Dave Chapple, a Somerset postman for 38 years and a trades union agitator for 46 years, has written and, via his Somerset Socialist Library imprint, published his fifth book in 18 months. Dave’s latest book is a tribute to his adopted town of Bridgwater, where he has lived since 1987. “Bridgwater 1983 to 2004: A working-class, left-wing, rebellious town” casts a detailed and at times critical look at twenty-one years of radical socialist organising, through trades unions, the Labour Party, Labour Councillors, May Day marches and rallies, the Somerset Community Defence Campaign and its journal the Somerset Clarion, the Eastover Community Association, fighting unemployment, opposing both Gulf wars, anti-war, anti-racist and anti-nuclear campaigns, defending the NHS and its ambulance and maternity services, even seeing off an invasion by Ulster Unionists and their fascist hangers on.
The book is both a unique local case-study in late 20th-century left-wing politics, and a labour of love to Dave’s adopted town. Funded by a generous grant by Dave’s trade union the CWU; lavishly illustrated with vintage photographs and documents in both black & white and colour, and beautifully designed by former print shop steward Nigel Costley, now Secretary of the South West TUC, the book is a 114-page A4-sized softback.
Somerset Socialist Library books by Dave Chapple
Published:
1. Henry Suss and the Jewish Working-Class of Manchester and Salford 2004
2. Class Conflict in a Somerset Town: Bridgwater 1924 to 1927 2006
3. Grasshoppers, Stonkers and Straight Eights: George Massey and Bristol Post Office Workers, 1930
to 1976 2009
Second-hand copies are sometimes available on-line via sites such as Bibliophile and ABE Books.Com
4. Bristol: 13 miles due east autobiography 2020
5. Clevedon Postman 1978 to 1987 autobiography 2020
6. Local, Loud, Left-wing, Proud: The 1987 General Election campaign in North Somerset
autobiography 2020
7. Soldier Saving Lives: Keith Howard Andrews: Willesden, Aldershot, Quetta, Shanghai, Spain,
Dunkirk, Taunton 2020
8. Socialists in a Somerset Town: Bridgwater 1983 to 2004 2020
Work in progress
1. “Close a Pit and a community closes”: Somerset and the Miners’ Strike of 1984/5
2. “Scarred by those thin black veins” Somerset Coal Miners, a social and political history
Projected
1. “Fighting Hitler, fighting Tories”: Alfred Richard Borodin Birnbaum, “Fred Phillips,” and the ‘Red
Borough’ of Bridgwater
2. Council House Conservatives: the Chapple family in Clevedon, Somerset, 1951 to 1971
3. “Cruise missiles are coming!” Youth protest and rebellion in Clevedon, Somerset, 1980 to 1985
4. “New Model Socialism”: The Somerset Community Defence Campaign, 1985 to 1995
5. “From the Leven to the Parrett:” Andy Keir, Somerset Scottish socialist
6. Somerset farm workers and their trade union 1873 to 1990
7. An unbeaten militant workplace: the Royal Mail Delivery Office, Bridgwater, Somerset,
1985 to 2016
8. Ska in Jamaica and Britain: musicians, singers, sound systems, records, society and politics,
1956 to 1966
9. “Boogie in our Bones”: Black Music in Britain, 1930 to 1980
10. “Better to break the law than break the poor”: The Bridgwater Anti-Poll-Tax Union, 1988 to 1994
As their author and publisher, I welcome feedback, critical or otherwise, on all these books.
Dave Chapple, Somerset Socialist Library, Bridgwater, Somerset 07707869144
davidchapple2020@gmail.com