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| Market Square, Aylesbury |
Aylesbury
this weekend was its usual relaxed self enjoying the sunny weather. In
Kingsbury Square the cafes and pubs had plenty of tables outside as people
enjoyed the weather with their children and had a drink or snack. In the Market
Square, overlooked by the statue of the local MP John Hampden whose refusal to
pay the “ship tax” (Buckinghamshire is not on the coast!) to Charles I
precipitated the English Civil War, the market traders jostled for custom from
their colourful stalls as they have done for over four hundred years in this
the County Town of Buckinghamshire. In the courtyard of the King’s Head, an
ancient coaching inn owned by the National Trust, locals and visitors were
enjoying the live music and the traditional ale from the Chiltern Brewery. One of the reasons this small town
with a population of 70,000, is so relaxed is that its hardworking people have
come from all over and in the main have embraced diversity and tolerance.
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| Aylesbury Labour Party's Banner embraces the diversity and tolerance championed by its member and Labour Councillor Jack Briskman |
So we
have a large Muslim community mainly Kashmiri and Pashtun with their own mosque and an Italian community who came to the area after World War II to work in the
sand pits and brickworks along the Chiltern Escarpment. Add to this a significant
Afro-Caribbean community and the many Londoner’s, Scots and Irish who made
their home in the town in the 1960's to work in the then busy manufacturing industries of Aylesbury which
included printing, food manufacturing, engineering, hat making, distribution
and much more.
The “indigenous” peoples are bit of a mix as well – the village
patterns are Celtic and these later intermingled with firstly the Romans and
then the Saxons and lastly the Normans. This is reflected in the history of the
area with Aylesbury Town originating from a joint Roman-Celtic fort on the hill where
today stands St. Mary’s Church at the centre of the Old Town, an important
waypoint along the Roman road Akeman Street. With the withdrawal of the Legions
the hill fort was abandoned and when the Saxons conquered the area in 571 AD
they built a new town south of the hill at Walton. This gradually moved upwards
towards the hill which in the 1400’s became the important Priory of St. Mary’s
and a shrine to St. Oysth. William the
Conqueror accepted the surrender of the Saxon Kings at nearby Berkhamsted
Castle and Stoke Mandeville, where the Paralympics began, was granted to Geoffrey
de Mandeville, a Norman Lord in his train.
So here in Aylesbury we all tend to rub along well and
embrace diversity. When the racist EDL came to town to ferment trouble a couple
of years ago they got short shrift and no significant support.
These tolerant attitudes owe no small part to a remarkable
individual who fetched up in Aylesbury as a teacher and Labour Councillor, Jacob (Jack) Briskman, whose legacy is commemorated at the college where he taught and where every
year since his death, the staff of Aylesbury College of Education celebrate his life with an annual public lecture. He was a former teacher and
community activist in Aylesbury and a very active member of Aylesbury Labour
Party. Briskman Way behind Aylesbury College is named in his honour and there
is a Jacob Briskman room in the Aylesbury Vale Multi-Cultural Centre.
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| Aylesbury Vale Multi-Cultural Centre |
Jack was
an extraordinary ordinary man. He had a diverse childhood and was politically
active from an early age. Jack joined
the teaching staff at Aylesbury College in 1969 and was a staff Governor and an active member of the Labour Party. Upon ‘retirement’, he became a District
Councillor and a member of the Aylesbury Racial Equality Council. His
significant contribution to his local community was formally recognised in 1998
with a MBE award.
Aylesbury College's Annual Celebrating Diversity recognition
culminates with the Jacob Briskman Memorial Lecture on 8th May 2013 at 6.30pm
which is being delivered by Sally Dicketts, Principal and CEO of Oxford and Cherwell
Valley College and Chair of the Women's Leadership Network. The public are invited to attend and examples of student work will be on display in the
Atrium. The judging for various awards will take place prior to the lecture,
with the winners announced during the ceremony.
We would encourage all Labour members and supporters to
attend this lecture which honours a member who was a great fighter for
tolerance and diversity and whose words and actions are still relevant today,
please RSVP to phedger@aylesbury.ac.uk
”I have one major objective in view; to contribute in a
humble way towards the creation of a just and harmonious society wherein every
citizen regardless of race, nationality, colour or ethnic origin, can prosper
and take his or her rightful place in the community”
– Jacob Briskman MBE (15th
May 1910 – 30th May 1998)
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| Darcus Howe |
Here is an appreciation of Jacob Briskman from Darcus Howe
the writer, broadcaster and political activist who gave the 2004 Briskman Lecture.
“Briskman was born an East Ender, ten years into the 20th
century, the son of Russian Jewish parents. His father taught Hebrew to local
Jewish children. Jacob fell from the comfort of his mother's womb into a
community that was in a sense under siege. The working classes of the East End
defined themselves, excluding all others, as having been born within the sound
of Bow Bells.
Jacob was a bright boy, and won a scholarship to grammar
school. He went on to King's College London. Briskman cut his political teeth
fighting Mosleyites in pursuit of the community relations to which the Labour
Party, or perhaps the left of it, subscribed. This young intellectual placed
his natural and acquired gifts at the service of the masses. He got his hands
dirty in the heat of local activism without a thought for personal advancement.
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| "Every
creed and race shall find an equal place" Aylesbury Labour still campaigns for the principles of embracing diversity and promoting tolerance championed by Jack Briskman |
He taught abroad and transcended national and ethnic
divisions almost a century before today's activists found themselves stumbling
in similar conditions. He returned to England and finally settled in Aylesbury,
teaching at the further education college and pioneering activities in
community relations.
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| Jack Briskman with other staff members at R.N. Secondary School, Malta, 1959 |
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| Aylesbury College today. In September 2013 Buckinghamshire University Technical College will open in a new building at the Aylesbury College campus. It is a new university technical college which is co-sponsored by Aylesbury College and Buckinghamshire New University. |
Aylesbury College houses under a sprawling roof every single
ethnic group imaginable. Postwar migration brought to this backwater European
migrants disturbed by Hitler's campaign of Aryan superiority. Add to this the
Caribbean migration of the 1950s and 1960s, and the Asians who came later and
then those who came in dribs and drabs before the recent mass influx from every
corner of the globe. Briskman, who formed and shaped this troubled East End,
was at his best in the fever of pursuing the slogan "Every creed and race shall find an equal place".”
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