Communist Party nights out in London, 1930s

From the pages of the Daily Worker, newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, some dances and other social events in the 1930s.

Daily Worker Carnival Dance at Hoxton Baths with 'Real Red Band', December 1931:

Also from 1931, 'Great Boxing Night Revels' at New Greenwich Baths with 'South East London's Finest Dance Floor' and 'the Varsity Revels Band'. Plus Hackney National Unemployed Workers Movement social and dance at Holcroft Road school; Woodcraft Dance at Savoy Ballrooms in Dalston (presumably liked to radical scouting alternative the Woodcraft Folk) [source Daily Worker, 12 December 1931)

From 1934 - Young Communist League Flannel Dance at Bermondsey Library, Spa Road; Relief Committee for the Victims of German Fascism dance at Conway Hall; League Against Imperialism and Negro Welfare Association Social and Dance at the Pindar of Wakefield in Grays Inn Road. Plus some Eisenstein film nights. Also an advert for Nanking Chinese Restaurant at 4 Denmark Street, off Charing Cross Road 'the place for internationalists'

See also: Anarchist Dances in London, 1890s-1910s

 

Zadie Smith on jungle and Anokha at the Blue Note

I recently came across an issue of Tate magazine from 2000, a special issue celebrating the opening in that year of Tate Modern. It includes an interesting discussion between Philip Dodd and Zadie Smith, looking back over 1990s London, including the transformation of Shoreditch into Hoxton, the deaths of Stephen Lawrence and Princess Diana, and the fascist bomb attacks on Brixton, Brick Lane and Old Compton Street. One of the things Zadie Smith touches on is the Blue Note Club in Hoxton:

'It was the last of the community clubbing experiences. It was artificial because it was partly to do with fame. You'd have a lot of people in there pretending that they couldn't see Bjork, who was standing right next to them. Yet the whole of the club was in one corner of the room circled around Bjork. It was about fame, but it was these people who did have quite a huge amount of fame who seemed perfectly willing to hang out with you, smoke with you, have a drink. Everybody was having a laugh.

Firstly, I was a Sunday kid, for the jungle, but you went to Anokha, on Monday, to see all that explosion of Asianness. When it first happened it was so exciting. We could see Talvin [Singh] doing so well. Bhangra has been going on in Wembley and Bradford for years. but he just changed it slightly, added a bit more of a western sound to it and everybody loved it. On jungle nights, MCs used to say a lot of cheesy things over the top of it like "black and white unite", but it did feel like that'

(I never went to Anokha at Blue Note, but I did go to the night they put on around that time at The Vibe Bar, called Calcutta Cyber Cafe)