It is uncanny at times how things are linked in what we do, and also how true it is that we learn something new every day.
I am attending three important meetings next week. There is a National Executive Council meeting which is a two day event. The next day is the Unison Health Executive meeting.
They are important because at one we will be discussing the pension issue and getting feed back on the negotiations with government, and at the other the whole debate about the Health Bill (Health and Social Care Bill) will continue.
These meetings will be held at the new UNISON Centre on Euston Road. This is our union’s purpose built National Headquarters and it is fantastic. A modern, progressive building for a modern progressive union, making a statement in these difficult times that we are here to stay and will not be pushed around by anybody.
This building is on the site of the old Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (EGA) Hospital and in fact, because the old hospital is a listed building, there is a merger between the old and the new. Most of the facade of the EGA has been renovated and restored and forms part of the new centre. A museum dedicated to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson on the ground floor of the building is open to the public.
The first link (or completion of a circle) is that the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the first hospital that Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government targeted with ward closures in the 1980s.
That in itself is ironic. The first female Prime Minister attacking a hospital, a women’s hospital, founded by, and named after the first female qualified doctor (as well as England’s first female mayor). This hospital was well used and well liked. It was supported by the community.
And here we are today, twenty five or so years on. A trade union, that had members from partner unions that make up UNISON (NUPE and COHSE particularly),  standing on the picket lines with local people defending the hospital (myself included), now owning the site, the hospital and the history.
You couldn’t write this (although I have, but you know what I mean!).
Not exactly a Phoenix rising out of the flames, but more the future and the past holding hands and reinforcing an unbreakable bond.
The second link to all this is a bit more of a story so please bear with me and don’t fall asleep at the back!
I was away last week in Thorpeness, Suffolk, for a few days’ leave. Stayed at a great place but did ‘trips out’.
Went to nearby Southwold for a guided tour around Adnams Brewery. Very interesting, particularly the beer tasting at the end. Their landmark brew at the moment is a beer called Broadside.
This has been brewed to commemorate the ‘Battle of Sole Bay’ which took place in 1672. The English Fleet was moored up in Southwold when ships from the Dutch Republic attacked.
Admiral Edward Montagu and most of his sailors were drinking in the local ale houses at the time (this was 5.30 am!) but still managed to muster, set sail, and drive the Dutch away after a fierce battle lasting most of the day.
Broadside is 6.3 ABV. Enough said!
Drinking them until half five in the morning would make anyone feel as if they had been in a sea battle!
I also went to see Sizewell Nuclear Power Station nearby. No guided tour or beer tasting here!
It is quite isolated as you would imagine but there is a little cafe right next door that does a roaring trade in breakfasts (and no, before you ask, the bacon didn’t glow in the dark and the eggs did not have five yolks!).
The staff told us that there were no mushrooms that day, which was a relief I suppose, sitting right next to a nuclear power station!
Mushroom and nuclear is perfect word association!
Sizewell is very near to a place called Leiston. There is a steam museum in Leiston.
The ironworks at Leiston has been world famous for making steam tractors, steam traction engines and steam thresher machines.
The dominating engineering company (in fact the only one) in the town was founded in 1778 by a Richard Garrett (Garrett, remember this name!).
Richard Garrett and Sons sold their agricultural machinery and steam engines all over the world (although the firm changed hands in the latter years) until it folded in 1980.
Spending a pleasurable hour or so wandering around the museum I came across a large framed diagram of the family tree.
Whose name do you think I spotted in the middle of it? I am sure you are way ahead of me!
Yes, you are right: one Elizabeth Garrett! Born in 1836 (the Anderson part of the name came when she married James Anderson, founder of the Orient Shipping Line).
The Garrett family who ran the works in the early 1900s  were anti trade union, as many of their contemporary industrialists were (and still are).Â
Massive profits, massive wealth, massive property, in return for poverty pay and long, gruelling hours for their workers. They were the main employer in this small town and employed over 2000 people.
In 1912 (or thereabouts) a hundred or so workers had had enough and went on strike to improve their conditions. They were ‘locked out’ and sacked. Brushed aside like metal filings.There is no written history about what happened to them or their families after that, but we can guess.
So, there we have it. In my tiny sphere of life within the big scheme of things, I have made a connection with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and completed a circle.
The new UNISON Centre that I am having meetings in has been built on the site of the old Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital. By chance I visited a steam museum that is on the site of the Richard Garrett and Sons Engineering Works of whose family she is one.
I found out that some in her family were anti trade unions and had sacked over a hundred workers for taking strike action to improve their lot. And now, as if to avenge those workers and their families, UNISON has built a powerful trade union building on the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson site.
I do have to say though, in her defence, that Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was a great pioneer for women: politically, medically and socially.
She had absolutely nothing to do with the sacked workers as she was 76 years old at the time and living in Aldeburgh. She died in 1917.
In fact, her side of the family were the more progressive. Not only was she the first female doctor in the UK, first female mayor in England, but her sister, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, was the president of the WSPU (the Suffragettes).
But as they say: why let the (absolute) facts get in the way of a good circular story!
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Eric Roberts
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