SOCIALISM A god in a Gannex

Dave Pogson

For 50 years until retirement Dave practiced as a surveyor in Lancashire and Cumbria, becoming a Fellow of the RICS and working for the Department of the Environment, Lancashire County Council, South Lakeland District Council and the NPS Group. During that time, he wrote articles on surveying topics and work experiences which allowed him to introduce some controversy, humour, and the odd bit of fiction. https://davidlewispogson.wordpress.com

I’m delighted that Dave was prompted by another member’s article to submit a piece he wrote years ago. This is an interesting tale which will resonate with (let’s say) the more mature readers

Question: What is the definition of Socialism? 

Answer: The long, hard road between Capitalism and Capitalism. 

(Anonymous - an old Polish joke found on the internet). 

Inherited socialism? 

I've recently formed the theory that political ideology is genetic, and what we do with that inheritance is shaped by how we're brought up. It's possible that one day scientists will isolate the gene for socialism and inject all Tories and Liberals with it on the NHS, making the world better and elections unnecessary. In the meantime, the Tories and Liberals serve a useful purpose – the Tories to defeat in general elections, and the Liberals to laugh at. It's nothing personal; it's just the way of the world. 

In those long-ago days when the world was coloured only in black and white, I inherited the socialist gene from my father. It mostly affected the male line – women had more immediate things to do, like keeping a home together, when socialists were either out campaigning, discussing politics in the pub, or just plain unemployed. Sensibly, women seemed only to give in to the effects on polling day. 

The genetic inheritance was obvious. The male line had certain exaggerated characteristics that perfectly fitted the classic socialist profile: defiantly working class, reasonably intelligent but obstinate, aggressive even when not cornered, and totally disrespectful of authority. Most importantly, we always voted Labour regardless of the candidates or issues. Blood was red for a reason. 

Despite the socialist genes, we weren't stupid about it. My father was pragmatic. He'd bought our terraced house from his father – owning was better than doffing your cap to a landlord. We embraced education. I passed the 11 plus to infiltrate the “Establishment” at Grammar school. Work was necessary but made acceptable by union membership. Day-to-day socialism was about surviving and looking after each other in a hostile world. 

Each generation embraced socialism differently as circumstances improved. My great grandfather had worked in the West Yorkshire tanneries as a Journeyman Currier; so prolific in organising trade unions that every employer across the North blacklisted him. His style was confrontational – he would have loved taking on Maggie in the miners' strikes. 

My grandfather had crossed the Pennines to North Lancashire, where we now lived, as a railway guard. He resented authority, particularly from managers who'd abandoned their union loyalty for advancement. His approach was subtler – he threw spanners into the system from the inside when it deserved them. 

On one occasion, delivering a goods train down to Manchester, he encountered an officious Goods Manager who repeatedly dismissed his enquiries about the return trip with: "I'm busy. I'll send for you when I’m ready." My grandfather found a hotel and stayed there for a week, enjoying Manchester's sights and pubs, waiting for the summons to arrive at his unknown address. After three days of not hearing anything, my grandmother walked to our local station to enquire about him. A search was launched, with the city police visiting hotels until they found him. At the Inquiry he was completely vindicated and paid in full for his 'vacation', leaving the Goods Manager to explain himself. 

Later, after a delayed goods train arrival, my grandfather faced another disciplinary hearing. His defence was classic: he'd logged every station clock along the journey to compare with his railway issue pocket watch. By recording the times and working out the differences, he proved his train had arrived slightly ahead of time rather than well behind. It wasn't his fault if no two station clocks ever agreed. All charges were dismissed. You have to be better than the bosses to beat them. 

My father fought across North Africa and through Europe pursuing Hitler. He resisted all offers to promote him from Private on the basis that he had enough responsibility keeping himself alive. A Major at Port Said, after catching him in the docks damaging troop carriers while trying to learn to drive, paraphrased Wellington: "I don't know what Hitler thinks of you, but you frighten the bloody life out of me." 

He returned to find Attlee's Labour Government elected. Marriage, a family, working at the locomotive sheds, joining the union and the Labour Party followed. His political contribution was trying to ensure Labour stayed in power, turning out at every campaign to deliver leaflets and canvass votes. 

He also had skirmishes with the bosses. Two weeks before Christmas, the men's wages were short – money needed for food and presents. The Wages Clerk said cash hadn't arrived from the Area Office. The Shed Manager promised more that afternoon, but it failed to arrive. My father refused to leave without his full wages. Faced down by an Eighth Army veteran with right on his side and who could frighten Hitler, the Shed Manager sent to the bank, withdrew cash from the local account, and paid him out that day. When you go into battle with your ancestors behind you, you don't need reinforcements. 

My brand of socialism 

I became involved by following him around at local and general elections, pushing leaflets through doors, hiding behind him as he buttonholed residents. Candidates visited the house to thank him, though often to commiserate – the Tories usually held our rural constituency. Stanley Henig M.P, elected for Lancaster in 1966 during my last year at grammar school, was a notable visitor - an exception to that list of losers. However, as well as genetics, my father's pragmatic side was also shaping me - get qualifications, get a career with a pension, join a union, never volunteer for the army, and vote Labour when you're old enough! 

With that legacy, I had to find my own brand of socialism. My great grandfather and grandfather would have advocated the radical 1918 Labour Party Clause 4. “To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, upon the basis of common ownership of the means of production and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry and service.” A bit long-winded in my opinion. 

My father was a Gaitskell man whose 1959 definition better fitted the times: "based on ... a belief in social justice and an equitable distribution of wealth; a belief in a classless society ..." 

How could a Grammar School boy with university prospects and swinging 60s aspirations combine middle class goals with working class beliefs? Simple. Do what all institutions had done throughout history: change the definition again. In 1967 Harold Wilson gave me a lead; "He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery." 

My leftist politics became a constant work in progress. Later in life I stumbled upon this definition by D. Webster in ‘The Labour Party and the New Left’ published by the Fabian Society in 1981: "A society in which freedom is real, in which people emancipate themselves, at their own pace and in their own way." I realised that this was where I'd always been heading. It was brilliant - you can almost make it mean anything. 

While seeking that definition and pursuing my career, I tried to stay away from activist politics but still argued the cause everywhere – school, college, pubs. At school I'd been outnumbered by sons of solicitors and businessmen. At college in South Yorkshire, studying estate surveying, I faced sons of estate agents. No matter – the changing definitions provided progressive flexibility. My friends suffered. When beer flowed and conversation lulled, I steered it to my favourite subject. 

Sheffield Poly 1966

The photo was taken in Winter 1966/67. The writer (rear) and John Hammond (front) having their first experience of a theodolite. Sheffield College of Technology on the left, Parkside flats development on the horizon, and Pond Street Railway Station immediately below the flats. Image by kind permission of John Hammond (former ACES member), the copyright holder who sadly died on 19 October 2025. 

One test of the new flexibility came unexpectedly when I was home from college for Christmas. My younger brother won a frozen turkey in the Conservative Club Christmas raffle. The family inquest into why he'd bought the ticket in the first place was bad enough ... but what to do with the turkey? My father wanted to bin it. With my progressive approach I argued that, while we couldn't undo the damage, we'd deprived some Tory of a cheap lunch. Finally, we agreed to eat it on the basis that the turkey had been emancipated by our own efforts. My father the pragmatist made a concession to hard-line values. "All right, I'll eat it – but I refuse to enjoy it". Quietly, the rest of us didn't subscribe to that - nothing tasted better than that emancipated turkey. 

The 1968/69 academic year brought time out from college to gain professional experience. I turned down an offer of a place with a private firm in Manchester for a post in Preston at the Ministry of Works. It was the best decision of my life. I put politics aside as they never figured in the job. The Ministry provided practical solutions to public property problems, regardless of their political purpose, particularly defending the public estate against the predatory private sector. Assisting the qualified surveyors to buy telephone exchange sites, provide government offices, and dispose of surplus property, was a great fit for me. And the job ticked all the entries on my father's pragmatic checklist. 

1970 and my hero 

The 1970 Election saw me at my worst. Back at College for my final year, I wanted to vote. Even the lowering of the voting age to 18 in 1969 hadn't helped me – I'd still been excluded from Wilson's 1964 and 1966 victories. Voting meant direct action to counteract any residual guilt from selling out my working class roots to pursue a career in property. The frustration intensified my arguing. Fuelled by Tetley’s, I began to irritate my friends and even myself. I needed to vote and take part in Labour's victory. It was my birth-right, my heritage ... my genetic programming. 

18 June 1970 seemed to take forever to arrive. Days before, walking to catch the train home from college for my first vote in a General Election, I found a crowd outside Sheffield City Hall. George Brown MP, the former Labour Foreign Secretary, was battling hecklers about the economy. He held his own with humorous ripostes and bluster. I didn't know it then, but he was just the warm-up act. 

At the railway station, I noticed people gathered at the entrance. I wandered along the platform, dropped my bag, and leant against the wall. The sun streamed through sooty glass roof panels on a pleasant day. 

Harold Wilson alights from his train at Pond Street Station, Sheffield in June 1970. 

Note - An open-source AI generated image by the author in January 2026 using MicroSoft CoPilot enabling full usage rights. 

The train pulled alongside and stopped. I sensed the crowd had grown. A carriage door opened opposite me. Illuminated in a shaft of sunlight, standing in the doorway looking right at me, was Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister. I was staring into the face of my hero; the man who had already led the party to two election victories and who, with my help, was now about to deliver a hat-trick. But this was no mere man. This was a god – a god in a Gannex. 

For political observers, Wilson was less than a success. They judge him too harshly. As a unifying force he'd never been bettered. He'd brought in permissive measures reflecting the social climate – decriminalising homosexuality, legalising abortion, relaxing divorce laws, lowering the voting age, abolishing capital punishment, founding the Open University.

His greatest achievement for me was keeping Britain out of Vietnam – for that I owe him my life, assuming that conscription would have been re-introduced in the opposite case. He'd struggled with the economy and unions, but most governments faced similar problems with less success. As I leaned against that wall, I felt that I was looking at a man trying to make my country better for everybody. I sensed my ancestors looking over my shoulder, nodding approvingly. 

Harold looked across. For an instant, our eyes locked and a spark flew between us. I knew that he recognised a kindred spirit. And then he winked at me. 

The noise grew louder. The crowd hurtled down the platform – politicians, party workers, police, press, photographers – swarming like bees seeking a missing queen – to surround and carry him off. Suddenly our moment was over. He was gone. 

I picked up my bag and climbed aboard. It had been a great omen. I sang silently all the way home and went cheerily to the polling booth days later. Harold had read the polls, sensed the mood, and timed it to perfection. He was the master. At last I was playing my part in returning a Labour Government to power, fulfilling my destiny. 

Labour lost the election. Ted Heath's Tories won with a majority of 30 seats. Harold must have been devastated. I was too. 

However, I'd learnt a lesson. The first stage of my long hard road had just ended ... Capitalism had returned. Despite my natural optimism, it was then I realised that this would become a recurring pattern throughout the remainder of my life. And with hindsight it seems that, like socialism, my frequent feelings of political despair interspersed by occasional feelings of political euphoria could also stem from those same genetic origins, because even now, decades later, I'm still unable to rid myself of them.