Sheep in the Road: vol 2

sheep in the road
vol 2
alan rutherford

Sheep in the Road
vol. 2

Living to work?
Or preferably, working to live!
We are all sheep in the road
B

Sheep in the Road
vol. 2
Alan Rutherford
HAND OVER
FIST PRESS
2 0 1 5

HAND OVER FIST PRESS
This volume (2) published by Hand Over Fist Press, 2015
email: alan.rutherford@blueyonder.co.uk
website: www.handoverfistpress.com
Design, photographs, all text and additional artwork
by Alan Rutherford

... some people cannot
understand ideas like
equality and freedom because
their faith is based on them
never understanding ... FFS!
Still dedicated to Ann,
Joanna, Tanya, Callum, Cameron and Oscar ...
My family
For Anne, my sister, and her family
For Guy, Jenny and family, hold on to what is true!
And in memory of my mom and dad, and brother Brian
D

Contents
Introduction 1
1 an abstraction 3
2 Lennon presaged ... 13
3 red nam 15
4 Wellesbourne Market 49
5 Frocester 89
6 Photomural 97
7 Badges 105
8 Demo 121
9 Dementia 135
10 Following on ... 143
11 Tiddesley Woods 147
12 Gloucester 161
13 An alternative ... 189
14 Family step up ... 190
15 Red face ... 201
16 Comic-Al ... 205
17 Exactly ... 215
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Photograph from around 1974, when Ann and I were in Abba, with our daughters, Chalk and Cheese ...

Introduction
A second volume of a set of sorts containing all sorts
... originally intended to be from the mumblings,
imaginings, wanderings and ramblings of one of
the sheep in the the road, to the hiding and skulking
rebel in the margins of a page, to outrage ... but,
now probably better described as a photobook with
some texture.
Tinkering, adding, subtracting, tweaking, rewriting ...
oh hell ... a kind of impatience has taken my hand
and made me press ‘publish’ ... probably some of
the content may suffer from this recklessly premature
move, I don’t think so ... but the well used anology
‘you can’t polish a turd’ has informed my action.
I thank you.
Alan Rutherford,
July 2015
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1
–––––––
an abstraction
Spitting expleting adjectives,
society’s cracks are showing and
stalking the world advising cataclysmic
adjustives: cuts, privatisation, scapegoating ...
with governments propping up banks, condoning
tax avoidance while criminally delegating their
responsibilies to unaccountable charities.
Flaunted class and wealth divisions
are just too obvious and war and
pestilunce tug and tow... well,
are we to stare at the wall,
seek out a sympathetic
window? Fuck off!
Nala Drofrehtur
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4
windows

can be ...
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... or just plain frightening
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2
–––––––
Lennon
presaged
by Lenin
You’re having a laugh?
Yes! I suppose I am ...
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3
–––––––
red‘nham
Cheltenham, the butt of all kind of gentile living jokes
has always had its fair share of lefty hot-heads, like most
places ...
in 1842 the last trial in the UK for blasphemy took place in
Cheltenham when socialist, George Holyoake, speaking
at the Mechanics’ Institute, was fitted up by Dean Francis
Close and his associates.
Holyoake’s talk was about Robert Owen’s idea of Utopian
communities, where between 500 and 3000 people,
sharing produce and profits, would try to be self-sufficient.
Holyoake invited questions from the audience, and a
man named Maitland asked whether there would be any
churches and chapels in these proposed communities?
Holyoake said that there was great economic distress in
the country, and churches and religious institutions cost
the nation about twenty million pounds annually, ‘Worship
being thus expensive, I appeal to your heads and pockets
whether we are not too poor to have God?’
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Hollyoake continued, ‘If poor men cost the state as much,
they would be put like officers on half-pay, and while our
distress lasts I think it would be wise to do the same thing
with deity.’ Speaking of his own beliefs, he said, “Morality I
regard, but I do not believe there is such a thing as God.”
If Holyoake had stayed away from Cheltenham, he might
never have been ‘brought to justice’, but he decided to
return to the town to defend his position. At another lecture
at the Mechanics’ Institute, a row of policemen stood at the
back of the hall, and after he had finished, Superintendent
Russell, without a warrant, arrested him. Holyoake
eventually agreed to walk down to the police station,
where he was kept for the night.
Three Cheltenham magistrates, Newell, Capper and
Overbury, upheld the charge of blasphemy based ‘upon
the common or unwritten law of the land that any person
that denied the existence of a God, or a Divine Providence,
or was guilty of blasphemy, was liable to imprisonment,
corporal punishment and fine.’ and he was to be held in
Gloucester Gaol.
The trial of George Jacob Holyoake took place on 15
August 1842, before Justice Erskine. Holyoake pleaded
not guilty, but in the charged atmosphere the jury quickly
found him guilty, and Justice Erskine sentenced him to
6 months imprisonment in Gloucester Gaol. Holyoake
protested: My lord, am I to be classed with thieves and
felons?’ The judge replied, ‘No; thieves and felons are
sentenced to the Penitentiary, you to the Common Gaol.’
Hollyoakes lifted/adapted from article by Jill Evans
on her interesting gloscrimehistory.wordpress.com
site.
16
Photo: Cheltenham’s old police station,
in use from 1840 to 1970

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From 1894 to 1906 Leckhampton Hill was the focus of a
significant episode in the history of Cheltenham. This was
the struggle to protect traditional rights of way across the
hill, which its new owner H J Dale proposed to close to the
public. He built a house (‘Tramway Cottage’) for his quarry
foreman in an old gravel pit beside Daisybank Road, which
had been a favourite spot to set up side-shows and stalls on
bank holidays. The building also blocked the main footpath
up the hill, and later the area above it was also fenced off.
On several occasions crowds destroyed the fences, and
in 1902 four working men, known as ‘the Leckhampton
stalwarts’, were charged with obstructing the police, but
were acquitted. This encouraged as many as 2,000 people
to gather and walk in procession to Leckhampton. They
stopped at the Malvern Inn to hear a rousing speech. They
then made for Tramway Cottage, which they dismantled
until hardly a stone was left standing. A judge found in favour
of Dale’s enclosure and only three paths were granted as
public rights of way. Dale rebuilt the cottage exactly where
it had been.
On Good Friday 1906 another crowd assembled at the site
and the Riot Act had to be read. Arrests followed and eight
men were tried at Gloucester Assizes. Sentences of up to
six months’ hard labour were imposed, though these were
substantially reduced on appeal. Leckhamptoners licked
their wounds, and Dale imposed conditions for access to
the hill.
The story had a happy ending, however. By 1929, the Quarry
Company had gone out of business and Cheltenham Town
Council was in a position to purchase the 400-acre estate,
thus securing the freedom to walk on the land.
And so it goes on, and so forth and so on ...
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a luta
continua
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4
–––––––
Wellesbourne
Market
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5
–––––––
FROCESTER:
World Music
Day 1990
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From the day’s programme
design & production, Hand Over Fist Press
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6
–––––––
PHOTOMURAL:
Ruskin College
Oxford 1986
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Photomural in place at Ruskin College’s student
commonroom, Oxford 1986.
Photograph shows Ken Gill (centre), general
secretary for TASS, a trade union which was
active in the fight against apartheid ... so much
so that when Nelson Mandela was released
and visited the UK, he chose the TASS union
conference hall to meet and thank ANC exiles
and activists.
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7
–––––––
BADGES:
from a life
well-RED
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NO To
WAR

8
–––––––
DEMO:
London
15 February
2003
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9
–––––––
Dementia
No words .... absolutely no fucking words!
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10
–––––––
Following on
... a train of
thought
Things just coast along when your engine is well
maintained, even though it may be old ... it can really
steam and chuff.
143

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Once the fire dims, the fuel
of life starts to run out ...
schizen!
I have seen enough people
reach a time in their lives
where the quality has gone
... or worse they have passed
the signal that says ‘end of
the line’ immenent and are
just helplessly shuffling and
screaching for the exit in a
slow and bad way.
I am determined to take
control at around this point
and jam on the brakes, a good
journey should not be spoilt
by a shit ending.
144

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11
––––––––
Tiddesley Woods:
in search of
bluebells
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12
–––––––
Gloucester:
tall ships
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13
–––––––
An alternative
Gloucester
Services
on M5
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14
-–––––––
family step up
to the plate
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‘By the time the new human being is
fifteen or so, we are left with a being
like ourselves. A half-crazed creature,
more or less adjusted to a mad world ...
The Family’s function is to repress
Eros: to induce a false consciousness
of security: to deny death by avoiding
life: to cut off transcendence: to believe
in god, not to experience the Void:
to create, in short, one-dimensional
man: to promote respect, conformity,
obedience: to con children out of play:
to induce a fear of failure: to promote a
respect for work: to promote a respect
for ‘respectability’ ...
This is also known as selling one’s
birthright for a mess of pottage.’
R.D. Laing,
The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise,
1967
Advice: Be brave, be bold, be bumptious, make the
most of it, make a noise, take all thats given in good
faith ... and above all, take no shit!
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Cameron
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15
–––––
Red face
in the pub ...
a comic-al
I personally cannot see the point of debating
a point of contention with someone who,
when woken by a thorough face-slapping
with a stinking, rotten, wet mackerel, insists
they were soothed awake with a soft chiffon
caress … whereas Ann, bless her, loves the
interaction, seeks the verbal violence, tries
to lift that veil ... pointless as it is.
201

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Oh my god ...
what the fuck did
he just say?
Did he say banker
or wankers, oh dea
la-la-la-la-la-la-la
202

s
r,
The pub, the quiz, the team; the chit-chat
floats and mingles with all the other voices
of those crowded around the quizmaster
… uh-oh … ‘agree to disagree’ wafts feebly
like a helpful caption to the scene before me
as I hear UKIP being hoisted up, and then
being rightly sullied by Ann; the rapacious
banks are chastised in passing …
… and then, from the elevated dais of
further education; the elitist rosette of a
university degree; the heated puffed-up
breast of a person whose life’s meaning
is being unintentionally maligned; the
cage is rattled … and the shots are fired.
Opinion based on gut feelings so gallantly
expressed (by Ann) is trampled by a
determined and repeated ’I know I’m right’
stamping of the feet and the accompanying
vacuums of burning red cheek flashes.
Despite others trying to pacify, what we
get is a heated defence of the bunkum,
which parades as the discredited and
failing economic template we are lumbered
with, as practised by today’s capitalists,
politicians and bankers. In the fire its
proffered disingenuously as a fabric of wellworn
platitudes, splutteringly woven into a
woollen jargon intended to be pulled over
our eyes … all embellished and pointedly
full-stopped with the blistering, ‘I have a
degree in economics, so I know what I’m
talking about!’
Its unconvincing, if I heard him correctly.
And this is, in fact, just plain red-faced
indignation, a poor substitute for those
looking for elucidation; a dubious blustering
debating tactic employed by some to
intimidate and bully a shaking head; to
silence those who dare to say out loud, ’the
emperor is naked!’
Sometimes I am just so proud of Ann I
could levitate …
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Hey!
204

16
–––––
Comic-Al
and the
search for
happiness
The pursuit of happiness is an
ever constant aim ... but constant
happiness exudes the curse of
smugness. How to attain a happy
medium, a balance between the
unhappy but necessary downers in
life and the exhausting pure highs of
ecstatic occasions ...?
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... the deliberate pursuit of happiness
invariably disappoints ...
OK ... but lets
get rid of these
fucking frames
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There is a sub-plot
here, where our
intrepid explorer, activist
and all round crazy,
having got rid of any
restricting frames of
reference, decides to try
and subvert this comic
medium and enter
some sort of meditative
state by disappearing
into the spine of this
book ... and then to
mooch about your
house while you read
this drivel.
Hmmm ... lets try
this ... into the book’s
spine and ...
208

... and so while you
linger on this page,
by some sleight of a
deceit, he wanders
about your inner
sanctum. And, because
he thinks you may have
it, he metaphorically
pokes his nose into
every crack or crevice
of your psyche in his
search for the secret of
happiness.
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Back, empty-handed,
from that suspension of
reality, and it seems you
also don’t have what he
was looking for ...
Just been rooting in your
fridge ... you want to check
some of those ‘eat by’ dates
... sheeesh!
210

OK, but before this
becomes too silly, you all
should know happiness
is not found by searching
for it ... Happiness is a
by-product of attempts to
reach other, less banal,
goals ... so ... as you
were then!
Oh yeah,
right!
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!
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17
–––––
Exactly one
year ago ...
215

HAND OVER
FIST PRESS
BOOKS • DESIGN
at
www.handoverfistpress.com
1 9 8 6
SHEEP IN THE ROAD
Vol. 2
Alan Rutherford
2015
SHEEP IN THE ROAD
Vol. 1
Alan Rutherford
2014
To read/view a book,
please go to BOOK page
on website and click on
their cover and follow the
links ...
KAPUTALA
The Diary of
Arthur Beagle & The
East Africa Campaign,
1916-1918
Alan Rutherford
Updated 2nd edn:
2014
IRISH GRAFFITI
some murals in the
North, 1986
Alan Rutherford
2014
NICETO
DE LARRINAGA
a voyage, 1966
Alan Rutherford
2014

▼
MAGAZINE
SHEEP IN THE ROAD
issue 3
October: 2015
The first issue Sheep in the Road
magazine has writing, photography,
cartoons and odd assemblages of
ideas, rants and reviews ... eminating
from a socialist and thoughtful core.
Available to view/read at:
www.handoverfistpress.com

Sheep in the road
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FIST PRESS
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