Posted by Duncan on April 23, 2003 at 09:09:42 from 205.188.208.8 user Duncan.
In Reply to: Re: AR's Politics (was: Ransome on TV and Radio) posted by andy bolger on April 22, 2003 at 22:23:12:
Surprisingly AR wrote very little on domestic politics in his journalism, despite writing quite a lot about overseas politics (not just Russia). I don't think I've ever found any domestic political writing. His political friends, however, mostly appear to have been from the leftward end of Labour. Some of these were made before he went to Russia, others after he came back. One of the most interesting, to my mind, is Molly Hamilton, as she wrote a number of fascinating articles in socialist newspapers in the early part of the twentieth century about children's literature. When talking about debates between Molly Hamilton and a radical liberal friend (ie. laissez-faire, free market liberal - like a Thatcherite without the authoritarianism and family values) it was clear that AR always took Molly Hamilton's side.
It is possible, of course, that AR wrote domestic politics under a pseudonym (many did in the early part of the twentieth century, and it seems rather unlikely that he WOULDN'T have produced the odd article for Clarion or something when he was cutting his teeth, as he would have been pretty much guaranteed publication).
Not suggesting a link to the previous paragraph: who was Arthur Ransom? (No 'e'). Quite bizarrely, AR mentions him in his autobiography - just because he met 'an older man' who nearly shared his name... Arthur Ransom (no 'e') wrote very regularly for left-wing newspapers in the first decade of the 20th century (and perhaps a bit before, I haven't done a lot of research into him) but I know nothing of him. Clearly people had on occasion mixed the two ARs up, therefore prompting our AR to mention the other's existence in his autobiography. I have to confess I got very excited the first time I came across an article by the other AR and didn't spot the lack of an 'e' until much later.
Strangely, despite reading just about every socialist publication (for every week, at least, and most days!) from 1918-1939 (it's a strange job, but somebody has to do it!) I never came across a reference to this other AR for this period - not even an obituary. I'm not trying to suggest any great significance to this, but if anybody knows any more about the other AR, I'd certainly be very interested (I can feel an article coming on...)
Duncan