Remembering the Battle of Rorke’s Drift

The Defence of Rorke’s Drift by Lady Elizabeth Butler.

In 1877, a time of colonisation and conquest Lord Carnarvon, the Secretary of State for the colonies, wanted to extend British imperial influence in South Africa by creating a federation of British colonies and Boer republics. To ensure their security, they realised that they needed to pacify Zululand, which bordered their territory for the Zulus were renowned for their martial ability.

For some  context settlers from Great Britain, the Netherlands, and elsewhere in Europe had been settling for centuries in fertile and geographically important southern Africa. After the carnage of the Thirty Years War in Europe (1618-1648), the land around Cape Town in southwest Africa was settled by the Boers, immigrants from the Netherlands, beginning in 1652. Under the auspices of the Dutch East India company, the settlers established a Boer colony in 1671. French Huguenots joined the colony in 1689. Over the decades, Boers traveled east to establish colonies across the southern tip of Africa. Holland fell to revolutionary France in 1795 and invaded its European neighbors. As part of the war with France, Britain attacked the Dutch Cape Colony 1795, 1803, and formally annexed it in 1814. As the United Kingdom kept annexing territories, tensions continued between the British, Boers, and black African neighbors for the next century.

To try and avoid conflict with the Zulu people, Carnarvon gave the King of the Zulus, Cetshwayo, the option to surrender and disband his armies to make way for British rule and federation. When confronted with this unfavourable deal, Cetshwayo understandably refused. Thus the Anglo-Zulu war began in January 1879, when the British General Lord Chelmsford invaded Zululand.  

The Army entered Zulu territory in three sections: the right column entered near the mouth of the Tugela river to secure the abandoned Missionary Station at Eshowe; the left column made for the formerly Dutch town of Utrecht and the middle column, led by Lord Chelmsford himself, crossed the Buffalo river at the outpost of Rorke’s Drift and tried to find the Zulu army. 

On 22 January 1879, Chelmsford established a temporary camp for his column near Isandlwana, but neglected to strengthen its defences, only encircling his wagons around it. After receiving intelligence reports that part of the Zulu army was nearby, he led part of his force out to find them. 

The lacklustre fortification proved a fatal error: over 12,000 Zulus, the core of Cetshwayo’s army, launched a surprise attack on Chelmsford’s poorly-fortified camp. Fighting in an over-extended line which was too far from their ammunition, the British were swamped by the sheer volume of their enemies forces, and the difference in numbers proved to be fatal; the majority of their 1,700 troops were killed and both their supplies and ammunition were seized. 

The Battle of Isandlwana  https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2022/01/remembering-battle-of-isandlwana-of-1879.html was a major defeat and nothing short of a disaster for the redcoats, one which forced Chelmsford to retreat. Toward the end of the battle, about 4,000 warriors who had not engaged in the fighting moved to cut off the British retreat. 

Once complete, they crossed the river and turned their attention to Rorke’s Drift ,and its 140 soldiers, civilians, and patients.They were led by Dabulamanzi kapande, who was King Cetshwayo's half-brother and had commanded the Undi Corps at Isandlwana.

A depiction of Prince Dabulamanzi, from the Illustrated London News

Sited near the banks of the Buffelsrivier, approximately 100 miles north of present-day Durban, Rorke’s Drift was originally a trading post established by James Rorke who had been the son of an Irish soldier who had fought in one of the many border wars against the local African tribes.

James Rorke on the other hand made a living by trading, hunting and the occasional gun-running with the natives until his suicide. His estate changed hands until it came to a Swedish missionary, who in turn leased the compound to the British colonial forces to use as a hospital and storage space. 

The mission station was at this time occupied by Lt. Gonville Bromhead and his company, as well as 100 Natal Native Contingent troops, but Lieutenant John Chard  from the Royal Engineers had been dispatched from the main army before the battle of Isandlwana began with orders to make defensive preparations at Rorke’s Drift, and as the senior officer, he took command.  

In the film 'Zulu' it makes a point of suggesting that the 24th Regiment, and in particular 'B' Company, was mainly Welsh. In fact, the Welsh constituted only 11% of the 24th. Regt. at Rorke's Drift. Although the regiment was then based in Brecon in South Wales and called the 24th. Regiment of Foot (later to be the South Wales Borderers), it was formerly the Warwickshire Regiment. 

Many of the defenders had never been to Brecon. Of the 24th Regt. at the defence, 49 were English, 18 Monmouthshire,16 Irish, 1 Scottish, 14 Welsh, 3 were born overseas. and 21 of unknown nationality. 

As afternoon drew near, the wind carried the sounds of distant gunfire through the valleys to Rorke’s Drift. It was the distinct sound of the two 7-pounders that the British main body had carried with them. At first it caused little concern, for just a year earlier a small British force had triumphed over 6,000 Xhosa warriors, so this would surely go no differently. 

As the cannon fire subsided, a lone rider came galloping towards them. The man was terrified and without his weapon, only repeating a single sentence over and over again.

More riders soon arrived, this time men of the Native Mounted Contingent. None spoke English but they had a note that read that the camp at Isandlwana was in danger of being overrun, becausethat Zulu forces were approaching.. 

Lieutenant Chard, had to decide whether to flee or fight. Given that the position had become more hospital than outpost, it was simply impossible to leave, as the injured occupants would travel too slowly and the fast Zulu army would inevitably kill them on the road. The only option was to stay and fight. 

Rorke’s Drift was to be fortified at once. Under the guidance of Bromhead, Lieutenant John Chard and other officers, the men began barricading the missionary compound. Everything useful was dragged out of the storehouse, except for the kegs of rum and water. The reserve ammunition boxes were opened. They had 20,000 cartridges, enough to make a stand. They stockpiled food, mostly hardtack and bully beef, and stacked the heavy 200lb mealie bags and biscuit boxes into a defensive wall. 

Most of the compound was shielded by a waist high stone fence, which they now reinforced. Both buildings were solid brick houses, though, with the larger storehouse being about 30m from the hospital, which was small, divided into 11 rooms and crammed with men who were now making shooting holes in the walls, while all windows and doors were barricaded. The men knew that their enemy would be merciless and spare no one, not even the wounded. 

The last remaining biscuit boxes and mealie bags were used to create a barricade in front of the storehouse, a last keep in case of a breakthrough.As the evening drew nearer, the lookouts on the roof spotted the first Zulu warriors.There hadn’t been enough time to clear the fields around the station and there was plenty of cover for the enemy.  

Any man who diminished morale was locked up.This was a crucial decision: it is hard to imagine the panic and sense of despair that the men must have felt knowing that thousands of Zulus, who had just defeated a well-equipped army of far greater numbers, were on their way and they, mostly classed as ‘walking wounded’, had to defeat them while being heavily outnumbered, vulnerable and with no hope of reinforcement from the main army.  

At this point, the defenders numbered nearly 500 thanks to the assistance of native contingents of infantry and cavalry, The cavalry, numbering about 100 native troops who had retreated from the Battle of Isandlwana, took position on the far side of a large hill from where the Zulus were expected to approach. 

Understandably, fear of the approaching army spread through the camp. As battle approached, the Swedish missionary assigned to the station, Otto Witt, fled with his companions. The cavalry troops briefly engaged the Zulus for the second time that day but also turned and ran. 

The Zulus approaching Rorke’s Drift were of the 4,000 men strong Undi-Corps. During the battle at Isandlwana they had been part of the ‘Horns of the Buffalo’, the Zulu tactic to envelope their enemies. They had been tasked with widely outflanking the British but ultimately came too late to take part in the battle. The defeat of the British had been achieved without them and they had been denied glory.

The Zulu military organisation was divided by age and rank, and there was a deep rivalry between the regiments. Only those mature veteran regiments who had won glory in battle were awarded the rights to marry and to bear the sacred white shields into battle. 

The Zulu warriors were not suicidal fanatics, but cunning, courageous and highly athletic light infantry men, in their physical prime, around 30 years old, hungering for pride and social status. They very much wanted to prove themselves. Led by Prince Dabulamanzi kampande, they had made their way to Rorke’s Drift well-versed in the art of war and under orders to show no mercy. 

Skilled in using their traditional weapons One of their primary weapon was a light spear called an iklwa (or assegai), that could either be thrown or used in hand-to-hand combat. Many also used a club called an iwisa (or knockberrie). All warriors carried an oval shield made of oxhide.  

A few Zulus equipped themselves with firearms (muskets), but most preferred their traditional equipment. Others were equipped with powerful Martini-Henry rifles, taken from the dead British soldiers at Isandlwana, and although they were untrained in handling those effectively, even an unskilled rifleman could find his target.

When they appeared on the scene, the Native Mounted Contingent had turned and fled, which left 154 men as the defenders of Rorke’s Drift, 20 of whom were ill. 

At around 16:30, the battle began. The first Zulus attacked in a frenzy. Worked up by their witch doctors and narcotic stimulus, they charged towards the south wall of the mission, 600 warriors against only a few defenders. 

The British soldiers fired into the advancing men. A trained British soldier was able to load and fire the Martini-Henry Rifle every 7-8 seconds, so people managed around 8-9 shots each in the time it took the Zulus to close in. They sprinted from cover to cover, disregarding the men that fell. At 200m, the rifle fire caused massive damage, as the Zulu shields offered no protection against the high calibre bullets, and just before they reached the barricade, the British officers ordered a salvo at point blank range.

The devastating effect of the fusillade broke much of the attack strength. Still, single men and small groups fought on, trying to scale the walls. Pumped up on adrenaline, they jabbed with their Assegai spears against the defenders, but once they tried to climb the barricades, they were easy targets for the longer British bayonets. 

Once at the barricades, it was close quarter combat. The British officers dashed from point to point, revolvers in hand, inspiring the men to stand firm, shooting into the mass of attackers that pressed the defences. Where they could, the men worked together, one stabbing, the other reloading. The officers knew that the first battle they had to win was the psychological one; if the men faltered in fear, if they hesitated to kill or lost their heads in terror, all was lost. 

The Zulus could not be allowed to enter the compound. The men did not hesitate. Desperation met aggression, and they knew that they would either fight or die  At 17:00, the great mass of the Undi-Corps threw itself against the mission. The British held. 

Soon a belt of corpses lay around the mission, another obstacle the attackers had to step over. The Chaplains and the wounded passed ammunition and water to the defenders. It was evening, but still, the sun was beating down and the constant fighting was exhausting and dehydrating. It was adrenaline and camaraderie that kept the men sharp. And still the Zulus came on.  

By 17:30 the defenders were nearly overwhelmed. The lines were too thinly held and they now ran the risk of losing everything.The growing exhaustion and the casualties had made them retreat to the inner line and establish a centre of resistance around the storehouse, behind the walls of biscuit boxes and mealie bags. 

By 18:00, the Zulu commanders on the other side were getting frustrated. This was supposed to be an easy battle, but the casualties were high and there had been no major break in yet. They had been fighting for 90 minutes, but the British line still held firm, though the hospital had been cut off.

In the close confines of the hospital, the defenders found it possible to stab their assailants one by one as they struggled to break through the narrow doorways. Private Hook killed five or six in succession in this way. 

In the close fighting along the barricades, even the officers’ revolvers came into action to deadly effect. The revolver was so inaccurate at anything beyond point-blank range that it was normally considered only as a weapon of last resort, but in this sort of combat its rate of fire more than compensated for this disadvantage, so that even this weapon decisively outclassed the Zulu muskets.Several survivors, including Hitch, noted the good service performed by Lieutenant Bromhead’s revolver at a crucial point on the perimeter. 

As the hospital was overrun, Private Williams was instructed to defend the window through which the Zulus were trying to enter while the others limped away. The intense firefight set the hospital ablaze and forced the patients to break their way through the wall which would allow them to escape behind the barricade. 

After 15 minutes of hacking at the plaster wall, Private Hook made it through as the others continued to defend the hospital. 9 out of the 11 patients made it out. The escape from the hospital is famous for its demonstration of selfless bravery: the fit could have abandoned the invalid, but they left no man behind. Both Williams and Hook were awarded Victoria Crosses. 

Soon it was surrounded, and the Zulus were throwing burning spears on the thatch roof. It caught fire and the men inside had no choice but to flee. Everything played out in a few minutes. Men jumped out of the windows, some making a dash across the compound. Others tried to carry the wounded and sick with them, while others fought the Zulus who were now breaking through the doors. They were cut down by the Zulus. 

Darkness fell at 19:00. British ammunition was running low and rifles were running hot from constant use. Again, the Zulu tried to throw assegais wrapped with burning grass on the store-house roof but this time they were shot down in the attempt. 

Slowly but surely, the Zulu spirit was wavering. Throughout the night the aggressive chanting was heard around the compound, but the major weakness of the Zulus, their lack of a supply system, was getting to them. They were hungry, thirsty and exhausted.  

It was a sleepless night for the defenders, but as dawn broke, the Zulu were gone. The Zulu host may still appear, but they would no longer attack.After a while the British ventured out to the battlefield. They searched the remnants of the hospital for survivors, but it was a gruesome sight. The Zulu had hacked their comrades to pieces. 

The official report said that 350 Zulus were counted dead, but according to diaries, it was many hundreds more. At 8 o’clock in the morning, a relief company finally appeared, and Rorke’s Drift was saved. 

I first heard of battle of Rorke’s Drift  incidentally when I was  twelve, when I first saw the film Zulu, directed in 1964 by Cy Enfield,  arguably, one of the greatest British war films of all time.The film stars Stanley Baker as Lieutenant John Chard and a young Michael Caine as Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead.and  also featured the Welsh  actor. 

.It’s still one of my favorite movies, though am  not into  the florification of  war  in  any kind, but  back in the day it made a colossal impact, and I   even subsequently did  a history project on it while a school, though  nowadays acuially prefer the other  film made  about the  conflict Zulu Dawn,  which  has more historical  accuracy..

In the film Zulu we see  the heroic Welsh garrison at Rorke's Drift match the awesome Zulu war-chants with a stirring rendition of Men of Harlech.but I'm  sorry to say no one sang Men of Harlech,  just a  bit of  artistic licemse. ;, 

The Battle of Rorke’s Drift, a heroic defence of missionary station and hospital  has since  gone down in history as the ultimate example of the victorious underdog, where just over 150 British troops triumphed against an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 Zulu warriors. Rorke’s Drift was merely an outpost as opposed to a fortified position, and the defenders, and defences, were not fit to fight. Nonetheless, they prevailed against the battle-ready Zulu army.

A total of 11 Victoria Crosses would be awarded to the defenders for a victory against a force that had outnumbered them by far. The most ever awarded for a single action by one regiment. 

The ultimate recipients were as follows: 

Lieutenant John Rouse Merriott Chard 

Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead 

Corporal William Wilson Allen 

Private Frederick Hitch 

Private Alfred Henry Hook 

Private Robert Jones 

Private William Jones 

Private John Williams Surgeon

Major James Henry Reynolds 

Acting Assistant Commissary James Langley Dalton 

Corporal Christian Ferdinand SchiessJones 

Private John Williams Surgeon-

Major James Henry Reynolds Acting Assistant 

Commissary James Langley Dalton 

Corporal Christian Ferdinand Schiess

An image showing John Chard receiving his Victoria Cross.

Cetshwayo had no bronze crosses or silver medals with which to decorate his heroes. But he did have a means of showing his special approbation. The wood of the Umzimbete or uMyezane tree was specially reserved, on pain of death, for the Zulu king. From it, little dumbell-shaped beads were cut, which if strung together, formed an interlocking necklace. These beads were given to Zulu warriors who specially distinguished themselves in battle. A warrior wearing a necklace of these beads was regarded with no less respect than a British holder of the VC.

The battles of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift were the first two decisive battles of the Anglo-Zulu war. They set the tone for the rest of the war which would last until July 1879. The Zulu success at the Battle of Isandlwana showcased the strength of the Zulu nation and army as well as the overconfidence of the Imperial forces under Lord Chelmsford. But Zulu success was short-lived, their defeat at Rorke’s Drift the first of many. 

By March, reinforcements arrived to aid the Imperial army. Several battles and skirmishes ensued, the last being the Battle of Ulundi. The British forces defeated the Zulu army, ultimately ending the war and Zulu control over the region. 

King Cetshwayo was later hunted down and captured, the Zulu monarchy was suppressed and Zululand divided into autonomous areas. In 1887, it was declared a British territory, and became part of the British colony of Natal ten years later.

King Cetshwayo was taken to Cape Town where he was imprisoned, first in the Castle, and later under much less-rigorous conditions at Oude Molen, near present-day Pinelands.More than three years were to pass before his eventual return to Zululand. He sailed to England in September 1882 to meet Queen Victoria and on his return, was reinstated as King, but on terms set by the British Government. 

King Cetshwayo again settled at Ondini, but his homestead was attacked by Zibhebhu. He was injured and took refuge at Eshowe, where he died on 8 February 1884.   

His grave is in a clearing in the Nkandla Forest, and is tended by the Shezi clan. The area is considered to be sacred by the Zulu people. 

But  what is mainly forgotten,is that  as in any battle there are casualties not seen or felt until well after the engagement are  was over, in the case of Rorke’s Drift  many of the defenders suffered what we now know as PTSD,  post traumatic stress, following the battle  This was predominantly caused by the fierce close-combat fighting they had with the Zulus. 

Most of the rank and file recruits to the British Army were rough and ready lads from labouring or slum backgrounds who had limited options in life. Army life was disciplined and secure and, the occasional tangle with Zulus aside, more secure than the precarious environment and drudgery of civilian life for men of their station.  The psychological effects of a brutal battle for survival against huge odds on the men who fought in it can only be imagined. There was no recognition of or tolerance for what was later classified as “battle fatigue” and latterly labeled Post Traumatic Stress. What we do know is that many of the survivors died young. There was at least one confirmed suicide and several who “fell on hard times”.

Take Private Robert Jones, for instance,Wikipedia records that after leaving the army, Jones settled in Herefordshire’s Golden Valley where he became a farm labourer and married Elizabeth Hopkins with whom he had five children. In 1898 Jones died in Peterchurch from gunshot wounds to the head at the age of 41. He had borrowed his employer's shotgun to go crow-shooting. His death certificate records a verdict of suicide whilst being insane.

The coroner heard that he was plagued by recurring nightmares arising from his desperate hand-to-hand combat with Zulus.Despite the accolade of his Victoria Cross  the trauma he experienced blighted his life and most likely led to his early death. 

Due to the stigma of the time about suicide, when Jones was buried his coffin was reputedly taken over the wall instead of being carried through the church gates into the graveyard and his headstone faces away from the church, the only one in the churchyard to do so. 

His gravestone can still be found today in the graveyard at St Peter’s Church, Peterchurch in the Golden Valley; the inscription reflects the fact that his regiment was renamed ‘The South Wales Borderers’ some two years after their action at Rorke’s Drift.

Robert Jones’ Gravestone at Peterchurch

Honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King is honored with a holiday in his memory today.The Monday following King’s January 15 birth date was declared a holiday in 1983 after a long struggle initiated in the House of Representatives by Michigan member John Conyers just four days after the civil rights leader had been assassinated in 1968. 

Dr. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, tirelessly advocated for a holiday to honor his legacy. She led campaigns to ensure his work for justice would never be forgotten. The demand was soon taken up trade union activists who highlighted that King was shot while supporting a strike by municipal workers in Memphis. 

Writing in The Nation in 2006, William P Jones recounted how General Motors threatened to discipline a small group of employees who refused to work on King's birthday in 1969 but backed down after a larger group walked off their jobs in solidarity. Later that year striking New York City hospital workers returned to their jobs only after managers agreed to higher wages, better benefits and a paid holiday on King's birthday. The campaign spread: dressmakers in New York, car workers in Detroit and teachers in Chicago and Indianapolis either secured it as a holiday in contract negotiations or simply refused to work.  

As support for King’s birthday being made a holiday grew, President Carter endorsed the idea, Stevie Wonder dedicated his 1980 song ‘Happy Birthday’ to it and six million people signed a petition backing a King Day Bill in Congress. However, after the Bill was passed by large majorities in the House and Senate in 1983, it took nearly two decades for every state to adopt it as a holiday. Though Martin Luther King Day is an American holiday, the man himself was thoroughly international. His political thoughts traverses all borders.Like so many strugglers in the long fight against racism, King appreciated that it was, at it's heart a global project. 

This year Martin Luther King Day arrives on the same day as Donald Trump, a convicted Felon, abject racist, self dealing fraud and twice impeached president lie as he speaks the Oath of Office for the second timea  let us reflect on the true meaning of leadership and the values it represents.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr. is a name that echoes through history as a symbol of justice, equality, and hope. Born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta  this visionary leader  rose to national prominence when he led the boycott of the Montgomery’s transit system after Rosa Parks, an African-American, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus.

King later helped form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and went on to lead protests throughout the South and, in 1963, was a central figure in the March on Washington, becomming  one of the most influential leaders of the 1950's and 1960s civil rights movement and advocated for racial equality and economic justice for all Americans. Known for his nonviolent approach, Dr. King believed in the power of peaceful resistance to combat racial injustice. His speeches stirred hearts and changed minds.

He spoke out passionately against what he considered the three evils: racism, poverty, and war, and was a major opponent of the Vietnam War. Dr King faced unimaginable challenges. Yet, his unwavering determination helped dismantle segregation and pave the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Before his tragic assassination on April 4, 1968 in Memphis. at the age of 39, Dr. King had been arrested several times and was investigated by the FBI under its COINTELPRO program for possible ties to Communists. His example of grassroots anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and anti-imperialist struggle continues to inspire new generations.

On  August 28 1963 Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a Dream” speech in Washington. which became a timeless call for equality. 

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Just four years later he said that the dream he had had that day was “a little superficial.”

Dr King’s world view, which was most comprehensively espoused not in his famous ‘I have a dream’ oratory in 1963 but in a much less well-known speech four years later that connected his civil rights crusade with the struggle against war and poverty. 

The setting for the speech was a conference of ‘Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam’ held at the Riverside Church in Manhattan on April 4, 1967, packed with 3,000 people. King had given five sermons there previously but this was the moment when he outlined a wider world view that led to President Johnson cutting off contact with him and attacks in liberal and conservative papers alike.  King had agonised over the speech for months. In opening, he said it was not easy to oppose the US government “in time of war” and described doing so as “a vocation of agony”. Explaining that many people had questioned the wisdom of him speaking, saying ‘peace and civil rights don’t mix’, he added:  “And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.”  

The full speech can be read here :-

 https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm.  

While it is full of wonderful prose, King does not use the impassioned rhetoric of ‘I have a dream’ but gives instead seven reasons why he felt compelled to speak, an analysis of the history of the Vietnam war and his conclusion that it is “but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit”. 

On the latter, he says presciently:  “If we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing ‘clergy and laymen concerned’ committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala -- Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.” 

 King calls the change that is need “a true revolution of values” and demands a shift from a society where “machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people”. He says:  “A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.  

“A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. 

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” 

Think about those words. Over recent decades, we have seen the spiritual death about which King warned unfold painfully with each new US war, descending now to the point where arming and justifying genocide against the Palestinian people is normalised in the upper circles of both parties in Washington.  

Let's not  forget the fact either that  by the end of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. was un-apologetically an avowed socialist. .Until his final days, he stood with striking workers, organized the Poor People’s Campaign, and demanded an end to the economic oppression that kept Black and working-class people in poverty. MLK’s legacy is not one of passive unity, but of struggle.

Many years later we cannot  let go of Dr King's dream, because, surely it is everybody's dream, we must continuously try to change the world, remember those in the U.S.A fighting for jobs and freedom, a land  still lanquishing to find itself, while perpetrating injustice, discrimination and inequality. A country that imprisons more  of their citizens than any other country in the world. African Americans in particular, though they are 12% of the population, make up 38% of the state prison population, despite their crimes being no different from their white and hispanic counterparts.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy shines as a beacon of hope, progress, and the unwavering belief in a better tomorrow. Dr. King's steadfast commitment to justice, equality, and humanity shines as a beacon of hope and progress. His work was dedicated to building bridges, empowering communities, and creating a more just and equitable society. He inspired generations to rise against oppression through compassion and courage and believe in a better tomorrow. As Dr. King demonstrated, leadership is about uniting, uplifting, and transforming society for the collective good, leaving behind a legacy rooted in love, integrity, and humanity. 

In stark contrast, today, America faces the somber reality of convicted felon Donald Trump's presidential inauguration. Trump's record stands as a troubling reminder of what leadership is not. Marked by controversy, division, self-interest, and retribution, his actions have repeatedly undermined democratic values and eroded the principles that bind this nation together. 

Where Dr. King championed justice and unity, Trump has fueled lies, hatred, and bigotry, prioritized personal power, and threatened peoples rights, freedoms, rule of law, and our democracy. 

Under Trump's leadership, the Republican Party has transformed into a vessel for wealth and authoritarianism, prioritizing power over the well-being of everyday Americans.

Leadership demands service to the people, not vengeance or exploitation. Yet, Trump,a 34-time convicted felon,has made clear his intent to punish his perceived enemies and prioritize self-preservation over accountability. Gravely dishonouring Dr. Kings  deeds. Trump  stands as a stark reminder of why we must hold leaders accountable with the highest standards of integrity.  

Let Dr. King's legacy guide us in recognizing the profound difference between a leader who uplifts and unites and one who divides and prioritizes self-interest. Dr King's words can still be  be both sobering and inspring, his words are a timeless representation of the struggles that disenfranchised people face.

Today, as we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy, we also celebrate his enduring vision of equality, peace, and community. His unwavering efforts and work for those on the margins, those facing oppression, and those often ignored and toward social justice, civil liberties, and equal rights for all,remains powerful  and inspiring.

Lets continue to honor him and continue to live his legacy through our  actions.Compassion has never been more important. So today, let’s recommit to building a world where kindness, equality, and truth are not ideals but realities. In the face of cruelty and injustice, speak out, and speak up, for surely history will judge us all for our silence. we can still find the courage to stand up and say enough.

'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' - Martin Luther King Jr.

Here is an old poem of mine in Dr. Kings  honour

Strength to Love

Martin Luther King had a dream
That still today stirs our conscience,
He rejected violence to oppose racial injustice
Spread a message of peace, love and understanding,
His only weapons were his words and faith
As he marched in protest with his fellow man,
A force for good, but radical with intention
Pursued civil disobedience was not afraid
                                            of confrontation,
We are all born equal under skin
This noble struggle never stops within,
The causes of poverty must still be eradicated
There is so much more room for change,
As fresh iniquities call, lets keep hope alive
Standing firm let our voices ring out,
Keep sharing deeds of deep principle
In the name of pride and in the name of love,
We are all still citizens of the world
As Martin Luther carries on reminding,
“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.
The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.”
We must continue to resist and overcome,
One day soon, all our dreams will be realised.

Gaza ceasefire deal reached by Israel and Hamas brings hope.

I welcome the news of a  prospective  ceasefire deal  between Israel and Hamas  which  Qatar announced announced late on Wednesday evening, It is of enormous relief but it has not yet been formally agreed, but I'm also saddened  that it's  tragically taken 15 months of mass murder and total devastation against  2.1 million Palestinian women, men and children in Gaza  to  get to  this  stage.

And while it brings much  needed hope.in  Gaza deaths  continue to  mount up  and  the deal is still  a very  fragile one, with  nothing to indicate any new level of trust between Israel and Hamas, but they have  at  least agreed  at the  moment to a deal which could halt the war in Gaza and see the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, the US and mediators Qatar have said,

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said the agreement would come into effect on Sunday so long as it was approved by the Israeli cabinet.  

According to the agreement, Hamas will release 33 hostages in the first phase, spanning six weeks, in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners. Implementation of the agreement will begin on Sunday, Jan. 19. The details of the second and third phases will be announced after the completion of the first phase of the agreement.

US President Joe Biden said it would "halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much needed-humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, and reunite the hostages with their families".  

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the deal's final details were still being worked on, but he thanked Biden for "promoting" it. Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya said it was the result of Palestinian "resilience". 

The deal will hopefully bring a desperately needed pause in Israel’s attacks on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip  and provide relief to  those  who  have endured  unimaginable  suffering. A genocide that has shattered  all  bounds  of  human decency, setting record  levels  of  brutality,crimes  against  humanity, with  the  most  children maimed  and killed, the  most healthcare  workers targeted, and the most hospitals destroyed in modern  history.,  

The world will now see the magnitude of Israel’s criminal and genocidal aggression. It will see the price of the collective failure to stop a genocide. More than 46,000 people have lost their lives and another 110,000 have been injured. Hospitals and schools in Gaza have been reduced to rubble. Families have been forced to face unbearable cold, hunger and despair. In just the past few days, 8 infants have died from the cold. 

For too long, children have witnessed horrors no child should have to see. Girls have been uniquely impacted by this crisis. When food is scarce, they are often last to eat. Many girls are using small pieces of tent fabric as a poor substitute for period products. And when schools finally reopen, girls are less likely to re-enroll.  

In  the  words of Stephen Flynn MP: "The collective punishment of the Palestinian people will not be forgotten by history.. "All those who sat silent, who encouraged, and who armed the extremists in the Israeli government will be judged by history too".

But this deal at least offers hope and an end to months of appalling violence. Despite news of a ceasefire, the danger is far from over. Children in Gaza are not safe yet. Famine is looming. Gaza is facing a catastrophic hunger crisis, with children dying of starvation, dehydration and disease. The youngest children have known nothing but hunger, fear, and destruction.

Now let the journey of healing begin, starting with allowing the burying of  the  dead, allowing the Palestinian people ro  attending  to rheir wounded, providing for basic human needs and rebuilding livelihoods. The world must not fail the Palestnian  people again.

This ceasefire deal must herald a  new era of justice and safety for Palestinians.While this ceasefire agreement is devastatingly overdue, with many tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza who were needlessly killed in the months before a deal was reached, today is an historic day. I continue to  stand with the Palestinian in Gaza and across the world as they take to the streets to celebrate. 

Even on the last night and day before the announcement, around seventy people were killed and hundreds injured as Israel escalated its bombing. Among those murdered in the final hours before the deal was journalist Ahmed Hisham - the nephew of Khaled 'Grandpa' Nabhan who was killed in an Israeli bombing a year after his granddaughter Reem, as Israel continued until the last moment the targeted murder of more than two hundred Palestinian journalists reporting on its crimes:  

Now the people of Gaza and a watching world must wait to see whether Israel will break its decades-long habit and actually honour the deal but  it seems  the israeli occupation tragically, has already broken the ceasefire with a huge bombardment of Gaza City in the north of the Strip that is taking place now and has already  slaughtered at least 72 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, in continued bombing during what is supposed, under the 'ceasefire' announced last night, supposed to be a 'conflict pause' until the full supposed ceasefire comes into force on Sunday.  

Israel's intensified bombing  again targeting doctors and journalists as well as refugees huddled in tent camps- began almost the instant the so-called 'deal' was announced despite, or perhaps because of, Donald Trump's sick 'sweeteners' to the Netanyahu government to incentivise it to agree. This is the Israeli military norm. 

The long-awaited, urgently needed ceasefire/hostage deal has already slammed into the hard realities of domestic and international politics. Netanyahu has delayed a Cabinet vote on the deal, accusing Hamas of reneging on key components (a spokesperson for the terror group says it remains “committed” to the deal). 

The official ceasefire begins on Sunday, but the deal of which it is part says that a 'conflict pause' came into force as soon as the announcement was made - but rather than pause Israel is intensifying its bombing, a clear breach of the reported terms of the agreement. 

Leaked details of what Trump promised Israel in return for the agreement are already being reported in the Israeli media - and it includes the 'right' of Israel to break the deal and recommence bombing and military operations whenever it wishes. It seems to wish so from the outset, just as it did in Lebanon..

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  has  also released a statement denying that Israeli forces will withdraw from the Philadelphi corridor in the first phase of the #ceasefire agreement, adding that the IOF will remain in the corridor in phase A for the entire 42-day period.  "During Phase A, starting on the 16th day, negotiations will begin on ending the war. If Hamas does not agree to Israel’s demands for ending the war (achieving the war’s objectives), Israel will remain in the #Philadelphi Corridor on the 42nd day and, consequently, beyond the 50th day," the office said.  "In practical terms, Israel will remain in the Philadelphi Corridor until further notice," the statement concluded.. they’re probably afraid that journalists will enter Gaza if they leave that part

The people of Gaza deserve peace and full compensation for Israel's genocide, destruction and illegal occupation. None of them are in sight yet.

The ceasefire deal is a result of sustained pressure from people worldwide. A groundswell movement that has been led by Palestinians in Gaza, the diaspora, and powered by many millions of people, healthcare workers, aid workers and journalists.

For 15 cruel months, Palestinians have endured horror after horror. Civilians have paid the ultimate price , with their lives. Women, men and children have had their homes destroyed, displaced time and time again, starved as a weapon of war and denied medical care and aid. Over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed and according to the UN, 369 aid workers, 1,057 healthcare workers and 160 journalists have been killed despite their protection under international law. They are not, and should never be, a target. 

Now they must be protected and receive justice. Those responsible for atrocity crimes must be held to account and we must do everything within our power to end Israel’s impunity once and for all, end the brutal military occupation and the apartheid regime. Israel’s apartheid and illegal occupation of the Palestinian territory has been ongoing for 57-years and, even with this deal, will   sadly continue on with the UK’s support. The UK must stop supporting Israel’s leaders while they commit war crimes and illegally occupy Palestinian land. Take action to end UK complicity. Hopefully, this deal means that Israel will stop its bombardment of the Gaza Strip , but Gaza is in ruins.  A true ceasefire is when the occupation, apartheid and genocide that has been ongoing since 1948 ends in it’s entirety.

The international community must now ensure  the  following, lifesaving humanitarian aid enters Gaza immediately, the urgent rebuilding of medical and other essential infrastructure;  and an end to the illegal 18-year blockade on Gaza. At  the  same time access to independent human rights investigators  and an end to the brutal military occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as ruled by the International Court of Justice.  

An end to the system of oppression and domination of apartheid,  and  Justice and accountability for victims of war crimes and genocide including the enforcement of ICC arrest warrants. Also the  immediate and unconditional release  of  health  care workers including  Dr Hussam Abu Safiya and ensure  their  protection as mandated  by  international  law, 

Until Israel ends its genocide, apartheid and illegal occupation of the Palestinian territory, the UK must stop arming, trading with and supporting Israel.  Palestinians urgently need unrestricted access to humanitarian aid, and support to rebuild Gaza , but there must also be justice and accountability for the war crimes committed against them. 

Justice will only be achieved when Palestinians can live in dignity, with equal rights and justice with the occupation and system of apartheid dismantled.I  live  in  hope  that  all  this is achieved. Please take action to end the UK’s support – and call for accountability – for Israel’s crimes. 

End UK Support for Israel's War Crimes

https://secure.waronwant.org/page/162177/action/1?utm_campaign=E24_70_Y24AQ&utm_medium=WOW&utm_source=Email&ea.url.id=7785970

Light beyond darkness

Have felt broken at times

But am proud of my scars,

Reminders of battles fought

Times I've risen after falling down.

Sweet is the night  

Where peace lays it's head, 

Soft is the rhythm 

Of mother earths heartbeat.

As thoughts keep travelling

Under new year raindrops,

Keep dancing among shadows

While the world feels lost.

Drifting with emotions

Somehow staying strong,

Even when it feels tough

Find paths to move forward.

Swim among meandering waves

Following whispers on the wind,

Learning acts of simple resistance

Better ways of existence.

In times of grave injustice

Join defiant voices releasing outrage,

Allow tomorrow's vision to blossom

Truths torch to be lit from peak to peak.

Through shades of love and hate

Knowing which side to be on,

Palestine still bleeding torn apart

Make some room for healing.

Consciousness wakening perceptions 

Beyond emptiness, moving forwards,

Passions erupting, heightening senses

Floodgates opening again to explore.

Between the hell of loss

Joy must keep returning, 

Amongst all the darkness

There remains an undying light.

The kindness of solidarity 

When we see atrocitiy

Committed in perpetuity

Dreams glowing with certainty.

Under a billion stars blazing

Endless tireless trappings,

Finding unstoppable forces

Verses to try shape a better day,

As wildfires rage in Los Angeles, don't forget Gaza

It is with great sadness that I  hear  of the devastating  fires spreading  across LA, which first erupted Tuesday amid hurricane-force, dry Santa Ana winds in the area of North Piedra Morada Drive. It quickly swept through residential and commercial districts in this affluent coastal community,  leading to gridlock traffic. People evacuating on foot. Homes and vehicles on fire. This is terrifying. But it  is  happening  because their government couldn’t afford water for fire hydrants and firefighting planes, yet they managed to give billion of tax dollars to israel to kill innocent children in Gaza while  burning  Gaza to the ground, while.the Biden-Harris Administration announces announces $500,000,000 in Taxpayer  Funds for the Ukraine.

The wildfires have already being labelled the most destructive in LA history, having burned at least 27,000 acres of land and at least five people have been killed by the out-of-control fires so far, with more than 1,000 structures destroyed and at least 150,000 residents forced to flee their homes, where the average property price is at least $2 million.

More than 800 firefighting personnel, with the help of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, are battling the blaze. However, the same winds that fueled the fire have limited the use of aerial resources.  “Extreme fire behavior, including short and long-range spotting, continues to challenge firefighting efforts for the Palisades Fire,” CalFire said in a bulletin. “Winds gusts up to 60 MPH are expected to continue through Thursday, potentially aiding in further fire activity and suppression efforts'' https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025/1/7/palisades-fire

While we watch  multi-million dollar estates of Hollywood stars, like Steven Spielberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, Anthony Hopkins, Mark Hamill and Paris Hilton. going  up  in flames, iconic landmarks like the Walk of Fame and the Hollywood Bowl perilously close to becoming ash  with Governor Gavin Newsom declaring a state of emergency as firefighters battle to save lives and heritage in the City of Angels, it seens California’s environmental policies  have  just came home to roost in the most expensive zip codes in America. 

Budget cuts to fire services, neglected brush management, and chronic under-investment in public infrastructure  have  helped creaee this climate disaster., highlighting the urgent need for stronger climate action to protect both lives and property.

What's not being said is the fact that the chaparral ecosystem of coastal LA needs fire to survive. A pyrophilic city requires regular burning to replenish itself. To simply clear its hills and valleys of dense suburbia would disrupt the fragile ecosystem. For centuries, indigenous people used periodic controlled fires to regulate the risk by removing flammable brush  But their fires were banned, homes were built in mountainous areas, and now we’re witnessing the result. 

Ir's also worth  mentioning that LA has released a proportionally larger amount of the CO2 that is driving global warming and increasing the frequency and intensity of wild fires than many other cities. 

As Wild Fires blaze across Los Angeles  and 100's of thousands are forced to flee their homes with massive amounts of destruction to the landscape and wildlife, The largest corporations in the US promised, quote, "Mother Nature still ain't got shit on me!"

While  this is happening  lets not forget that the scenes in California are the same scenes that have been inflicted on Gaza for over a year. After 13 months of relentless violence, Palestinians in Gaza have lost everything, the Gaza Strip  completely destroyed.Nearly two million people are displaced across Gaza, struggling to secure basic food and medicine. With many lacking even a tent or a tarpaulin for shelter, and most aid remains blocked from leaving crossing points due to insecurity, active hostilities and widespread destruction. 

In northern Gaza, conditions are especially desperate under an intensive Israeli siege. An estimated 100,000 people in North Gaza governorate are completely cut off from humanitarian aid, with the UN condemning ‘unlawful interference with humanitarian assistance’.Not a single LA celebrity spoke out about Gaza at one of their glitzy awards the other night. They at least got a chance to evacuate.

The same bureaucrats who allowed LA to burn are same ones who allowed Rafah to go up in flames. From LA to Gaza the world has burned and burned. If you’re sympathizing with thoses in California but silent on Gaza you will never get it. The issues of environmental justice go hand in hand with the issue of Palestinian liberation. 

Fires are always devastating, whether caused by nature or by humans who bomb and burn hospitals, refugee camps, and schools to kill children and women. After this fire, Hollywood will be rebuilt more beautifully, but in Gaza, the children who have lost their loved ones,brothers, sisters, and witnessed their homes being bombed will never receive such assistance.

When Palestinian's had their tents bombed and burned out and many innocents lost their lives, our news channels gave it a brief mention. The Los Angeles wildfires are rolling news .And that is where the difference lies.While most eyes are currently on Los Angeles, people have forgotten what’s happening in Gaza, where genocide continues and the world watches with apathy. This can’t continue.

Celebrating the life of Augustus John: The King of Bohemia (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961)

Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. Augustus Edwin John,  was  born in Tenby in south Pembrokeshire  on 4 January 1878  at 11,12 or 13 The Esplanade, now known as The Belgrave Hotel, , John was the younger son and third of four children. His father was Edwin William John, a Welsh solicitor; his mother, Augusta Smith, from a long line of Sussex master plumbers,[died young when he was six, but not before inculcating a love of drawing in both Augustus and his older sister Gwendolen Mary John. His father Edwin moved the family permanently to Tenby, 

The household  was  somewhat  intimidaring , - their Grandfather exhorted his grandchildren to " Talk! If you can't think of anything to say tell a lie!' and 'If you make a mistake make it with Authority!' - the John children were looked after by two aunts, Rose and Lily, who rode round the neighbourhood in a wicker pony trap known as 'the Hallelujah Chariot'.

The aunts held rank in the Salvation Army and variously followed the doctrines of the Quakers, Joanna Southcott and. Howell Harris.  Irtwas in the great outdoors and through art that Augustus could avoid the cloying Victorian atmosphere of home, where Edwin ruled with a strict air of the disciplinarian.  Here Augustus imagined himself a roaring Native American, adopted son of the Antelope Comanche nation with the beginnings of what he described as “an active interest in squaws.” 

At the age of seventeen he briefly attended the Tenby School of Art, then left Wales for London, studying at the Slade School of Art, University College London. He became the star pupil of drawing teacher Henry Tonks and even before his graduation he was considered the most talented draughtsman of his generation. His sister, Gwen was with him at the Slade and became an important artist in her own right.[

He and his sister Gwen were bound together by art, inspired by their artistic mother Augusta. He recalled “Gwen and I, full of curiosity, would approach as near as we dared, to watch the mystery of painting. Even at that early age we were vaguely aware of Art and Beauty.”  Their father Edwin was more bourgeois in attitude and shunned their art in favour of discipline and propriety.

Although he did not live permanently in Wales after 1894, he remained deeply attached to his native land, and supported the National Eisteddfod and Royal Cambrian Academy. He returned to Tenby periodically, being called back when his father felt as if he was dying. During these visits he would stay with author Richard Hughes in the castle at Laugharne, once saying, “My father is on his death bed but refuses to get into it.” In October 1959 Tenby bestowed the Freedom of the Borough on John, “in appreciation and acknowledgement of his distinguished service in the field of art”.  The Town and County News wrote that he looked “deeply moved and at times somewhat overcome by…an emotion he did not try to conceal.”

In the summer between terms studying in London two incidents happened that would have a large influence in John’s life - on a walking trip around Pembroke-shire he had his first encounter with Irish tinkers which would lead to a life long fascination with Romany culture and way of life. 

And in the summer of 1897 he suffered a severe accident hitting his head on a rock whilst diving into the sea, at Tenby this seemingly resulted in a radical change in character. He grew a beard, dressed as a Bohemian and  began  to drink  heavily. and  became known for his mood swings, his womanising and his artistic talent. 

His painting became more adventurous and his friend, Wyndham Lewis remarked that John had become a "great man of action into whose hands the fairies had placed a paintbrush instead of a sword"

 A charismatic  controversial  individual with  a possible bullying personality he made a great impression on the artists, critics and collectors around him  and  is considered to be the most talented artist of his generation, in 1898 he won the Slade Prize with Moses and the Brazen Serpent.

The early period of his work is characterised by his exceptional drawings, notably of contemporaries, including his wives and sisters, as well as portraits in oils influenced by the Old Masters, and an experimental series of etchings.

In the early years of the 20th Century John would make his reputation as an artist moving on the edges of a number of influential schools and salons of the time, exhibiting with the New English Art Club and the Camden School as well as being a regular visitor to Lady Gregory's Irish Salon at Coole Park. Critics by now were comparing his work with that of Matisse and Gaugin.  

Girl in a Blue Striped Coat (c. 1910), Augustus John.

His visits to north Wales with another Welsh artist, James Dickson Innes, between 1910 and 1913, revealed a rich talent for landscape painting, and brought to the fore a more modern impressionistic idiom, also to be seen in his paintings of the south of France, where he spent long periods in the 1920s. Through his sister Gwen, who joined him at the Slade in 1895, he came to know a group of outstanding women students, including Ursula Tyrwhitt, with whom he fell briefly in love, and Ida Nettleship, whom he married in 1901 on leaving Slade to avoid being seen to 'live in sin' .

John and his associates would frequent the Café Royal whenever their meagre student finances could afford - and John was a centre of attraction among the cosmopolitan crowd that gathered there. 

The café in the late 1890s was the haunt of artists, writers, circus people, magicians, aristocrats 'Celtic' gentlemen and politicos of numerous persuasions from anarchists of the Kropotkin school to Liberal capitalist 'Social Creditors'. 

Augustus John's  first child, David, was born in 1902 and   faced with the prospect of supporting a family John took a job as art instructor at Liverpool Art School which was attached to the University and it  was here  he  he met an older man, John Samson, university librarian and self-taught Romany scholar who taught him Romany.  and opened the young artist’s eyes to the richness of gypsy culture, language and lifestyle.nd embraced a Travellers’ lifestyle.

For the rest of his life John would search out gypsy encampments wherever he went - often travelling in his own set of horse drawn vans. He had his own repertoire of Romany songs and dances. Joining them round their camp fires at night, penetrating behind the veneer of romantic glamour, 

John saw the gypsies as having true freedom, not compromised by the advance of industrialised society, - the supreme anti-capitalists whose belongings were always burnt at death. In turn the gypsies accepted John as an honorary gypsy. 

After Liverpool the young John family moved back to London - marriage did not stop John's womanising - he met and fell hopelessly in love with one of his sisters models and friend Dorothy McNeil, he gave her the gypsy name, Dorelia, and she became his most important model and lifelong inspiration.. Ida liked Dorelia and a tumultuous ménage-a-trois was formed. Despite numerous other affairs Ida and Dorelia would be the anchors round which John’s world would revolve. 

Dorelia (1909), Augustus John. 

In March 1903 Augustus John and Gwen John had a joint exhibition at Carfax & Company. However, she worked very slowly and contributed only three pictures to her brother's forty-five. Their relationship was non-competitive and highly affectionate. 

Tragedy struck the John clan in 1907 when shortly after the birth of her 5th child Ida died. With two other children by Dorelia, John, hardly the perfect father, had to struggle with Ida's family over who should bring up the children. 

In August 1911 John and Dorelia rented Alderney Manor, a strange fortified pink bungalow built by an eccentric Frenchman in 60 acres of heath and woodland on the Newton to Ringwood road outside Parkstone, Dorset. The property, actually quite a large low house with gothic windows and a castellated parapet with additional cottages and a round walled garden was owned by Winston Churchill's Liberal aunt, Lady Wimborne, who was "pleased to have a clever artist as a tenant." 

The John entourage arrived in a colourful caravan of carts and wagons with children singing as they came down the drive. They set to, turning it into the very picture of a bohemian commune - the coach house was converted into a studio, the cottage converted to accommodate the seemingly endless stream of visitors, some invited, some who just dropped in and would stay for days, months, even years. 

Others stayed in the blue and yellow gypsy caravans dotted around the grounds and when numbers swelled for weekend parties, in gypsy tents or alfresco in the orchard. 

The children played a natural part in the community joining in with chores. And, between private tutors for the girls and school for the boys, they ran wild over the heathland and through the woods and bathed naked in the pond. 

The communal chaos was presided over by Dorelia in pre-Raphaelite robes looking as if she was constantly about to pose for a portrait, busy organising guests and making the house run smoothly, dressing everyone in handmade clothes ,helped by her sister Edie who ran the kitchen. 

Over the years they acquired all the trappings of a back to the land community; cows, a breeding herd of saddleback pigs, various donkeys, New Forest ponies, carthorses, miscellaneous cats and dogs, 12 hives of bees that stung everyone, a dovecote from which all the doves flew away and a 'biteful' monkey. 

Communal living did nothing to cramp John’s style,- the affairs continued, almost too numerous to mention , with Lady Ottoline Morrell, Mrs Strindberg, the actress Eileen Hawthorne and Mrs Fleming, Ian Fleming's mother, (a liaison which resulted in a daughter, Amaryliss, later an accomplished cellist.) John never seemed to deny any of his wayward offspring - taking some under his communal wing, paying maintenance to support others. 

At Alderney John would spend his time painting and sketching the children and guests,- taking part in afternoon jazz sessions , the tango was his speciality - and presiding over the many parties, bonfires and trips to local pubs. 

All the usual suspects from the Bohemian art scene would make their way down to Dorset; the Bloomsbury crowd; Brett, Carrington, Lytton-Strachey, Berty Russell, Wyndham Lewis.

Other more exotic characters would make it their home, amongst them Chilean painter Alvaro Guevara, wall paper designer Fanny Fletcher, Polish music doctor Jan Sliwinski and the Icelandic poet Haraldar Thorskinsson. 

At intervals John would leave for his studio in London or for a continental tour in search of gypsy camps or new lovers. 

 At the outbreak of the First World War John was perhaps the best-known artist in Britain. His friendship with Lord Beaverbrook enabled him to obtain a commission in the Canadian Army and he was given free rein to paint what he liked on the Western Front, but is only known to have completed one painting. He was also allowed to keep his facial hair and therefore became the only officer in the Allied forces, except for King George V, to have a beard. 

After two months in France, Lord Beaverbrook had to intervene to save John from a court-martial after he was arrested for taking part in a brawl.  John was sent  back to France but is only known to have completed one painting, Fraternity. 

John also attended the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 where he painted the portraits of several delegates. However, the commissioned group portrait of the main figures at the conference was never finished.

John spent extended periods of time in the south of France and the work he produced during these visits is more vibrant in colour. He was a prolific artist, producing a vast amount of work; favourite subjects included coastal landscapes, gypsies and his family

The years at Alderney were the peak of John's artistic career. By the 1920s Augustus John was the leading portrait painter in Britain, He was so popular that he appeared on the front of Time magazine in 1928 , the same year he was elected to be a Royal Academician.which  he resigned in 1938, but was reinstated in 1940, and was awarded the O.M. in 1942 for services to art,  and although his portraits were often controversial he was inundated with commissions.

 Everyone who was anyone seemingly wanted to have their portrait painted by the erstwhile King of Bohemia., as he had an almost psychological insight in his expression, in the  way  his portraits famously captured the true character and personality of each sitter.  Those who sat for him included Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, Ottoline Morrell, T. E. Lawrence, Jacob Epstein, Wyndham Lewis, W. B. Yeats, William Nicholson, and Dylan Thomas.

Thomas Hardy on seeing his portrait painted by John in 1923 remarked "I don't know if that's how I look, but that's how I feel." Augustus John had met the octogenarian English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy through T.E. Lawrence,– Lawrence of Arabia in September 1923. In the following weeks he made several visits to Max Gate, the house that Hardy had designed and built for himself in Dorchester, Dorset, to work on this affectionate and admiring portrait.

The study in which Hardy is shown is that in which he wrote many of his most celebrated works, including Jude the Obscure (1895), In an article written for the monthly review Horizon in the 1940s, John recalled the harmonious relationship that developed between artist and writer:

 'An atmosphere of great sympathy and almost complete understanding at once established itself between us, though the veneration in which I held Hardy impeded to some extent the natural expression of my response to his quite lovable personality ...' 

John recorded in his memoirs that 'Hardy himself was, physically, not of monumental build, though he had a fine head'. Yet in the portrait the artist has done his best to endow the old man with a certain stature.

 We are made to gaze up at the novelist from a low viewpoint, a position that perhaps reflects the veneration John spoke of. The ‘fine head’ sits atop a pyramid of grey tweed, Hardy’s suit, which takes up half the canvas and suggests a robustness at odds with his old age. The enormous thumbs resting on the lapels of his jacket direct our gaze up to the face, with its wide, rheumy eyes, eyes that ignore us, that look out to the right, brows and lids raised as though the great man is pursuing a thought.

Thomas Hardy, 1923, by Augustus John,

 As well a portraits of friends, like Ottoline Morrell and W.B.Yeats, he painted Lloyd George, Ramsay MacDonald and Winston Churchill. Augustus John became increasingly successful as a portrait painter, so much so that his personal artistic interests could not develop fully. Hence many of his large figure compositions and imaginative pictures were left unfinished. 

A controversial portrait of Lord Leverhulme, the founder of Port Sunlight, was returned to John minus its head, the soap millionaire having been offended by the artist's depiction of him. 

The story goes that Leverhulme commissioned John to paint his portrait despite claiming that no one had ever really been able to capture his likeness and that he could not give much time for the sitting. 

When Leverhulme saw it, he complained that the eyes, nose and mouth were not a likeness. My favourite part of this story is that John offered his Lordship his palette and brushes for him to make the adjustments!  Despite his coolness towards the portrait, it was purchased. 

However, once in his possession, Lord Leverhulme did not wish it to be on display. He attempted to hide it away in his safe, but it was too large, so he cut the face off the painting and placed that under lock and key. The story now descends into farce, as, unwittingly, Leverhulme’s housekeeper packaged the damaged painting up and it was returned to Augustus John. If you look carefully, you can see the repair to the painting around the head of the sitter. 

The resultant outcry at this insult to John's artistic integrity reverberated around the globe. A 24 hour art strike was called in Paris involving not only artists, but also models and picture framers. In Italy a huge soap effigy of Leverhulme was ceremoniously burnt and in Hyde Park art school students marched in protest bearing aloft a giant headless torso. (The portrait was later 'stitched' back together and hangs in the Lady Leverhulme Gallery at Port Sunlight.)  

The Johns moved to Fryern Court, Fordingbridge - a 14th century friary turned farmhouse - in 1927. The house on the edge of the New Forest became a stopping-off point for artists travelling to the West Country from London and developed into more of an open house than bohemian commune.

 However, Bby  this time  one critic has claimed that "the painterly brilliance of his early work degenerated into flashiness and bombast, and the second half of his long career added little to his achievement."

 His biographer, Michael Holroyd, has argued: "From the late 1920s onwards John's talent went into a decline which, despite a number of journeys he made through Europe, Jamaica, and the United States seeking to revive it, was accelerated by his heavy drinking. The rebel artist had now moved from the roadside into London's West End where his work was irregularly exhibited from 1929 to 1961 at Dudley Tooth's gallery in Bruton Street."  John's 1937 portrait of Dylan Thomas is widely accepted as his last great painting. 

Even his granddaughter  Rebecca John, the leading authority on her grandfather, said in 2024, while praising his earlier work, that "most [paintings since the 1930s] should have been burned. My grandfather went down the drain from the 1930s onwards, drank too much, lost his judgment, and took every opportunity to earn money from portraits of society ladies and the wives of notable men".

 From March to May 1937, when John travelled to Jamaica, he experienced a renewed burst of motivation, creativity and a resurgence of his powers; John was on a quest to portray the emotional 'otherness' of people outside of the centre of European civilisation and its art. 

The Caribbean island was a great inspiration to John. He made many observant paintings of the women and hotel workers that he met there, including the Two Jamaican Girls. This is a celebrated example of John's renewed creative vitality. 

 Two Jamaican Girls - Augustus  John 

During the Caribbean visit, John also created a number of pencil-on-paper studies and sketches of Jamaican females. The Portrait of a Jamaican Woman has an overall closed impression, as the woman is depicted with a closed mouth and averted gaze, clutching clothing to her bosom. This work has a contained yet also an incomplete feel to it, as if John was unsure how to finish the portrait. 

Portrait of a Jamaican Woman c.1937

Although John was seen as a part of the 'establishment', his later art and lifestyle positioned him firmly outside of the centre of established society.  and iIn the less hectic lifestyle at Fryern where he entered the twilight of his artistic career John became increasingly interested in politics. He was active in the National Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment and perhaps somewhat ironically supported the Voluntary Contraception League. 

He pestered MPs on behalf of gypsy and travellers' rights, and was honoured to be elected president of the Gypsy Law Society in 1936. 

Augustus John has often been cited as one of a few from the British artistic and intellectual milieu to have identified themselves with the anarchist movement. But Augustus John’s relationship with that movement was as ambivalent as his own life. 

His wildly bohemian life earned him the epithet of the King of Bohemia. His imposing height and carriage and his confident stride, his big black broad brimmed hat, his flowing beard and gold earrings, his great love and knowledge of the Gypsies, his many affairs with women and his unorthodox domestic life justified the title. 

He certainly had a knowledge of the anarchist movement from the time he moved to London from his native Wales. As a student at the Slade in 1897 he took his sketchbook to the anarchist clubs in Fitzrovia where he encountered Louise Michel, Peter Kropotkin, and David Nicoll, ex-editor of Commonweal, among the British, French, German, Spanish, Italian and American anarchists to be found there. 

Later in Paris in 1898 he often ate at an anarchist restaurant where self service seemed to have been invented, and where “grubbily dressed girls” fetched their own food to avoid being waited upon. He read Kropotkin’s Memoirs of a Revolutionist just before arriving in Liverpool in 1901 and he temporarily named his son Ravachol after the anarchist bomber in 1902 before finally plumping for David. 

John elaborated his own beliefs in the Delphic Review, a magazine edited in Fordingbridge and through a number of radio broadcasts. He argued for the breakdown of Nation States into small autonomous, self-supporting, communities - `Gigantism is a disease,' he declared, pointing out that 'Classical Athens was hardly bigger than Fordingbridge.' 

His attacks were elegantly argued, even if they did appear somewhat eccentric. He launched an attack on hedges. `Hedges are miniature frontiers when serving as bulkheads, not windscreens. Hedges as bulkheads dividing up the Common Land should come down, for they represent and enclose stolen property. Frontiers are extended hedges, and divide the whole world into compartments as a result of aggression and legalised robbery. They too should disappear…' 

His long career as a portraitist for the establishment, when he painted royalty and millionaires was rather at odds with both his bohemianism and his professed republicanism and radicalism, something which he himself seems to have recognised and which caused him much personal anguish.  However he defended anarchist Herbert Read’s ‘courageous decision’ to take a knighthood in 1953, which caused a furore within the British anarchist movement. He himself accepted the Order of Merit in 1942, and he was criticised for this being at odds with his republicanism. 

He detested Spanish fascist General Franco and horrified by the rise of fascism across Europe he helped to form the Artists International Association along with the likes of Eric Gill, Henry Moore and Ben Nicolson. The association's aim was to establish an 'army of artists' to oppose the advance of 'philistine barbarism'. 

They organised a number of exhibitions 'Against Fascism & War'. John reserved a particular hatred for General Franco - and in the early years of WW2 he presented several of his pictures to war funds and , using his influence to free people like the anarchist Werner Droescher  and  a number of German and Austrian refugee artists interned by the British government,. 

In this period he joined the Voluntary Contraception League (considering the number of children he sired, better late than never!), the Committee of the National Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, and he regularly campaigned on behalf of gypsies, in particular around police harassment of gypsies in Kent.

During the war years he also dabbled with the Greenshirts and the Social Credit Party but seems to have gravitated more and more to the anarchist movement after that time, attending anarchist meetings in London. and in I945 joined with Benjamin Britten, E. M. Forster, George Orwell, Herbert Read and Osbert Sitwell in sponsoring the Freedom Defence Committee `to defend those who are persecuted for exercising their rights to freedom of speech, writing and action'. 

This was an alternative to the National Council for Civil Liberties that had temporarily become a Communist Front organisation refusing to help anarchists. 

He never voted in his life as he said, and his dislike of politicians began to grow even more in the 50s.  He remarked that “Anarchism is the thing,” and communism, differentiating communism- “which surely lies at the basis of human society” - from its travesty in the USSR.  

By the end of the1940s he was publishing and broadcasting that national states were by definition bound to clash. All nationalities were composed of a haphazard conglomeration of tribes, but the State, originating in violence, must rely on force to impose an artificial uniform on this conglomeration, transmitting its laws and class privileges like a hereditary disease.

“The state must not be judged by human standards nor ever be personified as representing the quintessence of the soul of the people it manipulates. The state is immoral and accountable to nobody”.

Communities must be broken down into smaller groups. Hedges must be dug up - “hedges are miniature frontiers when serving as a bulkhead, not windscreens. Hedges as bulkheads dividing up the Common Land should come down, for they represent and enclose stolen property. Frontiers are extended hedges, and divide the whole world into compartments as a result of aggression and legalized robbery. They too should disappear… they give rise to the morbid form of Patriotism known as Chauvinism or Jingoism”.  

“Without frontiers, the State would wither and society change from a heavy pyramid to a fluid form of amoeba. Monstrous industrial towns, congested capital cities with their moats of oxygen-excluding suburbs would melt away and a multiplicity of local communities would appear, autonomous, self-supporting and federated.’gigantism is a disease”.

John and Dorelia lived out the last years of their lives at Fryern, interspersed with occasional trips abroad or up to London - where John would proceed, even into his eighties, to out-drink, out-party and out-flirt his considerably younger companions. 

He joined the Peace Pledge Union as a pacifist in the 1950s, and the Committee of 100. which was a British anti-war group  set up in 1960 with a hundred public signatories by Bertrand Russell (who resigned from the presidency of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in order to form this more militant group),Its supporters used and advocated nonviolent civil disobedience to achieve their aims. "....you may count on me to follow your lead,..... it is up to all those of us above the idiot line to protest as vigorously as possible." So wrote the 84 year old Augustus John to Bertrand Russell during the build up to the mass anti-nuclear demonstrations of 1961.

Recovering from an attack of thrombosis and suffering from what amounted to agoraphobia against doctor’s orders he joined the mass sit-down in Trafalgar Square on Sunday 17 September at the age of 83. The police had banned the demonstration, and on the day deployed 4,000, which included all their reserves.  888 people were arrested that day. 

Augustus  hiding himself, somewhat appropriately, inside the National Gallery until the demonstration started. At 5 o'clock he emerged, walked across the road to Trafalgar Square and sat down, joining the unprecedented numbers who had gathered to protest against the lunacy of atomic weapons - and declaring that he would " go to prison if necessary."

 Few there recognised the sick old man, but later when Bertrand Russell heard of John's attendance he described it as a "heroic gesture." A month later Augustus John died at Fryern Court,  from  heart  failure on  31 October 1961.

Today despite the ebb and flow of his reputation he is widely recognised as one of the most important artists of the 20th century. On his death in 1961 an obituary in The New York Times observed, 'He was regarded as the grand old man of British painting, and as one of the greatest in British history.' and his work is represented in many of the main galleries in the United Kingdom, from the Tate, the National Museums of Wales, the Bodleian, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, the Glynn Vivian and of course Tenby Museum and Art Gallery among many, many others across the country, while a bronze statue celebrating his life can be seen in Fordingbridge on the banks of the Avon near the Great Bridge.