Aye Write 2023: Pip Fallow and Daniel Gray, Working Class Heroes

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Aye Write 2023: Pip Fallow and Daniel Gray, Working Class Heroes

Saturday 21 May, 2023 12.45 – 1.45 p.m.

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 2 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3NY

Pip Fallow was born in the coal-miner’s cottage where his family of eight lived, in a village near Durham. Pip was destined to join his father down the pit, but the closure of his village’s mine in the 1980s saw him at the back of the dole queue like the rest. Pip Fallow’s Dragged Up Proppa: Growing Up In Britain’s Forgotten North is the memoir of a man who left school illiterate but has now written a book. The story of a lost generation who were prepared for a life that had disappeared by the time they were ready for it, of communities with once strong social ties that have now disintegrated, and a way of living that simply no longer exists in Britain today.

This is his account of some of the most important issues affecting Britain today; from levelling-up and the north-south divide, to social mobility and class, and the devastating social upheaval caused by decades of deindustrialization and government neglect. Showing how broken promises of the past impact his village and the politics of today.

Daniel Gray’s ‘Mon The Workers tells workers stories – the postman, the primary school teacher, the midwife, the musician, workers in shops, workers at sea, the Columbian farmer, the Palestinian fireman – in their own words. It is a celebration of 125 years of the STUC, and a clarion call for the next generation to agitate, organise and win.

Modern trade unionists in Scotland perform all types of roles in every imaginable location and are drawn from all backgrounds. They campaign to win on issues facing the colleague next to them and a comrade thousands of miles away.

‘Mon The Workers demonstrates past achievements, explores the ideas trade unionists have fought for and rouses the movement towards future victories. 75 trade union members, reps and officials share experiences of union life from the anti-apartheid movement to Wick Wants Work.

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