Archive for the blog Category

Life in a Job

By John Patton on 13/06/2019 / blog / Leave a comment

One day towards the end of lunch, a large, noisy party arrived in the dining room. Thankfully, they occupied two tables which were not mine. However, I was pressed into service when their designated waitress came to tell me that they wished to be looked after by a Gaeilge speaker. Their leader was a rough looking, large Dubliner who had clearly had a few aperitifs and was nursing a pint of the black stuff. As they finished lunch and expressed appreciation for my attentiveness, the big fella said to me,

EIS -TWENTY YEARS LATER

By John Patton on 04/06/2019 / blog / 2 Comments

Moray Place , Headquarters of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) and its West Lothian Local Association disowned me when I went on strike in solidarity with other Irish trade unionists on February 1st , 1972, following the murder two days earlier by British State forces of thirteen Derry civilians ; two of the dead were past pupils of the secondary school where I had worked the previous year.. Nor did I endear myself to the leadership in the 80s, when I successfully defeated the Executive with a motion on class contact time in my first appearance at an AGM . I don’t recall the year but Peter Andrews was President .

ECHOES OF A SCHOOL VISIT TO STORMONT

By John Patton on 09/04/2019 / blog, Ireland / Leave a comment

The gerrymander of Derry City by the Unionists , with the support of the Stormont Government, was the prototype for sectarian control of the State; despite being 70% Catholic and Nationalist, through blatant manipulation of ward boundaries, the City remained under Unionist control

Stealing Dreams by Eva Comrie

By John Patton on 01/04/2019 / blog / 2 Comments

I was a 7 year old revolutionary when I learned my first few French phrases; ca va? je m’appelle; j’habite; je suis. Instantly hooked by the fantooshness, there commenced a lifelong fascination of the foreign and exotic. In P5 at Crieff Primary School I’d a wee notebook

PUT THE GENERALS IN THE DOCK

By John Patton on 11/03/2019 / blog / 2 Comments

PUT THE GENERALS IN THE DOCK The buck stops at the top; that is the accepted chain of responsibility and accountability in organisations, institutions and in life. Slobodan Milosevic, David Duckenfield, Ratko Mladic : what links these names is that all were indicted for unlawful killings which

BRING SHAMINA AND HER SON HOME NOW

By John Patton on 19/02/2019 / blog / 4 Comments

The ingrained instinct of politicians is to consider how any comment affects their career prospects and so Sajid Javid, an ambitious Home Secretary, immediately responded in Daily Mail speak

OCTOBER 5th -WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT?

By John Patton on 25/09/2018 / blog / Leave a comment

British civil rights – that’s what we were agitating and marching for in 1968. The demand was for the same citizenship rights as those enjoyed in Carlisle or Exeter, Reading or Inverness. With unemployment figures, ranked among the highest in Europe, local authority housing denied to the

WELCOME SORCHA

By John Patton on 03/07/2018 / blog / Leave a comment

Sorcha Óg You arrived Sorcha with the dawn on the fifteenth of June, another bairn for Scotland, a sister for Leo and Senan, a daughter for Jen and Neill , another grandchild, a burst of radiance in this gilded summer. Your Gaelic name means ‘light’ and you

DEVASTATION OF UNIVERSAL CREDIT

By John Patton on 17/06/2018 / blog / Leave a comment

Growing up in Ireland, the Paupers’ Field and the Polo Field were our childhood play areas. As children, the emotional overtones did not register with us nor did any real distinction occur between the two grounds. Seventy years later , I find those memories strangely relevant to

Donald – a Tullibody Inspiration

By John Patton on 06/01/2018 / blog / 26 Comments

Reaching out to people and touching their lives, is not instinctive human activity. It is learned and practiced behaviour. Not all of us are capable of committing to it nor, indeed, do we wish to have any appreciable level of involvement in the lives of others. Only