PUB SERIES - JOHN’S CROSS INN

RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: march 2009 :: RMTnews 28 T he classic socialist novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell has a vivid description of a works’ beano – based on a real one that took place in this pub. The author, real name Robert Noonan(1870-1911), attended it in August 1905 while working as a painter and decorator for Adams & Jarrett of 20 Alfred Street, St Leonards. The beano at the pub, seven miles north of Hastings, included a cricket match on an adjoining pitch against rival firm Wright & Son – and was worthy of any scene in a modern day soap opera for its brilliant depiction of characters recognisable in everyday working life. The foreman called "Misery" in the novel, for example, was based on one of Noonan's bosses at Bruce & Co in York Buildings, Hastings. Noonan was indeed being paid a miserly 7d (just under 3p) an hour and had to work from 6 am until late into the night to make ends meet. The novel explains how capitalism forces firms to undercut each other in what nowadays is called "a race to the bottom." And the scene known as "the money trick" is a masterful explanation in simple terms of how labour is exploited. Noonan's workmates in real life said he believed in a co- operative commonwealth in which the means of production were owned by the community, and goods were produced for use. Born in Dublin he worked his passage at the age of 18 to South Africa where he joined the International Independent Labour Party, and a brigade of United Irishmen who fought against the British in the Boer War. In 1902 he sailed with his daughter Kathleen (his wife had died of tuberculosis) to England and settled first in Western Road, St Leonards, then Flat 5, 115 Milward Road, Hastings (where he started writing The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists in1906), and finally an attic flat at 241 London Road, Hastings (where he finished the novel by 1910). The novel describes how workers, to get employment, had to buy foreman drinks in The Cricketers pub in South Terrace (on the corner of Waldegrave Street), Hastings. Noonan drank there himself as it was near his home. The Hastings branch of the marxist Social Democratic Federation held its first meeting in this pub, which has since been renamed the Baraka cocktail bar. Noonan earned the nickname "Raphael" for painting a mural in St Andrews Church in Queens Road. The building was demolished in 1970 but the mural is now on display in Hastings Museum and Art Gallery. In a less pious moment Noonan was fined ten shillings (50p) for squaring up to a policeman who had stamped on one of his Chinese cracker fireworks on bonfire night. After he died he was buried in a pauper's grave. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists first appeared in 1914 after being drastically altered to change its message. It was finally published uncensored in 1955, since when it has inspired generations of socialists. JOHN’S CROSS INN BATTLE ROAD (A21), MOUNTFIELD, EAST SUSSEX PEOPLE’S PUBS - Words by Mike Pentelow, Picture by Peter Arkell VISIT: RMT EC members and staff visited the pub in 2003