[page 9]
A sunny Saturday morning in Harteliffe's shopping centre a square of about a dozen shops a crowd getting in the weekend food. Enter a procession carrying moneybags, a moneylender's ladder (from which he can peer down at us masses), a "Council House" , a top hat and a pretty painted screen called "Home, Sweet Home". It's us, Socialist Woman, gathering an audience for our "Fair Rents Show" ', like the Pied Piper, whistles, drums and all.
Harteliffe and Withywood form one enormous council estate belt, covering an area about as big as a medium-sized town (e.g. Bridgewater). It takes a long, expensive bus journey to get there from the centre of Bristol, and once there you are without a single cafe, cinema or other social amenity except schools and one Community Hall. But there are houses, and tenants, and every single one of these is going to be affected by the Government's latest Big Deal for Housing, with a £1 rise in rents next October for a first taste of "fairness". We brought along our street play to draw attention to this and other consequences of the new Bill, following it up with leaflets and meetings, discussing r' e Fair Deal for Housing and how a Tenants Association could be formed.
We decided that in Harteliffe's case, the best way to start a Tenants Association would be to build from the ground upwards, through street committees or blocks of flats' organisations, and coordinating these with area committees, and finally, with the whole Tenants' Association. So far, we have worked in a small area in which two blocks of flats and two streets are forming themselves into committees, a feat accomplished by the hard work of a few tenants who went around, sometimes with a Socialist Woman member, simply knocking on doors and asking their neighbours whether they knew about the Fair Deal in Housing and were interested in joining a Tenants Association to fight it. Incidentally, we found that the most committed and militant tenants were women. We are now issuing membership cards, and together with more publicity (performing the play to other areas, leafletting, ete.) and cooperation with other Tenants Associations, we are confident that, from small beginnings, the movement will snowball. For an area as large as Harteliffe and Withywood, there is no easy way and no short cuts. A few important points: it is the tenants' own organisation. Socialist Woman offers help, such as propaganda leaflets, the play, information, but that's all. Secondly, militant action by just a few houses or streets would be easily picked off-so no rents or rates strikes until we have such a strong movement that people are asking-*Whose bloody houses are these, anyway?" —NOT A PENNY ON THE RENTS! individuals to contact them./ Narrator:
Narrator:
Husband:
Wife:
Narrator:
Heath:
Narrator:
Narrator:
(Council House appears.) Council House: At your service. Narrator:
(Rent collector bows.)
AND A BETTER TOMCRROW - На. на. кд.
WHERE Do EPROFIT THE "FAK ONEY LENDERS RENTS NE SATES -AND COUNCIL Bristol Socialist Woman Tenants Play. (We are sorry not to have room to reprint the full text of Bristol Socialist Woman Group's play. The cartoon and following introduction set the stage. Bristol Group's address appears on the back cover for interested groups and Characters (le)t to right): MONEYLENDER, HEATH (and the SCRUTINY COMMITTEE), COUNCIL drum). Also needed: someone to hold up Heath.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are going to perform for your entertainment "The Fair Rents Show". Who booed?
Husband (entering stage from audience): I did, and I ain't afraid to say so. "Fair Rents" that's a laugh! You haven't introduced yourself.
Oh, haven't I? Well, I live in a Council Houselike most people here and I work for the Council. (His wife appears at his side.) And this here's my wife.
How do you do? I have a hard time making ends meet as it is-what with this Fair Rents and everything-I don't know what we shall do.
Meet the Government-Mr. Heath!
Pleased to meet you.
Now, that gentleman you see who is climbing up the ladder is the Moneylender what's he doing in our play?
Moneylender: Making money in the usual way.
How do you do that, my friend?
Moneylender: By lending money to the Council at a handsome interest rate.
Out of every pound you pay in rent, 84 pence or so goes to repay this gent.
And now! One more character and the play's complete:
The Rent Collectorwho you all love to meet!
THE FAIR RENTS SHOW!....
----- pull-quotes -----
HOUSE, RENT COLLECTOR, HUSBAND (a Council worker), WIFE, and NARRATOR (who bangs the