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'

'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.)

Stop the City, London, September 1984

1983/84 saw a series of anti-capitalist 'Stop the City' actions focused on the financial centre of London and other cities too, including Leeds and Birmingham. In London, momentum built with large protests in September 1983 and March 1984 (I've written about the March one here). A fairly half hearted one in May 1984 didn't amount to much, but a more serious attempt to organise and mobilise led up to the action on September 27 1984. By this point though the police had got used to this mode of protest and had developed their own tactics for dealing with it - largely mass preventative arrest. 470 people were arrested, most of them later released without charge. A high proportion of people came from the anarcho-punk scene, but there was advice to dress in more casual clothes to avoid being singled out by the police. I did so, not sure I would have passed for a city gent but I didn't get nicked!

There were occasional short lived breakaways from police lines, as reported below: 'There was a small rampage not far from the Stock Exchange where windows were smashed and cars jumped on and later Barclays Bank off Cheapside had windows broken'. I recall somebody stepping up on the window sill of a bank and kicking the window in. Other than these brief moments there was a lot of wandering around aimlessly.

Dave M, who helped organise the London events as part of London Greenpeace, summarised the day as follows:

'On Sept 27th, maybe 2000 came - mostly anarchists and unemployed, as well as some peace and animal rights campaigners. Police repression was well organised and strong. It was impossible to gather at the City centre (St Paul's and the Bank of England, used previously, were cordoned off). Individuals and isolated small groups who were 'looking for the demo' were threatened with arrest, and soon left, disillusioned. Anyone looking like a punk was particularly harassed. 470 were arrested and held hostage (only 35 were charged) to break up the collective strength.

However, many people who'd organised into independent groups were able to do quick actions all over the place (graffiti, smashing bank windows, a quick occupation etc). 2 or 3 times 3-400 people came together for a march into the centre… Hundreds who were dressed up smart continued to float about (giving out leaflets, passing messages, doing actions...). But generally the City became a no-go area almost for us. Many demonstrators therefore decided to go to Oxford Street, and Soho in central London and were able to make quite a few effective protests at various banks, offices and stores etc.' (A Brief Account of the Stop the City Protests)

Report from Green Anarchist, November 1984

There was quite a lot of soul searching afterwards. The following chronology from anarcho zine Socialist Opportunist (October 1994) ends up asking 'People put months of planning into all this. Was it worth it?'

The general consensus was that it was 'time for us to move on, having learnt from Stop the City' as expressed in this response written on the day:

 

(there a couple of other responses in the same issue, full copy of which can be read at the excellent Sparrows Nest Archive).

Press coverage

Evening Standard calls for police to move in on the organisers

Guardian: 'Police swamp  City's 2,000 anarchists'

Benefit Gig

The night before there was a benefit gig for the Stop the City Bust Fund in Camberwell at Dickie Dirts, featuring among others Conflict, Subhumans and Stalag17. The venue was an old Odeon cinema that for a while had been a Dickie Dirts jeans warehouse before being squatted.   I think there may have been some Stop the City planning meetings in the same venue.

There's a little confusion about the Conflict/Subhumans gig, the flyer is clear that it was the night before Stop the City though some people (mis?)remember it as being on the night of the protest. 

Earlier that Summer Subhumans had recorded a song Rats about Stop the City, having taken part in the previous London actions. As lead singer Dick recalls:

"We're talking about thousands of people — a lot of them punk rockers, hippies, alternative types — all turning up, dressed up, making a lot of noise... bells, whistles and drums, that sort of thing. It was an angry party atmosphere, and it was just really refreshing. It was one of the first protests I'd been to that wasn't a CND march, and it felt slightly more relevant, more 'everyday' than a protest for nuclear disarmament. That was a one-subject protest, but this was against the exploitation of people across the world by the people who press all the buttons and control all the money — it was about the very  hold that money and profit and greed have got on society in general. It felt more urgent to be there. I went up there on my own, and met up with lots of people. I remember the band Karma Sutra from Luton were there.  At one point, people were being violently thrust around by the cops, and I overheard one of them say, 'If you act like rats, you'll get treated like this... ', which became a line in the song and is the reason the song's called 'Rats' , which may not be an obvious name for a song about protesting against capitalism" (quoted in 'Silence Is No Reaction: Forty Years of Subhumans' by Ian Glasper).

The lyrics of the song do capture the feeling of those days (maybe especially the line  'Co-ordination was not so good, But everyone did just what they could'!):

A sense of enterprise is here, The attitudes that conquer fear

Stability, togetherness, The feeling cannot be suppressed

Hand in hand we had our say,  United we stand but so did they

Hands in handcuffs dragged away, To cheers of hate and victory!

We fought the city but no-one cared, They passed it off as just a game

The city won't stop til attitudes change, Rats in the cellars of the stock exchange

Co-ordination was not so good, But everyone did just what they could

Unarmed with inexperience, We had to use our common sense

If you act like rats you get treated like this,  Said a policeman like we didn't exist

When the force of law has lost it's head, The law of force is what you get

We fought their calculations, Money gained from third world nations

All that money spent on war, Could be used to feed their poor

The papers played the whole thing down, Said there was nothing to worry about

The rats have all gone underground, But we'll be back again next time round

See also:

Stop the City, London, March 1984

Karma Sutra and Luton anarcho-punk

The Redskins - revolutionary rock'n'roll?

The Redskins were one of the few avowedly revolutionary socialist bands in mid 1980s Britain. They also had some decent tunes as well as a very sharp look. Two members of the band were active in the Socialist Workers Party and their musical output reflected this, indeed their first and only album took its name from the SWP's defining tagline 'Neither Washington nor Moscow' (but International Socialism). The band played numerous benefit gigs, especially during the miners strike. 

We might expect the party hierarchy to have been pleased at having such a band talking up its politics in songs and in the music press. But when the band were covered in Socialist Worker in September 1984 the tone was decidely lukewarm. After acknowledging their use 'to raise funds and fuel the spirit' Ed Warburton's article 'Powerful music, political pitfalls' goes on to warn that 'the dangers are great'.  Some of the arguments are not particularly controversial - yes, the music press builds people up then knocks them down again, and 'the music business turns everything  into a commodity. Rebellion is safely packaged'. The final sentence 'you can have revolutionary rock'n'roll but you can't be a revolutionary rock star' does though read a little bit like a direct warning to the band and a lot less than a glowing endorsement.

The negative tone was certainly picked up by many and there was an outpouring of support in the letters page of the paper. Paul McGinlay from Glasgow described the article as 'cynical, uneducated' and '  that 'The Redskins are the poison in the machine, and if you'd seen them you'd know that they'd go down rather than sell out'.

A Tyneside miner likewise called the article 'insulting and narrow-minded' and said 'I say all power to the Redskins and thank them for their Victory to the Miners gigs'.

'Ed Warburton's friend' came to his defence, claiming that he hadn't been slagging off the Redskins but making a broader point of critiquing those on the left 'who believe that red bands and stars spouting socialism in the NME are the shortcut to getting our message across. All that does is turn socialism into a fashion that the rock business can turn into last year's model and discard at a whim'.

A review of miners strike music in the paper shortly after does highlight the Redskins 'Keep on keeping on' single. Seemingly the band 'aren't to everyone's taste musically, but for sheer hard work, commitment and rock 'ard politics they can't be beat'.

The band split up in 1986. Over at Moving the River I found the story announcing this from the NME with the headline 'A rock and roll socialist fantasy ends'. It reads a little like the kind of state sponsored 'apology' read out by prisoners on Chinese media with the band's Martin Bottomley bemoaning the band's drift away from 'the party and its collective discipline'. He did though make the point that 'socialists should not discount the possibilities that popular culture can present'.

The SWP's ambivalence about the band most associated with it had a number of sources I think. The first stemmed from the top down culture of the party. Essentially a small number of people did the writing and thinking for the party, the job of the thousands of other members was to distribute this by the main activity of selling the paper.  Before social media and the internet, there was very little opportunity for people to put their own political views out there unless they started their own publication. People in the SWP who had their own platform independently of the party, such as a band or a zine, were always viewed with some suspicion.

But in the case of the Redskins there was perhaps a more specific issue. To lay claim to the skinhead identity as a socialist in the early 1980s was a bold move: a  statement of intent to occupy a subcultural space that the far right thought belonged squarely to them. Inevitably this was going to get a violent response, and it did at on June 10 1984 at the Greater London Council's 'Jobs for a Change' festival  in Jubilee Gardens on the South Bank.  An estimated 150,000 went along to see The Smiths, Billy Bragg, Misty in Roots, Gil Scott-Heron and the Redskins. As the latter were playing a group of around 100 bonehead fascists stormed the front and attacked people around the stage. I was in the crowd and there was a lot of panic as most people ran to get away, despite the fascists being massively outnumbered. Later there was more fighting as the fascists regrouped and attacked the crowd at another stage where Hank Wangford was playing (see photos and full report of these events here)

By this point the SWP, who had arguably been amongst those at the forefront of militant anti-fascism in the 1970s, were in no position to respond to such attacks even if they wanted to. It had actually recently expelled some of its most militant streetfighters for the offence of 'squadism' by which they meant putting too much focus on physically opposing fascists. Those expelled went on to form Red Action which was to be the backbone of Anti Fascist Action for at least the next 10 years.  Red Action members present at the GLC Festival had fought back against the National Front while many of the left activists present faded away, and when The Redskins next played a London gig it was Red Action who provided the security. The experience of The Redskins showed that the SWP's position at the time of more or less ignoring the far right threat was untenable, not that they would ever acknowledge it. The SWP acted like nothing had happened on the South Bank and neither the event or the fascist attack fiasco were mentioned in the following week's Socialist Worker. 

From Red Action no.13, 1984:

Stand up and Spit has lots of good material about Redskins and related scenes

1984 Socialist Workers courtesy of excellent Splits and Fusions

See previously Socialism through Oi? Chris Moore (Redskins) looks at the music scene in 1982

 

The Age of Insurreckshan - LKJ in NME, 1984

From the NME, 17 March 1984, Neil Spencer interviews Linton Kwesi Johnson. Don’t call him a dub poet…

‘I’m not a dub poet and I don’t want to be classified as one… I’ve always seen myself as a poet full stop. I write mostly in the reggae tradition so my work can be described  as reggae poetry in the same way as jazz poetry, blues poetry.. but dub poetry no. I’m responsible for coining the phrase, as early as 1975 in a pamphlet I wrote called Race and Music but then I was talking about the reggae DJs and describing what they do as poetry, as dub lyricism’

[click images to enlarge]

Extract from interview:

Do you think it's important for black Britons to have a separate identity?

I think they have to forge their own identity from their own reality. The cultural gap between my generation, when we came to this country, and my children and their contemporary white friends, it's negligible.

What are you saying there? There's been no real change between conditions for blacks in Britain between then and now?

Oh, there's been changes, but we've had to fight for them. We've made a lot of progress, tremendous progress I believe, over the last 25 years, and as the events of '81 show clearly, we've moved from the era of the '50s and '60s and early '70s, which was an era of resistance, to an era of insurrection. And that is progress from my point of view.

Progress in what respect?

We're now accepted as being part of the country, even the repatriation lobby has to recognise and live with that. The state and the political parties, those who have power in this country, recognise that we have something to offer, we can swing an election particularly in marginal constituencies.

When Thatcher was running for election in 1978 she made those racist speeches about Britain being swamped by an alien culture; well, as you can see, by the last election they'd changed their tune and were trying to win the black vote.

The riots of '81 seemed almost like fulfilments of prophecies you'd made on the

first two LPs.

Well, not so much prophecies, anyone with any common sense could see it, I wasn't unique in saying those things. There had been a lot of mini-riots throughout the '70s, Basically I think the seeds were sown by the police in the '70s and things came to a head with a new generation of youth.

They were anti-police riots primarily?

Definitely. Anti-police and anti-establishment. All the foreign press reported them as race riots, and some press here too, but you and I and Joe Public know different, because though the young blacks were primarily in the leadership of those insurrections - in Brixton, Toxteth, Manchester whites were a big part of those riots.

I think a lot of the frustrations of the unemployed came out there, and were no means confined to them because a lot of those arrested and charged with looting were workers, people in jobs.

On the LP, on the title track and the tone you adopt is, not exactly rejoicing but…

Celebration! An event to be celebrated! It's an important event in the history of blacks in Britain. It's part of our making history in Britain.

Do you think it changed anything?

Of course it did.

What exactly?

I think it's given the establishment and the police a measure of what blacks can do if pushed too far. It did away with saturation policing. They've eased up a bit, been more careful how they move. Things have generally cooled down. And the project hatchers have got a bit more monev out of it.

A lot of the anger about the New Cross massacre spilled over into the riots. a lot of people can't see that, it was only a month after the day of action that the Brixton riots started.

Ad for LKJ's Making History LP from same issue of paper

See also

LKJ Interview in Socialist Challenge 1982

 

'They call themselves the Gender Benders' (1984)

I saw an online discussion recently about the origins of the term 'gender bender'. Seemingly Jon Savage used it in a 1980 article about David Bowie in The Face, and it seems to have been in use in UK/US in the 1970s if not earlier. But it was with the advent of Boy George and Culture Club that the term became applied in the popular press to a whole fashion scene/subculture. The first example I could find at British Newspaper Archive was from the Sunday Mirror, 22 January 1984, 'Gender Benders' by Linda McKay.

'They are shocking. They are outrageous. They call themselves the Gender Benders, the latest youth cult to follow in the high-heeled footsteps of bizarre pop idols Boy George and Marilyn. These days, far from simply dressing up in the privacy of their own homes, the Gender Benders are coming out of the  wardrobe. They wear their camp clothes in the streets, to the local pub and even shopping in the supermarket… The Sunday Mirror has made an in-depth investigation of the crazy new cult, which will become part of the fashion history of the 80s,

Gender Benders are are easy to spot. These days you can see them on suburban streets from Penzance to Penrith, More and more parents are discovering their children turning to astonishing new fashions that make even Boy George look butch. And It can be a terrible shock to suspect that your son is bisexual or gay. But our research shows that most Gender Benders are anything but gay. In fact, most of their blood is as red as their lipstick. They make-up and dress up entirely out of a sense of fashion. And the girls find it a turn-on and sexually attractive'

Update (27/9/2022):

For a 1970s example of the term see a letter entitled 'gender benders' in Texas Monthly (August 1978), describing a sex reassignment clinic in Houston.  Simon Reynolds (see comment below) has spotted a 1981 book by David Egnar, 'The Gender Benders: a look at the trends distorting the roles of men and women' published by Radio Bible Class, a US Christian publisher - a book bemoaning the undermining of biblical gender norms by feminism and the sexual revolution .

Miners Strike Memories: Durham Miners Rally 1984

Technically there was no Durham Miners Gala in 1984 - instead on the day the Gala would normally take place there was a miners strike rally in the city. Many of the Gala elements were still present on Saturday July 14th 1984 - a parade through the town with banners from miners' union branches, marching brass bands and speeches at the Durham racecourse, with not a little drinking. The mood was angry, determined and at this point still hopeful just a few months into the strike.

This report is from the north east of England paper 'The Sunday Sun' (15 July 1984):

'Durham looked like a city under siege yesterday as town centre pubs stayed closed and shops shuttered. But the mass invasion of miners from all over the country to take part in the biggest protest  march in the pit dispute turned out to be fairly peaceful affair. Police kept a low profile and, despite  some rowdy behaviour by a young element, there were only three arrests for disorderly conduct and obstruction.

About 10,000 people took part In a march through the  city that replaced the traditional gala celebrations, cancelled by Durham Miners' Association in a cost-cutting move because of the dispute.

Banners were paraded by contingents from every  British coalfield, but pride of place at the head of the parade - led by Bearpark and Esh Colliery Band - was the Bearpark banner. The pit, the smallest in the Durham coalfield, closed for good in the early days of the strike because reserves were exhausted. Another banner that passed by to loud cheers was that of Cortonwood Lodge-  the pit whose threatened closure sparked off the strike.

Trouble flared briefly in Durham's market square when about 50 youths clashed with police after the rally. Bottles and beer cans were thrown and three arrests were made as extra police arrived  on the scene.

There was an amazing scene when a bronzed teenage girl ran across the square with the back of her black-and-white frock torn  away exposing her bare bottom. She was last seen running along the riverside'.

I don't remember the latter episode, which seems an odd thing to report in the paper. But I was there, drinking cider and gravitating towards the 'rowdy young element' scuffling with police as was my wont at the time. I recorded in my diary: 'We sat in the market square there were about 50 people there, mainly young miners. We sang anti-police songs, eventually the cops lost their sense of humour and moved in to arrest somebody. A fight ensued'. Apart from that my main memory is of the rally at the end. Peter Heathfield and Arthur Scargill from National Union of Mineworkers spoke, but when Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock came to the platform a lot of miners turned their back on him and headed out of the park rather than listen to him, disgusted by what they saw as the Labour leadership's half hearted support for the strike.

'A priest and some punks in debate after the speeches at the rally'

Following report is from The Miner (July 1984), the NUM's newspaper: 'Tens of thousands turned up to register a single, cast iron Geordie pledge on what is traditionally the Labour movements proudest day: The North East of England is rock solid and would only be content with a 101 per cent miners' victory in defence of jobs and communities'.

Report from News Line, 16 July 1984:

There's some very evocative uncut film footage from the day at the Yorkshire Film Archive  reminding me of some of the visual elements of the strike, not just banners but hats covered in badges and the ubiquitous yellow 'coal not dole stickers'. The sounds of the strike too, colliery brass bands and people chanting 'Maggie Maggie Maggie, Out Out Out!' and singing 'we shall not be moved'.

From the film: 'Whittle Miners Wives Support Group - Coal Not Dole'. Whittle Colliery in County Durham closed in 1987.

[post last updated 5/5/2026 with addition of report from 'The News Line']

See previously:

'Sound of police truncheon against body': David Peace's miners strike soundscape

Miners demo in Mansfield 1984

Miners support in Kent

The 'Here we go' chant

What did you do in the strike - my mix of music from the strike

'Sound of police truncheon against body': David Peace's miners strike soundscape

I've written here before about music and the 1984/85 miners strike, including putting together a mix which you can find on mixcloud. But the day to day soundscape of the strike, and particulalry its picket line battles, was less about the bands playing benefit gigs  than the sounds of crowds (including some songs and chants) and sounds of the police with their vehicles, horses and riot shields.


One of the things I like about 'GB84', David Peace's fictionalised ‘occult history’ of the strike, is his description of this. He writes of  'The noise of the battle... The shouts. The sirens' and of the 'Noise of it all. Boots and Stones. Flesh and bones... They beat them shields like they beat us... I heard them again - Them hooves, them boots'.


In his visceral, multi-sensory account the author invites the reader to recall or imagine the  'sound of body against Perspex shield', 'sound of rock hitting Perspex shield' and 'sound of police truncheon against body'.


These sounds are integral to the emotional landscape of the strike which Peace also conveys very well - anger, jubilation, pain, hope, powerlessness, despair, pride...


Peace himself grew up in Ossett in what was then the West Yorkshire coalfied, and as a 17 year old at the time of the strike played miners benefits gigs with his band.