Just clocked it Johno... Anniversary of Peterloo Massacre
http://www.peterloomassacre.org/news.http
Hiya Leo mate. Hope they eventually get on top of this blood stuff lad. It's been a long battle.
About Peterloo, 35 years back I was well into my folk music and I wrote this song (if you can't sing it - 'cos you don't know the tune - then think of it as a poem)
In eighteen hundred and nineteen,
all on a sunny summer's day,
Henry Hunt led th'spinners o' Lancashire
That they might have their rightful say.
To Peter's Fields in Manchester
did come there many thousands strong
The working classes o' Lancashire
to hear Hunt tell how they'd been wronged.
The magistrates of Manchester
Unto those masses then did read
The Riot Act which ordered all
Depart this place with all due speed !
“Why nay” said they “for as Englishmen,
We seek but justice from the Crown.
We'll not disperse until our words
Are heeded and are written down.”
Those magistrates were most displeased
to have their orders disobeyed
So to the Yeomanry did instruct
Turn out your troop without delay.
On Peter's Fields then with sabres drawn
Did ride with horse and jackets red
That brave yeomanry flashing steel.
And in their wake lay eleven dead.
Henceforth to all the working class
To England’s sons good men and true
That fateful day in Manchester
Shall ere be known as Peterloo.
Important to remember that only 4 short years before, Wellington's allied armies had defeated Napoleon's Republican Army at Waterloo .
