Shocking Pink and other feminist zines: an interview with Katy Watson

The 'Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990' exhibition at Tate Britain (2024) included a great collection of zines and printed ephemera from the feminist movements of that period. Included in one of the display cases were issues of Shocking Pink magazine alongside punk/post-punk records from bands including X-Ray Spex, Au Pairs and Mo-dettes. Sadly my friend Katy Watson, who was involved in Shocking Pink, is not here to see this but as a sometime queercore/punk DJ she would no doubt have been delighted to be in such company. Shortly before she died in 2008 I interviewed Katy about her life, including in this section about her memories being involved in Shocking Pink and other zines including Outwrite and Bad Attitude, all in the context of living in Brixton in late 1980s and 1990s. Katy first moved to London in 1988 after finishing University, her first home being a rented room in a house in Kennington next door to future Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw! Soon, as she recalls, she was getting involved in feminist publishing...

Outwrite

'The best thing about this time was that I used to work as a volunteer on this newspaper called Outwrite, a feminist paper which I really admired. It was very lesbian and I was thinking about my sexuality at that point. It was really big on international news, they had a very international collective from all over the globe. I thought it was wonderful, but unfortunately it closed down during that year.

After a year or so I ended up living in Brixton. That was the place for me. For the first time I felt ‘I am at home here’. I really liked it, there was a big alternative profile, a big anarchist scene, a big squatting scene, a big lesbian scene, and suddenly not having a job became a very good thing. I was signing on and realized I had plenty of time to hang out with my friends, drinking tea, yakking on and watching daytime TV but also to do political stuff which I got more into at that time.

Troops Out

I was involved in the Troops Out Movement quite early on when I lived in London. I worked on their magazine, Troops Out. I was also part of organizing an Irish arts exhibition and film festival. The art exhibition we tried to put on through Southwark Council initially and that lovely publication the South London Press ran a front page news splash saying council funds IRA film show and the Council very bravely shut the thing down. We managed to transfer over to Lambeth and had the exhibition in the basement of the recreation centre, not the most accessible high profile place, but we put it on and it did have some really good art work in it. We had a weekend film festival at the Ritzy cinema with various political Irish films, some really good stuff. Some of it was not very subtle but some was much more exploratory – I wouldn’t call it straightforward Irish republicanism but something in that area.

I went on the Troops Out delegation to Belfast and stayed with a family, it was shocking and frightening to find yourself walking past soldiers with their guns. It did feel pretty besieged.

Shocking Pink

I started working on this magazine called Shocking Pink, which at that point had an exhausted collective who really wanted to palm it off on someone else. Me and my friend Vanida took it on to quite a large degree. It was based in squats, and was a young women’s magazine. It was supposed to be an alternative  to magazines that were around at the time like Jackie and My Guy which were all about boyfriends and getting your make up right,  whereas this was feminist and had a good lesbian profile as well, which definitely was a big pull for our readership. We used to get lots of letters from isolated lesbians from all round the country. They found it a real lifeline when they felt isolated at school and stuff like that. 

I really liked that magazine. I liked the way it worked. We had a kind of no-editing policy - if we wanted to put something in we just put it in wholesale. We didn’t put everything in, we were selective about what we put it in, but very open. It meant that we put in heaps of stuff which individuals on the collective might never have agreed with and thought was rubbish, it made it very varied and quite strong for that. It made the collective meetings and collective process of putting it together quite light and quite fun because we weren’t sitting round saying ‘what news issues do we need to cover‘. We were just saying ‘OK what articles have we got typed up on the computer, what cartoons have we got, is this enough to fill a magazine yet?’, and then when it seemed like it had  built up quite a lot we’d shove it all together and have these big press weekends. First of all it had to be typeset, which we did late at night in this friendly typesetters’ office. I first started learning typesetting which led ultimately to the layout and subbing work I did later on. I really took to it, I really liked the whole world of newspapers and magazines.

I learnt how to use the typesetting machine, it was a beautiful old machine, very difficult to use and user-unfriendly compared to the DTP that was going to come in a couple of years later but the results were really beautiful. We’d come up with lovely long columns of beautiful quality typeset articles - galleys - ready to stick down in our mad collagey style that we had at Shocking Pink. Then we’d all spend a whole weekend spending 16 hours a day sticking it all together, doing lots of art work round the articles. 

It was loads of fun as a collective experience,  there were lots of volunteers who’d all come out of the woodwork at that point and join in. Just generally around Shocking Pink it made it into a little gang. There was another woman called Louise who I guess was the third main person in the collective apart from me and Vanida, a lovely person who used to do our music reviews - a good little punk. It was just fun being in a gang. After a new issue came out we’d go round selling it, even selling outside Brixton tube station just like the SWP would with their paper, or else we’d go the easy route and go to lesbian pubs and sell it there because it was easy-peasy selling it as a dyke thing, We’d go on demos with it and flog it. It was such a sort of positive publication it was very easy to promote it, you didn’t feel like you were forcing anything difficult or worthy on people that they are less keen on sometimes.

Shocking Pink’s office shifted from a couple of squats, and we managed to get ourselves a huge big room at the top of 121. We had to fight with one of my flat mates, Alex, who wanted it for Class War but we managed to just swing it by claiming that we should have more women in the building!

The poll tax riot

We went on that really huge anti-poll tax demo [31st March 1990] - it was absolutely vast with about half a million people on it or something like that , the one that turned  into a riot in Trafalgar Square. There were lots of little poll tax riots going on all over the country at that point, quite a busy political time with quite an anti-Thatcher focus. We went on that big demo with our stacks of Shocking Pinks, selling it, and it was a mad demo. It had all the lefties and anarchists and all the trot groups but also Tories in big flowery hats, it was a sunny day, it was like people were out for a big picnic partly as well. 

And then in Trafalgar Square it just turned into a riot with police horses and people chucking loads of stuff. I’d met up with my poor sister who absolutely hates that sort of thing. Of course I was totally thrilled that there was a riot. We were sitting by some landmark and I would say ‘I’ll see you in ten minutes’ and I’d go and try to riot and chuck things into the crowd. I was a really awful rioter because I couldn’t throw very well so I ended up throwing things on the heads of the people in front of me which was not a lot of help to anybody. I’d do that for a bit and then I’d go back and check on my sister who was completely stressed out about the whole thing, and then I’d go  and try and riot very ineffectively a bit more. It was an exciting time when you just felt that a lot was happening and I do personally credit that particular riot with bringing down Thatcher- there’d been lots of riots, but that one was big, there were huge buildings in Trafalgar Square set on fire and it went on well into the night. That was a very good time.

Squatting in Brixton

I moved around loads when I was living in Brixton. Some of the time I was living with these friends right in the middle of Brixton in Rushcroft Road, which felt like quite a crazy place. I lived in this very nice co-op for a while, but everyone was always arguing. Then I moved into a squat for a year and a half - I had the world’s easiest squatting experience, we had electricity and I wasn’t there at the point when they actually opened it up and did all the hard work, I just moved in and said ‘Oh will this be my bedroom then?’, and painted it nice colours!  It was quite together it wasn’t one of those disaster squats full of hopeless types, it was quite organized and sensible, it was very sociable and very pleasant.

I really enjoyed squatting, it was very much part of the Brixton anarchist scene, very connected with the 121 bookshop.  I lived in a squat in Saltoun Road, then later lived in flat back in Rushcroft Road with Rosanne and Atalanta and about ten pets - cats and dogs. 

After a bit I decided that since Shocking Pink was a young women’s magazine I was maybe getting  a bit old for it, it was supposed to be for teenagers and I was beyond that so  I left.

I was working part time, I’d done a course in typesetting and DTP and started working on TV Quick. I was doing lots of writing, working on my first novel, unpublished to this day!

The Wild Women’s Weekend

I went to the Wild Women’s Weekend [in May 1990], it was in a squatted former council housing benefit office in Brixton,  next to the George Canning pub [later Hobgoblin and now Hootenanny] and also unfortunately next to Brixton’s rather anonymous Tory headquarters. It doesn’t have the name on it - they wouldn’t dare, just a bit of blue paint. I think it was them who were instrumental in eventually getting the place shut down. It was this lesbian squat for quite a while, well not exclusively lesbian but quite lesbian.

All that dyke scene in Brixton did dissolve fairly quickly in the 1990s because the squatting laws got harsher, and all the gentrification started and  Brixton just became too hard and too expensive to live in, but at the time that squat was a fantastic achievement. The Wild Women’s Weekend was absolutely amazing, women coming from all round the country and probably abroad as well. There were loads of workshops, sort of practical workshops like bike maintenance, lots of discussion groups, and obviously good parties in the evening. That was a very fine achievement.

Bad Attitude

A couple of years on I got Bad Attitude together, it was really me that motivated it because I was still sort of hankering after the days of Outwrite because I so admired their international news perspective, and I thought ‘we need that”. We went through  quite an arduous process of fundraising for it, galvanizing a collective, sending out loads of letters appealing for people to take out advance subscriptions and we managed to buy ourselves this tiny apple mac to lay it out on. Shocking Pink had folded by that point, and Bad Attitude took on the office and took on some other people involved. We had Vanida, and Sam my old flat mate, Rosanne and lots of other people who came and went'.

(The loose transcript above doesn't completely follow the audio interview here as it was edited from a number of different taped conversations).

See also:

Remembering Katy Watson

Katy's music column in Bad Attitude (1995)

Katy Watson and London Queercore 1995

'How to produce a feminist magazine': Bad Attitude - radical women's newspaper (1992-97)

Shocking Pink and Clause 28

Poll Tax Archive (8): The Poll Tax Amnesty Demonstration, October 1991

The Poll Tax Amnesty demonstration took place in London on 19th October 1991 and was I believe the last of the national poll tax demonstrations. On 31st March 1990, hundreds of thousands had marched through central London, ending in the 'Battle of Trafalgar Square' riot. In October 1990 a smaller demonstration made its way to Brixton Prison.

A year later the movement was winding down as it had been successful - the Government had announced the poll tax was to be scrapped. But people were still being prosecuted for non-payment (and could be jailed for up to 90 days) and for taking part in earlier poll tax protests around the country. Hence the call for a 'poll tax amnesty' to write off poll tax debts and release poll tax prisoners. The initiative for the demonstration came from the Prisoners Support Group of the Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign with the support of some local anti poll tax groups.

The call for the demo in 'Poll Tax Prisoners News' (Prisoners Support Group TSDC), September 1991:

'This amnesty demonstration has been called in order to offer solidarity with poll tax prisoners, and to make the following demands:

- An amnesty for all those people who have been imprisoned as a result of defending anti poll tax demonstrations against police attacks.

- An amnesty for all non-payers who have been imprisoned;

- An unconditional debt amnesty for all non-payers with debts to be written off;

- An immediate halt to jailings of poll tax non-payers, and the continuing police harassment of anti-poll tax activists;

[...]The poll tax will not be really defeated until no one has to pay and no one remains imprisoned because of it'.

Report from 'London Fight the Poll Tax' (December 1991):

2000 March for Amnesty

'On October 19 around 2,000 Anti-Poll Tax protesters marched through London in support of the movement's demand of an amnesty for all non-payers and Poll Tax prisoners. The day's events  started with a 20 strong women's picket of Holloway prison to show solidarity with women jailed for resisting the Poll Tax and with women jailed for resisting domestic violence. The calling of a separate women's picket was not without controversy within the movement [...]

The march started at 2pm from the Clock Tower in Caledonian Park and marched past Pentonville prison, where we left the authorities in no doubt about our determination to see our prisoners released. The march in defiant mood with much musical accompaniment marched onward to central London and Trafalgar Square.

On the way Class War showed a new gimmick of stopping for the cameras and then running to catch up. The first time this was amusing, but the continual stopping and starting imposed on the demo soon became annoying. There were no arrests. No doubt the large number of Legal Volunteers (the pink bibs) prevented the police from their usual excessive behaviour.

However, at least one police motorcycle drove through the demo a few times all the way from Caledonian Road to central London. The police unnecessarily drove their vans, sirens wailing, at high speed down the side of the demo in Charing Cross Road just so they could get to Trafalgar Square before the march.

When it got to the Square, the organisers found that the electricity needed to power the public address system had been cut off. It appears possible that the DoE was in breach of their hiring agreement, if this is the case then suing the DoE is a possibility. As a result the speakers were limited to speaking though a couple of loud hailers. This, unfortunately, meant many could not hear the speeches. But the presence of former Poll Tax prisoners was still applauded loudly.

Norman Laws and Soroosh Ayandeh (both jailed for non-payment) gave arousing speeches which were greatly appreciated by those who could hear them. A letter of support for the march, from Chris Howes of Barking APTF then in Pentonville for non-payment, was read out. The demonstrators, from as far away as Edinburgh, mainly came from non-politically aligned local APTUs as well as members of the community at large.

It was unfortunate that Militant did not see fit to mobilise their supporters and members for this march, especially as some of their supporters have been picked on by councils to be jailed for their stance against the Poll Tax. The SWP also has to be criticised for its apparent failure to mobilise heavily for the march, however some of their members were present. Oe group that did publicise and mobilise for the march was the band RDF who promoted the march on stage and handed out posters during their

national tour in October'.

Report from 'Poll Tax Prisoners News' (Prisoners Support Group TSDC), January-February 1992:

Poll Tax Amnesty Demonstration

'Despite the cold, the rain, the poverty and, in some cases, the disillusionment of anti-poll tax activists, over 2000 people attended the Poll Tax Amnesty demonstration in London on October 19th. The march

was noisy, cheerful, colourful and playful as groups continually charged through central London to a rally in Trafalgar Square. Before the demonstration there was a women's picket of Holloway prison in solidarity with all women jailed for resisting the poll tax, domestic violence and police violence. 

We had our usual problems with the authorities, such as the gates to Caledonian Park being locked, thereby excluding the van with the P.A. from the park. This was despite previous arrangements being made. The Department of Environment turned off the power supply in Trafalgar Square only minutes before the march arrived in the Square. It seems that they waited until the sound checks were completed in order to avoid us beingable to find an alternative power source in time for the rally. The speakers, many of whom were recently released from prison, had to make do with megaphones.

Speakers included Non-Payer and Trafalgar Square ex-Prisoners Norman Laws, Steve Murray, and Soroosh Ayandeh and Anti Poll Tax activists from Birmingham, Bristol, Scotland with guest speakers including speakers from Anti-Fascist Action and the Free Dessie Ellis Campaign*

amongst others.  

The TSDC-PSG thanks everyone who put in so much time and bloody hard work to organise the demo, especially the London APT activists and Prisoner Support Groups without whom the work of supporting prisoners struggles and fighting criminalisation could not take place. Especially, a big

thanks to all the Legal and Communications Volunteers who turned up on the day.

International Solidarity

Canada: When Prince Charles and Lady Di visited Kingston, Ontario, recently local anarchists organised a demo. 80 people split into 2 groups and one group held a demo in solidarity with APT prisoners/APT movement in Britain. A banner and placards saying AMNESTY FOR POLL TAX PRISONERS got a good response. Despite 800 (!) police the demo was peaceful, apart from

the two Police cars crashing into each other near the march!!!

France: On October 19th 100 people demonstrated outside the British embassy in Paris, calling for the release of all poll tax prisoners and the cancelling of poll tax debts. Riot police forced the demonstration back from the Emhassy building but a delegation went in to hand in 

a letter of protest. The demonstration was supported by a number of socialist and anarchist groups.  There was a lot of chanting (in particular, there was a lot of support from socialists chanting 'Free Matt Lee!!).

In Sweden, a concert in Goteberg in support of the Poll Tax Amnesty Campaign in Goteborg raised £89. An anarchist newsletter in Freiburg, Germany, regularly reports the anti-poll tax campaign. It has translated articles by Tim Donaghy and Beccy Palmer.

[*Dessie Ellis was an Irish republican on trial having been the first person extradited from Ireland to Britain. The speaker said that he might have been the first Irish speaker in Trafalgar Square since 1972, as Bloody Sunday demonstrations had repeatedly been refused permission to march to the square]

Leaflets in English and Turkish advertising the 'Women's picket of Holloway Prison' which took place just before the Poll Tax Amnesty march.

I was involved with the Prisoners Support Group, indeed I recognise my Word Perfect layout 'skills' in the leaflets and PSG Newsletters (using the resources of the anti poll tax hotspot of the Barnet AIDS Education Unit at Colindale Hospital!) . I remember lots of disagreements in the lead up to the demo. The Militant-dominated Anti Poll Tax Federation refused to support it, which was no great surprize, but even some people in the TSDC were lukewarm about it. Personally I doubted that our small group had the resources for a march on this scale, but on the other hand even a couple of thousand people on a march explicitly supporting prisoners would be worthwhile. As I wrote to a prisoner at the time:

'The poll tax amnesty march went reasonably well on Saturday. There were about 2000 people on it, and it was fairly lively... At one point I thought the police were going to attack the march in Charing Cross Road when they drove down the road at high speed with their sirens blaring. One missed me by about six inches. I think they were just trying to wind people up.

It's difficult to evaluate how successful a march is. Marching to Trafalgar Square inevitably invited comparison with March 31st and in a way demonstrated how weak the poll tax movement is (on the streets at least, in terms on non-payment we are probably stronger than every, although its a very individualised 'movement'). On the other hand it was important to 'reclaim the square' and show that we weren't going to be stopped from marching in Central London'.

More on the poll tax:

Poll Tax Archive (1): Hospital workers say: 'we're not paying': North Middlesex Hospital anti-poll tax leaflet, 1990

Poll Tax Archive (2): St Valentines Day 1991 - Massacre the poll tax (in Lambeth)

Poll Tax Archive (3): Community Resistance Against the Poll Tax (Lambeth, March 1990) 

Poll Tax Archive (4): Poll Tax Prisoners Support Conference (Birmingham 1991)

Poll Tax Archive (5): Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign Appeal for Witnesses

Poll Tax Archive (6): Barnet and Edgware Hospital Workers Against the Poll Tax

Poll Tax Archive (7): Brixton Prison demo, October 1990

Trafalgar Square Poll Tax Riot Memories

'Mobs riot in the West End': Poll Tax Riot press coverage

 

Poll Tax Archive (7): Brixton Prison demo, October 1990

Seven months after the huge London anti-poll tax demonstration/riot of March 31st 1990, another demo was planned in the capital on 20th October 1990. While not on the same scale, it did end in clashes with police in Brixton and 120 arrests.

The organisation of the October demo was a fractious affair. The national leadership of the All Britain Anti Poll Tax Federation was firmly in the hands of 'Militant' (today known as the Socialist Party) and they were distrusted by many in the movement for their denouncing of rioters after March 31st.  They were not keen at all to organise another national demo in 1990, and instead half heartedly agreed for a London mobilisation ending with a rally to greet a contingent of 75 poll tax protestors who had walked to London from Glasgow, Liverpool and South Wales as part of the 'People's March Against the Poll Tax'. 

Meanwhile the Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign, set up to support those arrested in relation to March 31st, wanted to put the plight of poll tax prisoners and defendants at the forefront of the October demonstration - something which they felt was being neglected by the London demo organisers as well as the national federation. So, as advertised on the TSDC leaflet below, there were several interlinked events on the day. A TSDC picket of Horseferry Road magistrates court (scene of many poll tax trials) was followed by a march of around 1500 people  to Kennington Park, the assembly point for the London Federation demonstration. The March 31st demo had also assembled in Kennington, but headed from there into Whitehall and Trafalgar Square. On October 20th the march avoided central London entirely and instead headed further out to Brockwell Park in Brixton. 

'Stop the Trafalgar Square Show Trials'

TSDC Leaflet for October 20th 1990 demo (front and rear - original A5)

The crowd on the combined march to Brockwell Park and the rally there was variously estimated at between 10 and 25,000. After speeches by Tony Benn and others, a few thousand people assembled to march the short distance to Brixton Prison, where several poll tax prisoners were being held. This was not a spontaneous splinter march, but had been planned from the start - and the police were ready.

For me personally it was a strange time. I lived on Tulse Hill Estate, located between Brockwell Park and Brixton Prison, so this was all happening in my local area. I went along to the Park and joined the demonstration as it made it's way up Brixton Hill towards the prison. Its route was blocked by a line of police close to the jail, and at this point I headed off. My grandmother had just died and I was travelling that night to the Hebrides for the funeral.  As I made my way back to the Estate I saw that the side streets including Endymion Road were full of police vans whose occupants were getting out and putting on their riot gear. I picked up my suit for the funeral and headed down to Brixton to get the train only to find the station closed and the streets blocked by police vans and crowds. By this point the police outnumbered the protestors.

What had happened in the interim was that the police had baton charged the crowd by the prison and driven people back down the hill into central Brixton. In the clashes a police bike was set on fire and some market stalls on Electric Avenue had been turned over as barricades. A few petrol bombs were also thrown, something very unusual on political demonstrations in England (though sometimes seen in full on inner city uprisings) and possibly not unrelated to the presence of some experienced radical street fighters from France, Italy and elsewhere.

The 120 arrests meant plenty more work for the TSDC, and quite a few people were injured by police seemingly out for revenge for what had happened back in March.

'Poll tax mob bomb police', Sunday Mirror, 21 October 1990

The following short account comes from the November 1990 newsletter of the Brixton based Community Resistance Against the Poll Tax, which I was involved with for a while alongside several other poll tax groups at work and in my area.

'At 3.30 in the afternoon a group of over 3,000 people marched to Brixton prison where 4 prisoners are still held from the 31st of March. As before it was well organised and stewarded by the TSDC. The march arrived at the prison only to find that the police wanted to hem everyone in behind crowd barriers. As the march stopped on Brixton Hill the crowd became very compacted behind the barriers. TSDC organisers asked the police to allow the march round the back of the prison, the officer in charge of the police seemed to make sure he was not around at this point. The police were asked to move the barriers further up the road so the crowd could move up and ease congestion, this was also refused. The police took the megaphone from the TSDC organisers who were very visible in their bright pink bibs. They did not, as they claim, give out megaphones - this is yet another POLICE LIE. 

The angry and frustrated crowd threw one or two beer cans but the police needed no excuse to charge into the crowd. Those who didn't move fast enough were truncheoned and arrested. A young mother asked a police woman to take her children over the crowd barrier to safety, the caring pig refused. The crowd was pushed down Brixton Hill and scores of riot police, who had been waiting down side streets preparing to take revenge for March 31 came out and further charged the crowd. Individuals trying to leave the crowd and avoid trouble were pushed back in. The crowd was driven back into Brixton to the dismay of those trying to do a peaceful day's shopping. Buses were stopped, the tube station was closed, so those wishing to leave were unable to. Groups were pushed into the market, the High Road and Coldharbour Lane. Market skips and a police motorbike were set on fire. 

People were pushed down to Camberwell and up towards Oval, many brutal arrests were made (about 120 in all), demonstrators continued to fight back against the police till about 7 p.m. The TSDC provided excellent legal back up. Solicitors were provided for all those arrested and witness statements made. The initial police charges were filmed by video camera, the TSDC are in a position to show how the police provoked the trouble and may well prosecute them. A picket was held at Southwark police station to support those arrested. On Sunday Oct 31st the TSDC held a press conference to let the media know the truth. On Monday pickets were held at courts and courts are still being picketed for those still held in custody. Bail conditions have been very strict e.g. wanting a £1,000 surety for someone charged with threatening behaviour' (Community Resistance Against the Poll Tax, November 1990)

The TSDC produced their own detailed account of the events based on legal observers on the day. This was published as 'Premilinary report on the policing of the anti-poll tax demonstration of October 20th'. 

The following extracts cover the flashpoint outside the prison on Brixton Hill (PSU=Police Support Unit, i.e. the riot squad).

'16.40: These officers cordon off Elm Park at junction with Brixton Hill, dividing off protestors on Elm Park from main body of demonstration. Police line continues to form up cordon along east side of Brixton Hill in direction of Endymion Road along fixed railings (point B). (VT2 2.40) 16.42: The PSUs deployed in front of the churchyard push forward into the crowd, attacking demonstrators with violent and indiscriminate use of batons. There is much shouting and confusion, and a total of four cans are thrown at the surging police. After 20-30 seconds, the police resume their positions in front of the churchyard, and the crowd becomes calm again. (VT1 23.40) At the same time, 20-30 officers enter the churchyard, clearing demonstrators and making one arrest for apparently no reason (HCDA). 

16.44: The officer in charge of the PSUs deployed at point B signals repeatedly to police on the other side of the picket, and CI Joy runs South to the end of Jebb Avenue along the clear lane of Brixton Hill. (VT1 25.13) 

16.45: At front of demonstration, Superintendent Giblin from Stoke Newington (name given to LLV HP) leans over the barrier and grabs a smallish man, aged about 40 and wearing a cap, and violently pushes him into the crowd. (HCDA) Megaphone taken from organiser SW, who was using it to explain the situation to crowd and get them to join in good-natured chanting. No warning given. Crowd respond angrily. One or two placard sticks thrown in high arc. (AS) 16.46: Chief Superintendent talking to two vanloads of police who then head towards George W pub. (AC) Police begin to pull demonstrators off railings outside George IV pub forecourt. No prior warnings given. Inspector then ordered everyone off George IV forecourt, not allowing them to finish their drinks or to ask why they had to move. Police then spend next few minutes picking up glasses and smashing them on the floor. (HCDA, witness RP) Unidentified police officer overheard saying "This is it." (ES) 

16.47: A police snatch squad enters the crowd opposite Jebb Avenue. 2 or 3 people arrested and pulled violently over barrier. (WL) Police lined up against churchyard railings push forwards across Brixton Hill Road to join police cordon in the middle, separating head of demonstration from main body. After initial pushing and the throwing of two empty cans and a placard stick, crowd becomes calm again. (VT1 28.20) Police in PSU carriers on Endymion Road are seen to have put on riot gear. (HCDA) 16.50: LLV asked MM 38 where people expected to go. Reply: "Until we contain this, no-one's going anywhere." LLV asked "Contain what?" No reply. (PF) Riot police emerge from vans in Endymion Road (VT2 20.51). 

'Police blame anarchists for turning poll tax protest into a riot'
(South London Press)

'it started peacefully enough with a carnival protest through the streets of South London' - some classic early 1990s demo dance moves in BBC news report 

Past Tense has also produced an account of the day's events

More on the poll tax:

Poll Tax Archive (1): Hospital workers say: 'we're not paying': North Middlesex Hospital anti-poll tax leaflet, 1990

Poll Tax Archive (2): St Valentines Day 1991 - Massacre the poll tax (in Lambeth)

Poll Tax Archive (3): Community Resistance Against the Poll Tax (Lambeth, March 1990) 

Poll Tax Archive (4): Poll Tax Prisoners Support Conference (Birmingham 1991)

Poll Tax Archive (5): Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign Appeal for Witnesses

Poll Tax Archive (6): Barnet and Edgware Hospital Workers Against the Poll Tax

Trafalgar Square Poll Tax Riot Memories

'Mobs riot in the West End': Poll Tax Riot press coverage

Poll Tax Archive (6): Barnet and Edgware Hospital Workers against the Poll Tax

Here is an example of some workplace organising against the poll tax in the NHS.

'Edgware Nurses Against Poll Tax' - I believe this was taken at a picket of Willesden Magistrates Court, November 1990

At this time I was working in the AIDS Education Unit of Barnet Health Authority. We provided HIV testing, counselling, health promotion and advice from our base at Colindale Hospital. This included providing training to staff across the health authority including the two main general hospitals run by it at the time – Barnet General Hospital and Edgware General Hospital.

Most of us working in the Unit had some history of activism and our roaming roles  meant that we were in touch with lots of different groups of health workers across the area. So it was natural that in 1990 some of us would try and pull together a health workers anti-poll tax group which we called Barnet Hospital Workers Against the Poll Tax (as we were covering all the hospitals in the Barnet Health Authority group). The following year we also established  a hospital workers against the Gulf war group but that’s another story.

Student nurses were particularly aggrieved about the poll tax. Like other low paid  NHS workers  the tax was going to hit them hard in their pockets but unlike other students they were not eligible for any kind of rebate (most students only had to pay 20% of the poll tax).

Many of the students lived together in hospital accommodation. After talking to a few student nurses we arranged to hold a meeting at the Edgware Hospital nurses home- in the communal TV room. We just put up a poster and put the word around. There was a great response at the meeting with more than 30 signing up there and then up to oppose the poll tax. I still have the signing in sheet for that meeting, interesting looking down it now- a high proportion of Irish people, the majority women and, in terms of union membership, almost all members of the Royal College of Nursing with a handful of COHSE members and one NUPE member. 

We followed this up with other meetings offering advice- I think we also did one at Thames House, the nurses home at Barnet Hospital. Further on down the line some  of the student nurses were taken to court by Barnet Council for non-payment of the poll tax. We organised pickets of the magistrates courts at Barnet and Willesden with transport to get there.

It was a relatively modest effort, but ultimately the poll tax was finished off not just by one big demo/riot but also by lots of smallish local groups organising and sharing information that gave confidence to millions that they could get away with not paying the poll tax.

'Unfair poll tax for student nurses' - picket of Barnet magistrates, December 1990

Nurses were in court in Barnet at same time as Labour MP Mildred Gordon who was also being chased by Barnet Council for non-payment (Edgware Times, 20 December 1990)

Willesden Magistrates Court, November 1990

More on the poll tax:

Poll Tax Archive (1): Hospital workers say: 'we're not paying': North Middlesex Hospital anti-poll tax leaflet, 1990

Poll Tax Archive (2): St Valentines Day 1991 - Massacre the poll tax (in Lambeth)

Poll Tax Archive (3): Community Resistance Against the Poll Tax (Lambeth, March 1990) 

Poll Tax Archive (4): Poll Tax Prisoners Support Conference (Birmingham 1991)

Poll Tax Archive (5): Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign Appeal for Witnesses

Trafalgar Square Poll Tax Riot Memories

'Mobs riot in the West End': Poll Tax Riot press coverage

I am going to be giving a talk on the 'Poll Tax Rebellion - 30 years on' as part of the Datacide #18 magazine launch event on Friday 21 February 2020 at Ridley Road Social Club, 89 Ridley Road. London E8 2NH (with followed by music courtesy of  Praxis and Hekate - details here)

Poll Tax Archive (5): Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign

In the aftermath of the London poll tax demonstration and riot on 31 March 1990, the Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign to ‘Unconditionally defend all those arrested on March 31st’ was launched at a meeting held at London's Conway Hall. 

Through court monitoring, support from sympathetic lawyers, and gathering its own evidence, the TSDC was able to provide effective legal advice and information which led to many people being acquitted or having their charges and sentences reduced. The following appeal for witnesses (original an A4 leaflet) was part of this process of developing a detailed chronology of events with which to challenge police accounts.

'Appeal for witnesses

On 31st March 1990, the anti Poll Tax march to Trafalgar Square was subject to brutal attacks by the Metropolitan Police. These attacks continued into the evening, and many members of the public not involved in the demonstration were also assaulted.

However, the police have made no effort to discipline the officers responsible. Instead they have mounted a campaign against those demonstrators and other members of the public who defended themselves, or were merely unlucky enough to have been captured by the police at the time.

The Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign has been set up to defend over 500 people arrested as regards these events and to expose what really happened that day. The campaign is independent of all political organisations and is run by and accountable to those arrested.

We are issuing an appeal to all those present to step forward with their account of the events of the day. We have been drawing up a chronology of events and even if you are unable to give an account of specific cases of police brutality, what you saw may be important to establishing the chain of events. However, if some particular event struck you and you are prepared to be a witness in court this would be particularly important.

We see that it is essential that mass resistance continues when individuals are victimised, fined and imprisoned. We face a hostile media and a malicious police force involved in a cover-up. Failure to properly defend those arrested weakens our ability to take to the streets when we need to. Please support this campaign. We desperately need donations and support if we are to prevent a police cover-up and persecution of the Anti-Poll Tax movement.

Trafalgar Square defendants campaign

The national defence campaign for all those arrested as a result of the 200,000 strong anti-poll-tax demonstration on March 31 

c/o Haldane Society of Lawyers, 205 Panther House, 38 Mount Pleasant, London WC1X OAP'

More on the poll tax:

Poll Tax Archive (1): Hospital workers say: 'we're not paying': North Middlesex Hospital anti-poll tax leaflet, 1990

Poll Tax Archive (2): St Valentines Day 1991 - Massacre the poll tax (in Lambeth)

Poll Tax Archive (3): Community Resistance Against the Poll Tax (Lambeth, March 1990) 

Poll Tax Archive (4): Poll Tax Prisoners Support Conference (Birmingham 1991)

Poll Tax Archive (6): Barnet and Edgware Hospital Workers against the Poll Tax

Trafalgar Square Poll Tax Riot Memories

'Mobs riot in the West End': Poll Tax Riot press coverage

I am going to be giving a talk on the 'Poll Tax Rebellion - 30 years on' as part of the Datacide #18 magazine launch event on Friday 21 February 2020 at Ridley Road Social Club, 89 Ridley Road. London E8 2NH (with followed by music courtesy of  Praxis and Hekate - details here)