The Storytellers Read Online Free PDF

the front row which were normally stacked against the back wall to make way for the snooker table now pushed tight into one corner. Even in this simple act of rising to address the crowd, the Cowley delegate radiated a pulse of electric energy that caused the room to fall silent and its occupants, many pressed standing against the walls, to fix on him in anticipation.
    â€œBrothers!” Jack Pugh’s greeting was delivered loudly in his shrill voice as a consecration of the faithful. “It is our task,” he urged. “No, it is our sacred duty ,” he qualified, in a tone worthy of the most forceful proselytizer, firing the word ‘duty’ into the hearts of his listeners like a trained marksman, “to tear down a capitalist structurethat can upset our lives as easily as a ledger entry. It is our sacred duty, brothers, to reclaim that power which is rightly ours, and which resides here, inside these factories, not in some distant counting house operated for the benefit of people who neither know about us, nor care.
    â€œIn light of the hardships you are being asked to bear, it is important that you understand the heroic process you are part of. Many here will already know what this is, but some of you will not, so let me explain.” Jack Pugh looked pensive, drawing his hands up to his lips, as if in prayer.
    â€œWhen the French Revolution brought an end to feudal society in that country,” he continued, “which Oliver Cromwell had already achieved here, the working man ceased to be a chattel, the property of another. However, these revolutions were not revolutions of the workers, or proletariat, but of the middle class, or bourgeoisie, who attained the freedom to compete for positions of authority. This was possible because money came to determine the flow of relationships within society, rather than birth or blood lines.
    â€œBut this put ultimate power in the hands of the owners of capital, who were happy to employ the bourgeoisie as their placemen, leaving the proletariat to fight between themselves for the crumbs. And crumbs, brothers, are exactly what we would have got had we not organized. And it is crumbs, good people of Longbridge, we will get again, if management gets its way now.”
    It was already dark outside. The windows were steamed and one or two inside the institute were getting restless. Two late arrivals let a welcome blast of cold air into the room, and the distraction allowed everyone to alter their positions. Delegate Pugh tried not to appear irritated as the arriving men searched for somewhere to stand and polite suggestions were made from various quarters, but to no avail, leaving them squeezed just inside the door.
    Picking up more or less where he had left off, Jack Pugh gavethem a warning. “Do not imagine,” he said, “that the Labour Party is your friend. Members of the Labour Party will make comforting noises, certainly, but in the end, they are bourgeois, jealous of their advantages and will never fundamentally change a system that benefits them. That is why, brothers, we must continue the struggle until property and privilege, however bestowed, are eradicated.”
    The applause he received was solid and might have been more so had his flow not been punctured. In any event, the membership had never fully embraced the hard left ideology which permeated Cowley, although there was a vocal minority of Longbridge workers who wished it had. This included Harry Blodget, an unmarried, middle-aged fitter, who rose to his feet and clapped keenly but failed to stimulate a standing ovation.
    Peter Farris thanked the delegate from Cowley for his insights and opened the floor for questions to either their own steward or their guest, with the proviso that as it was getting late and they still needed to vote, “Could members keep it short and not go over old ground.”
    He must have known, from chairing past meetings, that this was a forlorn