Three Cardboard Boxes

We sometimes stumble on one archival treasure while looking for another. I was looking for a copy of The Book of Words complied by Alan Bush with Honor Arundel and Leslie Daiken, when I visited the Working Class Movement Library in Salford. A substantial collection of Irish related material had been donated by the British Communist historian, T.A. (Tommy) Jackson. Jackson was fascinated by the history of Irish struggle for independence and amassed an extraordinary collection of pamphlets, books and articles. His daughters Stella and Vivien donated these to the WCML. I was curious if Stella Jackson, who writes under the name Stella Fitzthomas Hagan, had donated any of her own material with her father’s collection. A little digging and help from library staff unearthed the three boxes containing a memoir manuscript, unpublished. Jackson’s ‘novelised history’, The Green Cravat was published in 1959, and she researched the history of Lord Edward Fitzgerald during a sojourn in Ireland with her lover, poet Ewart Milne in the years 1939 -1941.