Blue Plaque to be unveiled to “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” author

Liverpool Trades Union Council will be unveiling a blue plaque dedicated to Robert Tressell at The Old Royal Liverpool Infirmary (Brownlow Practice, opposite Dental Hospital), Pembroke Place, Liverpool at 10. 30 am on Sunday 3rd February 2008.

The unveiling ceremony will be conducted by Mr Reg Johnson, the last surviving member of the famous author’s family. A reception will be held at the Casa Club, Hope Street after the event. Transport to the reception will be by courtesy coach.

In addition, Reg Johnson will be available at an informal reception at the Casa Club on Saturday 2nd February from 7. 30pm.

Anyone wishing to make a donation towards the cost of the events should make a cheque payable to Liverpool Trades Union Council and post to The Secretary, LTC, PCS Office, 35-37 Dale St, Liverpool L2 2HF.

All are welcome to the events. Surplus funds will go towards providing a signed hard back copy of “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” to any Merseyside school that wishes to have a copy.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist has so far been published at least 137 times - UK (105), Russia (6), Germany (6), Canada (3), Australia (3), USA (3), Czechoslovakia (3), Poland (2), Holland (1), Belgium (1), Bulgaria (1), Japan (1), Turkey (1), Unidentified (1) - and possibly others elsewhere. RTP has sold at least 1, 100, 000 copies worldwide and may well have sold twice or even three rimes that number. Not many novels are about house painters, or building workers, and very few novels of any kind have been so often adapted for the stage, taken on tour and featured in TV and radio documentaries. Above all, almost no other novel is passed from hand to hand by millions of workers, worldwide, and gets taken to their hearts. RTP is clear, straightforward and eminently readable; but in many ways it is a very odd book. After all, novels don’t usually explain key points of Marxist theory. True, it has humour, parody, pathos, irony, rage, little victories, defeats, arguments and ideas, and it is brim full of hatred and contempt for the capitalist ‘System’, the ruling class and their hangers-on. It is about Socialist values and their continued relevance when we are being told that capitalism is here forever, that greed is good, that war, famine, poverty, racism and every form of oppression are natural, normal and permanent features of life on Planet Earth. Above all, RTP is about hope.

For further information see:

Dave Harker, Tressell. The real story of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (London: Zed, 2003), which is largely based on Reg Johnson’s collection, The Robert Tresssell Family Papers.

Dave Harker & Reg Johnson, A Working Bibliography, on the TUC website: http://www.unionhistory.info/ragged/links.php