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Billy Bragg

Colin Campbell
by Colin Campbell on 22/12/21 18:00

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It’s about 1987 and his name is ‘Red Tom’, he’s a maths teacher in my secondary school and I’m sitting beside my friend Brian ‘Doc’ Doherty. 

Red Tom was a classic left wing secondary school maths teacher. 

Fierce left-wing political views and a sense of righteousness about the path that he was on, which although he never overtly preached to the class, it was clear to see by his attitude and the lapel badges he wore on his jacket. 

It might have been in that class that I learnt and formed the opinions that lasted a lifetime. 

Doc and I would have competitions trying to outdo each other with our knowledge of Billy Bragg and his lyrics and it seemed entirely fitting in that classroom with Red Tom. 

The blogs will be retrospective and melancholy and ponderous for the next little while as I reflect backwards from where I find myself now which is a place that I thought I would probably never get to. 

I wonder what induces the visceral and the deep-seated urge that I can’t stand oppression of people who have less or the privilege of the people who have more but in truth, it probably came from Billy Bragg and Red Tom. 

When you find your ladder is firmly entrenched and cemented against a wall and you start to reach the upper levels, it’s always natural to wonder whether it was initially set in the right place. 

After my upbringing in a secondary school with classmates who were the children of families who were destroyed by the collapse of the shipyards and then again by the collapse of the ‘tech industry saviour’ (IBM) who then ran away, I found myself by sheer fluke and chance catapulted into the faculty of medicine at the university of Glasgow to study dentistry. I then went onto a world of privileges that I could never have even imagined. 

My ladder remains though, where it was supposed to be and the journey on from here will be to make the best of where I find myself. 

Billy Bragg taught me what Frank Turner carried on teaching me which was that it’s alright to not want loads of stuff and it’s alright to want to share and it’s alright to want to collaborate and it’s alright to pick your Jones’ as carefully as you can so is not to be dragged into an affluenza fight. 

As I reach this apparently pivotal point in my life, the made-up day which could be celebrated on any made-up day, my needle starts to twitch towards Billy Bragg and the simple minds of the 1980’s and what U2 used to stand for and Amnesty International and the fight against the partite and the miners’ strike and the Poll Tax and the stuff that formed me as an individual, which means it’s too late to try to change back now. 

If you have a minute I’d love you to explore the Billy Bragg wars and what he does now, but at the very least you could listen to one of the most beautiful songs he ever did here (which on initial listening doesn’t sound beautiful but listen to the words) and it will take you back to a time where you were a heartbroken teenager and your values were being set for the rest of your life. 

You’re welcome. 

 

Blog Post Number - 2955 

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Colin Campbell
Written by Colin Campbell
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