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Margot Kettle Papers
The most recent addition to the archives of the National Museum of Labour History are the papers of the late Margot Kettle (née Gale) which have been kindly deposited by her son, the Guardian journalist Martin Kettle. This collection (CP/IND/KETT) consists of the manuscripts and extensive research materials for two unpublished books which Margot Kettle wrote in the 1980s.
The first, 'Recollections of a Younger World', concerns the lives and motivations of youth and student activists in the 1930s. This is very much an oral history, with the testimonies of those interviewed given in full. In the introduction she described her intention as being:
...to focus on individuals, some quite obscure, some who have become quite well-known, who grew up active in one way or another in the left or leftish campaigns of the time. A grass roots account.
Elsewhere she explained that she had been inspired to write this history because of her annoyance with the way that:
...the clever dicks in the media treated the political experiences of the Thirties as if it were simply a matter of gay spies in Cambridge (CP/IND/KETT/3/1)
and she wished to redress the balance.
The raw material includes full transcripts of her interviews with Jack Allanson, Frank & Peggy Apprahamian, Alec Baron, Maisie Bolton, Bill Carritt, Ianthe Carswell, Sheila Carter, Marian Fagan, Henry Ferns, Chris Freeman, Elsie Gollan, Hugh Gordon, Margot Heinemann, Eric Hobsbawm, Tony James, Lena Jager, Arnold Kettle, Victor Kiernan, Oscar Lewenstein, Norman Lindrop, James Livingstone, Betty & George Matthews, Christopher Meredith, Michael Orrom, David Pitt, Brian & Joan Simon, Jessie & Murdoch Taylor, Marie Teller, Reg Trim, Jon & Winifred Vickers, Mary Waterson, Hugh & Phyllis Williams, Ted Willis, Meg Wintringham and John & Margaret Wynne.
The other manuscript is a biography of John Gollan, written in consultation with his widow Elsie Gollan. Gollan's long career as a full-time communist worker began in the 1930s, when he was secretary of the Young Communist League. Subsequently he was assistant secretary of the CPGB and assistant editor of the Daily Worker before succeeding Harry Pollitt as party general secretary from 1956-1976. Margot Kettle's working papers include interviews and correspondence with many of the previously named activists as well as other prominent party members. Their recollections relate to their memories of Gollan and also to important and contentious areas of party history. The biography also draws on Gollan's own political papers, available as part of the Communist Party archives held by the NMLH.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Kettle deposit is that Margot Kettle was not a disinterested researcher but an active participant in many of the events and movements she describes, and a friend and acquaintance of many of those whom she interviews. Particularly in the 1930s and the 1940s she was very involved in the League of Nations Union, the youth peace campaigns and student politics at the highest level. (An interview regarding this period of her life can be found in CP/HIST/2/7.) What little is lost in terms of historical objectivity is more than made up for by the intimacy of her knowledge of the events she is recording.
