Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Introducing Chipping Norton's real heroes
The legendary Bliss Tweed mill strike took place a hundred years ago but its impact on British labour movement is everlasting, writes John Shirle
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
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NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
Chipping Norton, a small picturesque Cotswold market town in deepest Oxfordshire, will be associated in the minds of those who don't know it with a few notorious names.
Those would be its local MP, one David Cameron, Rebekah Brooks, the disgraced former CEO of News International and the pompous television petrolhead Jeremy Clarkson.
Needless to say, none of them were present just before Christmas at an event much more representative of the townspeople - the centenary celebration of the start of the legendary Bliss Tweed mill strike of 1913-14.
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