Gerrard Winstanley and the True Levellers
In a break from things military, the ECW Travelogue adventures into the radical politics that fermented in the 'World Turned Upside Down' and visited the most famous sites associated with the True Levellers, known as The Diggers, and their leader Gerard Winstanley. Don't forget that there is a movie about Winstanley and The Diggers, particularly useful if you're suffering from insomnia. (Don't get me wrong, it's a great historical recreation, it's just rather slow.) Gerrard/Gerard Winstanley (it looks like he may have spelled his name Jerrard) was born in Wigan in 1609, a fact that is celebrated in the self proclaimed nation's pie capital with a memorial garden and an annual music festival - The Wigan Digger's Festival. Whilst on the subject of music: Winstanley and the Diggers were immortalised in a seventeenth century ballad, which was reprinted and tweaked in the 1800s. More recently Chumbawamba*, and Billy Bragg both recorded it (Bragg's...