Shirkers, Skulkers, Deserters and the 'Live and Let Live' Principle: Everyday Resistance to Combat on the Western Front in World War 1 With Roger Ball Fraternisation between opposing armed forces on the Western front on Christmas Day 1914 is part of the British collective memory; sold to us a momentary 'miracle' involving a few hundred troops. Of far more interest is the massive scale and crucially the context for these events. The everyday 'hidden' resistance of troops on both sides to the […]
Anandi Ramamurthy will discuss the prejudice and political struggles which Asian youth movements have encountered in Britain. Black Star: Britain’s Asian Youth Movement (Pluto Press, 2013) documents the vibrant Asian youth movements in 1970s and 80s Britain who struggled against the racism of the street and the state. Anandi Ramamurthy shows how they drew inspiration from Black Power movements, as well as anti-imperialist and workers' struggles across the globe. Drawing on her intimate knowledge […]
Steve Hunt will launch his book about Street Farm, published by Tangent Books in April 2014 Street Farm were an anarchist collective that worked to green the counterculture during the 1970s. Peter Crump, Bruce Haggart, Graham Caine and their friends put together Street Farmer, an underground paper that, alongside mutating tower blocks, cosmic tractors and sprouting one-way signs, propagated ideas for the radical transformation of urban living which they called ‘revolutionary urbanism’. Taking […]
The Fair Fight is a pulsating historical novel set within the world of female pugilists and their patrons in late eighteenth-century Bristol. It is an unputdownable story which takes you from a filthy brothel to the finest houses in the town, from the world of street fighters to the world of champions. Alive with the smells and sounds of the streets, The Fair Fight is a major debut. Anna Freeman a lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University as well as a multiple slam-winning performance […]
It’s 40 years since Wally Hope started the Peoples' Free Festivals at Stonehenge and 30 years since the last one. Wally Dean will tell the tales of The Wallies and the Peace Convoy. He will take us from Wally's utopian vision, his incarceration, and his suspicious demise, to the heyday of the anarchic free festival movement and its oppression at the hands of Thatcher’s Tory Party and the continuing struggle to free Stonehenge today. Wally Hope was the catalyst that spawned Crass and the […]
Presented by 'Remembering The Real World War 1' - Bristol's campaign to commemorate the real World War 1 – all welcome This meeting represents an opportunity to hear different views about the war and discuss how we can ensure that the real World War 1 is remembered by people across the city. How the war is remembered is as much about the future as the past – while past conflict remains discredited, future foreign military interventions and occupations will remain difficult to sell to the public. […]
Uomini contro (Many Wars Ago) Directed by Francesco Rosi, 100 mins, Italy 1970, Italy 1917 -- society is violently split down the middle over the question of whether to continue intervention in the war. Anarchists and socialists are intent on causing so much trouble that continued intervention is impossible. Railway lines are ripped up, battle lines are drawn. On the Isonzo front a General smells socialism behind the troops reaction to his orders and a disastrous Italian attack upon the Austrian […]
This is the third meeting in Bristol to discuss opposition to David Cameron's 'truly national commemoration' of WW1 stressing our 'national spirit'. Nationally there are plans to ensure that attention is given to the real causes and effects of the war, rather than an opportunity for our government to re-habilitate this war in particular or war in general. Bristol has long radical traditions and we know there are groups and individuals across the city who will want to ensure that there are events […]
This is the second meeting in Bristol to discuss opposition to David Cameron's 'truly national commemoration' of WW1 stressing our 'national spirit'. Nationally there are plans to ensure that attention is given to the real causes and effects of the war, rather than an opportunity for our government to re-habilitate this war in particular or war in general. Bristol has long radical traditions and we know there are groups and individuals across the city who will want to ensure that there are […]
Justice, liberties and popular petitioning in 1648-49 The regicide of 1649 has often been presented by books, articles and TV dons as the result of religious beliefs related to the King's role as a 'Man of Blood', whose own blood must be shed to deliver England from the taint of killing and the fear of God's vengeance. However the evidence suggests a far more sophisticated political response rooted in the concepts of 'Justice and Liberties' displayed in both public and military petitions. […]
