Andy Warhol, in connection with an exhibition of his work in Sweden in 1968, is quoted as having said "In the future, everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes." I have a feeling that this may apply to places as well as to people. On my long-distance walks across England I have often been surprised at the revelations I have uncovered about what otherwise seem to be insignificant villages - a house party where the then Prince of Wales may have first met Wallis Simpson (Ashby Folville in Leicestershire), the birthplace of the first Poet Laureate (Aldwincle in Northamptonshire), the execution site of some of Bonnie Prince Charlie's defeated troops (Mayfield in Staffordshire).
On a recent visit to the magnificent parish church in the Suffolk village of Blythburgh I discovered that Joseph F Kennedy junior, brother of John Kennedy the US President, died when his bomber blew up near the village on 12 August 1944. But it seems that Blythburgh may have missed its 15 minutes in the news because this was wartime, and because the location of Kennedy's death was not disclosed until some years later.
However, it is another village that is the subject of this blog. My grandfather's mother (therefore my great-grandmother) was born in the Norfolk village of Burston, and went to school in Diss. Whilst in East Anglia I decided to visit the village to see if there were any reminders of her family among the graves in the churchyard (there were, but that is a different story). I had done a little research on the history of the village, but what I found there was fascinating and memorable: Burston certainly had its share of fame - and events there continue to have a legacy.
My grandfather was a printer and a devoted trade unionist, serving as 'father of the chapel' in his trade union - then the Typographical Association (TA), now, after various amalgamations, part of Unite. He was very interested in the history of the Tolpuddle Martyrs (who in 1834 were sentenced to transportation to Australia for forming a 'union'), and on one occasion represented the TA at the annual rally held there. Looking back on his views, I am surprised that he never talked about the Burston School Strike that took place in his mother's birthplace - especially as by some reckoning this was the longest strike in history, lasting from 1914 to 1939.
The conditions of farm labourers and their families were at the heart of the disputes in both Tolpuddle and Burston. In the latter case the two village schoolteachers (Kitty and Tom Higdon, a married couple) were keen to improve the squalid lives of their pupils from farmworker backgrounds, and to prevent farmers taking children out of school whenever extra labour was needed on the land. Howard Newby, in his book The Deferential Worker (Penguin, 1976) wrote that "agricultural workers are a group of whom most people have little knowledge or understanding." That was just as true for wider society in the first decades of the twentieth century as it was when Newby was writing is book after detailed research in neighbouring Suffolk. Farm labourers were supposed to know their place, do as they were told, obey those in authority, keep quiet, and exist on minimal and uncertain income. The Higdons' actions, as village school teachers, threatened this order and they were dismissed by the school board dominated by the local rector and the farm-owners.
But the school children, and their parents, would not agree to leave the care of the Higdons and went on 'strike'. In total 66 out of 72 pupils, led by a 13 year-old girl called Violet Potter playing a squeeze-box, presented themselves to be taught by the Higdons on the village green. Later a disused workshop was made available by a local craftsman. Persecution by the authorities followed, including parents being fined for not sending their children to the 'right' school, and the rector was instrumental in having some families evicted from properties owned by the church.
However, Tom Higdon was a member of the farm-workers union and obtained publicity for the cause. Fines were paid by well-wishers, and the village came into national recognition: Sylvia Pankhurst was among those visiting to show her solidarity with the Higdons. But then a remarkable thing happened. Subscriptions were raised to build a new school - on the village green and with its back to the church and the much-disliked rector, It was formally opened in May 1917 by Violet Potter, and the 'striking' children of the village continued to attend it until Tom Higdon's death in 1939.
'Burston Strike School' is a remarkable building. Every stone on its facade is inscribed with the name of a subscriber or subscribing organisation. There is nothing new in contemporary calls for people to donate to a project and have their name recorded in some way. Here the names come from across the country, from organisations as well as individuals - City Philomathical Society; New Dynant Colliery Workmen; Sunderland Womens Labour League; Casey and Dolly; Mr L C Cullen of St Kilda, Victoria, Australia; Leo Tolstoi; from trades unions of all kinds, co-operative societies, and branches of the Independent Labour Party.
And to return to the 1944 event at Blythburgh, the death of Joe Kennedy junior there: according to JFK's recent biographer Fredrik Logevall (JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956, published by Viking, 2020) that plane crash possibly changed the course of the American Presidency, and of the USA itself, by ensuring that it was not Joe with his doubtful views on many issues who made it to the White House but his more urbane and worldly brother Jack. Important things can happen in small places.
