saying that so-and-so thought she was 'too good' for the rest of us, was hoity-toity, told her children not to play with our kids etc. other mums told researchers they instructed their children not to play with the rough types from down the road.
People turned out to be acutely aware of even slight differences of behaviour or speech and drew divisive conclusions accordingly. The myth of one homogenous 'working class' with common interest turns out to be just that, a myth. THis goes some way to answering my question about why 70% of the population did not all vote for the workers' party, far from it.
Above all, what comes over very strongly in the voices of ordinary people, is the wish to be left alone, to live and let live, and for privacy – to be allowed to live in what Geoffrey Gorer summed up as 'distant cordiality' with their neighbours.
'You don't get any privacy in flats,' declared Mrs Essex from number 7 Battersea Church Road (p.339).
Contrary to the 'urbanists', like Michael Young, who wanted to help working class communities remain in their city centres, large numbers of the 'working classes' were about to find themselves forced (by the 'dispersionists', the generation of high-minded, left-wing planners and architects who Kynaston quotes so extensively and devastatingly, p.340) to move into windy new estates miles from anywhere with no shops or even schools. Those that did remain near their old communities found themselves forced into high-rise blocks of flats with paper-thin walls and 'shared facilities' next to new 'community centres' which nobody wanted and nobody used and were quickly vandalised. It is a bleak picture.
Lindsay Anderson (b.1923) was 'a British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave' (Wikipedia).
But in Kynaston's opinion, Anderson's 10-minute film O Dreamland, shot in the Margate amusement park of the same name, 'marked the start of a new, increasingly high-profile phase in the long, difficult, love-hate relationship of the left-leaning cultural elite with the poor old working class, just going about its business and thinking its own private, inscrutable thoughts (p.220).
Here it is, disapproval and condescension dripping from every frame.
Lady authors
For some reason women authors seem more prominent in the era than male authors. It was easy to compile a list of names which recurred and whose works I really ought to make an effort to familiarise myself with.
Jean Rhys b.1890 (private school and RADA)
Sylvia Townsend Warner b.1893 (home schooled by her father, a house-master at Harrow School)
Elizabeth Bowen b.1899 (private school and art school)
Catherine Cookson b.1906 (left school at 14 to take a job as a laundress at a workhouse)
Barbara Pym b.1913 (private school and Oxford)
Doris Lessing b.1919 (private school till she left home at 15)
Lorna Sage b.1943 (grammar school and Durham)
Sue Townshend b.1946 (secondary modern South Wigston High School, left school at 14)
Austerity Britain, 1945–51 (2007) containing:
Family Britain, 1951–57 (2009)
Modernity Britain, 1957–62 (2014) which contained:
Posted in Books, History, politics
Tagged 11-plus, 1951-5, A.L. Halsey, AJP Taylor, Alan Bennett, Alan Garner, Alan Sillitoe, Alan Turing, Alec Guinness, Alex Comfort, Alice Bacon, Alice Russell, Alison Ravetz, Aneurin Bevan, Angus Maude, Angus Wilson, Anthony Blunt, Anthony Crosland, Anthony Eden, Anthony Sampson, Anthony Wedgwood Benn, architecture, atom bomb, Avram Taylor, Barbara Castle, Barbara Pym, Bevanites, Brian Simon, Britain, British Institute of Public Opinion, British New Wave, Bruce Chatwin, Catherine Cookson, Cecil Beaton, Chad Varah, Christopher Hill, class, Clement Attlee, Cliff Slaughter, Clive Jenkins, Colin St John Wilson, Colin Welland, Commonwealth, community, Conservative Party, cricket, David Cannadine, David Glass, David Hockney, David Kynaston, David Maxwell Fyfe, David Storey, Diana Athill, dispersionist, Doris Lessing, Doris Rich, Dylan Thomas, E.P. Thompson, education, Edward Shils, Eliot Slater, Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth Robert, Enoch Powell, F.M. Martin, Ferdynand Zweig, Fernando Henriques, Festival of Britain, football, Frances Partridge, Frank Richards, Free Cinema, Gallup, Gavin Lambert, Gavin Mellor, Geoffrey Gorer, Gerald Kaufman, Graham Greene, grammar schools, Grand National, Guy Burgess, Harold Macmillan, Harold Nicholson, Harold Wilson, Herbert Morrison, Hilde Himmelweit, housing crisis, Hugh Cudlipp, Hugh Dalton, Hugh Gaitskell, Humphrey Lyttelton, Ian Fleming, Ian Jack, IQ, James Robb, Jean Rhys, Jim Callaghan, Joan Bakewell, Joanna Bourke, Joe Orton, John Barron Mays, John Berger, John Betjeman, John Fowles, John Mogey, John Nott-Bower, John Osborne, John Prescott, John Profumo, John Sutherland, John Walton, Joyce Grenfell, Katherine Box, Kenneth Allsop, Kenneth Tynan, Kenneth Williams, Kim Cobbold, Kim Philby, King George VI, Kingsley Martin, Korean War, Labour Party, Laurence Olivier, Le Corbusier, Leo Kuper, Lindsay Anderson, Lorna Sage, Ludovic Kennedy, Lynda Lee-Potter, Madeline Kerr, Maggie Smith, Margaret Stacy, Margaret Thatcher, Mark Clapson, Mass Observation, Maurice Broady, Michael Banton, Michael Billington, Michael Caine, Michael Foot, Michael Frayn, Michael Young, Mike Savage, Moya Woodside, nationalisation, new towns, News of the World, Noddy Holder, Noel Coward, Norman Birnbaum, Norman Dennis, O Dreamland, Ossie Clarke, Paul Bailey, Peter Miskell, Peter Stead, Peter Townsend, Philip Toynbee, Philip Vernon, public bar, Queen Elizabeth II, RAB Butler, Raphael Samuel, rationing, Raymond Baxter, Raymond Chandler, Raymond Postgate, Raymond Williams, Richard Crossman, Richard Davenport-Hynes, Richard Dimbleby, Richard Eyre, Richard Hoggart, Richard Holt, Richard Rogers, Robert Colls, Robert Roberts, Robin Day, Ross McKibbin, Rowntree and Lavers, Roy Jenkins, Roy Lewis, Roy Porter, Royal Festival Hall, rugby league, saloon bar, Sheila Hancock, Shirley Williams, social history, Sociology, Stafford Cripps, Stan Barstow, Stanley Matthews, Sue Townshend, Sybil Thorndike, Sylvia Townsend Warner, T.H. Pear, Ted Hughes, Terence Davies, Terence Stamp, The People, The Social Survey, Tony Harrison, Tony Mason, urbanist, V.S. Pritchett, welfare state, William Rees-Mogg, Winston Churchill
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2019/01/29/family-britain-certainties-of-place-david-kynaston/
Austerity Britain: A World to Build 1945–48 by David Kynaston (2007)
David Kynaston (b.1951) has written about 16 history books on broadly three topics: cricket, the City of London, and Britain after the Second World War. His post-war histories (to date; the plan is to take them up to 1979) have been published as three volumes, each of which – rather confusingly – contains two 'books':
Family Britain, 1951–57 (2009) containing:
Modernity Britain, 1957–62 (2014) containing:
Should one review the portmanteau volume – Austerity Britain (692 pages long in its current Bloomsbury paperback edition) – or the two 'books' it contains? I've chosen the latter option, because each of the 'books' is so dense and packed with information that they require separate posts.
What makes the books so delightful and addictive is that they are an oral history. Rather than the stats and graphs of an economic history, or the acts and votes of a political history, or the treaties and negotiations of a diplomatic history, Kynaston's account quotes at length from diaries, letters, journals and accounts kept by the widest range of people alive during the period, as they react to events large and small, national, international and parochial.
Fairly regularly he stops to consider this or that 'issue' – rationing, nationalisation, town planning – in what you might call the traditional historical way, describing key publications or speeches in that area. But then he swiftly returns to the more gossipy main stream of his approach, to quote housewives, workers, local officials.
The result is to be led through the key events and debates of the period, but to see it overwhelmingly in human terms, in the words of the people who shed and led debate but also the reactions of the ordinary man and woman in the street.
Some of the voices
The Famous
Neil Kinnock, future leader of the Labour Party, aged 3 when the war ends in 1945
Patrick Stewart, 5, moved along by a policeman for singing outside a polling booth in 1945
Bill Wyman, bassist with the Rolling Stones, starts grammar school, 8
Glenda Jackson, aged 9 when the war ends, starts grammar school in 1947
Alan Bennett, 11, spent VE Day in Guildford
Kenneth Tynan, drama critic to be, now Birmingham schoolboy, 18
Humphrey Lyttleton, 24
ultra-royalist James Lees-Milne, diarist, architectural historian, worked for the National Trust, 36
Cyril Connolly, editor of Horizon literary magazine, 41
Noel Coward, playwright, aged 45
J.B. Priestley, novelist and radio broadcaster, 50
J.R.R. Tolkien, 53, commenting on the insanity of the atom bomb
Harold Nicholson, British diplomat, author, diarist and politician, 58
Violet Bonham Carter, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury, politician and diarist, 58
There are hundreds more but this gives a flavour. Kinnock is quoted as remembering the prefab house his parents moved into. Bill Wyman remembers how going to grammar school in 1947 cut him off from his working class roots, though the boys at his new school teased him for being poor. Lees-Milne is very posh and quoted liberally throughout with his generally negative reactions to the Labour government.
Connolly, as a magazine editor and essayist, wrote reams of material, but Kynaston quotes him, fascinatingly, commenting on the way the great wall of left-wing / communist solidarity among artists, writers, poets and so on during the 1930s simply evaporated after the war and had quite disappeared by 1947. The problem was that they finally had a 'socialist' government and there wasn't a man or woman in 'the movement' who wasn't bitterly disappointed at the reality (p.235). The same sentiment is expressed by George Orwell, who in his long essay, The Lion and the Unicorn (1942), wrote confidently about the general public's swing to the Left and the notion of central planning but, by 1946, had become disillusioned (pp.45, 173).
All this was exacerbated by the Berlin Airlift, the coup in Czechoslovakia, and the general start of the Cold War. I hadn't realised that this led to actual legislation banning car carrying communists from public office, with the ruin of many a career.
There are also extensive quotes from key players in politics, from the diaries or letters or speeches of men like Clement Attlee (Labour Prime Minister), Hugh Gaitskell (Minister of Fuel and Power), Aneurin Bevan (Minister of Health overseeing the creation of the National Health Service), Ernest Bevin (Foreign Secretary who oversaw the independence of India, Israel etc), Herbert Morrison (Deputy Prime Minister), Stafford Cripps (Chancellor of the Exchequer).
Slowly you get a feel for their personalities, achievements and disagreements. Around them swim all kinds of minor figures, private secretaries, and MPs, and policy makers such as Michael Young, who wrote Labour's 1945 manifesto (Let Us Face The Future), coined the term meritocracy and went on to play a key role in setting up the Consumer Association and the Open University.
The Obscure
Kynaston takes his lead from Mass Observation, set up in 1937 by three Cambridge graduates, anthropologist Tom Harrisson, poet Charles Madge and filmmaker Humphrey Jennings. Mass Observation aimed to:
record everyday life in Britain through a panel of around 500 untrained volunteer observers who either maintained diaries or replied to open-ended questionnaires (known as directives). They also paid investigators to anonymously record people's conversation and behaviour at work, on the street and at various public occasions including public meetings and sporting and religious events. (Wikipedia)
Kynaston relies heavily on material from the M-O archive now held at the University of Sussex. This takes many forms. M-O carried out tailored surveys on specific issues throwing up statistical results of the numbers in favour or against particular policies. Their contributors often reported on conversations overheard on the street, on the buses or tube, at the theatre etc. And other contributors kept detailed diaries. The most famous of these was Nella Last (1889-1968), who wrote over two million words about everything she died, heard and observed, from 1939 to 1966, making her one of the single largest contributors to M-O.
But Kynaston quotes from a large number of other diarists and recorders, including:
Michael Burns, grew up in Tolworth
Lawrence Daly, coalminer
Alice 'Judy' Haines, a young married mother of two living in Chingford
Anthony Heap, a middle-aged local government officer from St Pancras
Mary King, retired teacher
Gladys Langford, deserted by her husband, living alone in the Woodstock Hotel
Ernest Loftus, headmaster of Barking Abbey School
Edith Palmer, ex-pat's daughter, late-20s, arriving in England from Kenya
Mrs Michael Pleydell-Bouverie who spent three years on behalf of the Daily Mail speaking to 'the Women of Britain' about homes and housing
Kenneth Preston, a middle-aged English teacher at Keighley Grammar School
Marian Raynham, a housewife from Surbiton
Henry St John, son of a sweetshop owner, living in Bristol
Sir Raymond Streat, head of the Cotton Board
Rose Uttin, housewife from Wembley
Mrs Madge Waller
Post-war issues
So what do these people comment on and discuss? A huge array of issues and problems which faced Britain right from the moment war ended (Victory in Europe 8 May 1945, Victory in Japan and the final end of the war, 15 August). As stated, Kynaston is not a conventional historian of diplomacy or economics. Issues appear insofar as they impinged on the minds of his huge cast of Britons. None of them are pursued in detail and, after 300 pages, I realised that he rarely comes to a conclusion about any of them. Instead we are presented with a variety of opinions, from top politicians and expert down to housewives and coalminers – and then he moves on.
Domestic affairs
Rationing
The General Election 5 July 1945
The Labour government's attempts to:
nationalise industry
set up a National Health Service (launched, after much struggles with the doctors, on 5 July 1948)
Education (everyone accepted the 11-plus, the division between grammar and technical schools, and nobody touched the public schools which were [and are], according to Kynaston, 'the single most important source of political, social and economic privilege', p.153)
Surrender of Germany, suicide of Hitler
Atom bombs dropped on Japan
Berlin Blockade and airlift
June 1947 Marshall Plan
February 1948 communist coup in Czechoslovakia
But most of the people Kynaston quotes have little or no interest in international affairs. After initial relief that the war is over, and then shock at the revelation of the atom bomb, most people sink back into their customary indifference to international affairs (and to politics generally).
Britain might as well not have an empire at all. The independence of Israel and India/Pakistan are not mentioned. Decades ago I read the comment by the Trinidadian historian C.L.R. James, that the tragedy of the British was that all their history took place abroad – by which he meant in the empire.
One of the biggest aspects of the book is the way the British Empire is almost completely absent from it. The people Kynaston quotes are struggling to make ends meet, to find somewhere to live, find a job, and then find food to eat. He quotes a survey of 2,000 adults made in 1948 which revealed that only 49% could name a single British colony. The majority of those surveyed could not name a single British colony.
And so, since so few people knew or cared about the empire, Kynaston devotes much space to popular radio programmes (Woman's Hour, first broadcast on 7 October 1946 on the BBC's Light Programme, the popular comedy It's That Man Again), to the very slow spread of television (only 50,000 sets in 1945). There is more about the Grand National than there is about Gandhi, more about Stanley Matthews (the footballer) than Stalin.
In this book nobody travels abroad (nobody can afford it) but plenty of people have a summer holiday at Margate or Morecambe or at Billy Butlin's new holiday camps (first one at Skegness in 1936).
Kynaston gives us the results of the key test matches and FA Cup Finals for 1945, 46, and 47, as well as the Epsom Derby, and reports from greyhound races and boxing matches – while all kinds of high-minded middle-class commentators lament that the average working man seems more interested in a pint, a packet of fags and the sports results than he does about the Iron Curtain.
The intellectuals and the masses
This reflects what, for me, is the main impression of the book, which is the enormous divide between the relatively small educated liberal intelligentsia – the policy makers and politicians and thinkers and writers and architects and planners – and the vast majority of the population, still very working class, often illiterate or, as Kynaston puts it:
the profound cultural mismatch between progressive activators and the millions acted upon (p.267)
Kynaston shows how all of the 1945 Labour government's policies were not just controversial but opposed by large number of people, even the working people the Labour Party claimed to represent. For example, efforts to pass laws guaranteeing the trade unions representatives on boards of the new nationalised industries (a policy followed in Germany) were rejected by the unions. Why? Because they preferred to negotiate wages from a position of freedom and strength (p.229) It was a mindset which, arguably, crippled British industry for generations.
Similarly, it is fascinating to read how many ordinary people (not just the usual suspects, Tory MPs and toff writers), really hard core working class people, were suspicious of, or actively against, the welfare state, the new system of national insurance and the National Health Service.
The gaping chasm between well-meaning left-leaning university-educated intellectuals and 'the masses' is probably best demonstrated in the area of housing. Vast amounts of Britain's housing stock was destroyed by German bombing. But a fair percentage of what survived was desperately rundown slums, particularly in the industrial cities – London's East End, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and so on contained acres of slums, houses with no running water, gas or electricity, millions of people living with no indoor toilet.
The chasm comes about when the planners and architects put their heads together to solve the problem. There was debate and argument at all levels, but roughly speaking, people wanted houses with a little garden of their own, and the planners wanted to put them in blocks of flats. People wanted their bombed out city centres to be restored to how they were before the war. Urban planners and go-ahead young architects wanted, on the contrary, to demolish what old buildings were left, and create sweeping new town centres, dominated by pedestrian precincts and car parks, surrounded by ring roads. As he writes of the brave new plan devised to demolish and rebuild central Plymouth:
There was little or no local consultation, with all objections overruled. (p.36)
The opening of the book is devoted to arguments about how to rebuild Britain and, through the thicket of specific details about new schemes for Plymouth or Hull, one gets a really clear feel for the divide between those who know best what the people want, and the people themselves – not least, of course, because Kynaston's whole book is devoted to the people's voices. He quotes one of the founders of Mass Observation, Tom Harrison:
worried most by the way that planners and others associated with the matter talked as if they were winning over the general public when they were only winning over each other. He had never met any group of people who 'scratched each other's backs' more than planners did. (p.47)
In Bristol the local retail association organised a poll which showed that only 400 were in favour of the new Broadmead shopping centre, while 13,000 opposed it. The planners ignored this and all other opposition, and went ahead and built it.
This Great Divide, this sense of a mass population profoundly alienated from their lords and masters, grows as the book progresses from the May 1945 General Election through to its end point, 5 July 1948, the day the National Health Service was inaugurated. Intellectuals at the time were agonisingly aware of it. Various papers and reports guesstimated that 'the thinking minority' ranged from 20% down to a mere 5% of the population (p.55). How could they break out of their bubble to really engage with the great unwashed (an expression coined around 1830 by the novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton)?
Maybe the single biggest surprise is the couple of pages devoted to the four months spent by American actor, Ronald Reagan at Elstree Studios making a war movie called The Hasty Heart (pp.314-315). Reagan was appalled by the filthy London smogs and rundown hotels, and – although he went out of his way to praise the director and all the other technicians he worked with – it was a grim first-hand sight of socialism in action which, in his view, amounted to stoppages dictated by the militant trade unions, six-hour queues at hospitals, gaunt impoverished passersby and mile after mile of slate-roofed council houses in the rain.
So far so anecdotal: but Kynaston goes on to say that Reagan himself, writing twenty years later in the 1970s, pointed to this trip to Britain – to seeing the 'natural' economic order of free markets replaced by rationing and state interference at every level, and the resulting lack of all basic facilities in a culture dominated by the petty tyrannies of trade union shop stewards and local government officials – as a defining moment in his journey to the Right.
So that, considering Reagan's centrality to world politics during the 1980s and the role he played in the collapse of the Soviet Union, of communism, and even of full-blooded socialism as a viable political programme, there's a case for saying that these few months in rainy Hertfordshire changed the history of the world.
General impoverishment
Kynaston devotes pages to political debates about Marshall Aid, about the end of Lend-Lease, about the currency crisis and devaluation of sterling, and so on.
But by far the biggest and most enduring subject of the book is RATIONING, the rationing of food and clothing, which not only continued after the war, but got worse, a lot worse. From the poshest in the land down to a variety of housewives, Kynaston's quotes convey the sheer numbing crushing effect of days and months and year after year of shortages of meat, bacon, milk, sugar, butter, even of bread.
Demobbed soldiers, or visitors from abroad (including the American playwright Tennessee Williams), or British children arriving in Britain back from the colonies (Cliff Richard arriving from India in 1948, aged 8) all noticed how pale and underfed the population looked. For years after the war the gas supply was weak and the electricity was turned off at certain times of day. Witnesses like Harold Nicholson testify that even in the best London clubs, the food came in minuscule portions and was barely edible.
And then in February 1948 the population was afflicted by the coldest winter of the 20th century. Young Roy Hattersley remembers sledging down the middle of usually busy streets (p.199) but thousands of the elderly and the infirm died. And millions had to dig a path from their back doors to their outside toilets.
There are thousands of wonderful anecdotes, gems and insights throughout the book – but the predominating image is of impoverishment and endurance.
The queue for rationed food – symbol of post-war Britain
P.S. Obscure novelists
A lot of the people Kynaston quotes are, inevitably, writers, a self-selecting cohort since he is himself a writer dealing with written records which 'writers' dominate.
Your ears prick up at the famous ones (Graham Greene, Noel Coward, Doris Lessing) but he also introduces us to a cocktail party of less well-known writers from the period, a list which has the effect o making you realise how selective 'literary history' is, picking out the half dozen 'serious' writers from each era or decade, and letting plenty of other authors drop into obscurity.
It is one of the many many pleasures of the book to come across forgotten authors he mentions, and google them and toy with tracking down and reading their (mostly forgotten) works:
Ruby Mildred Ayres b.1881 – one of the most popular and prolific romantic novelists of the twentieth century
Ethel M. Dell b.1881 – author of over 30 popular romance novels
Naomi Jacob b.1884 – author and actress
Ivy Compton-Burnett b.1884 – novelist
Angela Thirkell b.1890 – author of a series of 19 novels set in Home Counties 'Barsetshire'
James Lansdale Hodson b.1891 – journalist and novelist
Sylvia Townsend Warner b.1893 – novelist and poet
Elizabeth Bowen b.1899 – Irish novelist and short story writer
Mollie Panter-Downes b.1906 – novelist and writer of Letters from England for the New Yorker magazine
Pamela Hansford Johnson, Baroness Snow b.1912 – novelist, playwright, poet, literary and social critic
Denton Welch b.1915 – writer and painter
Sid Chaplin b.1916 coal miner who wrote novels about mining communities in the North-East
Joan Wyndham b.1921 – rose to literary prominence late in life through the diaries she had kept about her romantic adventures during the Second World War
Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 on Amazon
Tagged 11-plus, 1945–48, 1945–51, 2007, A World to Build, Alan Bennett, Aneurin Bevan, Angela Thirkell, Anthony Heap, atom bomb, Austerity, Austerity Britain, BBC, Berlin Airlift, Berlin Blockade, Bill Wyman, Birmingham, Butlin's, C.L.R. James, Charles Madge, Clement Attlee, Cliff Richard, Cold War, communism, Consumer Association, Cyril Connolly, Czechoslovakia, David Kynaston, Denton Welch, diaries, Doris Lessing, Elizabeth Bowen, Elstree Studios, Ernest Bevin, Ernest Loftus, Ethel M. Dell, FA Cup Final, George Orwell, Gladys Langford, Glasgow, Glenda Jackson, Graham Greene, grammar school, Harold Nicholson, Henry St John, Herbert Morrison, history, Hitler, Horizon, Hugh Gaitskell, Humphrey Jennings, Humphrey Lyttleton, India, It's That Man Again, Ivy Compton-Burnett, J.B. Priestley, J.R.R. Tolkien, James Lansdale Hodson, James Lees-Milne, Joan Wyndham, journals, Judy Haines, Kenneth Preston, Kenneth Tynan, Labour Party, letters, Light Programme, London, Manchester, Marian Raynham, Marshall Plan, meritocracy, Michael Young, Mollie Panter-Downes, Naomi Jacob, National Health Service, Neil Kinnock, Nella Last, Noel Coward, Open University, Pamela Hansford Johnson, Patrick Stewart, Plymouth, politics, post-war, Rolling Stones, Ronald Reagan, Rose Uttin, Roy Hattersley, Ruby Mildred Ayres, Second World War, Sid Chaplin, Sir Raymond Streat, slums, social history, Stafford Cripps, Stalin, Stanley Matthews, Sylvia Townsend Warner, television, Tennessee Williams, The Lion and the Unicorn, Tom Harrisson, trade unions, Victory in Europe, Victory in Japan, Violet Bonham Carter, Woman's Hour
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2019/01/25/austerity-britain-a-world-to-build-1945-48-david-kynaston/


My name is Sierra Porter and I am so excited to have the opportunity to join a TAG trip. I have grown up in the Nazarene church for most of my life. My mom just recently became a full-time children's pastor and my step-father has been a youth pastor for about 8 years now. In saying this, many doors have been open throughout my life that may not have been otherwise. I have had the chance to go on multiple mission trips, my favorite so far being to Puerto Rico. God has really grown me and given me opportunity to minister to others. My relationship with God has continued to get stronger, especially since being at Trevecca. Since being here, I have had less negative distraction and have felt encouraged in my faith by friends and social activities. Even though I miss all the involvement and leadership roles I had in my home church, I am learning to use this time to take a step back and focus on my personal relationship with Christ.
I am looking forward to going on this mission trip to Argentina for multiple reasons. One being God has called me into ministry. As of now, I feel that I am called into medical missions and am excited to see what these are like. Before being accepted for this trip, I was feeling slightly discouraged due to my challenging classes. I was praying and asking if I was really making the right choice. The next day, I received a letter saying I was accepted for this TAG trip and if felt as if God was confirming and encouraging me to continue the path that I am on. Another reason I am looking forward to participating in this trip is because I love serving others and seeing how God can use us to reach people of different cultures and backgrounds. It breaks my heart to see people hurting and lost and to have an opportunity to help gives me a joy that I can't explain. I feel that going on this trip will strengthen my walk with Christ and prepare me for later in life as I continue to follow the call he has for me.


text:
El syli fue la moneda de curso legal en Guinea entre 1971 y 1985. Se dividía en 100 cauris. La palabra syli significa "elefante" en las lenguas locales, y los cauris hacen referencia a las antiguas conchas marinas que se utilizaban como medio de pago. En 1971 el syli sustituyó al primer franco guineano con una tasa de cambio de 1 syli = 10 francos.

Monedas

A continuación se puede observar una lista detallada con las monedas y sus parámetros técnicos:

Billetes

En 1971 se emitieron billetes de 10, 25, 50 y 100 sylis. En 1980 se introdujo una nueva serie con distintos colores, y añadía nuevas denominaciones de 1, 2, 5 y 500 sylis.

Véase también
 Franco guineano

Referencias

Enlaces externos

Monedas fuera de curso
Monedas de Guinea

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Tips and Tricks for you Cooking Shows!
Full Service Check Out: Tonight I'll be offering you a Full Service Check Out and what that means is I'll be offering you some information to take home and look over in the privacy of your own home about our income earning opportunity with The Pampered Chef…for you or maybe someone you know who is looking to earn some extra income or who needs a kitchen make over! I'll also be offering you information on how to fill your kitchen with FREE, ½ Price and Deeply Discounted products by having your own Party or Show To Go Party! (Show to go is when you take catalogs to your friends and collect orders…no vacuuming required!) I'll also be offering you some recipes so be sure to bring your orders over when you're ready. I'll be doing orders "over there" on that table. If I'm already doing someone else's order, just lay it in the pile and I'll draw from the bottom and call you over when I'm ready to do your order.
Or, "I'd love to give you some information to take home and look over in the privacy of your own home. This is meant to generate questions and I'd love to follow up with you. Would you mind if I gave you a call tomorrow to see if this might be a fit for you or someone you know?" What would be a good time?
If they totally shoot down the business opportunity I move on to booking a show.
(host's name) is working on getting her 2 bookings for the next 3 months, would you be willing to help her out and at the same time fill your kitchen with lots of FREE products?
Guests introduce themselves and their favorite product as they hold catalogs which they sell to each other. The first person who finds the page about that product and I chime in to elaborate if needed (only for higher priced items) gets a ticket. Every guest turns to that page. Selling from the book!
After the guests are through, I share my FAVORITE MUST HAVE POWER TOOLS, depending on the recipes, the Deep Covered Baker, Dutch RockCrok and Forged Cutlery Knives or 12" Skillet etc.
THAT IS ALL THE SELLING I DO!
"And now for the best part, we are all going to __________(wherever the ingredients are set up) and you all get to try these our for yourself." Have hand sanitizer to spritz them or have everyone wash hands.
Depending on guest attendance there are 2 or 3 recipes printed each on a sheet in a clear pocket, next to the matching tools and ingredients (nothing is opened or prepped). I divide the guests into groups for each recipe. The Bakers and the Cookers. etc. Then ask in each group: "Who here is the bossiest one". their friends point//laughter.
She becomes the recipe leader and tells them what to do, for that she gets 5 tickets. Then I just visit each group and see how they are doing. The whole thing takes maybe 15 minutes at most. Many hands make quick work of multiple recipes.
"Ok everyone, GREAT JOB! How much fun was this?! I have some specials and FREE items to share with you so we are going back into the ____________(where we started).
"What was your favorite product to work with?" Manual Food Processor etc. Reinforce all the versatility of the DCB and RC.
Go over any specials and the FREE Guest Bonus.
Then do a strong booking talk. "How much fun was this and I know you all want your friends to gather and get a great cooking class to." Mention any Host Booking Bonuses briefly.
"Now you all notices how you all did the cooking and I had a glass of wine visiting with you. Do you know I get paid for that? Usually about $100-$200 and more! Who here gets to have a glass of wine at work and make $70 per hour and more? I want you to feel free to ask me any questions about this fun job, I will never call work for sure. You get a ticket for every questions asked. Now who has the first question?"
In my last 3 shows with this system, Bookings have gone through the roof and there are currently 4 recruit leads collecting orders and scheduling dates with their friends. 2 booked shows to earn the host kit credit.
1. Guest do not have to listen to us for an hour 'lecturing style', so they pay more attention at the end.
2. Your 'job' is really easy now so people are interested for themselves.
3. It is more fun for them, so they book more to repeat the experience.
BETTER....and I am very good at what I have done for 22 years!
5. Shy people can do this, they are not talking much.
6. Non cooks can do this, they are not cooking.
8. I tell the Host we will have enough food and not to prepare anything else, maybe dip and chips.
That has helped with the bookings because now the hosting job doesn't look like a catering job.
then 2 groups can work on 2 sides of the same table.
This is Michael Reeves from Leadership. I loved his segment, this is a must watch video. Imagine if we could make our cooking shows as hilarious as his! How much would that boost our sales and our bookings!


text:
Murder suspects 'tried to hide evidence and disguise their car with stickers after killing teen while stealing his birthday present iPad'
Marcos Arenas, 15, was killed when he fell under SUV on Thursday
Detectives say he was hanging onto his iPad during robbery
Jacob Dismont, 18, and Michael Solid, 21, face murder charge
Published: 16:21 EDT, 21 May 2013 | Updated: 16:35 EDT, 21 May 2013
Authorities say an 18-year-old arrested for killing a young teen after his partner drove over his body while they stole his iPad enlisted help to disguise and clean his car after the boy's tragic death.
Jacob Dismont, a baseball player at Nevada's Sierra Vista High School, changed his tires, added fake license plates as well as stickers to his SUV in the hours after killing 15-year-old Marcos Arenas on Thursday, according to police.
Dismont allegedly dragged the boy to his 2002 Ford Explorer when he refused to let go of the Apple device on the side of the road. The boy was consequently dragged by the vehicle when it took off until he fell and became crushed by the tires.
Behind bars: (from left) Jacob Dismont, 18, and Michael Solid, 21, have been arrested on charges of open murder, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery after a 15-year-old boy was killed while robbed of his iPad
Tragic end: Marcos Arenas was killed after he refused to release his new iPad from the thieves and was consequently pulled up to the speeding get-away vehicle and run over
Michael Solid, 21, who was a 2009 Sierra Vista dropout, is said to have been behind the wheel during the crime. He was also arrested on Saturday on charges of open murder, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery.
The Las Vegas Review Journal reports Dismont sent a text message to a friend identified as Brian Goodwin, declaring that his vehicle was 'hot' and the right side needed to be wiped down and painted.
According to their alleged conversation, Goodwin and Dismont then decided that the vehicle should no longer be driven with it being the focus of a state-wide search.
Maine police charge man, 20, with murder after finding body... University of Rhode Island student mysteriously disappears...
Dismont was pulled over by police while driving home on Saturday after police saw the Ford SUV masked with license plates belonging to a Mitsubishi.
He has denied having seen Solid for at least a month before his arrest as well as having any part in the robbery.
Solid was questioned by detectives after an anonymous tip to police. He admitted having been at the gas station Arenas was seen at but denied having been with Dismont.
Birthday present: Arenas' father said that his family can't afford much so his son's birthday present of an iPad two months ago was a big deal which the young teen fought until the very end to not lose
Police say Solid's girlfriend told them he was with a guy named 'Jake' at the time of the boy's death.
Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie has called Arenas' death particularly tragic with the boy said to have received the iPad for his 15th birthday two months ago.
His father, Ivan Arenas, said that his family has never had a lot so his son valued everything he had.
'From everything we know, his dad had to go deep inside his pockets to buy this thing for this kid, and this kid knew it,' Gillespie told the Journal. 'So he was going to hang onto that thing for dear life.'
The iPad has not been recovered.
According to investigators, Solid has an arrest record of possession of a stolen vehicle, petty larceny, robbery and assault. Dismont does not have any prior adult arrests.
Arenas family spokeswoman Tabitha Guertler said family members are relieved by the arrests and grateful for the quick response by police and the public.
She said: 'We're traumatized. Marcos' loss is something that will be with us forever. He was such an incredible person.'
The oldest of 10 children in the family, the teen was a student at Bonanza High School. The attack occurred in the late afternoon about half a mile from the school.
Suspect in iPad robbery death tried to hide evidence, police say
Marcos Arenas: Murder suspects 'disguised their getaway car after killing teen while stealing his new iPad'

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I wouldn't say this epic but worth watching. I love both guys so it's hard for me to root for only one..
Taeyang comes out first, he dances to Wedding Dress. OMGGGG SO HOT. I kinda like it when he does this in jeans more than suits now. LOL at the Kara members, they're all enjoying this. Danggg at the end. WHOAAA. Eunhyuk's turn and look at Teuk clapping lol. Damn, he's got lots of moves, why not the ab flash bb? Daesung's impressed! At the end Hyuk flashes his back with the word "end" if you're all wondering what it meant lol. He's got everything prepared for his shows doesn't he. They do it again. Haha. Isn't it the same thing?


Soft-Grip Pizza Slice Server has a rating of 5.0 stars based on 1 reviews.
Soft-Grip Pizza Slice Server is currently on backorder. Note that shipments including this item will be delayed until the item is available.
Serve up your fresh-baked pizza with this soft-grip pizza slice server. The TPR handle gives you a firm, comfortable hold on the server as the stainless steel blade slides under the pizza to separate it from your cutting board, pizza pan or pizza peel.
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Dimensions 14.4" x 3.9" x 1.9"


Yeah yeah yeah, I know I've blogged about The Address Montgomerie maybe 100 times but it's still one of my favourite wedding venues in Dubai, and if you're on the hunt for an outdoor venue then it's a must visit.
But this blog is short and sweet, and I've made it super easy for you to click through a bunch of weddings at The Address Montgomerie without the hassle of browsing through 1000 blogs on My Lovely Wedding.
So here it is…. 5 blogs about The Address Montgomerie that are worth a read!
Sophia + Marks wedding. I love this couple so much. They were one of my first couples that I worked with for over a year, and I even helped plan the proposal. So you can understand why it's extra special.
My behind the scenes blog for a corporate styled shoot we did a few years back. It reminds me of how awesome the events team are at TAMD.
A baby shower I styled for Rio's friend a few years back. It's not only a great venue for weddings but smaller events too!
The Montgomerie wedding fair on video. It gives you a good look at the lawn and I like it because so many of my wedding industry friends are in the video.
The Montgomerie Wedding Fair… on video!


Weeknight drop-in meditation: Join us every Monday and Thursday night at 5:45 pm for mentor-led guided meditation. "Mellow Mondays" present a different style each week. "Thoughtful Thursdays" have a new mindfulness topic each week. Attending as many as you can is a great way to explore the different ways of meditating.
Weekend group meditation: Twice a month join us for guided meditation led by a certified instructor. Times, topics, and styles vary – check the calendar for more info. Each session begins with 15 minutes of kitty zen time and then an hour of meditation.
All of our classes are open to any skill level, whether you've never tried yoga before or have been practicing for years. Our certified teachers adjust their instruction to the skill level of the participants. We keep class sizes small so that no one is left behind or ignored. Each teacher's style is slightly different, so we encourage you to try each one and find your favorite! Click here for a video about yoga at ZenCat Lounge.
Gentle, Restorative Yoga: This class is ideal for anyone with physical limitations and those who feel too self-conscious to try a traditional yoga class. Restore strength and flexibility through a slow-paced flow of gentle poses. Blocks and/or towels are provided for those who need extra support. Our teachers lead similar classes at local hospitals.
Hatha Yoga: This class focuses on linking your breath to simple, fluid movements to gently open the body and calm the mind. Great for releasing tension in the body and building core strength. Class includes brief meditation and breath work.
HathaFlow + ZenCat Restore: Why not have the best of both yogi worlds? In this class you will! For the first half of class expect various free ranged postures, with focus towards a slowly relaxed flow sequence linking breath to movement. Poses in this class are often held longer aiding in releasing muscles and the tension of the body from everyday stress. In this class we will stretch, strengthen, balance, and benefit in not only flexibility, but also body awareness. The second half of the class is a Restorative Zen style approach that may mesh Pranayama breathing exercises and restorative relaxation poses for the ultimate bliss. Great for beginners, intermediates, or anyone who simply wants to move a little – then meditate! Everyone's welcome, encouraged, and always has the choice to do what their body needs for individual nourishment. Feel free to bring your own towel, blanket, blocks, straps, or props of your choice but keep in mind that the cats may want to play with them!
SilverSneakers Yoga: Move through seated and standing yoga poses designed to increase flexibility, balance, and range of movement. Finish with restorative breathing exercises and final relaxation to promote reduced stress and mental clarity. This class is designed for all skill levels, and can be adapted for common chronic conditions.
Special discounts: This class is free for SilverSneakers members, $10 for college students with ID, $10 for age 60 and up.
Reservations are not required, but they are recommended as we limit class sizes for the comfort of participants and the cats. Click here to view class dates and reserve a spot.
When you arrive, please check in at reception.
Upon entering the main room, please silence your cell phone and remove your shoes. You may put your shoes and other belongings in the cubbies.
There is no dress code but we recommend wearing comfortable clothing that won't be a distraction during your yoga or meditation practice.
For yoga classes, you may bring your own mat or borrow one of ours if you're concerned about cats scratching or biting your mat. This isn't a common occurrence but it does happen.
If you're allergic to cats, let us know at check-in so we can turn our air filters on high to make you more comfortable.


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Home Alone? New York City Enacts Tenant Data Privacy Act
Tenants in New York City may soon have reason to sleep a little easier – the New York City Council has enacted a Tenant Data Privacy Act that is poised to enhance privacy protections in multifamily buildings in the city. Motivated by the large amounts of data that the Internet of Things (IoT) can generate in residential settings, the Act regulates the use of "smart access systems" such as smart locks and other keyless technologies to unlock entrances to common areas or individual apartments. The Act also regulates the use of utilities data such as gas, electricity, and Internet service. Key terms include notice and consent requirements, collection limits, use restrictions and minimum security obligations, as described in more detail below. Unless vetoed by Mayor Bill de Blasio this month, the Act is expected to become law by June 2021, with a grace period until January 1, 2023 before enforcement can begin in earnest. In the meantime, impacted companies should work with experienced counsel to come into compliance with the new rules.
Notice and Consent
Under the Act, tenants and guests must expressly consent to the use of a building's smart access system, either in writing or through a mobile application. To help tenants to make an informed decision, the Act also requires landlords to provide tenants with a smart access system privacy policy that satisfies minimum disclosure requirements. The policy must state what data will be collected by the smart access system, what third parties the data will be shared with and what those third parties' privacy policies are. In addition, the policy must describe how the data is protected, how long it is retained for, what protocols will be followed in the event of a security breach and how data is destroyed, anonymized or otherwise removed from the smart access system. Furthermore, the policy must explain how to add and remove individuals who have consented to use of the smart access system on a temporary basis. Landlords must also share the privacy policies of the smart access system developer or the entity that currently operates the system.
The Act also prohibits landlords from requiring a tenant to use a smart access system to get into his or her unit. This prohibition effectively codifies a 2019 settlement by a group of New York City tenants who objected to their landlord's efforts to phase out the use of mechanical keys in their building. In practice, if a tenant does not consent to the use of the smart access system, then the landlord will still need to provide a key for the tenant's unit.
Collection Limits
Under the Act, a smart access system must collect only the minimum amount of data needed to enable the system to function. Permitted categories of data include the tenant's or guest's name, preferred method of contact, biometric identifier information (if applicable), ID card number, password, username, lease information including move-in and move-out dates (if available), and the entrances for which access is permitted. Time and method of access information may also be collected, but only for security purposes.
Separate restrictions apply to the collection of utilities information. Landlords are only permitted to collect total monthly usage information about a tenant's use of gas, electricity or any other utility unless otherwise required by law, even if more granular data is available. In addition, it is unlawful for a landlord to collect any information about a tenant's use of Internet service if the landlord does not provide the Internet service directly to tenants. For landlords who provide Internet directly and want to analyze tenants' usage information, the information must either be aggregated and anonymized or otherwise necessary for billing purposes.
The Act expressly prohibits using smart access data for any purpose other than granting access to and monitoring entrances and exits. The Act additionally prohibits off-site location tracking of the user of a smart access system, collecting smart access data from minors without the consent of a parent or guardian, using smart access data to track the relationship status of tenants and their guests or using such data to harass or evict a tenant. In addition, landlords cannot sell, lease or otherwise disclose such data unless a narrow exception is met, such as cooperation with an active law enforcement investigation or disclosure to a building guest with a tenant's express authorization. Tenants whose data is sold in violation of the Act are eligible for minimum statutory damages of up to $2000 per violation, plus costs and attorneys' fees.
Minimum Security
To comply with the Act, smart access systems must implement stringent security measures and safeguards to protect the security and data of tenants, guests and other individuals. At a minimum, such security measures must include data encryption and regular updates to firmware to enable security and vulnerability issues to be remediated. In addition, systems that are password-protected must permit users to change the password. In most circumstances, landlords must also ensure that smart access data is deleted or anonymized within 90 days of a tenant's move-out date or the date on which the tenant withdraws authorization for the use of the data. Data may be retained for a longer period only if it is needed for specific permitted purposes, such as detecting security incidents, protecting against fraud or similar bad acts, debugging or compliance with law.
What To Do Now
Unless vetoed by Mayor de Blasio this month, the Act is expected to become law by June 2021. Landlords in the city have a grace period until January 1, 2023 to come into compliance before enforcement of the law is expected to begin in earnest. In the meantime, landlords should consider taking the following steps to get ready:
Work with smart access system vendors to develop a privacy notice that complies with applicable requirements.
Consider how to display the privacy notice to tenants.
Obtain any consents from tenants that may be required by law.
Establish policies and procedures to ensure tenant data complies with applicable collection and use restrictions.
Implement and maintain minimum security requirements for smart access systems.
Ensure smart access data is deleted no later than 90 days after tenants' move out dates, or earlier upon request.
Related Lawyers
Shannon Yavorsky Partner, Cyber, Privacy & Data Innovation, Technology Transactions
San Francisco; London
D+1 415 773 5731
D: +1 415 773 5731
Cyber, Privacy & Data Innovation
Global Compliance & Regulatory
Government Investigations and Enforcement Actions
Shannon Yavorsky Partner Cyber, Privacy & Data Innovation, Technology Transactions
Shannon K. Yavorsky is a leading authority on United States (U.S.) and European data privacy and security issues. She is uniquely qualified in California, England and Wales and Ireland and helps clients navigate the increasingly complex global privacy and data security regulatory landscape.
Shannon Yavorsky is the head of Orrick's global Cyber, Privacy & Data Innovation Group. Shannon advises clients on a broad range of United States (U.S.) and European data privacy and cybersecurity issues, including emerging issues surrounding the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the e-Privacy Directive. She helps clients undertake comprehensive privacy and cybersecurity assessments worldwide, evaluates privacy and security risks in corporate transactions and drafts and negotiate data-related vendor and arrangement contracts. She also counsels clients on cross-border data transfers, data breaches and developing global privacy compliance programs. She has significant experience with model contract clauses, privacy policies, website terms and conditions, data processing agreements and privacy and security issues in corporate transactions.
In addition to the GDPR, CPRA and CCPA, Shannon advises on an array of privacy and security laws and regulations, including:
Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM)
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)
Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA)
Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)
State breach notification laws
Advertising and payment card processing self-regulatory frameworks
Shannon also has an active general consumer protection practice and counsels clients on interest-based advertising, sweepstakes and marketing promotions, retail sales and e-commerce platforms. Her clients are multinational clients across diverse industry sectors, with an emphasis on technology, financial services, retail, staffing, advertising, healthcare, and automotive.
David Curtis Managing Associate, Cyber, Privacy & Data Innovation, Technology Transactions
Seattle; Boston
David Curtis Managing Associate Cyber, Privacy & Data Innovation, Technology Transactions
David provides privacy and security guidance to technology-led companies, from start-ups to multinationals.
David drafts and negotiates data licenses and other commercial contracts in which privacy and security issues are a key concern. In addition, he regularly advises clients on privacy policies, website terms and conditions and data processing agreements. David also counsels clients on digital advertising, Internet law and consumer protection, with a particular focus on compliance with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA), the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), restrictions on unfair and deceptive trade practices and app store privacy requirements. David helped develop Orrick's CCPA Readiness Assessment Tool, which enables companies to test how ready they are to comply with the CCPA as a first step to constructing a strategic compliance roadmap.
Before joining Orrick, David was an associate at Ropes & Gray LLP and an adjunct professor at Harvard Law School, where he taught legal research, writing and analysis. David clerked for Justice Barbara Lenk of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
NYC Council Approves Legislation to Aid Small Retail Businesses...
Certain guarantors of restaurant, retail, and other commercial leases in New York City may soon be off the hook for tenant defaults occurring during...
Governor Cuomo Signs COVID-19 Legislation Expanding NY Price...
On June 6, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law legislation that strengthens the state's price gouging statute, in response to COVID-19.
Unlocking the Value of Tenant Data
Landlords have access to an extraordinary amount of data. First, can you sell your tenants data? And second, should you sell that data?


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Turkey: Erdogan should resign, Environment Minister
December 26, 2013 Khalid Al Mouahidi News 0
The corruption scandal in Turkey has taken another new turn after Prime Minister TayyipErdogan reshuffled his cabinet. Three ministers quit the government because of the implications of their sons. There are calls for the Prime Minister resign.
The resignations of the three ministers were considered to be long overdue.KorayCaliskan, an associate professor at Istanbul's Bogazici University, said they "are very late and difficult resignations" and "don't have any value in terms of democracy." Turkey's political crisis begun with the arrest of several people, on the 17th of this month,accused of graft charges. Prime Minster Erdogan reacted to the arrests by sacking or reassigning the police investigators involved in the 14month long secret investigations.
Erdogan has been heading the government for 11years. The environment Minister, ErdoganBayraktar, is among those who have resigned and has called on the Prime Minister to step down. He believes that the Erdogan should resign "for the sake of the wellbeing of this nation and country." The former minister's requests led to new protests in the capital, Istanbul and Izmir.
The Prime Minister has not discredited the investigations of the police but questions the outcome of it. During a party meeting with provincial leaders, Erdogan asked "if a verdict is made by the opposition party on the second day of the investigation, what's the point of having judges? If a decision is made by the media, what's the point of having these long legal procedures?" Meanwhile, he has decided to do a cabinet reshuffle by appointing 10 new ministers to replace the three who quit and others planning mayoral runs in local elections in March.
Since his arrival, Erdogan has been credited for tackling its once-dominant secular military and overseen rapid economic expansion.
Bogazici University
ErdoganBayraktar
KorayCaliskan
Israel : a ''tic for tac'' policy
Iraq : Air force boosted to fight al-Qaeda


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701 Blount Avenue
Guntersville, AL 35976
Establish Service
TVA Complaint Process
ELECTRIC BOARD
Of Guntersville
View Rates Pay Bill Contact Us
For new or existing customers.
Reliable, affordable electric service with the emphasis on convenience.
From reliable electric service to a variety of convenient bill-pay options, the Electric Board of Guntersville works hard to provide affordable power service to our residential, commercial and industrial customers. Our office hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and the phone number is 256-582-5691. To report a power outage or other emergency after regular business hours, including nights, holidays and weekends, call 256-582-3441.
Click here if you would like to establish new electric services.
Click here if you would like to report an outage in your area.
BILL PAY OPTIONS
Click here to view your options for paying your electric bill.
Due to rising inflation and increased costs, the Electric Board of Guntersville will be implementing a rate increase beginning October, 2022. The approximately 2% increase will be added to the fixed monthly charge to minimize the impact of high seasonal usage periods.
Electric Board Implements a New Customer Portal
The Electric Board of Guntersville is excited to announce that it has a new Customer Portal. This Customer Portal allows customers to easily manage their utility accounts, monitor their usage, and pay their bills. "The best part of this feature is that customers will not have to pay any fees when making their payments online." says Chief Financial Officer, Dawn Smith. Customers can easily sign up by following the link: https://guntersvilleelectric.utilitynexus.com
Electric Board customers can continue to pay their bills by phone with no fees by calling: (866) 550-3475.
There is also a new Mobile App with the same convenient features as the online Customer Portal. Customers can find the app by searching for Guntersville Electric Board in both the App Store and Google Play.
The Customer Portal is available beginning today. For assistance signing up, or more information, please call the Electric Board at (256)-582-5691 to speak to a CSR.
Our business office is located at 701 Blount Avenue. Our lobby hours are 10 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Monday-Friday and our drive thru is open 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday-Friday. Our monthly Board Meetings are usually held the last Friday of every month at 9:00 a.m.
Nights - Weekends - Holidays: (256) 582-3441
©Copyright 2023 Electric Board of Guntersville. All Rights Reserved


Vacation Rentals - Holiday Rental ads in the city of Coings in France for Tourism.
Vacation Rental (and B&B) of 32 m² in Coings for 2 peoples.
Petits déjeuners 5 € par personne.
Last Ads update : 02/25/2019.
Owner of an urban accomodation or B&B to rent in Coings ?


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Home » LOU'S VIEWS: Low-key 'Columbus' hits big screen
LOU'S VIEWS: Low-key 'Columbus' hits big screen
August 25, 2017 | Lou Harry
Keywords A&E Carousel / A&E Landing Page / Arts & Entertainment / etc. / Lou's Views / Opinion
James Dean revival spurs debate on raising the digital dead
About 15 minutes into "Columbus," the Indiana-shot and -set feature film being released nationally Sept. 1, there's a discussion about attention spans.
Why, asks a character, do we say that a kid who doesn't read books has a short attention span but don't apply the label to an adult who isn't into lengthy video games?
"It's not a matter of attention," one of the characters in the movie answers. "It's a matter of interest." That conversation happens immediately after another in which a mother suggests a dish should have more spice while her daughter argues the advantage of subtlety and a better aftertaste.
"Columbus" certainly puts demands on the attention span of filmgoers. And it lacks the kind of spice Hollywood usually gives to films. But if you go in not expecting traditional pacing and with an appreciation of composition over convention, it has its rewards.
Beautifully shot, the film is filled with extensive wide, lengthy shots focusing on Columbus' landmarks—often dwarfing the people in front of them. It's a movie designed for people who can comfortably and un-self-consciously spend hours in an art museum. And even they might sometimes find it low-key to a point of torpor.
There's a plot tucked away within. John Cho plays Jin, a book translator who comes to Columbus to be with his comatose father, a visiting architecture professor. He meets Casey (Haley Lu Richardson), a young woman rationalizing staying in town after high school because of concern for her recovering addict mother.
He says he doesn't care about architecture. ("You grow up around something and it feels like nothing.") She, on the other hand, is hungry for conversation about aesthetic matters. Yet the film isn't a prettified lecture. When asked about why the Irwin Bank moves Casey, we don't even get to hear her reaction, just see her as she describes it. The result is one of the loveliest moments in the film.
If this were a Hollywood studio film, a romance would develop between Jin and Casey, perhaps followed by an ugly confrontation with a pal clearly enamored with her (Rory Culkin). But since this is far from a conventional Hollywood film, I hope it's not a spoiler to say that's not what one-named filmmaker Kogonada has in mind.
Instead, he's more interested in the relationship of people to place and the influence of one on the other. Does architecture have the power to restore? To heal? Or is that a fantasy architects like to tell themselves?
"Columbus," like the city, tries to make that case for the transformative power of design.
If you're still awake by the end, you might agree.•