Pre-Order: Reminiscences of a worker correspondent, by Roy Jones

BOOKS SHIPPING WEEK BEGINNING 04/11/24

Brought up in an Ellesmere Port council estate, national service as an RAF military policeman and life as a militant trade unionist on construction sites nationwide prepared Roy Jones to become a Morning Star industrial reporter trusted throughout the working class movement. His reminiscences recount the big class battles he experienced first hand, his struggle against the blacklisting that faced every militant worker and the work of a 20th century worker correspondent in the tumultuous decades as the crisis of British and global capitalism deepened and the dismantling of ‘actually existing socialism’ took place. Alongside his sharp insights into British industry and an intimate knowledge of union affairs he brings out the interplay of working class politics with the developing crisis in Britains’s Communist Party.

Roy Jones covered the great 1984 Miners Strike from the exceptionally privileged position as a representative of our daily socialist newspaper trusted and respected in every mining community. This book is written straight from the heart, with eyewitness accounts and insider knowledge refreshed by years of reporters’ notes and an impressive collection of cuttings. Pride as he got to grips with his new craft is mixed in with a sometimes modest, sometimes joyful recounting of both his triumphs and disasters, errors and achievements. Roy Jones’ Reminiscences of a worker correspondent will be read by veterans of the working class movement and celebrated with the recollection of shared victories and bitter defeats. It will be read by the new generation of working class militants and young revolutionaries as a window on a world which may have passed but is rich with lessons that will prepare them for a future struggle for working class political power.