Chris Killip (1946-2020): photos of punks, pits and more

Some great images of 1980s North East (among other places) in the Chris Killip retrospective at the Photographers Gallery

There's quite a few shots of Gateshead anarcho-punks in around 1985, where Killip documented nights at The Station, the venue set up by Gateshead Musicians Collective. Lots of Crass, Conflict and Flux of Pink Indians t-shirts.

The miners strike also features, with images from Easington colliery in the Durham coalfield and the 1984 Durham Miners gala (featured here previously)

At Photographers Gallery, London until 19 February 2022

 

'Riot in Whitehall': London Miners Strike Demo 1985

In February 1985 the miners strike in Britain was in its last few weeks. A highly organised state sponsored strike breaking operation was having an effect, and more than 150 miners had been jailed for their activities during the strike. 

It's surprizing that nearly a year after the strike started there had not been a major demonstration in London in support of the miners (other than a lobby of parliament in June 1984), but one was called by the South East region of the Trades Union Congress, along with the Liaison Committee for the Defence of the Trade Unions, on Sunday February 24th 1985. 

Notice of demo in Socialist Worker

As usual estimates of the crowd varied - the organisers said more than 50,000, the police only 15,000 which was a ludicrously low number. The demo went from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, and scuffles broke out as the police arrested a couple of miners in Whitehall and a section of the crowd refused to move on demanding their release. A cordon of police blocked the top of Whitehall to try and stop people from the main body of the demo in Trafalgar Square joining this, before mounted police charged in to clear the area.

If it was a riot it was a fairly one sided one. Some missiles were thrown at police but mostly ineffectual  sticks, plastic bottles and empty cans which were no match for charging horses and swinging batons. My main memory is of panic and chaos as horses charged and police on foot piled into the crowd to try and make arrests. Some people were crushed and I remember demonstrators climbing on to police lorries loaded with metal crowd control barriers and pushing the barriers into the street to try and block the police advance. More than 100 people were arrested.

The photos I took on the day aren't great but hopefully they do convey some of that chaos. 

Police in Hyde Park at start of demo

Red and black flags on demo

Crowd and police outside Whitehall Theatre of War (this was an exhibition of WW2 memorabilia)

Here comes the police horses...

A demonstrator is comforted after police charge 

Demonstrator makes ironic nazi salute at police as horses move into crowd

'Riot in Whitehall' - Black Flag, 18 March 1985

'On February 24th a huge march of 80,000 miners and their supporters was held in London, in a festive atmosphere. The feeling of solidarity was destroyed when plain clothes police and uniformed police arrested 2 Notts miners as their part of the March neared the Theatre of War in Whitehall. Police and miners were quick to respond, with skirmishes breaking out as police snatch squads went for people only to have them snatched back by the crowd, as sticks and bottles rained down on the police lines which had halted the demo.

TV cameramen were pushed aside as they zoomed in for sensation, as a steward with a loudhailer told everyone to go to Trafalgar Square. Abused, and asked whose side he was on, he accused "outside agitators" of causing trouble which he later changed to "anarchists" and "students".

Meanwhile the march was staying put, determined not to move until the Notts miners were released. The police withdrew, while a large crowd gathered outside 10 Downing Street (chants of "Maggie, we want you...DEAD! echoed and bands played the catchy tune 'Here We Go, Here We Go!) and people milled around in Whitehall which was clear of traffic.

Then in a new tactic and with new cops the police moved in again about 100 strong making arrests only to find themselves surrounded and given a good kicking. A Superintendant's hat was thrown up in the air, to cheers. During the pushing and shoving, an elderly man was seen hitting the backs of cops legs with his walking stick! A cry of 'Horses' went up, and the helmets of the mounted police could be seen over the heads of the police lines.

Then a crushing line of police moved forward, in a pincer style strategy to break up the crowd, forcing people into side streets off Whitehall. Children who were placed in safety on ledges, behind

fences, were dragged out by the cops, some people were viciously beaten as they were chased, jumped on and dragged to vans and into Whitehall buildings. One woman lost consciousness as her head was bashed on the pavement by the five cops arresting her. Stacks of crowd barriers were thrown off nearby trucks.

About 30 mounted police cleared Whitehall crushing people against railings and then charging into groups of marchers without warning. Some people arrested were taken into the Horseguards area, and beaten up. There was a shortage of missiles to throw at the police at one stage a pile of Socialist Workers (the papers not the individual Trots) got thrown at a police line, and someone said "best use for them yet!!"

While being arrested a man got his leg trapped under a parked car - the police yanked him so violently that his leg broke. He is still in hospital. Ministry of Defence windows were smashed, and a police motorbike overturned, as crowds withdrew to Embankment, police in pursuit trying to give the impression that everything was under control.

There were 121 arrests, in all, including some DAM [Direct Action Movement] members. Many people had to have hospital treatment, and 13 people were held overnight. Police were also hospitalised. The general feeling was of amazement that a day for celebration of solidarity had been turned around so viciously by the police. And, on the other side, the police had learnt that these marchers weren't going to take attacks on them lying down'.

'Gay in thick of Whitehall battle' - Capital Gay, 1 March 1985

'The day began peacefully in Hyde Park, and there was loud applause for the Lesbian and Gay Support the Miners banner as it left the park. But while the march was still filing into Trafalgar Square police blocked off both ends of Whitehall and arrested two miners. Soon afterwards all other exits from Whitehall were sealed off. Detachments of mounted police in riot gear formed in Parliament Square and Horse Guards and charged into the crowded street. The large and conspicuous lesbian and gay contingent found itself in the centre of the charge and found it impossible to make their escape from the horses surrounding them. Observers told Capital Gay "The police drew night sticks and struck out indiscriminately at the marchers"' (Capital Gay, 1 March 1985)

'Pit Violence Comes to Whitehall' - Daily Mail, 25 February 1985

'Pit strike demonstrators battled with police in Whitehall yesterday. In scenes reminiscent of picket line violence, a surging mob hurled stones, chunks of wood and plastic beer bottles at officers. Close to the Houses of Parliament, mounted police rode in to disperse the crowd...

The first fighting started outside Whitehall's Theatre of War with the black and red flag of the International Anarchists Movement at the thick of it. As Mr Arthur Scargill, miners' union president, Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn and others spoke to the massed crowd in Trafalgar Square, skirmishes started again. 

[...] Among other groups which took part in the march were the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers Party and some lesser-known pressure groups such as the Orient Supporters Against Pit Closures, London Gays for the Miners and the the Iranians Popular Organisations for the Miners'.

'100 held as police tackle miners' - Guardian, 25 February 198

'One group of demonstrators, including women and children, were pressed against railings as police horses moved in on both sides of them. Children were lifted over railings to comparative safety but some fell under the police horses'.  The picture shows demonstrators climbing on to a statue of Charles I.

Update - some additional photos from the day provided by downlander

(thanks to LGSMPride who posted the Capital Gay clipping recently)

See previously on the 1984/5 miners strike:

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

Miners demo in Mansfield 1984

Miners demo in Durham 1984

Miners support in Kent

The 'Here we go' chant

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

 

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'.

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 10/8/2022 with addition of report from 'The Miner']

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

1937: Police raid Harworth Striking Miners' Dance

In 1936/37 there was a long and bitter miners’ strike in Nottinghamshire centred on Harworth colliery, sparked by the refusal of mine owners to recognise the miners’ trade union of choice. The incident described here took place at a dance the night after a conflict between strikers on the one hand and police and strike breakers on the other. 36 people were arrested over the week, with 12 people eventually jailed for up to two years for ‘riotous assembly’ (these charges related to the picket line clashes rather than the dance hall incident).

‘The audience at the Harworth cinema was locked in last night prior to a police raid on the miners’ dance in the Market Hall a few doors away. Police went to the dance hall, arrested a number of men and then ordered the MC to get on with the dance.

Reinforcements of police then entered the small Town Hall, women dancers were separated from their partners, and what amounted to a pitched battle took place, the police freely using their batons. Men and women fought their way out into the narrow road way where the struggle continued for over 20 minutes.

Eye-witnesses report that injured men were lying all over the place. Women were crying, the whole village was in an uproar and the audience unable to leave the cinema. A call was sent out for Doctors to come to the village and attend to the scores of injured men. A number had to be taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital in Doncaster, nearly 10 miles away.

The five men arrested at the dance were charged at midnight last night before a special sitting of the Worksop (Notts) magistrates. They were Michael Kane, President of the Harworth branch of the Notts Miners Association, James Mould, Cornelius Fergusson, Frank Jobson and Samuel McCoombe and all were remanded in custody until Monday...

It is understood that warrants have been issued for the arrest of a number of other men, who are stated to be moving freely around the village but no attempt has yet been made to take any of them. Saturday night’s incident is the culmination to a very tense situation in Harworth during the past few days.

Following the national miners ballot declaration in support of the Harworth miners who have been out on strike 24 weeks in defence of the right to join the Notts Miners Association, the men remaining at work have adopted a very provocative attitude. Strikers pickets have been very small in number and members of the “chain gang” being escorted to the pit by the police have stepped out of the ranks and challenged individual members of the picket to a stand-up fight.

On Friday night a busload of scabs from Dinnington, Yorkshire were very provocative at the pit gates. Stone-throwing took place and every window in the bus was smashed. The police endeavoured to disperse the picket calling blacklegs who were off duty from the colliery company welfare club to their assistance.

The blacklegs brought with them billiard cues with which they struck at the strikers. A pitched battle ensued and the police and black legs retreated.

No arrests were made. On Saturday morning strong reinforcements of police were brought into Harworth by bus and cars... Everything was quiet during the day and the arrest of men at the dance, after they have been walking openly about the village all day long is regarded as particularly provocative. It will be recalled that the Council of civil liberties has already issued a report strongly critical of the police methods employed in this dispute, a state of terror having reigned in the village for nearly 24 weeks.

Women have been forbidden to go to the shops to make purchases, strikers attacked by scabs in their own gardens and young strikers waylaid and beaten up by gangs on the way home from neighbouring towns at the weekends’ [source: Daily Worker, 26 April 1937]

Mick Kane, arrested in the dance hall raid, was released from prison in August 1938 - marked by a demonstration in Sheffield (source: Daily Worker, 3 September 1938)

'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.

What did you do in the strike? A miners strike mix

It is now more than 30 years since the 1984-85 miners strike, the last great stand of what had once been seen as the most militant and powerful section of the working class in Britain. The dispute started in South Yorkshire in March 1984 with miners walking out in response to the announcement that Cortonwood pit was threatened with closure. The miners claimed that there was a Government and coal board plan to close down large parts of the industry, and the National Union of Mineworkers called a national strike.

The strike finished a year later in defeat. The miners’ claims that the industry was under threat were soon proved correct – the last deep mine in the UK closed last December. The full forces of the state were mobilised against the strike. New laws were passed, more than 11,000 arrests were made and almost 200 miners were imprisoned.

On the other side there was significant support for the strike, with miners support groups being set up across the country. On the music front there were many benefit gigs involving a wide spectrum from folk singers to punk bands, and as the strike progressed songs were written about it and records released. What follows is a mix I have put together of music related to the miners strike. It includes songs and tracks about the strike, mostly from the time of the dispute but in some cases looking back in its aftermath. The mix also includes some spoken word recollections from the strike, including my own of one particular day in Mansfield. It reflects the diversity of the musical output related to the strike, so does leap from industrial noise to acoustic ballads – and in some cases mixes the two together. The collision of Norma Waterson and Test Dept sounds great!

The mix is based on a set I played in March 2014 at an Agit Disco benefit night for Housmans bookshop, held at Surya, Pentonville Road, London N1. It included a selection of DJs most of whom had contributed to Stefan Szczelkun’s Agit Disco project/book on political music. The full line up included: Sian Addicott, Martin Dixon, John Eden, Marc Garrett, Nik Górecki, Caroline Heron, Stewart Home, Paul Jamrozy (Test Dept), Micheline Mason, Tracey Moberly, Luca Paci, Simon Poulter, Howard Slater, Andy T, Neil Transpontine. Tom Vague and Stefan Szczelkun. I chose to focus on music relating to the miners strike as the event took place in the week of the 30th anniversary of the start of the strike. This is not a recording of the live set, but a mix put together later reflecting what I played that night. If some of the sound quality is not great, hopefully it will stimulate you to search further...

Here's the full playlist with some details of the tracks:

00:00 Keresley Pit Women’s Support Group - You won’t find me on the picket line

From 7” EP ‘Amnesty – reinstate and set them free’ put out by Banner Theatre company in 1985

00: 21 South Wales Striking Miners Choir – Comrades in Arms

From the album Shoulder to Shoulder by Test Dept and South Wales Striking Miners Choir (1985)

01:19 – John Tams - Orgreave

From BBC Radio Ballads: The Ballad of The Miner's Strike (2010), including miners recalling  the Orgreave picket.

03:58 - Test Dept – Fuel to Fight

From the album Shoulder to Shoulder by Test Dept and South Wales Striking Miners Choir (1985)

04:32 – Norma Waterson – Coal not Dole

Song written by Kay Sutcliffe and originally recorded by Eve Bland for the album 'Which Side Are You On: Music For The Miners From The North East' (1985). The song has also been recorded by artists including The Happy End (1987), Chumbawamba (1992), The Oyster Band and Norma Waterson. The song’s popularity perhaps relates to its melancholy anticipation of the actual outcome of the strike – not a heroic victory but the desolation of closed mines and industrial ruins. Sutcliffe asked ‘What will become of this pit-yard, Where men once trampled faces hard?’, imagining a future of ‘tourists gazing round. Asking if men once worked here, Way beneath this pit-head gear’. Now all the pits have closed all that remains is the National Coal Mining Museum. 

 

07:46 - Dave Burns – Maerdy, Last Pit in the Rhondda

A song written by Dave Rogers of Birmingham-based Banner Theatre, it was recorded by Dave Burns for his album ‘Last pit in the Rhondda’ (1986), released with the backing of South Wales NUM with proceeds ‘to help miners sacked as a result of the 84/85 strike’. Like ‘Coal Not Dole’, the song’s image of the strike-imposed silence of the mine foreshadows its future: ‘There's mist down in the valley and the snow lies on the hill, No men walk through the empty street the pit lies quiet and still’

11:29 – Bourbonese Qualk – Blackout

From the compilation album Here we go: A celebration of the first year of the U.K Miner's Strike 1984-1985 (Sterile Records 1985), featuring bands associated with the industrial scene.

12:00 – Neil Transpontine – Mansfield Memories

My recollections of the violent end to a miners demonstration in May 1984

13:25 - Dick Gaughan – Ballad of 84
 

First performed at a benefit for sacked miners at Woodburn Miners Welfare Club in Dalkeith, Midlothian in 1985, this song recalls the strikers who died amidst the massive police operation:

‘Let's pause here to remember the men who gave their lives, Joe Green and David Jones were killed in fighting for their rights / But their courage and their sacrifice we never will forget / And we won't forget the reason, too, they met an early death / For the strikebreakers in uniforms were many thousand strong / And any picket who was in the way was battered to the ground / With police vans driving into them and truncheons on the head’

 
17:26 – The Enemy Within – Strike

The Enemy Within was John Deguid and Marek Kohn, produced by Adrian Sherwood and Keith LeBlanc with sampled speech from Arthur Scargill. Released on Rough Trade 1984 – insert sleeve included statement – ‘Play this record at six and support the miners' campaign to create a surge of demand for power at six o'clock every evening!’

19:18 Council Collective – Soul Deep

Paul Weller and Mick Talbot’s Style Council with guests including Motown singer Jimmy Ruffin, Dee C. Lee, Junior Giscombe, Dizzy Hites and Vaughan Toulouse: 'Getcha mining soul deep with a lesson in history, There's people fighting for their communities, Don't say their struggle does not involve you, If you're from the working class it's your struggle too'.

19:30 – Ann Scargill

Spoken word reflection on women joining the picket line by one of the founders of Women Against Pit Closures.

22:34 and 24:55 - Alan Sutcliffe

Excerpts from speech by Kent miner, taken from the album Shoulder to Shoulder by Test Dept and South Wales Striking Miners Choir (1985). Last April (2015) I went to a great Test Dept film/book launch at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton. Alan Sutcliffe was there in the audience and said a few words.

25:28 – Nocturnal Emissions - Bring power to its knees

This track was included on the compilation album Here we go: A celebration of the first year of the U.K. Miner's Strike 1984-1985 (Sterile Records 1985).  This version is from the 1985 album 'Songs of Love and Revolution'.

27:33 – Pulp – Last day of the miners strike

‘overhead the sound of horses' hooves, people fighting for their lives’. From the 2002 album ‘Hits’

31:54 - Chumbawamba – Fitzwilliam

From the compilation album ‘Dig This: A Tribute To The Great Strike’ (Forward Sounds International, 1985). 'Smiles for the cameras as the miners return,  They say no one has lost and no one has gained,  But wiser and stronger the people have changed,  And it won't be the same in Fitzwilliam again'.

34:23 – Banner Theatre song group - Amnesty

Includes spoken word by miners from Keresley Pit, Coventry. From 7” EP ‘Amnesty – reinstate and set them free’ put out by Banner Theatre company in 1985

38:50 - The Country Pickets - Daddy (what did you do in the strike)

From the album ‘Which side are you on ?’ (Which Side Records, 1985) – song written by Ewan MacColl, his version was included on a cassette he and Peggy Seeger put out in 1984. ‘Daddy what did you do in the strike’ on their Blackthorn records was 'a musical documentation of the 1984 miners strike' with 'profits to National Union of Mineworkers'.

42:35 - Style Council – A stone’s throw away

An internationalist response linking the miners strike with other struggles across the world at that time: 'For liberty there is a cost, it's broken skull and leather cosh, from the boys in uniform, now you know what side they're on... In Chile, In Poland, Johannesburg, South Yorkshire, A stone's throw away, now we're there'.

See also other posts about the miners strike:

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

'Riot in Whitehall' - London Miners demo 1985

Miners strike memories: Durham miners rally 1984

Miners demo in Mansfield 1984

Miners support in Kent

The 'Here we go' chant

Obligatory Thatcher Death Post

Effigy of Thatcher at the party in Trafalgar Square last night - the hair made out of Sainsbury's carrier bags
(insert joke about grocers' daughter here)

When Margaret Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister in November 1990, me and my workmates at a north London hospital invited some like minded people over to our HIV unit to share a bottle of champagne. Later some of us went down to a party in Trafalgar Square to continue the celebrations. Although Thatcher was forced out of power by a Conservative Party leadership challenge, there was no doubt even then that the poll tax movement, including the riots in central London on March 31 1990, was a major factor in her fall from grace.

After ten years or more of defeats at the hands of Thatcher and her cronies it felt great to have been part of something that had shown that they were not invincible, even if it didn't turn out to be quite the political turning point we'd expected - within a few months we were engulfed in the horrors of the Gulf War.

The end of Thatcher's career was a politically significant event - the death from natural causes of a very old woman many year later in her bed is not. But the Margaret Hilda Thatcher who died in the Ritz Hotel was only a minor component of the mythical 'Margaret Thatcher' that dominated Britain in the 1980s. The mythical Maggie was an almost superhuman figure, single-minded, all-powerful, ruthlessly vanquishing her foes and transforming the country and indeed the world on a couple of hours sleep a night. This myth of the Iron Lady was carefully cultivated by Conservative party strategists and a fawning press. But it was also built up by opponents on the left who credited her with a new doctrine of 'Thatcherism' and more broadly by all those who turned her into a symbol of secular evil (a witch, no less) and who chanted endlessly on demos 'Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Out, Out, Out' as if what later became known as the neo-liberal offensive against the working class was a one person operation. 

I remember causing controversy selling this at a Luton Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament event in 1985. People also used to chant 'one more cut, Maggie's throat' on demos. With hindsight I wonder whether such sentiments were a symptom of weakness - the violent fantasies of the powerless and defeated.

If you go back now and read contemporary radical analysis of the 1970s it is striking how much of what was later branded as Thatcherism had already been identified before she even came to power .  For instance, 1978's Policing the Crisis by Stuart Hall et al saw the 'The Law and Order Society' taking shape throughout the 1970s, under both Labour and Conservative governments, with the post-war consensus breaking down as a result of economic crisis. Of course Thatcher's government may have accelerated some of these tendencies, but they were neither new nor Thatcher's idea (Brendan O'Neill's 2008 piece on The Myth of Thatcherism is lucid on this, though I'm still open to argument that there were some novel features of the Thatcher regime, such as deliberately pitching its appeal to upwardly mobile working class people).  Her global role is also exaggerated and distorted - the supposed champion of freedom wasn't quite the ally of Polish workers that she sometimes pretended to be, and she backed the murderous leftist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia as well as the murderous rightist Pinochet in Chile.

Several hundred people partied outside the Ritzy cinema in Brixton on the day that Thatcher died

Still if the myth was... well a myth... the pain was real.  Thatcher was the figurehead for a regime which oversaw state violence, economic misery and mass tragedy with seeming indifference to the lives of those affected. For people in or around the mining industry, the 'Battle of the Beanfield', the nationalist community in the north of Ireland, Hillsborough and more, it was personal. In fact much of what was dismissed as left wing paranoia at the time has been proven to be true - yes, the police really did lie and cover up what happenened at Hillsborough; yes, British agents really were involved in the murder of Irish lawyer Pat Finucane etc. etc.  So no great surprizes that Thatcher's death has prompted celebrations in Belfast, Brixton, Bristol and Glasgow, and by Liverpool fans, among others.

Trafalgar Square last night

Last night's anti-Thatcher party in London's Trafalgar Square felt like a gathering of some of the scattered remains of Thatcher's Enemy Within. Among the 2-3,000 in the rain, there was an Irish tricolor and starry plough flag, a National Union of Mineworkers banner (shown below), and plenty of ageing punks, anarchists and socialists.

I went along despite some misgivings... In terms of a political response to the situation we face today, rehashing the 1980s is a dead end. What confronts us not a hangover from a 1980s political project ('Thatcherism') but a global economic system that seems incapable of matching the enormous potential of human creativity with even the basic human needs for shelter, security and a half decent standard of living, no matter which politicians appear to be in charge... Getting older and having to deal with the death of friends and family has also robbed me of taking any pleasure in other people's bereavement, even if in 1984 I would have been quite happy to see the Cabinet blown up in Brighton... And yes it's just as problematic today as it was in the 1980s to go on about a woman, even a Prime Minister, as a witch and a bitch...

Still I went to Traflagar Square, partly because having lived through the rest of the story I felt I had to be there for the final chapter, partly because I wanted to show my solidarity with those victimised by the press including individuals named and shamed in national newspapers for just liking a facebook page. Some people were there to gleefully dance on Thatcher's grave, others just wanted to remember those who died and suffered under her rule. As a party it wasn't great, it was pouring with rain and the music was limited by the police stopping sound systems, quoting Trafalgar Square bye-laws (of course there were some samba drummers).

Still the point was made - whatever else people might think about this week's anti-Thatcher parties and related campaign to put Judy Garland's Ding Dong the Witch is Dead to the top of the charts* they have blown a hole in the fake national consensus that would have celebrated Thatcher as a political saint. The ghosts of the struggles of the 1980s have re-emerged to challenge their erasure from history - even if they do not point a way forward they cannot be forgotten and still have much to teach us.

Police surround sound system in Traflalgar Square

* Ding Dong the Witch is Dead' ended up as number 2 in the 'official' BBC Charts, although it topped the iTunes chart for much of the week.

Nostell Priory Festival 1984

Nostell Priory Music Festival was held near Wakefield in West Yorkshire in 1984, a commercial festival with performances from Van Morrison, The Band, The Danmed and many others. It was also the scene of a violent police operation against the Convoy of festival travellers that prefigured the notorious Battle of the Beanfield in the following year.

The Convoy had emerged from the UK free festival scene in the late 1970s, as a nomadic community moving between festivals in trucks, vans and converted buses. For many travelling became a way of life all year round, not just in the summer festival season with the term New Age Travellers being invented to describe them. The name 'Peace Convoy' became attached to the Convoy as the peace camps at Greenham Common and Molesworth cruise missile bases became added to the itinerary. For instance in 1982, the Convoy arrived at Greenham and occupied land for a 'Cosmic Counter-Cruise Carnival'.

Thus the Convoy was lined up in the Thatcher Government's sights as part of The Enemy Within, along with striking miners, peace campaigners, Irish republicans and other dissidents.

At Nostell Priory, as at many other festivals including Glastonbury in that period, the Convoy has established its own more anarchic area on the edge of the commercial festival. As the festival came to an end, riot police raided the site, arrested 360 travellers (almost all present) and trashed their tents, benders and vehicles. Many of them were remanded in custody for up to two weeks - including in an army prison - before being convicted by magistrates on various trumped up charges.

There's a good interview with the late Phil Shakesby by Andy Worthington which describes what happened. Here's an extract:

'It was the time of the miners’ strike, and the police had been herding them off into a field and battling it out with them. When the police steamed into Nostell Priory, they were fresh from beating up this bloody mega-wodge of miners. The first we knew of it was about half past eleven, when Alex came steaming past my gaff shouting, ‘The Old Bill’s coming up!’ As I leapt outside and looked up this huge field, there was these great big blocks of bobbies, just like the Roman epics, at least four or five hundred of them. And they came charging across the field towards us, with these batons banging on their riot shields, shouting a war cry. Oh, my goodness!

They surrounded us just right of the marquee. At that point we were well and truly sorted. As I say, they had these mega bloody riot sticks, and wagons chasing through the site running into benders. Now they didn’t know whether there was anybody in these benders, and they’d run into them at high speed, just loving the way that they exploded. The tarp and all the poles would blow out, scattering the contents all over the place'.

Interestingly in terms of what we are beginning to find out about police infiltration of movements in this period, Phil recalls that undercover police were also active in The Convoy:  'The other thing that went down: these guys that looked just like us — there was about seven of them. They’d infiltrated us that summer and done a bloody good job. They’d been wheeling and dealing along with some of the other lads that did that kind of thing. As we’re surrounded, people are getting these lumps out of their back pockets and shoving them to one side. They were arresting us — arm up the back — and filing us out through the crowd and pushing us into the main bulk of the bobbies with the tackle'.

 

The following contemporary account comes from Green Anarchist magazine (Nov/Dec 1984) at the time:

 

'Previously the Convoy had been told by the police that there would be no trouble, as long as they moved on peacefully and got out of Yorkshire. It then seems likely, after a report that the Yorkshire police chief said that "they were powerless to act against the Convoy" that Thatcher hit the ceiling, and demanded action. Next morning at 5 am, 3 coaches and 10 van loads of riot police surrounded the camp. As the Convoy retreated to the Marquee the police trashed their vehicles, smashed windows, tearing out wiring with the excuse of looking for guns. There were no guns.

They then demanded to talk to the Convoy's leader 'Boris'. They had got that wrong too. Boris is the goose. The Convoy started quacking. But they were surrounded... [later] Back at the site, a scene of wreckage, the Convoy who had just donated to the miners, were helped by them with food and tools to mend the vans and 45 gallons of diesel, and gave their addresses for bail' (Convoy Arrested, Green Anarchist, Nov/Dec.84).

My Agit Disco mix

Stefan Szczelkun asked me to put together a selection for his Agit Disco series of mixes of political music. You can read my effort at his site as well as previous mixes by the likes of Simon Ford, Stewart Home and Tom Vague. I recommend that you spend some time browsing the whole site and its related blog.

The mix might not win any prizes for DJing, for a start there is no consistent sound as it covers everything from folk to techno via punk. But I can guarantee that there's some stuff here that you won't have heard before - some of it from old cassette tapes of stuff that has never been released.



Tracklisting:

1. UK Decay – For my Country (1980)
2. Karma Sutra – Wake the Red King (1985)
3. No Defences - Keep Running (1985)
4. Bikini Kill – Rebel Girl (1993)
5. Chumbawamba – Fitzwilliam (1985)
6. Hot Ash - Bloody Sunday – This is a Rebel Song (1991)
7. Planxty – Arthur McBride (1973)
8. Half a Person – The Last of England (2006)
9. McCarthy – The Procession of Popular Capitalism (1987)
10. Joe Smooth – Promised Land (1987)
11. Atmosfear – Dancing in Outer Space (1979)
12. Roteraketen – Here to Go (1999)
13. Metatron – Men Who Hate the Law (1993)
14. Lochi – London Acid City (1996)
15. Galliano – Travels the Road (Junglist Dub Mix) (1994)
16. Roy Rankin & Raymond Naptali - New Cross Fire (1981)
17. Afrikan Boy – Lidl (2006)
18. 99 Posse – Salario Garantito (1992)
18. The Ballistic Brothers – London Hooligan Soul (1995)

Introduction

I’ve spent many years cogitating on the politics of music and the music of politics so wasn’t quite sure where to start with an Agitdisco mix. So I’ve decided to loosely follow an autobiographical thread of tracks that I associate with politically significant moments in my life.

UK Decay – For my Country (1980)

I grew up in Luton, where UK Decay were the best of the first wave punk bands. ‘For My Country’ is an anti-war song clearly influenced by the First World War poets (Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est in particular). I was at school when this came out and getting involved in politics for the first time, helping to set up Luton Peace Campaign which became the local branch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, resurgent in the face of plans to locate Cruise nuclear missiles in Britain.

Karma Sutra – Wake the Red King (1985) download

In the mid-1980s I was very involved in the anarcho-punk scene in Luton. Political songs were ten a penny in this milieu, but I guess more significantly the singers (mostly) really meant it – there was no real separation between ‘entertainers’ and ‘activists’. The people going to gigs, forming bands, doing zines, were the same people going hunt sabbing and on Stop the City. At that time I seemed to spend large parts of my life in the back of a van, between gigs, demos and animal rights actions.

The main local band in this scene was Karma Sutra. For a little while I took my Wasp synthesiser down to their practices but it didn’t really work out, so I never played with them live. However, this demo tape version of their track Wake the Red King has my rumbling synth tone at the beginning. The title refers to Alice in Wonderland, I can’t make out all the lyrics but it sounds like the kind of situationist-influenced diatribe they specialised in – they later released an album, Daydreams of a Production Line Worker.

No Defences – Keep Running (1985) download

When people think about anarcho-punk they often have in mind lots of identikit sub-Crass/Conflict thrash punk bands. There was plenty of that – and some of it was really good – but there was also quite a lot of musical diversity, from more melodic humourists like Blyth Power to mutant funksters like Slave Dance. One of the most interesting bands on the whole scene were No Defences, who as far as I know never released a record apart from a track on a compilation album. They were mesmerising live, delivering monotone litanies of abuse and rage over sophisticated time signatures. I saw them at squat gigs in London (including at the Ambulance Station, Old Kent Road), and they came to Luton to play at a hunt sabs benefit gig we put on at Luton Library Theatre, also featuring Chumbawamba. This track was recorded that night (30.5.1985). – ‘we don’t live anywhere, no sense of being in the world…’

Bikini Kill – Rebel Girl (1993)

I was lucky enough to see some of the great post-punk women-led bands live, including The Slits, The Raincoats, Essential Logic, Au Pairs and the Delta 5. The feminism and sexual politics of that time have had a life long influence on me. Ten years later, these bands started getting their critical dues again with the birth of the Riot Grrrl and Queercore scenes. I used to go and see my late friend Katy Watson (of Shocking Pink and Bad Attitude feminist zines) DJing at London queercore clubs including Up to the Elbow and Sick of it All. Bikini Kill were the key US Riot Grrrl band: ‘when she talks I hear the revolution…’.

Chumbawamba – Fitzwilliam (1985)

I was living in Kent when the 1984-5 miners strike started and helped set up a Miners Support Group linked to strikers at the three local pits (now all closed). I was also in Ramsgate in 1985 on the day the Kent miners voted to return to work, ending the strike. It was an intense year for me of pickets, demonstrations, collections and many, many arguments. Chumbawamba played an important role in swinging the anarcho-punk scene behind the strike – initially some people had the ludicrous line of ‘why should I support meat eating men working in an environmentally unsound industry?’. Fitzwilliam describes the end of the strike in a Yorkshire mining village – ‘it won’t be the same in Fitzwilliam again…’ This song was released on ‘Dig This – A Tribute to the Great Strike’. Some years later, I was involved in the Poll Tax Prisoners Support Group (Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign) and we threw a party at our Brixton flat for a couple of people acquitted of charges relating to the 1990 poll tax riot – one of them an ex-miner from that part of Yorkshire.

Hot Ash - Bloody Sunday - This is a Rebel Song (1991)

I went to Derry in 1992 and took part in the demonstration to mark the 20th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when 13 people were killed by British troops. This song, from the 1991 Hot Ash album Who Fears to Speak, is about that event. At the start of this track there is a recording of the Jim O’Neill/Robert Allsopp Memorial Flute Band from New Lodge Road in Belfast. I was involved in the Troops Out Movement and prisoner support at this time and went on lots of Irish marches in London and Belfast. There were always flute bands on the march, giving rise to one of my pet theories (which may have no basis whatsoever) that there is a connection between the popularity of bass drum-led republican and loyalist flute bands in N.Ireland and Scotland and the popularity of bass drum-led variants of electronic dance music in these places (e.g happy hardcore and gabber in the late 1990s).

Planxty – Arthur McBride (1973)

Around this time I started to learn to play the mandolin, and began taking part in music sessions in pubs playing mainly Irish and some Scottish tunes. This was a new kind of collective music making for me, more fluid and inclusive than a band format, with less of a boundary between performers and audience – but with each session having its own unwritten rules of operation. The first song I sang on my own, at a party near Elephant and Castle, was the anti-recruiting song Arthur McBride. I learnt it from the version recorded by Planxty on their 1973 debut album. I saw Planxty play in Dublin in 1994, at a big May Day festival to mark the 100th anniversary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

Half a Person – The Last of England (2006) - download

… from here it was a step to writing my own songs. This is a demo version of a little anti-nationalist ditty I have performed a few times, most recently in my ‘Half a Person’ guise at a benefit last year for the Visteon workers at Rampart Social Centre.

McCarthy - The Procession of Popular Capitalism (1987)

I enjoyed the indie-pop jingly jangly guitar scene in the second half of the 1980s and had some great nights at the Camden Falcon, a music pub at its heart. There was little in the way of explicit politics, although the cultivation of a ‘twee’ subjectivity also represented a refusal of ‘adult’ roles of worker/housewife/consumer and (for boys) of macho posturing. Bands like Talulah Gosh were later cited as an influence on the Riot Grrrl scene. McCarthy weren't really part of that scene but they had a similar sound combined with the much more overtly political lyrics of Malcolm Eden. This song is a typically Brechtian tale of penniless pickpockets and wealthy ‘Captains of Industry’, the latter singing ‘This is your country too! Join our procession, that's marching onwards to war’.

Joe Smooth – Promised Land (1987)

In the early 1990s I started going to squat raves and then to a whole range of techno and house clubs. This turned my conception of music and politics upside down, along with other aspects of my life. As a result I have come to see the political significance of a musical event as arising from the relations between people rather than the content of a song or performance. So, for instance, a crowd dancing together in a field to a commercial pop record might be more subversive than an audience in a concert hall listening to socialist songs. Dancefloors and festivals can be important for the constitution of communities and political subjects, almost regardless of the soundtrack. Promised Land is a Chicago house classic that combines this affirmation of community with a hope for a better world, articulated in the religious language frequently used in Black American music: ‘Brothers, Sisters, One Day we will be free. From Fighting, Violence, People Crying in the Streets’. I once heard Chicago legend Marshall Jefferson play this track at a club in Shoreditch.

Atmosfear – Dancing in Outer Space (1979)

I was involved in the Association of Autonomous Astronauts (AAA) from 1995 to 2000. My node of the network was Disconaut AAA, and I was particularly interested in the way space had been used as a speculative playground in jazz, disco and funk, a zone into which could be projected utopian visions of life beyond gravi-capital, racism and poverty (think Sun Ra's Space is the Place or George Clinton's Mothership mythos). Atmosfear's Dancing in Outer Space is a lesser known UK disco/jazz funk classic – this is a Masters at Work remix of the track.

Roteraketen – Here to Go (1999) download

The AAA put out a Rave In Space compilation, and I contributed to this track on it with Jason Skeet (DJ Aphasic). Actually my contribution was mainly supplying the sample and the name. Rote Raketen (red rockets) was the name of a communist cabaret troupe in 1920s Germany. The sample is from Yuri Gagarin's first space flight. I have an ambivalent attitude to the US and Soviet space programmes, undoubtedly rooted in Cold War industrial militarism, but also representing a period of optimism in the possibility of the continual expansion of human subjectivity. One day community-based spaced exploration will be a reality!

Metatron – Men Who Hate the Law (1993)

I was involved with various projects at the 121 Centre in Brixton in the 1990s, and regularly attended the Dead by Dawn nights in the basement playing some of the hardest techno and breakcore to be heard anywhere. Again it was the crowd, the conversations and the antagonistic sonic attitude that constituted the music’s political dimension rather than any lyrical content. Praxis records was the driving force behind the night, this track is from Christoph Fringelli’s Metatron EP, Speed and Politics.

Lochi – London Acid City (1996)

There was a cycle of struggles in the 1990s UK that encompassed the anti-road movement (Twyford Down, Claremont Road, Newbury…), squat parties and Reclaim the Streets. The soundtrack was often a particular variant of hard trance/acid techno associated with the Liberator DJs and Stay Up Forever records. This track was the scene’s ultimate anthem, I believe it was the first record played on the famous Reclaim the Streets party on the M41 motorway in London in 1996. I took part in the party and later was involved in the RTS street party in Brixton in 1998.

Galliano – Travels the Road, Junglist Dub Mix (1994)

The various radical movements of the early 1990s coalesced in the campaign against the government’s Criminal Justice Act in 1994, which brought in new police powers to deal with protests and raves. The high point was a huge demonstration/party/riot in London’s Hyde Park, which I documented in a Practical History pamphlet at the time, ‘The Battle for Hyde Park: Radicals, Ruffians and Ravers, 1855-1994’. This track is from an anti-CJA compilation album called Taking Liberties.

Roy Rankin & Raymond Naptali - New Cross Fire (1981)

In the last few years I have been doing a lot of research into the radical history of South East London. This has included helping put on the Lewisham '77 series of events commemorating the 30th anniversary of the anti-National Front demonstrations, and marking the wider history of racism and resistance in the area. A key historical event was the New Cross Fire in 1981, in which 13 young people died. This is one of a number of reggae tracks about the fire, demonstrating how sound system culture functioned at the time as a means of alternative commentary on current events.

Afrikan Boy – Lidl (2006)

… today that alternative commentary is still alive in grime. I was involved for a while in No Borders and became very aware of the experience of those living at the sharp end of the regime of immigration raids, detention centres and forced deportations. Afrikan Boy, from Nigeria via Woolwich, gives voice to that experience on this track, as well as shoplifting adventures in Lidl and Asda!

99 Posse – Salario Garantito (1992)

I have been influenced a lot over the years by radical ideas and practice from Italy and have visited a few times, most recently last year when I took part in the Electrode festival at the Forte Prenestino social centre in Rome. I first visited in the early 1990s, when I went to the Parco Lambro festival in Milan and visited Radio Sherwood in Padua. 99 Posse are an Italian reggae band named after the Officina 99 social centre in Naples; the title of this song relates to the autonomist demand for a guaranteed income for all, working and unemployed. It comes from a compilation tape called Senza Rabbia Non Essere Felice (Without anger, no happiness) put out in around 1992 by the Centro di Communicazione Antagonista in Bologna.

The Ballistic Brothers – London Hooligan Soul (1995)

Released in 1995, this is a look back over 20 years by the Junior Boys Own posse. It’s their history rather than mine, but there are several points where it overlaps with my own… house music, Ibiza, ‘old bill cracking miners heads’, ‘The Jam at Wembley’, ‘A poll tax riot going on’.