CHNN 22, Spring 2008 - School of Social Sciences

else. The party there was far more working-class and far more active, and the same in Manchester.
When I came to Manchester, Dave Duncan was secretary of the peace committee, and almost
immediately, within a month or two, he went to the north east, so I took over as secretary of the
Manchester Peace Committee. The minute books are in the archive. I remember Jane Mann, who
was living in Didsbury, where we first had the bottom half of Len Hayward’s house, Jane Mann,
who lived in the next street, told everybody in the Didsbury branch: Ruth Frow won’t be active in
the branch, because she’s peace. So the first thing I did when I came into the branch, I suggested
that I did a dues round. Everybody was shamed to the core that I was prepared to be that active. I
just got involved in the normal activity, which wasn’t very onerous, the odd leaflet and so on. But
my main party responsibility was peace, and as secretary of the Manchester Peace Committee I got
involved in, for example, organising a train to London for a peace demo. That was hair-raising.
Every lunchtime at school I had to walk down to this bank at Ardwick Green, weighed down with a
bag full of money, because the money came in for the train fares. God, it was murderous. I had to
raise it or be personally liable for price of this bloody train!
T
o my horror, on the actual journey I found that most people had taken crates of beer with
them: talk about hair-raising. That was another aspect of party life which I strongly
disapproved of – drink. And there was an awful lot of it. We were neither of is teetotal, we
just didn’t drink. If we went to a wedding and had to have a glass of sherry, we did. Eddie was very
against drink because he saw the corruption that it was responsible for in the trade union
movement; and he was criticised strongly because he didn’t in the drinking bouts in the union,
particularly national committee and occasions like that. For some years Eddie and I had a function:
when these big firms like ICI and so on put on events to which they invited all the activists in the
unions, it was our to clutch hold of one drunk after another and sort of drag them out to the toilet
before they collapsed on the floor. It was foul, it was absolutely foul. It’s an aspect that I don’t even
like to think about. I’d never come across any edict or comment on, what shall we say, personal
behaviour on the part of the party, except in connection with Eddie and me. I can remember when I
was living with the Wainwrights, Bill coming in one day – because he was a chain smoker at the
time; so was Molly, and I was smoking at the time actually – and he said: ‘Do you know what Dicky
Doll’s done? He says that smoking causes cancer!’ Of course, Dicky Doll at that time wasn’t the
great Sir Richard in charge of the cancer research place in Mill Hill. He was only a mere what-not.
In Liverpool Leo McGree helped me with the peace work, and one or two others. Once I got to
Manchester, of course, Eddie helped me with the contacts and put me in touch with various
convenors and so on. Johnny Tocher I met in that way because he was convenor at the time at a big
firm in Stockport. I was able to use Eddie’s knowledge and influence to develop the peace work. I
did that for about six years I think, and then I applied for a course at the university for an advanced
diploma in education, and I dropped the peace committee work. By that time it was fading, and
CND had been formed. I was the first vice-chairman of CND in Manchester, which we always
maintained preceded the London CND. We were involved in Lord Simon and used to go to
extremely draughty meetings at Broomcroft where a little flunkey came in with a little white cap
and white apron, black dress, cucumber sandwiches of minute proportions. Lord Simon
unfortunately ruined Manchester CND at that stage because he provided everything. He provided
an office, he paid for a full-time worker, anything we wanted. If we wanted leaflets we paid for
them and so on. So the committee had nothing to fight for, it died of inertia. But of course it
resuscitated itself and became very strong later, but by that time, I never left CND, I’ve always been
a member, but I was no longer active in it.
The party was disgraceful about CND. The first Aldermaston march was accorded about a half
column inch at the base of page one. The second Aldermaston march was given full coverage, but
they were very, very slow in waking up to the importance of Aldermaston. I can’t remember if I
went on the first Aldermaston or not. Eddie and I went on two or three. The reason why I became
involved in CND at the beginning was as secretary of the peace committee, nothing to do with the
party. It was just that I was in that public position and naturally got involved. It was formed in the
Methodist Central Hall in Oldham Street. There were twenty-five or thirty people there, just I think
by public announcement, and nobody there, or very few, had had any experience of organisation
whatsoever. So when they talked about raising money, and I gently suggested jumble sales and film
shows and so on, they thought: My God, this woman knows all about it; and I was promptly elected
vice-chairman. Donald Pennington of the university was chairman, and Lord Simon was president.
I can’t remember who the secretary was. She became very active later and went down to London
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