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 of 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

Police raid South London Squat Gigs, 1991

A report on a couple of police raids on squat venues in South London from 1991 - an occupational hazard of going out in that era.

The Hellhouse was a squatted factory in Borough Road SE1, near the Elephant & Castle. On 3rd August 1991 The Blaggers and Oi Polloi were playing a benefit there for Anti Fascist Action. Police came in 'with dogs and wielding truncheons' and kicked everybody out. There were clashes in the streets outside and around 30 people were arrested. Within 24 hours the place had been resquatted.

Notice for Hell Haus/Hellhouse gig - I believe from SHIP Network News

A couple of weeks later there was another gig in a squatted Midland Bank in Peckham which ended in a police raid: 'On August 17th a gig was held in the  squatted Midland bank in Peckham. As it was free about 400 people turned up and had a good time. The police called around after complaints about noise and then they disappeared. About 4 am when the crowd was down to less than 100, the riot police arrived and viciously attacked the partygoers. Many people were injured by police dog bites, and some were beaten up by the cops with batons. The cops sealed off Peckham High Street for two hours. About eight people were arrested and some have been charged with affray which is a very serious public order charge'  (56a Info Shop Bulletin, no.1, August 1991). 56a Info Shop recalled on twitter in 2023: 'At the Midland Bank police raid, a friend of ours hid under a sofa to avoid a beating but when the cops cleared the building they then sat on the sofa for an hour or more! Poor Sergio! Was then locked in to the empty building when coppers left'

 I wrote at the time in a letter: 'I spent Monday in court ready to stand bail for a friend who was arrested over the weekend. I wore a suit in order to look like a respectable member of the community and it worked - a couple of people came up to me and asked if I was a solicitor! As it turned out I needn't have bothered with the fancy dress as my friend got unconditional bail, but he had been kept in since Saturday night, so it was touch and go. Along with 12 others he was nicked when the police raided a party on Saturday night. It was being held in a squatted bank, and over 300 people were there. The police sledgehammered down the door and piled in in full riot gear. People were thrown out of the building and on the way out had to walk between lines of cops who hit them as they passed. Quite a few people got bitten by police dogs'.

Flyer for the Peckham Midland Bank free party - 'live bands, music, friendly peoples', guess the police didn't get the memo.  

 The report below are from the 56a Info Shop Bulletin, no.1, August 1991.

The address of the Peckham party was 69 Peckham High Street  Pictured below is the Street in 1980s. From left to right a co-op store, Nat West bank (still standing in 2023), then the entrance to no.69 (Midland bank) where the party was held, leading through to main building behind. The Midland Bank was demolished in 1990s, so that entrance would be in the gap between the current Nat West Bank (no. 65) and the 'spoons pub The Kentish Drovers (no.71). 

A meeting the day the Peckham raid set up joint 'Hell-bank' campaign to support those arrested at the two parties. The leaflet below about the campaign seems to have been produced to distribute at an anti-racist march which went from Peckham to Bermondsey on 24 August 1991 (this infamously faced a violent British National Party mobilisation, but that's another story).

Leaflet set and printed by RedType who operated at the time out of Clearprint at 61-63  Peckham High Street, very close to the then empty Midland Bank.  Judging by style and language of leaflet (including referring to squatters as 'homeless youth') I think it may have been written by Steve the printer who I think had been in the group Workers Power as well as Anti Fascist Action.

All documentation above found at the 56a Info Shop Archive.

[post last updated January 2024 with details of Hell-Bank campaign]

See also:

Police raid on Arlingford Road party in Brixton (1993)

Hackney Homeless Festival (1994) 

Breakbeats & Benefit Gigs at 1990s Pembury Tavern, Hackney

I was in Hackney recently for a Hackney radical history walk/talk and went past the Pembury Tavern on Amhurst Road. The pub has been there since 1856 and has witnessed much of the history under discussion. It has certainly changed since I first went there in the early 1990s and is no longer full of squatters - but neither is Hackney! No doubt it has always changed to reflect the changing locale and it was good to see that it still seems to be flourishing - now of course a home to craft beer (it is linked to Hackney based Five Points Brewing Co.) and pizza.

Anyway I came across a flyer from a night there in December 1998:  High-Rise 'Freestyle underground sounds every Thursday at the Pembury Tavern'. My friend Laurel from Luton ('Flo Hrd' junglist) was involved and it was another of our Luton friend's birthday (Kim). Hence I played a short set as Neil Disconaut, can't say my mixture of space disco and Ambush records breakcore exactly set the place alight but hey. 

The Pembury was a regular venue for benefit gigs around that time. This listing from radical zine Contraflow from Autumn 1997 for instance highlights several gigs there, including benefits for Reclaim the Streets, Hackney Refugee and Migrant Support Group, the Autonomous Refugee Centre Hackney (ARCH) and Contraflow itself. Head Jam, PAIN, Inner Terrestrials in the house, not to mention Radical Dance Faction, Dead Dog Mountain and Tofu Love Frogs in the area.

After first writing this I came across this mention of the Pembury in an interview with Class War founder Ian Bone in Freedom magazine (vol 82:2, 2022/23), where he talks about Hackney in the late 1980s/early 90s:

'The Pembury (pub) was like a sort of red base, with squatters, red actionists and class warriors, also a palpable anarchist community, like maybe there'd been in Brixton in the early '80s, lots of anarchists per head of the population and a lot of little magazines like Hackney Heckler, loads of other stuff, a very vibrant scene. There was the music scene, then we'd do stuff like chase the housing manager down the road. Yeah, people were declaring it the People's Republic of Hackney'.

Good to see some old friends on the 'radical history faction' walk, some of whom were involved in some of those things mentioned above. There were various tales of poll tax protests and squatting adventures including the occupation of the empty London Fields Lido which helped prevent it being demolished and turned into a car park. 

London Makhnovist Centre squat in Fleet Street

A group of Ukrainian anarchist squatters have occupied their second building in London. The London Makhnovists Centre at 187 Fleet Street opened on 18th June 2022 with a fundraiser gig for victims of the war in Ukraine.

In a statement at their website the group say 'Make Solidarity Louder than Bombs. We occupy this property in protest against the war in Ukraine and those who profit from it.... We're going to gather around art, culture and dancing as a way to direct funding to refugee aid at the Ukrainian border'

Banners outside read 'Power breeds parasites, long live anarchy!' and #fucktorygarchs

In March the same group took over a London mansion  in Belgrave Square belonging to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, and were evicted by riot police.

[Top four photos taken by me, Tuesday 28 June 2022, statement and bottom two photos from London Makhnovists website]

Save Denmark Street: 12 Bar Club Occupied

The famous 12 Bar Club in London's Denmark Street closed a couple of weeks ago, having been given notice to quit as part of a plan to 'redevelop' this area that threatens its status as the city's main area of music shops. Denmark Street, off Charing Cross Road, became known as Britain's 'tin pan alley' as the home of many songwriters and music publishers. The Sex Pistols once lived at no. 6, among numerous other musician connections (see history) Today it is famous for its musical instrument shops. 

All is not lost yet though. The 12 Bar Club was squatted on Monday, and those occupying it hope to use the building to help galvanise opposition to the increasingly homogenous corporate gentrification of the West End of London. 

I was down there today, friendly people so pop in and see them. They would welcome donations of sound equipment, furniture, sleeping bags etc (see notice in window). The are also launching an open mic night tomorrow night (Friday), so looks like the last song has not yet rung out in that venue where, among many others, Jeff Buckley, Joanna Newsom and Bert Jansch, have performed.

(see also - interview with squatters at Vice)

Marching against the Criminal Justice Act, July 1994

Doing some research/recollecting the movement against what became the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 with its notorious police 'powers in relation to raves'. There were three large demonstrations against the Criminal Justice Bill/Act in London - on May Day 1994, 24th July  1994 and 9th October 1994.

This leaflet is for the second demonstration, from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square on Sunday 24 July. Estimates of the numbers attending ranged from 20,000 (police) to 50,000 (organisers).

'Supported by Bernie Grant MP, Tony Benn MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Paul Foot, Arthur Scargill (NUM President), Brenda Nixon (Women Against Pit Closures), Winston Silcott Campaign, Justice, Advance Party, Socialist Workers Party, No M11 Campaign, Hunt Saboteurs Association, Forgive us our Trespasses, Mike Mansfield QC, Squall'

Politically there were a number of tensions - the established Left, the SWP in particular, had woken up to the emerging movement. Their organisational skills may have helped increase the turn out, but some complained that something that was fresh and creative was being funnelled back into the traditional routine of A to B marches with speeches at the end. 

If there were any speeches at the end though, I certainly don't remember them. Trafalgar Square felt like a big party (though I don't think any sound systems were present other than cycle powered Rinky Dink), with people playing in the fountains on a sunny day.

'I squat therefore I am' - the proposed laws targeted squatters as well as free parties

There were some clashes with police in Whitehall, after some people tried to scale the gates guarding the entrance to Downing Street. Police on horseback charged the crowd there, and 14 people were arrested.

(all photos taken by me on the day - anyone got any memories of this demo or the others?  -more to come!)

See also: Report on this demo from Eternity magazine

Turner Prize 2012: Sub-Cultural Traces

Glad to see Elizabeth Price win the Turner Prize. Pleased too that she mentioned her (similar to mine) Luton upbringing in her winning speech referencing arts cuts and threats to arts education in schools: 'It’s incredibly depressing listening to the comments people made earlier that a young girl from Luton going to a comprehensive might not be able to imagine being an artist and might not have the opportunities I’ve had'. 

Leaving aside my bias, I do think her film 'Woolworths Choir of 1979' is the most powerful work in this year's Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain in London. It cuts together three sets of images, drawn from Church architecture, 1960s/1970s female music performance and most poignantly a fire at Manchester Woolworths in 1979 in which ten people died. The film both utilises a didactic public information style of address, and critiques it by refusing to tell people what to make of the connection between these three themes. The threads include the notion of the 'choir', the name for part of a church as well as a group of singers/dancers or chorus; and the common hand gestures of humans in disparate situations, the 'conspicuous twist of the wrist' shared by dancers and a desperate wave from a burning building.

The use of a real tragedy in this way is controversial, but the film's rescue from the archives of a chorus of voices from the time restores this tragedy to the public memory from which it has largely faded. It also calls into question how our familiar visual shorthand for historical periods (the kind of 1960s and 70s fashion, haircuts, and music used elsewhere in the film) excludes these kinds of less cosy and familiar events.

Liz was a founder member of 1980s band Talulah Gosh (as well as later performing as one half of The Carousel), and with that knowledge in mind you can't help but noticing some of the continuities - in particular the appreciation for girl groups. The Shangri-Las 'Out on the Streets' features prominently in the (pleasingly loud for a gallery) soundtrack to the film.

One of the interesting things about all four of this year's finalists is their links to sub-cultures/counter-cultures beyond the art world, either in their personal biographies or as reference points in their work. Well to start with there's Liz Price's indie-pop thing (and as mentioned here, even before she went to art school she was hand printing tickets for a 1985 Luton punk gig benefit for the local Unemployed Workers Centre with bands including Karma Sutra, Party Girls and Click Click - I helped out with that gig too, wish I'd kept the ticket!).

Paul Noble was involved in the 1990s Claremont Road/Leytonstone road protest against the M11. According to Josephine Berry Slater & Anthony Iles, 'Paul Noble who had been involved early on in the campaign began to fix home-made blue plaques onto derelict houses in the path of the road (a trick later copied by Gavin Turk to egotistical ends). The inscription on the plaques read: Our Heritage: This House was Once a Home'. Is it too fanciful to see in Noble's drawings of a fantasy city-scape some echo of the alternative urbanism of Claremont Road?

(photo from Little Tramp's excellent Claremont Road set at Flickr)

Luke Fowler's film about radical psychiatrist R.D. Laing (pictured below), All Divided Selves, can't help but feature lots of interesting archive footage from key 1960s/1970s counter-culture moments linked to Laing such as The Dialectics of Liberation 1967 conference at the Roundhouse, the London Street Commune and The Anti-University of London.

Meanwhile, Spartacus Chetwynd's performance art is pure Happening and embedded in a playful DIY/squat  aesthetic that can be traced back via Glastonbury Green Fields to Mutoid Waste Company and beyond (texts in her part of the exhibition inevitably mention Bakhtin's notion of the Carnivalesque, as well as less obviously Nikola Tesla) . As well as claiming now to live on a 'Nudist Commune' near Nunhead, Chetywynd participated in some of the !WOWOW! warehouse/squat events around Camberwell and Peckham (2003-2006), which also involved fashion designer Gareth Pugh in the days before he was making clothes for Beyonce and Lady Gaga.

The Turner Prize exhibition continues until 6 January 2013.

Bracknell Squat Party 1985

Red Rag was a radical newsletter published in Reading from around 1979 to the mid-1980s.  Somebody is currently doing a great service by gradually scanning in back issues, with a wealth of information not only about the Thames Valley area but also wider radical movements in that period.

Here, from May 26th 1985, is a report of a mainly anarcho-punk squat gig at Bracknell cinema which featured bands including No Defences, Slave Dance, Pro Patria Mori, Barcelona Bus Company and the Magic Mushroom Band.

From the same scene and the same year (I think), a report of a 'free festival benefit gig' at the Paradise Club in Reading, featuring Karma Sutra, Barcelona Bus Company and Cosmetic Plague. Not sure of the source of this report but it is reproduced in the booklet for Karma Sutra's retrospective album 'Be Cruel With Your Past And All Who Seek To Keep You There' 

UK Police and free parties update, March 2012

A bank holiday weekend coming up and there are the usual warnings from police forces across the UK of 'zero tolerance' of free parties. Still, 18 years after the anti-'rave' Criminal Justice Act passed into law, the parties still coming - and so are the police.

'Police are set to swoop on raves' (Oxford Times, 2 April 2012)

'Police have extra manpower on standby to deal with any illegal raves over the Easter weekend. Thames Valley Police say Easter is historically a “hot spot” for these gatherings and they are urging members of the public to keep an eye out. Inspector Emma Baillie said: “I encourage land owners and communities in the Thames Valley area to report raves being set up as soon as possible.” '
 
'Squatters evicted from £4.2m Clifton Wood mansion in Bristol' (This is Bristol, 2 April 2012)
 
'Squatters have been kicked out of multi-million pound Clifton Wood mansion, leaving it trashed. Once Bristol's most expensive property – on the market for £4.2 million – many of the house's rooms today lay in tatters. In the end, it took more than 50 police officers to clear the building.

Yesterday's eviction came after nearby residents began complaining on Saturday evening about a noisy party at the gated mansion in Clifton Wood Road. The party continued to get louder throughout the evening, with more people seen going into the property, which squatters moved into in February. Officers got into the main room in the house where the party was being held at about 6am yesterday, but were met by a group of around 35 "hostile" revellers. Some of the squatters climbed onto the roof to pelt officers with bottles.

Police arrested four people and continued to monitor the property before returning at 7.30am. A fracas between police and squatters then broke out in the street, believed to have been sparked when further sound equipment was seen being taken into the house. Three officers received minor injuries during the incident.

Dozens more police – around 50 officers in total – arrived at the scene and streets around Clifton Wood Road were closed off for most of yesterday morning. Officers then entered the house and removed the squatters. Eleven people were arrested during the night and are currently helping police with their inquiries. The building has been left strewn with rubbish.The kitchen lies in tatters with graffiti scrawled across the walls and the indoor swimming pool has been partly filled and strewn with rubbish.A private security firm was called in to board up and secure the property to stop further squatters getting inside.

Following an order of possession being granted last week at Bristol County Court in favour of the building's owners, The Bank Of Scotland, bailiffs had been planning to evict the squatters. Some squatters – many who said they moved to the mansion after being evicted from the Occupy Bristol  Camp at College Green – accused the police of brutality and told the Evening Post they had captured the police's "forced entry" on video. The squatters claimed the police did not have a warrant to evict them and that they were simply holding a party for a friend's birthday.

Police told Evening Post they cleared the building using powers to stop raves under the Criminal Justice Act and no warrant was needed. Traveller Dexter Josephs, 19, said: "We were just having a party for a friend's birthday and we were not making a noise." Fellow squatter Raoul Duke, 22, said: "The police have treated us quite horribly. All the neighbours have been fine with us. The police asked us to turn down the music, which we did. They were outside in the riot vans and then kicked in the doors and pushed through the metal gates. We locked what doors we could inside to slow them down, but they continued to boot in the doors. They put my arm behind my back and pushed me out. We don't feel we have done anything wrong. Essentially, this course of action has just left around 35 people homeless."....

[nb - this wasn't somebody's home that had been squatted, the owners are a bank which presumably means that it was repossessed at some point and then left empty. Video footage has emerged showing police making some violent arrests during the eviction]




'Easter rave warning from police after 13 arrests at Burnham Market' (EDP, 2 April 2012)

'A fresh warning against raves has been issued by the police after 13 people were arrested early on Sunday morning from farmland in Burnham Market. The rave was held close to Old Sussex Farm Road in the North Norfolk village and involved about 500 people and 150 cars. Out of the 13 arrests made yesterday, 10 of them were for people who ignored a legal order to leave the area. The other three were arrested on suspicion of possession of drugs.

Most of the people at the rave left peacefully after a number of the legal orders were made.The people who were arrested have been bailed until the middle of this month. Sound equipment, including power generators, were also seized and three vehicles were impounded. Several fixed penalty notices were also issued for road related offences, including seat belt and speeding offences. In the lead up to Easter, officers have warned that there will be a zero tolerance approach to raves across the county.

Chief Supt Nick Dean said: “The event at the weekend at Burnham Market is a timely reminder of the action that we will take with regards to raves. We will intervene and, where necessary, not hesitate to make arrests and seize equipment. It’s important to remind people that we will continue to work with the organisers of licensed musical events.Unlicensed musical events or raves are unsafe and disruptive to our local communities...'

'Illegal rave in Norwich shut down after complaints' (BBC, 18 March 2012)

'Police were called to shut down an illegal rave in Norwich after complaints from nearby residents. A large crowd of more than 150 people gathered under the A146 flyover off a field in White Horse Lane in Trowse just after midnight. Members of the public complained to police about amplified music, which was switched off at about 09:15 GMT.

One person was arrested on suspicion of possession of drugs, a Norfolk police spokesman said.Supt Mike Fawcett said: "It has been an exceptionally challenging night for police resources across the county and we have had to take this into account in assessing our response to this event, as well as work within the powers granted to police under current legislation.

"Officers have been working throughout the night to identify key participants and negotiate to bring this illegal event to an end as quickly and safely as possible for all concerned.We acknowledge that local residents have been disturbed by the amplified music and we will seek to take further action against those involved."'

'Cops' actions at illegal rave defended after being branded 'brutal'' (Milton Keynes News, 8 March 2012)

'Ninety police officers that closed down an illegal rave have been criticised for their ‘brutal’ and ‘heavy handed’ tactics. CS gas and batons were used against some of the 200 revellers who had turned up to an Old Wolverton warehouse in the early hours of Sunday.The force helicopter was also deployed as police faced a barrage of bottles, coins and pieces of wooden pallets as they struggled for two-and-a-half hours to shut down the party. Some officers even had a car driven at them ‘at speed’.

But now some of those who were at the event have hit out at Thames Valley Police, saying the force used was over the top compared to the trouble they were facing. One man who wanted to remain anonymous said: “The police came in full riot gear – we were not there in riot gear, we were trying to have fun not riot. The police were shouting and threatening young lads who were just trying to see what was going on – 90 police officers in riot gear and a helicopter is excessive for a group of youths having fun, the police were trying to cause a fight with the heavy handed way they stormed in.”

A barrage of comments have also been sent to MK NEWS following the incident. One reads: “I saw many armed officers brutally attacking unarmed men and women with truncheons and pepper spray.” Another claims a woman walked over to a fallen officer to see if he was alright when she was hit with batons...'

121 Centre in Brixton: 1990s flyers

The 121 Centre in Brixton, variously known as an ‘anarchist centre’, ‘social centre’ and ‘squatted centre’, was a hub of international radical activity and much else throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The house at 121 Railton Road, SE24 was first squatted by a group of local anarchists in 1981 and was finally evicted in 1999 (it is now private flats). Its four storeys included a bookshop, office space, printing equipment, kitchen and meeting area, and a basement for gigs and parties.

Over 18+ years it was the launchpad for numerous radical initiatives, some short-lived, others having a more lasting impact. Many groups used 121 for meetings and events, including Brixton Squatters Aid, Brixton Hunt Saboteurs, Food not Bombs, Community Resistance Against the Poll Tax, Anarchist Black Cross, the Direct Action Movement, London Socialist Film Co-op and the Troops Out Movement. Publications associated with 121 included Shocking Pink, Bad Attitude, Crowbar, Contraflow, Black Flag and Underground.

There was a regular Friday night cafe and many gigs and club nights, including the legendary mid-1990s Dead by Dawn (which I've written about here before). 121 was a venue for major events including Queeruption, the Anarchy in the UK festival and an International Infoshop Conference. It was, in short, a space where hundreds of people met, argued, danced, found places to live, fell in and out of love, ate and drank..

This is the first in a series of posts featuring flyers from 121:



September 1995 - a film night with HHH Video Magazine featuring recent events including the Battle of Hyde Park
(anti-Criminal Justice Act demo), the McDonalds libel trial, the 1994 'levitation of parliament; and the Claremont Road/M11 road protest. In the pre-web 2.0/youtube era, videos like this were a key way in which visual information from different movements circulated.

Wonder what the 'Russian Techno Art Performance' was?



February 1995 - a benefit night for the 56a Info Shop in Elephant Castle, with Difficult  Daughters,
Steve Cope & the 1926 Committee, Mr Social Control and others.

Martin Dixon remembers playing the song  'Animals' at 121: 'Steve Cope and the 1926 Committee arose from the ashes of The Proles. I used to play trumpet with them on this one song. Invariably the last song of the set I remember getting on stage with them in the packed basement of the squatted 121 Centre in Railton Road, Brixton. Every time I lifted the trumpet a dog would leap up barking wildly. “Whenever they need to segregate, experiment or isolate, or simply to humiliate,
they’ll call you animals ”.

Mr Social Control was a performance poet, he used to sometimes have a synth player
 and rant to Pet Shop Boys style backing. 



August 1995: punk gig with Scottish band Oi Polloi and PMT, who came from Norwich.



August 1995 'Burn Hollywood Burn' video night. Riot Porn was always popular at 121,
in this case film of the Los Angeles uprising, as well as squatting in Brixton, Hackney and Holland.



1992: Burn Hollywood Burn again! LA riots plus video of Mainzer Straße evictions in Berlin (1989).
The benefit was to raise funds for an early computer link up with the Italian-based
European Counter Network (ECN) amd the Amsterdam-based Activist Press Service (APS),
via which radical news and information was circulated.




Jill Allott RIP

A  while back I posted about the death of Katy Watson, feminist, Brixtonite, and radical (among many other things). Sad news today from my friend Roseanne of the death of somebody else from that scene:

'With great sadness I’m writing to let people know about the death of Jill Allott, a former stalwart of Brixton squatting and a wonderful friend. Jill died last Friday on 6 January from a secondary brain tumour, though she had fought off two earlier bouts of cancer. She was surrounded by family and friends.

Some of you might know Jill from the 80s and the 90s in Brixton, where she lived on Brailsford and Arlingford Roads, Sandmere Road, Brixton Water Lane and Mervan Road. Like many women involved in squatting communities, Jill trained in a manual trade and became an electrician. She generously shared her skills and knowledge, whether in Brixton or further afield when she trained women electricians in Nicaragua. Later, she studied to become a Shiatsu practitioner. She was always helping people – opening squats, wiring up houses, giving Shiatsu treatments or simply being there as a friend.

Jill’s enthusiasm boosted many anarchist, feminist, lesbian/gay and community projects. She helped at 121 Bookshop in the early 80s, and played a major part in organising women’s café nights and gigs there. She galvanised resistance to evictions, helped produce the women’s zine Feminaxe, and took part in actions against Clause 28 and the Gulf War.

Jill was also a talented drummer who played in bands such as the Sluts from Outer Space and Los Lasses. She loved a good party, especially if it involved dancing to reggae. Her birthday parties were among the best in Brixton.



The Sluts from Outer Space (late 80s), with Jill on drums



In the late 1990s she moved to Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. She had two children – Corinne and Finley – and continued to play an active part in communities there. Always a fighter, Jill helped form a support and action network for women affected by cancer. She worked as a Shiatsu practitioner in projects offering treatment to drug users and women facing health and mental health problems.

Many people through the years have known Jill and loved her. Our lives and struggles have taken us many places and scatter us throughout the world; often we move on and lose touch. But hopefully everyone who was close to Jill will read this, share our sadness but also celebrate the life of a great friend, activist and mother'

Las Lassies - Jill bottom left

I didn't know Jill very well personally - she was more of a friend of a friend in my Brixton days - but like many people around at the time I can say 'Thanks for fixing my electricity Jill'.

[photos by Jill's friends from Roseanne's facebook wall - hope that's OK]