South Asian Resistance Book Launch in Luton (as racist lies about the town continue)

Last month I went to the launch of Taj Ali's excellent and timely new book 'Come what may, we're here to stay: the story of South Asian resistance in Britain'. The launch took place at Marsh House in Luton, the town where Taj, like myself,  grew up. 

The book gives a fascinating overview of South Asian activism in the UK, starting with anti-colonial fighters for Indian independence in early 20th century London and working through the workplace struggles of migrant workers to the fight back against police and far right racism. Where possible Taj has supplemented archive research with interviews with people involved.

I consider myself fairly well informed about some of this but the book made me realise how many stories have never been fully told. I had no idea for instance that the Indian Workers Association was first established in this country during the Second World War. 

The Asian youth movements of the 1970s and 1980s are at the heart of this book and are clearly a model from which Taj has taken inspiration:

'The Asian youth movements often supported families on outlying housing estates who were vulnerable to racist violence. In an era without social media, they were able to connect with activists and victims of racist violence up and down the country. Their resourcefulness at a time when Asians had few resources is inspiring. Today, when there are much greater resources among British South Asians both in terms of wealth and technology, what might our resistance look like? Who is doing the work of connecting communities up and down the country? And how do we navigate new challenges in the form of religious divides and the growing number of South Asians being influenced by far-right narratives about newcomers?'

In the context of a recent upsurge in racist attacks, he asks what kind of movements we need today, based around a 'plurality of tactics' and 'a strategic approach to anti-racist organising' able to 'prioritise time, energy and resources based on where the real threat is. It's easier to mobilise in diverse urban areas, but what about the smaller, more isolated Black and Asian communities'? Above all he is clear that 'Racism will not be defeated from above. It will only be defeated by us - ordinary citizens who refuse to look away'

Glenn Jenkins (Marsh Farm Outreach) welcomes the panel, left to right - Taj Ali, Shemiza Rashid, Suresh Grover.

The launch event, chaired by Luton-based broadcaster Shemiza Rashid, was quite inspirational. Taj was about to go off on a long speaking tour around the country to promote the book, but of course this being a hometown event made it special. It all took place in a packed room at Marsh House, a building saved from dereliction by a community project that included  people involved in the 1990s Exodus Collective rave crew. Glenn Jenkins from Marsh Farm Outreach (and formerly of Exodus) welcomed the panel on the night, which also included Suresh Grover of the Monitoring Project with his recollections of struggles in Southall and elsewhere. Taj's old English teacher from Challney High School was present to be thanked her for encouraging his writing and there were lots of friends and family. All this and some fine food including biscuits stamped with the title of the book!

The audience was perhaps a cross section of what a successful anti-racist movement might look like in 2026. The starting point for such a movement would surely be to be rooted in the communities most directly affected, draw upon existing relationships of friends, neighbours and families.  It would be outward facing, connecting with other communities and making the best use of people's different skills and positions - e.g. from those confronting racists on the streets to those doing multi-faith community work. It would have a strong sense of place and of history, but also not be confined to local areas or stuck trying to uncritically replay a template from the past.

The book's conclusion quotes Fahim Qureshi of the early 1980s Luton Youth Movement: 'Come out and organise. Take up the baton. We're sleepwalking into disaster if we don't organise ourselves and confront racism. It's only because we confronted racism in the streets and politically that there were changes made at that time; we need to do the same thing now.'

Luton Pride

I was pleased to see the short lived but lively Luton Youth Movement referenced in the book, with interviews with a couple of its leading activists. As I've written here before, I was involved in some of these events though as a quite weedy Luton Sixth Former wasn't much use as an anti-fascist streetfighter. 

There was a lot of civic pride at the book launch, people are sick of Luton being associated with racism due to the antics of Tommy Robinson (sadly also from the town) and want it to be known as a town - and ideally a city - known for its multicultural diversity and conviviality. So it is with some dismay that I read about the latest ill-informed attack on Luton,  this time at the Conservative Party 2026 conference where Shadow Home Office Minister Blake Stephenson, the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, claimed that 'There are parts of that town – and unfortunately the police will tell you this – it can be a very dangerous place. There are parts where white people won’t go. They are like no-go zones'. This is nonsense. It may be true that there are parts of Luton - in fact the whole town - where racists won't go, presumably because they don't like seeing black and brown people in any numbers. But there are no areas where white people can't go, or are under any threat. The historic heart of the South Asian community in Bury Park is probably one of the safer areas, not to mention one where thousands of white people regularly go to see Luton Town play at Kenilworth Road. 

Meanwhile the real Luton moves on, part of quite a Beds cultural renaissance that includes Imran Perretta's touching coming of age film 'Ish', set in Bury Park and the debut album from  Ahadadream (I know he grew up in Sandy rather than Luton, but hey it's Bedfordshire!).

There have been South Asians in the Luton area since at least 1918, when five 'Indian subjects' were reported to be working at the Blows Down Lime Works (Luton Reporter, 28 January 1919) and as Taj mentions in the book there were members of the IWA in Luton as early as 1946. Larger numbers from Pakistan and elsewhere arrived from the late 1950s in search of work, and faced racism from the start. 

People were making similar ill-founded arguments to Blake Stephenson even then so let's give the last word to Zafar Iqbal Qureshi of the Pakistani Welfare Association writing in the Luton News on 28 June 1962 in response to a previous racist letter in the paper: 'As regards the Dunstable Road area being full of "gipsy looking Pakistanis creeping about" well, physically and mentally, as well as in looks, we Pakistanis can hold our own against any people on earth. There is nothing debased in our characters, or defective in our looks, that we should creep about like insects. We Pakistanis, by the grace of God, walk erect, dignified, and hold our heads high everywhere we go'.

Other Luton writings:

How it all began (for me): a School Kid against the Nazis in Luton 1979/80

Blinded by the Light - memories of racism and job cuts in 1980s Luton (including the Luton Youth Movement)

The Luton Riots of 1981 - 'Brixton comes to Bedfordshire'

The Hunger Strike, the Irish War and an English Town

Luton Jazz Boom 1958-63

Partisan Books- 1970s radical community bookshop in Luton

Luton Street Press - mid-70s radical zine

Luton Nuclear Disarmament Campaign go to Greenham Common 1980

My punk period Luton youth club memories

For my country: UK Decay, punk and the war poets

Crass, Poison Girls, UK Decay in Luton, 1979

Marsh House Luton - from punk to henge

Karma Sutra, Luton anarcho-punk and hunt sabbing

Clubbing in Luton 1984

Dole Days in Luton: unemployed protests, 1985

Luton Punk Squat Party 1985 - with Karma Sutra

We are Luton - opposing the English Defence League in 2012

'Angry White People' book review (at Datacide magazine)

The Leisure Lounge: a great 1990s club in London

The Leisure Lounge was one of the great mid-1990s London clubs. Located in a former snooker hall at 121 High Holborn, the main room downstairs was basically just one large cavernous space dominated by a huge video screen on one side and two-tiered bench seating on the other - giving a slight school gym feeling. There was a small seating chill out area and bar at one end. According to the DJ magazine 'UK Club Guide' (1995) it had a capacity of 800 with a '22K rig with Amcron amps and custom built speakers'. It stayed open until 6 am initially but I think later opened from 10 pm to 10 am.

Prior to the Leisure Lounge, the space had been the Old Paddocks nightclub where Clockwork Orange started out in 1993.

After restyling, the Leisure Lounge's opening party was in April 1994 and included the Buzzcocks playing live. Promoter Sean McClusky told the Independent: 'I want a fashionable crowd, but I want to encourage the nutters as well. Punk has energy and colour. It attracts all the characters. All I've done is give them a beautiful club to play in.' (Independent, 6 April 1995).  In its early days there was an exhibition of portrait photographs by Rankin in the chill out area. 

The club continued until at least 1998 (not sure exactly when it closed). My peak time going there would have been 1995, at that time there was Graham Gold's Peach on Friday and the club's own Leisure Lounge night on Saturdays, promoted by Sean McClusky and the late Bernie Schumann. The latter two had previously been involved with Club UK among other adventures and there was a similar 'uplifting house' vibe. 

Later Simon Hobart's gay indie night Popstarz was there too, and legendary drum'n'bass night Metalheadz. Oasis had a party there after playing at the Astoria in 1994.

Flyers below from May/June 1995, seemingly I must have been at that one with John Kelly, Fabio Paras, Tall Paul etc. on 10th June as I put a cross by it! Also definitely went to the one on 25 May 1995 with Lisa Louds, Tony de Vit etc.  'Join the International Disco Jetset' says one flyer, and we did. Glammed up beautiful people dancing to beautiful music, or so it felt. Maybe not so much on the way home afterward.

Note too the Red Bull sponsorship. I remember the first time I tried one of these energy drinks was in the queue at Leisure Lounge where they were handing them out as part of a promotion.  The drink had started out in Austria in 1987 but wasn't launched in UK until 1994/95 when for a while people going out at the weekend were largely replacing their alcohol consumption with other recreational substances.

Update:

John Eden has mentioned in a comment that he went to a Jah Shaka 'African Liberation Day Special' at the Leisure Lounge in May 2001, so the club was still open then. In fact checking through the Muzik magazine listings I can see that they still included the Leisure Lounge in their list of London clubs as late as March 2002, but not by June 2002 so assume it closed around that time.

Muzik magazine London club listings March 2002

See previously:

Club UK: Love, ecstasy and crime

Speed and other London clubs, i-D 1995

Muzik Magazine 1995 club listings

Wham! in China

I enjoyed the 'Wham! 10 Days in China' film if only for the footage of peak-Wham, especially George Michael's beautiful singing of Careless Whisper - who then or now can sing like that live? Seeing that second show in Guangzhou in April 1985 would be up there on my fantasy list of gigs I would have loved to have been at.

Still, it feels strange to have a film featuring George Michael in 2026 that doesn't wonder out loud what it must have been like for a closeted gay man to be in the middle of this media circus in 1985? Or what it was like for performers of colour like 'Trevor' (what was his full name?), who warmed up the Beijing crowd as a break dancer?

The overall narrative of China 'opening up to the West' seems somewhat anachronistic now. There's mention of the old world meeting the new world but which was which? What Andrew Ridgely correctly identifies as the colonial hangovers at the British embassy were not really the future were they? Ironically many in the Chinese audience now look cooler than the 1980s pop stars and their entourage.

And there's a total absence of historical context beyond the obvious 'first Western pop band to play in China'. For instance, the gigs in April 1985 took place in the month after the end of the bitter miners strike in Britain - not directly relevant perhaps even if  Wham! had played a benefit gig for a strikers' hardship fund, but some acknowledgement that they weren't simply ambassadors of an unproblematic British affluence would have been appropriate. Not to mention the fact that four years later the Chinese state was gunning down protestors in the same Tiananmen Square that George and Michael wander across at the beginning of this film. Still if you feel the terrible injustice that Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou is no longer wandering across Hampstead Heath you will probably watch and have a bit of weep, like I did.

Autonomous Astronauts watch the Solar Eclipse, 1999

The total eclipse of the sun in 1999 coincided with a high point of activity for the Association of Autonomous Astronauts. On its email discussion list (AAA-list@onelist.com), various AAA operatives posted their reports of the action.

Did Parasol AAA really launch an umbrella-shaped spacecraft under cover of the eclipse in Leicester?  Perhaps it's still too soon to say...

From AAA Kernow:

Total Eclipse of the Sun, 11.8.199. AAA Kernow claim responsibilty.

From Steve Ash (Dionysian AAA):

Thank you. A job well done. But you should have held it a few minutes longer than the official two minutes to make the bourgeois experts shit 

The DAAA sent agents to Roumania and France, as well as drifting through the streets of London (having no ties to the vulgar world of work) . 

In London we were impressed by the eerie blue quality of the light produced by the partial eclipse and laughed heartily at the foolish birds who thought it: was evening. Strange ritualistic behaviour was observed amongst many who gathered in in small groups with smokey glass and pin holes, releasing stifled sounds of awe, perhaps an atavistic resurgence of sun worship. 

Even stranger ritualism was found amongst our alter egos in the Dionysian Underground, who made a sacrifice to the Moon, as Dionysos Sabazios, Killer of the Sun, and called for the death of centralisation and the solar consciousness of western civilization, and a return to the nomadic, lunar-sea of spiritual anarchy. 

We of the DAAA above such naive primitivism retained a disciplined scientific observation of events at all times. Technical instrumentation was set up and some startling data obtained that may drastically change our conceptions of space travel. One anamoly as yet unexplained was the sighting of what appeared to be some sort of flying parasol heading away from the eclipse into Earth orbit. 

Reports from Cornwall informed us of a wonderful Baudrillardian spectacle of people watching the eclipse on a huge TV screen as the clouds engulfed the natural phenomenon. We laughed ourselves silly.

From Henri Beauchamp (Parasol AAA):

Here at work, in Leicester, the sky darkened somewhat at around 11. 10 and  everything fell silent. All the porters went home, the nurses went to sleep and various members of the Human Resources dept were seen foraging in the long grass. Meanwhile a little brolly craft slipped into the sky unobserved. 

From John Eden (Raido AAA):

The eclipse action was pretty good in central London, with people pouring out of offices for extended fag breaks and complete strangers chatting each other up for a lend of eclipse-specs. Pin hole projections are better for more participatory and communal viewing and you could even see the reflection on the side of some of the new office blocks . 

We got a good view of it all (and thankfully we didn't see the Parasol Mission, so I guess we 're safe there!) . It got pretty cold and dark. Someone was smoking a spliff in Red Lion Square . 

We are now trying to persuade our boss that we have gone blind and should have the rest of the day off to "recover" . So far this has involved lots of knocking things over. I don't think it's going to work. Ah well . 

From ElvinAAA:

and fairly good from the top of a 20 storey south London tower block too! though strangely less impressive than i had hoped really. gonna keep those glasses though might come in handy ! ! 

From Stuart (Nomad AAA):

Returned from Prawle point (southernmost Devon tip).  the sky went out— i wanted my mom (nearpanicattack); bassbins, fireworks, lights on the channel ships all over. again, again, again 

From Jez (heterotopiAAA):

We went down the road to Trafalgar Sq and got a pretty good view the clouds acted as a pretty good filter in any case although looking  through a strip of unexposed ektachrorne did the trick in the cloud breaks. (I had seen a picture in one of my wife's magazines which had a woman using slices of cucumber, although I guess that you'd have to be careful that you didn't cut them too thinly.) thought it'd get darker than it did in the end. It was quite strange looking over the scene,  with a strange dull light, but still bright highlights and blue sky in the distance. So just like wearing sunglasses then. Oh, so not so  strange. 

From Nigel Ayers:

A lovely day yesterday. We went in a party of seven down along the Fowey river from Lostwithiel -in the wilds really. Armed with shamanic rattles, etc. Sky was cloudy. Around ten we saw the moon advancing over the sun. 

Cattle in fields huddled together, birds started to settle down. Silvery clouds, like dusk. River birds paddled in the mud . A cormorant, a heron and a buzzard flew by. 

Through gaps in the cloud we could see the crescent of the sun getting thinner.  Eclipse glasses were useless, you could see it all with naked eye thanks to cloud cover . 

Then it all suddenly went dark, like midnight. Everyone went silent. Spooky. A couple of minutes later, we could see the crescent of the sun on the other side, and a patch of light dawning from the "wrong" side of the sky. 

We could hear shouts and applause in the distance, fireworks going off. Then we opened up the champagne and got plastered Then we went home and watched it all over again on the telly. 

[Disconaut AAA watched the eclipse from Telegraph Hill Park, New Cross]

Previous AAA posts:

Everybody is a Star! - Disconaut AAA

Mission accomplished but the beat goes on: the Fantastic Voyage of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts

Summer Solstice 1999: AAA on Parliament Hill

Military out of space - AAA at J18 Carnival Against Capital 1999

AAA at Brixton Reclaim the Streets 1998

Skinheads as Independent Travellers in Space

We were brought up on the space race, now they expect us to clean toilets

Intergalactic conferences and raves in space

AAA texts on Internet Archive

Far right skins attack Scritti Politti at Rock Against Racism gig in Hitchin, 1979

In July 1979 Scritti Politti played a benefit for Stevenage Rock Against Racism at Hitchin College, supported by Acme Sewage Company (a punk band from Welwyn Garden City)

Advert for the gig, from NME, 7 July 1979

As reported in the local paper, the Stevenage Comet, a gang of skindeads 'attacked members of the crowd, charged the band and tried to smash up their equipment'. The trouble apparently started during Scritti's second number and the paper reports that 'lead singer Tom was cut on the head when he appealed to the skinheads to behave'. I assume this refers to Scritti drummer Tom Morley, rather than the singer Green Gartside. Not a great night for the band as their transit van was in an accident on the way home.  The report also mentions that jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill was playing with the band.

'Skinheads attack crowd at rock dance' - report from the Stevenage Comet, 11 July 1979 and follow up letter. From Hertfordshire Archives.

Gareth Dent from Stevenage RAR wrote to complain about the paper's coverage, not denying what had happened but stating that it only involved 5 or 6 skinheads, and not all the skinheads present joined in. I assume Gareth also wrote the article in local zine Tooth and Nail which makes similar points and mentions  that 'a fight took place between members of the band, Stevenage RAR, the person handling the PA and about five skinheads', after which Scritti completed their set.

Tooth and Nail, 1979

Further background on Stevenage RAR, which included legendary Hertfordshire underground figure Mark Astronaut,  is given in Marcus Blakeston's excellent book 'Survivors: 45 year of the Astronauts': 

'The Stevenage branch of Rock Against Racism was formed by husband and wife David and Janice Tittle, who began by handing out flyers around the town inviting people to attend a meeting at the Red Lion, a pub on the High Street. From this they recruited Jeremy Wiltshire, Shaun and Christine Manning, and Gareth Dent. Gareth worked for The Guardian in London, so he became the local branch's main contact with RAR head office, while Jeremy had some accounting experience so he was a natural choice as treasurer. Despite having no formal training in graphic design, Gareth also created all their promotional material and, with help from Shaun and Christine, liaised with venues and booked bands to play at their events.

Stevenage's main live music venue at the time was the council-run youth club at Bowes Lyon House, but due to a media-induced fear of 'punk riots' they refused to allow the newly established Stevenage Rock Against Racism to host any gigs there. Instead, they were forced to turn to Hitchin College seven miles away. This was a venue Mark Astronaut frequented on a regular basis, and during the inaugural RAR event there a mutual friend introduced him to Gareth and Christine. Sharing their antiracist views and keen to help out in any way he could, Mark then started attending RAR branch meetings in Stevenage and got to know the other committee members.

While most of the gigs held at Hitchin College went smoothly, playing under a Rock Against Racism banner inevitably attracted attention from the far-right from time to time. When they booked the unashamedly Marxist band Scritti Politti one night the venue was invaded by racist skinheads who gave Nazi salutes while the band played. "There was loads of them at the front," Mark remembers, "going 'Sieg heil, Sieg heil,' and the singer said something like 'All you skinheads think you're so hard, we can have you any time!' -which I thought probably wasn't the best thing to say under the circumstances, considering how many of them were there. Then of course it all erupted and there was a big fight."'

[I have to say that Mark's recollection many years after the event may not be completely accurate - the Tooth and Nail report states that a member of Scritti appealed for the skinheads to stop rather than inviting them for a fight. The band were more inclined to the intellectual side of Marxism than to streetfighting, but I stand to be corrected.

Mark Astronaut later contributed to a track on a Stevenage Rock Against Racism EP.

See previously:

Hitchin demonstration against the National Front 1971

Far right skinheads attack Redskins at GLC gig 1984.

Racist skinheads attack GLC 'Jobs for a Change' festival while Redskins and Hank Wangford band play (June 1984)

On June 10 1984 the left Labour-led Greater London Council, on the verge of being abolished by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, put on the free 'Jobs for a Change' festival by County Hall on the South Bank. I was one of the estimated 150,000 who went along, with the line up including  Billy Bragg, Misty in Roots, Mari Wilson, Hank Wangford, Gil Scott-Heron and Ivor Cutler. 

The biggest draw was The Smiths, at that time my favourite band. It was the fourth and last time I saw them, and in less than a year they had gone from being third on the bill at the Lyceum (where I saw them supporting the Gang of Four) to becoming the focus of something like mass hysteria. To be honest though I can't actually remember much about The Smiths performance that day, with events earlier in the day leaving a stronger impression.

 Socialist band The Redskins were on the bill too, and while they were playing a largish group of neo-nazi skinheads associated with the racist National Front stormed the stage and attacked people in the crowd. Although the fascists were massively outnumbered by the festival goers, many of the latter fled in panic. Indie kids were never known for their streetfighting skills! I wasn't very handy either but I did end up with a group of punks, anarchists and Red Action members chasing and scuffling with the nazi boneheads round the South Bank.

Some remarkable photos have resurfaced recently and capture some of what happened (most of these photos are from the great Rio Tape Slide Project with the exception of the third one down showing Martin Hewes which I found at Redskins Archive on facebook)

Redskins' Chris Dean on stage

Crowd by County Hall

The Redskins started out with their anthem 'Kick Over the Statues' and were 40 minutes into their set when trouble started. On a recording of the gig singer Chris Dean can be heard shouting 'fuck off out of here' and 'you sound like Margaret Thatcher' at the Sieg Heiling National Front boneheads just before the latter stormed the stage, knocking over the band's equipment and attacking people.

I was standing near the back with friends and remember large parts of the crowd running in panic towards us (i.e. away from the stage). We stood our ground but it wasn't immediately clear what was happening, though people did start fighting back and the NF disappeared quite quickly. Some of those who helped repel the attack were apparently striking miners who had been temporarily employed by the GLC as stewards on the day

As described in Sean Birchall's 'Beating the Fascists: the untold story of Anti Fascist Action' (2010): 'Halfway through the event, about 80 or more NF suddenly materialised and immediately set about the audience gathered around the main stage where the Redskins were playing. The boldness of the assault panicked the large left-wing gathering. Not all were cowed. Some elements within the crowd, including some striking miners, regrouped, and after some hand-to-hand fighting in which one Red Action member was slashed and another anti-fascist had his jaw smashed, the right-wingers, mostly skinheads, were driven off'.

In this photo the Redskins bassist Martin Hewes, on left of picture, can be seen grabbing one of the attackers (I think the bare chested lads were defending too):

Some of the crowd headed off after them (see below), but they dispersed only to return later.

The crowd around the stage had emptied out very quickly, in this photo the Redskins can be seen surveying the aftermath of the attack:

Guy with bleeding head injury after first attack

A little while later I saw a procession of boneheads heading back over Waterloo Bridge towards the event and it was obvious to me that there was going to be more trouble, I tried to speak to stewards and left wing paper sellers etc. about it but nobody seemed very interested. Shortly afterwards they attacked again while country singer Hank Wangford was performing. 

This time there was a more concerted fight back, as described by Birchall: 

'But the NF had not finished. Again led by the 6ft 2in Nicky Crane, who had just completed a four year sentence for a similarly indiscriminate attack on a queue of black cinema goers, and buoyed up by the impact they had made on the many thousands of the left-wing enemy present, the rampaging right-wingers returned to attack the Hank Wangford Band on stage at the other end of the park. It proved to be a major blunder. Where the crowd had been taken unawares the first time, news of the second attack saw RA [Red Action] in particular more than eager for the unexpected chance of a replay. Armed with cider bottles, and anything else to hand, Red Action members sprinted toward the trouble. Their charge had the effect of further galvanising the crowd.

In attempting to make a getaway, Crane was felled by Peter C. and only by using a young female anti-fascist as a shield, survived the onslaught with cuts and bruises. Less fortunate was another skinhead who, to his evident relief, had been rescued from the crowd by two police officers who held off vengeful left-wingers with batons. The stand-off ended when a leading militant stepped out of the crowd and punched one of his benefactors full in the face. When the officer bent to retrieve his helmet, he was bundled headfirst into a concrete litter-bin. Terrified, the skinhead made a run for it with just time, possibly, to reflect on the shortcomings of huge steel toe-cap boots in such a situation, before being brought to earth and kicked  unmercifully while the police, understandably putting their safety first, stood by and watched. Nearby another couple of skinheads, one male and one female were both booted on the ground, with police again unwilling to mediate'.

(Nicky Crane was notorious as the main face of far right street violence at the time - he later came out as gay, renounced his former views, and died with AIDS in 1993).

Report from Searchlight, July 1984 with photo showing sieg heiling skins invading stage during Hank Wangford performance

Fighting continued by St Thomas Hospital, where casualties from both sides had gone for treatment, and later that night anti-fascists stormed an Islington pub that had become a haunt for nazi skins (The Agricultural on Liverpool Road).

Here's Red Action's reports on the events from Issue 13 of their paper (Summer 1984), including their reflections that they should have attacked the fascists when they first saw them. Red Action were a militant group who later played a leading role in Anti Fascist Action.  Some of its members had been expelled from the Socialist Workers Party for taking the fighting part of fighting fascists too seriously.

'After the initial confusion, a determined counter-attack by miners, 'red' skins and anti-Nazis had the Front on the run'

Fascism 'thrives on the weakness and indecision of its opponents... [the NF] 'pulled off a major propaganda victory by coming into and disrupting a major event attended by thousands of people'

Hang Wangford later wrote about these events in a song called 'On the Line'. As described, his band took quite a battering and suffered from the lack of preparedness for the attack - seemingly they were unaware that the earlier attack had happened when they went on stage:

On the Line (extracts)

'Now back in the summer of '84. 

We tried to help the miners win their war

We came to do a gig for the GLC

That’s Good Loud Country for you and me.

There were hippies and punks and OAPs,  

UB40s and CIDs

But no one noticed them bad, bad boys

With the bottles, the skins and their mouth full of noise

Cause they slipped through the crowd like a shiver of fear

With their airwear steps that you never can hear

And I knew what they were when I saw them salute

And they knew I was a commie from my flesh pink suit

Now we started a polka, they went Sieg Heil

They jumped us and trod on our faces for a while

While they knocked us down and they put in the boot

They made a real mess of my flesh pink suit

Well they smashed a guitar, jagged like a knife

And cut it through the face of my friend for life

And there was no one to stop them, no security

From the police, the crowd or the GLC

No one told us while Billy Bragg sang

That the Redskins just had the boot put in

No one warned us before we went on

A hundred to one we wouldn't finish our song'.

Band times from programme - Redskins were scheduled to play at 2 pm and Hank Wangford at 3 pm.

Bobby Valentino, probably best known for the fiddle part he wrote and performed on the Bluebells 'Young at Heart', was playing with Hank Wangford at the time. On his website he has recalled:

'At the beginning of the second number of the set (probably a pre-arranged signal) a gang of about fifteen skin’eads, from the National Front, surged out of the crowd, invading the stage, intent on aggression and attemped to ruin the afternoon. Apparently they had done the same to the Redskins, a well known very left leaning band of the time (who were part of the same management stable as Hank and Billy Bragg), about 15 minutes before on the second stage.

Well, the whole thing was a bit of a mess, Hank got fairly badly kicked and I saw an Ovation Acoustic Guitar being swung toward me. Automatically turning away to protect the violin, my back took the force of the blow. The guitar shattered against my shoulder blades. It was one of those classic cases of adrenaline dulling any pain because of the “flight or fight“ syndrome type thing I suppose, because it didn’t hurt for at least ten minutes and then it hurt like hell as the bruises started to appear.

But I was very lucky. B.J. Cole, sitting behind his pedal steel had hardly noticed what was happening so he didn’t see the jagged remains of the Ovation Acoustic being swung at him. It was a splintered remnant, the end of the fingerboard and the remains of the body that had survived the impact with my back, that made contact with his face and went through the side of his nose and then through his top and bottom lip. He ended up needing about fifteen stitches and grew a beard to cover the scar for a couple of years.

One fantastic sight that I will never forget is that of a huge Rasta, with his dreadlocks steaming out behind him, swinging a lighting safety chain above his head and chasing the fascist idiots off the stage - they fled like sheep in the face of his single handed onslaught. Apparently certain elements in the crowd, inspired by the noble action of said Rastafarian, took it upon themselves to give the flock a good kicking. I was really pleased to hear, from BJ later, that the skin’eads were left waiting, bleeding and bruised, in the hospital corridor (they’d all ended up at the same one) for hours as nobody wanted to treat them as an emergency'.

Hank Wangford (centre) with GLC leader Ken Livingstone (left) and Miners' union leader Arthur Scargill at the festival shortly before Wangford was attacked. 

The historic 1984/85 miners strike had been going for three months by this point and Scargill sounded optimistic in his speech at the festival. But just over a week later (18 June), the 'Battle of Orgreave' showed how far the state was prepared to go to defeat the miners with thousands of police mobilised against a miners' picket of a coke producing plant in Yorkshire.

News Line, 11 June 1984

For better or worse the festival just continued after the fighting, with a huge crowd by the time The Smiths played, many people no doubt unaware of the details of what had happened.

Update: More memories

There have been some interesting memories prompted by this and related posts on various social media, here's some examples:

'I remember running over the footbridge by the Shell building being chased by a group of racists'

'we chased and caught some of them at Waterloo station trying to hide' 

'I remember them streaming through the crowed lashing out at random spectators. Still didn't stop a great Smiths set later'

'I was there, 21 years old, moved to London the year before. It was mayhem during The Redskins set. For The Hank Wangford set many people were sitting down, the fascists came in from the back kicking the sitting people in the face, as we scattered I saw three blokes, one with a metal crutch, chase and fell a skinhead, whilst he was on the ground they beat him with the crutch'.

'I was there and a lady next to me got a bottle thrown in her face and she had a baby in a pram. I finished up in the train station being protected by the police. We had to fight the police to get our hands on them'

'I was there. Shinned up a lamp post as they ran by'

 'it was brilliant how the tide turned that day and my outstanding memory was seeing a guy in a cheesecloth shirt leading the chase as the nazis got run all the way to Waterloo. For years the fascist skinheads ruined many a gig with violence and aside from a NYE street fight in Camden High Street when the Adam & The Ants crew battered the skins this was the best fightback I witnessed'.

'I was there. Turned around and got hit in the mouth by some fascist for the trouble. Had a fat lip for a bit but was comforted by Miki who later went on to be in Lush'

(Miki Berenyi has spoken previously of her love for Redskins - 'The other side of The Redskins was the idea of anti-fascist skinheads and it was a weird ting to see played out. You’d have racist, ‘skinhead’ skinheads who really didn’t like the idea, as they felt, of someone appropriating their look and making it left-wing and multicultural. They protected their identity very strongly and it led to some real clashes, which culminated when The Redskins played a GLC gig and there was a complete riot. It was fucking terrifying, the stage got invaded and bricks were being thrown but it showed The Redskins’ will')

Miki has responded directly on X: 'it was terrifying! The Sieg Heiling from a section started during the Redskins set and they invaded the stage. One guy picked up the entire drum kit to hurl it at the crowd. I saw Mitch (Hagar the Womb/Mekons) piling in to fend them off as the bottles and bricks flew'.

[it goes without saying that not all skinheads in this period, or in other periods, were racist/far right but there was a definite neo-nazi skinhead scene]

See previously:

Redskins: revolutionary rock'n'roll?

Far right skins attack Scritti Politti at Rock Against Racism gig, 1979

(It was an eventful weekend - the day before saw a mini-rampage during a demonstration against Ronald Reagan in London. The more I think about it, you could write a history of the whole period through the events of that weekend, with threads including the miners strike, the Cold War, the GLC, the far right, new radical groups including Red Action and Class War, The Smiths and more.)

Up the Youth Club - and my punk period Luton youth club memories

Emma Warren's 'Up the Youth Club: illuminating a hidden history' is an enthusiastic account of 150 years of recreational provision for young people. This has taken many forms, but she identifies a number of common themes:

'A central quality connects all the spaces in this book, whether they're attended by five young people or five hundred, in a shed or a purpose-built centre. A youth club, as far as I'm concerned, is a broadly warm and welcoming space where those who are in their second decade of life can gather regularly, in person, without compulsion, to do things they like doing, or to discover what they like doing, where restorative 'hanging out' is welcome. Some of these are officially designated, others less so. Youth clubs are places of mutual aid, not easily flipped into private profit'.

Warren doesn't shy away from the fact that many such initiatives have been motivated in various ways by attempts to influence or control young people amidst panics about 'juvenile delinquency', lack of patriotism or religion, or the physical fitness of the next generation of workers and soldiers. But she is less interested in the motives of funders and organisers than in what happens when young people are given, or sometimes take, a space of their own.

She is particularly interested in connections with music, with clubs not only hosting music events but sometimes giving access to music production equipment. Examples highlighted include the Holyhead in Coventry, attended in the 1970s by some of those later involved in the ska scene, and the Basement in Bristol in the 1990s, where Roni Size started out his DJing/music production career. Warren notes that: 

'There are significant youth work histories in UK music and culture, particularly those that relate to global majority creative expression. Think, for example, of the youth clubs across the UK that hosted reggae sound systems in the 1970s, or the widespread practice in the '80s of using the space as a practice pen for hip hop, dance, DJing or MCing. The youth club disco has been replaced by studios, adding to the discography of UK music'.

Luton youth club memories

Of course reading the book makes you reflect on your own experiences.  For me, as for many of my peers, youth clubs were important transitional spaces in those years when I wanted to get out and socialise but was mostly too young for the adult world of pubs and clubs. I started going to Biscot Youth Club in Luton when I was 14, a club linked to the adjacent Biscot Church of the Holy Trinity -an Anglican 'High Church' in the Limbury area of town, where my parents had got married.  The youth club met in the church hall, a converted stables building with the former hayloft upstairs a secluded den. At the time I was obsessed with sport, with my diary recording of that first visit 'there is snooker, table tennis and darts. Upstairs in the loft there is a room where you sit and listen to music' (there was also bar football upstairs). All this for 5p a week. 

Biscot Church Hall - with the youth club loft window upstairs

For the next few years I was a regular there on a Friday night, with my interests transitioning from games to music.  The club sometimes had discos - I recall dancing in a circle with linked arms to Jeff Beck's 'Hi Ho Silver Lining' - though the discos further afield at the St Joseph's youth club (linked to the local Catholic church) which we occasionally went to, were a bigger event.

A key feature of the Biscot club was its small upstairs loft reached by a ladder where the 'older kids' (maybe 14+) were trusted to hang out without any adults venturing in.  There was some seating and a kind of DJ booth - one turntable behind a wooden counter - where we took it in turns to play our records. This was in the punk period, and we were soon conducting a teenage cultural revolution against the slightly older teenagers with their Genesis and Barclay James Harvest records (actually they were now old enough to get served in pubs so were moving on).

On our pocket money and paper boy-girl/Saturday job income nobody could afford to amass a huge vinyl collection, but between us we covered all the bases of  the 1977-80 punk/post-punk moment . I can still remember which of my friends had which records, and the circumstances in which I bought mine. To give a few examples:

• The Saints - 'This Perfect Day' - my 14 year old diary from 14 July 1977 mentions seeing this on Top of the Pops along with The Sex Pistols 'Pretty Vacant'. The next day somebody had the 12" of this at the youth club which had an extra track (Do the Robot). I phoned round every record shop in Beds and Herts trying to find a copy but failed. But I did get the 7" - my first punk single and still one of the greatest. Never heard Do the Robot again until recently on Spotify.

• The Clash first LP - August 1977 was momentous for me,  I started reading NME and bought this, my first proper album from HMV in Luton. I can also vividly remember buying the Clash 'Complete Control' from FL Moore on the day it came out (thanks to Wikipedia I now know this was 23 Sept 1977). We went on a school trip that day to see David Lean's Great Expectations at Luton Odeon, just down the road from the independent record shop where I bought most of my punk singles. My diary records that at the youth club in February 1978, 'Gordon Charlton offered me £1 for my Clash Complete control picture sleeve'. I declined; he went on to work in A&R for Polydor I think. A friend recalls a similar experience of a school trip to see Wuthering Heights at same cinema and sneaking off to buy Squeeze 'Cool for Cats' on pink vinyl.

• Coloured vinyl was a big deal. I remember another friend bringing 'Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts' to club, 12" of red plastic and singing of 'Bored Teenagers...watching the planes burn up through the night like meteorites'. Well we weren't far from Luton Airport.

• The Stranglers - Black and White LP - there was an annual trip to St Marys church, Meppershall, in the north Beds countryside where we camped in the grounds and went on long walks. One of our number turned up late having just bought this freshly released album (in May 1978). Nice'n'Sleazy on the vicarage record player.

• Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead - the younger brother of one of my friends thought this was called 'Bela the Goose is dead' and painted this on a t-shirt complete with said goose.

• Joy Division 'Transmission' - I got this from Matrix, a short lived (1979-81) shop in John Street behind Luton Arndale Centre run by Luton punk band UK Decay and associates. The band had a rehearsal space in the basement which 'once housed a memorable after tour party with The Dead Kennedys. During the proceedings Jello Biafra from the ‘DK’s and the UK DK’s, ran amok amidst the Arndale car parks where Jello graffiti-ed his name over the place' (the tour was in 1980). I'd seen UK Decay by then, and we played 'California Uber Alles' at the youth club, but I didn't know the Dead Kennedys had been in town (albeit not to actually play a gig) until years later.

Although quite a few of us did go to the church for a while, there was no religious content to the club as such and the only vaguely religious music I remember was the time we went to sleep over in a disused church in Chellington, north Beds, where the only music on hand was a copy of the Jesus Christ Superstar album! 

(A few years ago after reminiscing online with some friends I made a playlist of some of the records played at the club - check it out on Spotify).

All of this is a long way of saying that the youth club was a major formative influence on the music taste of me and my friends, where we educated and enthused each other by pooling our records on a Friday night. It wasn't just the sounds we were picking up on but politics and attitude. It was quite a momentous time in music with the punk and post-punk explosion and for those of us slightly too young to fully participate in gigs and drinking, youth clubs were a place where in our own more limited way we could collectively participate in the culture.

Walking back from the club we would often head to the chip shop in Birdsfoot Lane, but before too long we were getting served as underage drinkers in the Biscot Mill pub and other hostelries. What started out as a drink on the way back from the club soon gradually became the main event, as (still underage) drinking in Luton town centre began to supplant the youth club at pubs including the Vic, the Vine and the Richard III. I moved on from the church too as I got more involved in radical politics, before I was old enough to legally drink I had helped set up a local branch of CND, joined Anti-Nazi League protests and become vice-chair of the local Labour Party Young Socialists, though I didn't stay there long.

I think the the church played a role in my politicisation. The vicar, Reverend Eric West, ran a short course he called 'Charlie Brown's Three Steps to World Revolution', based around readings from New Internationalist magazine and some liberation theology-lite, most notably 'Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger' by Ron Sider. Me and my mum both went along. The basic idea was that food shortages were caused by the unequal global economy, not any kind of natural scarcity.  On another occasion,  I think following an Easter pilgrimage walk, one of us gave a reading in St Albans Abbey of that great prayer, 'A worker reads history' by Bertolt Brecht! All good stuff, though in one of the familiar contradictions of much Anglo-Catholic leftism the vicar was an adamant opponent of the ordination of women. Perhaps it was from those tracks listened to and discussed upstairs in the youth club that I imbibed a more hard hitting critique and call to action.  

See previously:  

Out to the Dancers - Emma Warren and Femi Koleoso 

How it all began (for me): a School Kid against the Nazis in Luton 1979/80