The death has been announced of much loved writer,
poet and peace activist Bob Dixon who had been in poor health for some
time.
Born in the mining village of Spennymoor, County Durham in
1931 he was brought up by his grandparents, thinking they were his
parents. He missed a lot of school and much time confined to bed due
to contracting TB. After the war he went to Nottingham University
taking an arts degree and became a teacher and in 1977 he researched
and wrote his seminal work, ‘Catching Them Young’ two
volumes on the inculcation of stereotypes and prejudices on the basis
of class, gender, race and religion through the fiction they were
given to read .
These books had an important and widely recognised influence on
teachers and parents after its publication, making them aware of the
harmful ideas that shape the culture and the young people who grew up
in that culture. In 1992 he followed it up with ‘Playing them
false’ in which he showed how the same elitist, sexist and
racist attitudes and political ideas were being instilled through
toys, games and puzzles, and he exposed the role of the commercial
interests in priming the compliance of future consumers and the mass
media.
Bob’s hatred of capitalism and the continual wars on which
it thrives, and the cruelty, suffering and death it involves, led him
to write and publish several volumes of poetry, expressing his hatred
and anger of the violent and aggressive culture that he saw as the
result.
His last book ‘The Wrong Bob Dixon’ was published only
this year. In this immensely readable book, that he modestly calls ‘a
social account’ ; he shows clearly how his childhood in a family
broken by narrow attitudes towards his unmarried mother, his illness
and the war had affected him, and how his life post war had been
blighted by those same narrow attitudes and the political system that
confines the ambition and natural talent and creativity of young
people in the education system. Although his earlier books are now out
of print, ‘Catching Them Young’ can still be read on-line,
along with some quotations and poems from other books.
He will be greatly missed by his many friends who heard him read
some of his verse at the 2008 Peace One Day celebration held by
Bromley Peace Council only two weeks before his death. He has left a
wonderful body of work that illustrates one man’s life and his
ideological consistency in working class Britain from 1931-2008
Sue Mayer
www.peace-workshop.freeuk.com/Bob_Dixon.htm
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