A Socialist Life is a collection of 28 published and 5 unpublished short stories by Socialist Standard writer Heather Ball. Many readers liked Heather's distinctive writing style and found it full of charm, warmth, humanity and humour. Sadly, Heather died before she could complete her writing project. This collection of her stories, published by the Socialist Party, is a memorial to her indefatigable commitment to socialism. Send a cheque made payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain to 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN. Price £3.00.
Blogger's Note:
I'm not sure what happened but for some reason the text of this pamphlet isn't available on the SPGB website, and it also looks like it is currently out of print. Therefore, reproduced below is the introduction to the pamphlet, and links to Heather's short stories mentioned in the introduction. Four of Heather's unpublished short stories which were originally included in this pamphlet are not currently online but they are on my to do list.
Introduction to A Socialist Life by Heather Ball
This is a collection of short stories first published in the Socialist Standard between July 1995 and November 2000. They are brought together here for two main reasons. First, readers have appreciated Heather's distinctive style of writing — they find it full of warmth, humanity and pervaded by a gentle sense of humour. And second, those who haven't previously read anything by socialist writers may find their appetite whetted by Heather's collection.
Sadly Heather died before the project was complete. This collection of her stories is thus a memorial to her indefatigable commitment to socialism.
Most of the collection is divided somewhat arbitrarily into three parts—people, places and situations. In fact all the stories concern people in some way—their ideas, their behaviour, their strengths and weaknesses, their frequent niceness and occasional nastiness. To a large extent places are the contexts in which people live and work, and situations arise out of people trying to cope with the opportunities and problems that they face.
Next a group of elderly neighbours discover that it's good to party. In 'Passing the Time' Heather finds that chatting about the Queen Mother can be a chore and a bore. Later Heather is visited by Mr Brown, a Social Security Officer, and she wonders whether he is aware that his job depends on the fact that in capitalism some people go to the wall.
In Part 2 we see Heather as a schoolgirl making her revolutionary debut by organising a strike against a tyrannical teacher. The next piece is about Heather's fellow pupil, the unassuming Dorcas, who told the truth about her dislike of the school and most of its teachers and was roundly castigated for doing so. At a 'Careers' interview Heather's school bosses scoff at the idea that she wants to write. An office, shop or factory job was what they had in mind for her. In 'Uncles' she relates how as a child she watched her mother pawn her father's best suit to a man she at first believed was a not very nice relative.
The next few stories are about the places and people Heather encountered as a young worker. In 'The Office' she confesses that she was too young to realise that, rather than failing the workplace, the workplace had failed her. 'The madhouse' is Heather's name for the small hotel she worked in, and she observes how things can go quite well when the boss is on holiday. Then follows an amusing and perceptive account of how she applied for, and rejected a really lousy job as a capstan lathe operator.
As an adult Heather goes to the doctor and is told not to worry about the present profit system and its consequences — whose is the saner point of view, the doctor's or hers? She goes to an open day at her child's school and is mildly mortified at the treatment she receives on inadvertently gatecrashing a room reserved for the bigwigs. A much different kind of place is 'The Naff Caff’, featuring cheap grub and animated (often political) conversation. Within its walls, muses Heather, 'dwells a little bit of socialism'.
Part 3 links people to situations. First, the process of joining the Socialist Party. Not an easy one. Hopefully others will react as Heather did on hearing the case for socialism for the first time: 'SPGB, where have you been all my life?' Next she tells how setting up a literature stall can good way of opening people's eyes to an alternative to capitalism, and meeting their 'human nature' and other objections. In Norwich, elsewhere, a lot of misguided youthful energy goes into 'Direct action': reclaiming the streets, cutting fences, daubing statues, setting up peace camps, guerrilla gardening, critical mass bike rides — in short, 'pissing about with capitalism'.
The later stories are more by way of personal reminiscence, though they all illustrate facets of Heather's socialist life. She puts 'Cleaning Houses', still too often regarded as women's work — in sensible proportion, while not quite going to Quentin Crisp's extreme position that after four years the dust doesn't get any thicker. In 'Ethics' Heather rejects combative and mistrustful capitalist values in favour of unspoken socialist acceptance and acknowledgement of mutual existence. And she rejects 'Ageism' and other discriminatory policies which say who shall have jobs and who shall not. Diana's death is an opportunity to reflect on 'Misplaced Admiration': an occasion for lauding the cosmetic, the contrived and the overly sentimental, rather than a better life for all. Finally, Heather attends a meeting of 'Alcoholics Anonymous' to learn how to fight the demon drink.
Part 4, Last Thoughts, contains only two stories, both written after Heather had been diagnosed as suffering from motor neurone disease. Her frustration is clear in 'Small Talk' as she becomes 'impatient with the foolishness of existence'. But optimism and humanity reassert themselves triumphantly in 'Consciousness', with Heather certain that The system will never succeed altogether in eradicating the understanding we all share of being human and needing one another.'
Included in part 5 are five stories that for one reason or another were not published in the Socialist Standard. In 'Adoption' Heather writes of her feelings about her adopted granddaughter, to be loved and cherished as all children should be. In 'Books' we are able to compare our favourite choice of reading with Heather's. 'The Car Boot Sale' shows her speculating that socialism will give us the same opportunity to give and take things without the intrusion of money. 'Vegetarianism' gives Heather the opportunity to explain how, as a child, she came to this philosophy and its consequence for eating habits. Finally, she writes of her wartime experience of evacuation as very much a mixed blessing.
Heather wrote from the heart as well as the head. For her socialism meant more than just common ownership and the absence of poverty and war, etc. Economic equality and the resolution of class conflict were only the beginning. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in 'Humankind'. And perhaps no single paragraph exemplifies the biting anger, the humour and the inspiring sense of aspiration that characterised her view of socialism:
"[in present day society] there is an erosion of everything socialism requires and capitalism despises — co-operation, self-respect, love even. I hesitate to use the word 'love' when talking about human relationships' — the suspicious sidelong glances I get sometimes make me wonder if it is thought I am advocating multiple orgasms for everyone. Love to me represents the possibility of having such good feelings about ourselves that we can afford to have them about other people too. Yet in this miserable society where money and exploitation must come first, we are discouraged from showing too much concern for one another in case this detracts from our real purpose—to provide profit and power for a minority”.
Michael Gill
Stan Parker
2001
Part I People
Part II Places
Part III Situations
Part IV Last Thoughts
Part V Unpublished
- Adoption
- Books
- The Car Boot Sale
- Vegetarianism
- Evacuation
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