The Landlord Cometh

Jack Cummins

I think this world is not a place of rest

But just where man can take his little ease

Until the landlord whom he never sees

Wants the apartment for another guest

Abu-al-ala - Syrian Poet (973 AD)

Jack Cummins (born 1894 in London) lived in Brighton from 1959. This book, published on the day of his death: 9th October 1981, became his memorial. It recounts his early years as a Labour activist and First World war conscript.

Jack got involved with Queenspark through a First World War evening at the Hanover Centre where he read out poems and vividly recalled the war. A fierce conscientious objector in his youth, he surprised everyone, including himself, by joining the army in WWI, and described himself as:

'the only pacifist who took up arms'.