Diamonds in the Mud

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When I see the way my country is run under them, I'm reminded of what Gandhi said when asked what he thought about civilisation in Britain. Diamonds in the Mud’ asks why the British have traditionally been taught to venerate kings and queens, generals and Eton-educated Prime Ministers, while, a few notable exceptions aside, those who changed history from below rarely got a look-in. Eventually, in 2012, the truth was established in an independent report, the Accidental Killing verdicts overturned and fresh ones of Unlawful Killing handed down by a jury. We were labelled communists who went to Spain to bring down democracy but I went there to fight on the side of the elected Popular Front government against a military coup. And he described the moments before was hit: “It was like entering Hell. Everything was thrown at you. Machine-gun fire, shells, grenades, snipers' bullets. I was firing with my rifle, trying to take cover with the bullets whizzing over me and shells blasting on the ground, when all of a sudden my shoulder and right arm went numb. Blood was scuffing everywhere. I thought I was a goner.”

So, can he cross over? Could he follow Oasis and the Arctic Monkeys in making the leap from grassroots phenomenon to national prominence? It sometimes feel like he’s just one A-listed single or Jools Holland appearance away from such a leap. And would he blossom or wither in the face of such sustained attention? All of these are open questions. For now, Gerry Cinnamon remains a superstar on his own patch, an enigma everywhere else. Some cynics might say, ah, but they're only binmen. Why do we need to reward them so well for a job that anyone with two arms and legs can do? But I'd ask the cynics why they believe they are more important than a binman? I'd ask them to think how proud they would be if their dirty city became the cleanest in the world? For 27 years I'd dreamt of watching a parent who lost a child at Hillsborough stand up in Parliament and slaughter the political class for their gross dereliction of duty. You have to change things for the good of the ordinary people because if they can cover up 96 deaths what can they do to individuals?”In his new book Diamonds In The Mud, Brian Reade asks why we're taught to revere monarchs, generals and aristocratic politicians while those who change the world from below rarely get a look-in. He does so by telling the inspirational stories of working-class heroes he's met through 40 years of journalism While I agree with most of the sentiments he expresses in “Diamonds in the Mud”, Reade is rarely subtle. His sledgehammer denunciations of sundry royals and Tory big-wigs can be overly didactic, and this book is far stronger when it tells of the genuine everyday heroism of the healthcare workers, campaigners, and activists whose lives he has chosen to spotlight. But, you could easily counter that if you’re trying to fight a rearguard action in a class war declared against you by the Tories, then subtlety is a luxury you can ill afford. Whether it's celebrating people, remembering a place long forgotten or opening the Echo archives to mark a special anniversary, Days Gone By will be an essential read. One story he told me in 1992 summed up how long he'd been fighting the good fight. And how, compared to him, so many politicians were pygmies. He once told me that if he became a binman he'd be the greatest binman who ever lived and he'd have his city the cleanest on earth.

This doughty, then 69-year-old, said there was a "disease in this country" citing South Yorkshire Police's role in Hillsborough, the Battle of Orgreave and Rotherham sex abuse scandal, and argued "Hillsborough was bigger than the police. It was political. It went right to the top. So it's up to you politicians to unite and never let the likes of it happen again."Signing up is free and it only takes a minute for you to get the best stories, sent straight to your inbox. I'd do it by having everyone working with me, by succeeding and sharing out the success. I'd make sure they were paid a decent wage with the best bonuses and that we all worked hard to achieve our goal of total cleanliness. The politicians of this country ought to be ashamed of themselves for what's happened in their name. We as a nation should be ashamed that our families had to fight for almost 30 years to get to the truth,” she told them. More than 50 years after fighting for the father I'm fighting against the son. That's how mad the world is under these Tories. Getting to the truth of Britain's worst sporting disaster was all about working-class heroism, beginning on the afternoon, when the only people trying to save lives were fans who turned advertising hoardings into stretchers. The three-decade long fight for justice was won through the bereaved families refusing to be cowed by the weight of denial from on high.

Diamonds in the Mud' asks why the British have traditionally been taught to venerate kings and queens, generals and Eton-educated Prime Ministers, while, a few notable exceptions aside, those who changed history from below rarely got a look-in. Suddenly celebrity businessmen, actors, sports stars, singers, even royals seemed irrelevant. The people we were truly in awe of were the low-paid lifesavers, so much so that we stood outside our homes every Thursday to applaud them. The book argues that these are the type of heroes we should be teaching future generations about. That, perhaps, if children in state schools were taught about the achievements of those from the same class as them they would have a fraction of the confidence enjoyed by public school pupils and realise that they too have the capability to change the world. She'd been told at the Sheffield inquests that Kevin had spoken a word to a Special WPC 42 minutes after he was supposed to have been dead: "I said straight away, 'It was mum, wasn't it?" said Anne. “The policeman nodded and I broke down in tears. I was inconsolable. That word shattered my heart. I felt I had lost Kevin all over again." He first came to public notice in Scotland when he wrote a song, Hope Over Fear, which was embraced by the independence movement during the 2014 referendum, and autonomy seems, too, to be a personal philosophy. “Just do your own thing, man,” he told Radio X’s Gordon Smart in a rare interview. “Just write the songs, that’s all you need to do. Say, when you’re at a party, or you’re on sitting on your tod at home with your headphones in, you’re looking for that song that fills a wee gap in you, a wee space in your chest. Write that song. Because nobody else is going to write it for you.”

Missing lyrics by Gerry Cinnamon?

Those songs are something. Diamonds In The Mud is a hymn to Glasgow – “from the swords in the schemes to the art school dreams of the toon” – as beautifully observed as a Liz Lochhead poem, a Billy Connolly routine. Keysies, named for a childhood game, is a delicate portrait of boyhood that somehow recalls Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher. His use of local dialect – belter, dafty, bastart – may be specific to the streets of his home, but the emotions his songs convey are universal. The announcement this week that the Glaswegian singer, whose real name is Gerry Crosbie, will play the main stage of the TRNSMT festival in his home town, just below headliner Stormzy, was greeted in some circles with rolled eyes. The charge is that Cinnamon is not an interesting artist, that there is something lowest-common-denominator and lumpenproletariat about him. This, though, is to miss the point. As festival director Geoff Ellis puts it, he and Stormzy are “both in their own way kind of people’s poets … They both come from the street and they both represent real people.” And there she was. Margaret Aspinall, in 2016, a fortnight after jurors at fresh inquests had returned Unlawful Killing verdicts on the 96, in Portcullis House, raining guilt down on the assembled MPs, Lords, and party leaders.