The Oxford Street 48: arrests on peace march (1982)

 On Sunday June 6th 1982, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament held a huge demonstration to coincide with a visit by US President Ronald Reagan.  Up tp 250,000 people marched to London's Hyde Park, where the speakers included Labour MP Tony Benn and miners' leader Arthur Scargill. The recent Falklands war had shown up the weakness of the peace movement, which had failed to significantly mobilise against the war. This account of the demonstration was written in a text '1980 to 1984: anarchy on the CND demo':

"At Hyde Park it was the same as usual and anarchists who tried to heckle the speakers were kept miles away from the front of the stage by police. Some of us gathered behind the official platform setting up our free platform with a megaphone to discuss the Reagan visit, the Falklands war and any issue the people wished to raise. Many took advantage of this situation to air their views, as the official platfor was only open to invited speakers, not to anyone who might have something creative or new to suggest. A proposal was made that we move out of Hyde Park where we were wasting our time and take the issues to the London crowds in Oxford Street. This idea was greeted with enthusiasm. About 300 people gathered at the Speakers Corner end of Hyde Park and by now many of us were in defiant mood. Some began breaking across the road over to Oxford Street, there were no stewards this time. There was a lot of confusion with people trying to keep the group together and deciding what to do next. The group pushed on loudly down Oxford Street with more following behind. Fump! Hooray! Everyone cheered as someone let off fireworks and the traffic was blocked. It was some time before the vans started to arrive on the scene. As the police vans slowly pulled up in force those in the front decided to head down a side street to the american embassy it was too late, the police jumped from the vans and charged into the march. About 20 marchers made it into the side street and were able to escape including one who received a nasty gash on the forehead form a truncheon. However 48 were arrested".

An Oxford Street 48 Defence Campaign was set up to support those arrested, and Scottish punk band Political Asylum recorded a track 'Oxford Street 48':

The events were reported in 'Freedom' as 'Anarchists Attacked':

'Around 300 anarchists with a  number of flags and banners marched out of Hyde Park. At first the police didn't seem to be interested. One senior officer was heard to assure a constable that 'its alright, they're only going home'. However, when he realised just what was happening his cool tone changed to panic with a shout of 'NO they're not!' and a grab for his radio. 

As we moved into Oxford St with shouts of 'Free all Prisoners', 'Smash the Nuclear State' and 'Free Simon Los' (imprisoned for 3yrs for distributing a leaflet in Nottingham) we soon acquired an SPG van as escort. As we drew level with the turning that leads to the American Embassy in Grosvenor Sq, the police attacked Without warning this entirely legal and, though loud, peaceful march was assaulted by van loads of police. The police used were from the SPG and the newly formed, SPG style, quick-response riot units. They jumped out of their vans and waded into the march.

Several anarchists were knocked to the ground in the melee. 48 anarchists were arrested. During the arrests they were beaten up. Several others  were rescued by comrades who resisted the assault. In one case it has been reported that two comrades were actually pulled back out of one of the vans. One escaped, the other was recaptured. The arrested have now been released and face a range of charges from insulting behaviour to assault. 

Not content with just breaking up the march, the police vans then patrolled the side streets stopping anyone who looked as if they had been on the march. This was particularly unfortunate for the punk comrades with their easily recognisable form of dress. Several more conventionally dressed comrades managed to evade these patrols. There were also reports of police at nearby Underground Stations checking for possible marchers'. 

(Freedom, 12 June 1982 - the address for the campaign at 84b Whitechapel High St was/is the Freedom bookshop)

'48 people were arrested when police attacked a march of 500 walking peacefully up Oxford Street on Sunday 6th June after the CND rally. Most are denying the charges, some of which are serious'.

(leaflet reproduced in Toxic Graffiti zine at the time)



(Militant, 11 June 1982)




(Socialist Worker, 12 June 1982)


See also:

Marching against megadeath - June 22 1980 in London

The first march against nuclear missiles at Greenham Common,  September 1980

CND Reborn - the Protest and Survive demonstration in London, October 1980

Glastonbury CND Festival 1982

Reagan visits London 1984

Soviet Union Disco Style 1982

'the showy disco style caught on and is now seen in dance halls and at parties. The long dress, inconvenient for modern dances, has given way to narrow satin trousers and all sorts of tops'. This is clearly a fashion shoot, not sure how much this represents what people were actually wearing out in clubs.

From 'Sputnik - digest of the Soviet press', December 1982

The article was apparently originally published in Siluett, a long running fashion magazine produced in Tallinn (now capital of Estonia), a place 'sufficiently far enough away from the Soviet mainstream to allow relatively liberated experiments in popular culture to take place' according to an article about the magazine

 

Socialism through Oi? - music and politics 1982

From Socialist Worker (9 January 1982), Chris Moore looks ahead to a year in music (Moore was in the Socialist Workers Party and wrote for NME as X Moore).

'While Adam played Prince Charming and while white funksters swapped favourite shirts, Toxteth danced to the sound of breaking glass... 1981 was the year compliant complacency set in and fightback was drowned out. 1982 will be harder... 

It's depressing but honest to admit that there is in reality no working class mass movement called Oi, no revolutionary punk/skinhead force threatening to smash capitalism... (or whatever it is Gal Bushell

wants to smash now that he's replaced the revolutionary party with Oi! the Party)...

1982 will fight back not with angst-ridden Sturm and Drang aggro singles but with ideas. The strength of musical muscle behind CND and the strength of three and a half million on the dole will force the music press this year to give the movements the level of coverage RAR [Rock Against Racism] used to get when Webster was fouling the TV screens and Lewisham was throwing bricks and bottles tiswas style(e)

The bands you will see that fuel and fire the arguments, pulling the music press away from the bar and beyond will be varied. Scritti Politti will talk a lot and win people to their ideas and music, in spite of coming it with the intellectual verbals. Grace Jones and Pigbag will keep you dancing through the

year, the Higsons and the Stunt Kites will surprize you, and Black Flag and Death in

June will crack it... Listen to the poets, dance to the rhythm, clash and rock against Thatcher!'

Some interesting choices there - Death in June may have had their roots in radical left punk band Crisis but they were soon being denounced as fascist sympathisers. 

Moore's dismissal of Oi brough an angry response from a left wing skinhead which was printed under the heading 'Socialism thru' Oi': 'Oi bands and their followers have short hair cuts and Air Wair boots. We just can't afford all the trendy gear the high street posers wear'.

Moore was not averse to the skinhead look himself. Later that year he founded The Redskins.

[found this browsing through old copies of SW scanned by the excellent Splits and Fusions]

 

Glastonbury CND Festival 1982

During the 1980s - starting in fact with the 1981 festival - Glastonbury was explicitly a festival for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Festival founder Michael Eavis was active in CND at this time, a movement in resurgence as a result of rising Cold War tensions. As he explained “1981 was the year I decided to join up with the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament). I’d already been involved with them locally after somebody had found a secret bunker in the Mendip Hills which was guarded by soldiers with guns. Everyone was very worried about that; it was all top secret, but we wanted to know what was going on in our area, so we formed a local CND group in Shepton. Emily (Michael’s daughter) being born in 1979 also had a lot to do with me getting involved with the CND. I felt a great need to protect her, because she was so tiny. She really made me think, ‘I’m not going to let her get blown up by a cruise missile!’

The 1982 festival line up included Van Morrison, Jackson Browne, U2, Steel Pulse, Aswad and Judy Tzuke. The festival site was buzzed for a while by a hostile plane from the Tory-front organisation the Coalition for Peace through Security. Tories have never really got Glastonbury have they? Remember in 2015 when David Cameron said that he liked watching Glastonbury at TV at home 'in front of a warm fire' (in June!).

This report by Ross Bradshaw from Peace News, 9 July 1982, covers all the perennial delights and contradictions -  mud, commerce vs. mutual aid, worries about the crowd being too old

PEACE N' DRUGS 'N' ROCK 'N' ROLL

Fifty thousand people came, and £50,000 was raised for CND at the Glastonbury festival. What else can you say really... good time was had by all-wish you were there.

I was a bit nervous since it was 10 years since I last went to a rock festival, but the swamp-like consistency of the festival site helped strip away those inhibitions. You've just got to smile at strangers when every wellington-boot step is making a "gloop-gloop" sound in the mud.

Most of the crowd were 30ish; presumably the draw of Van Morrison, Jackson Browne and (the expected surprise appearance of) Roy Harper brought in the "ageing hippies against the bomb". Or maybe that's the normal festival crew.

Anyway, good music. But is it politics? Well squirming in the mud, then baking in the sun and the early morning queue for water does seem a long way from the CND committee meeting. And the sweet smell of marijuana smoke may not be as revolutionary as perhaps we first thought. Maybe we shouldn't really be shouting "More, more!" at the distant superstars on stage for them to come back for their planned encore. And in the market place the capitalists (albeit hip capitalists) were doing brisker business than the, stalls of Peace News, Freedom, and the alternative

bookshops.

But wait... the children's world with giant wooden ships, a castle, clowns, puppets, theatre and care-point all free.

And more theatre and free cinema for adults. And no police. Fifty thousand people and no police - or anyone else for that matter - to tell us what to do. Did standards fall, did a little bit of western-civilisation-as-we-know-it crumble?Thankfully, yes. Mutual aid, as it always does when people are left to themselves, put in an appearance. Food was  shared, people entertained themselves, lost children were found, stuck vans were pushed out of the mud and when it  as all over people gave each other lifts home. Order but no laws. No chaos, just some anarchy. Glastonbury is  D's biggest fundraiser, the Kremlin gold evidently having trouble getting through customs. Fortunately the Festival  people avoided the trap of feeding politics at their captive audience all the time. There were a few speakers (none of whom I heard), a CND tent (which was well supported), a few workshops and a variety of anti-nuclear films  including The War Game for those activists who can't go a weekend without seeing it. In general the politics/music  balance was fine.

Finally just a few words about the opposition. Presumably unable to find enough people to give out leaflets, the  Coalition for Peace through Security treated us to an air show. A plane trailing an anti-CND banner buzzed the site for an hour or two, rather like a nasty wasp that won't go away. I did hear the rumour that they were to be prosecuted for dangerous low flying, but it can't be true since these chaps woudn't break the law. Wonder what they'll do next year.

(old copy of Peace News found in the excellent 56a InfoShop archive) 

This is part of an ongoing series on the 1980s peace movement. See also:

Marching against megadeath - June 22 1980 in London

The first march against nuclear missiles at Greenham Common,  September 1980

CND Reborn - the Protest and Survive demonstration in London, October 1980

Glastonbury CND Festival 1982

London Club Listings 1982

London club listing from Time Out, 26 February 1982. Before my London clubbing days, and I must say it doesn't sound too great though of course there were many other things going on beneath the radar and not listed here.

I mean less than a year after the Brixton riots was there really a Battersea nightspot called Riots with 'perspex dancefloor, games room and cocktail lounge with resident pianist'?

Elsewhere 'The Best Disco in Town' at the Lyceum would no doubt have been fun, broadcast weekly live on Capital Radio every Friday night with DJs including Greg Edwards.

Le Beat Route in Greek Street was 'attracting second generation New Romantics who've just discovered Kraftwerk' and iD founder Perry Haines was putting on 'Dial 9 for Dolphins' at Dial 9 near Marble Arch. A Monday night in South Kensington might find you dressing 'imaginatively' with 'the nouveaux elites' at Images at the Cromwellian, while the Barracuda Club on Baker Street was also busy.

Elsewhere 'cult' clubs included the Fantasy Attic at Samantha's in New Burlington Street (apparently 'psychedelic'. There was 'rapping' at the Language Lab at the Gargoyle Club on Dean Street, and the Fridge and WAG were mentioned, both of them key London dance music venues for most of the 1980s.

See also:

London Gay Disco 1972

NME Guide to Rock & Roll London (1978): Disco

NME Guide to Rock & Roll London (1978): Gay clubs

NME Guide to Rock & Roll London (1978): Reggae

Clubbing in London i-D listings, 1984

Clubbing in Sheffield i-D listings, 1984

Clubbing in Manchester listings, 1984

Clubbing in Luton, 1984

1987: Dancing in Brixton and beyond

The Face London Club listings, March 1989

Poison Girls interview - Leveller magazine 1982

Interview with Poison Girls from 'independent feminist/socialist magazine' The Leveller (published from 52 Acre Lane, SW2), December 1982 - click on images to enlarge.

The Leveller interviewers expressed mixed feelings about it - 'It was a friendly interview yet we left dissatisfied, as a lot of the time we felt we were talking at cross purposes. What Vi says on the record and to us shows she feels deeply about the status of women. But together the group expressed  the anarchist view of everyone being equally oppressed, and so we often felt we hadn't got through to each other. They felt that government control was some kind of abstraction whereas to us, it was very real (the DHSS, the police). PS it was a very nice curry'.

I think at the time there were many anarchists who would have had a very different perspective to Poison Girls, like the folk who did the paper Xtra! for instance. But the Leveller collective's take on the band wasn't far from my own young anarcho ambivalence about the band, and indeed about Crass, in that period. On the one hand I had this respect - which older me now sees as condescending - for people over the age of 40 still making some noise politically and musically! Understanding too of their wish to break out of the confines and expectations of the punk ghetto. But also frustration at the somewhat burnt out on activism, been there and done it vibe, e.g. Lance saying 'I remember feeling when the Vietnamese war was over that there was a big hole in my life... I realised that I wasn't in this to oppose the Vietnam war, becuase once it was over I felt disappointed'. Maybe older me can appreciate this honesty and also Vi's critique  of macho posturing about other people's struggles : 'that's a very patriarchal thing, puffing up self-importance to talk about things like that and to avoid dealing with what's going right a the foot of the mountain'. Their personal is political approach challenged me in a positive way, but then as now the personal isn't enough to solve politics.