Swords into Ploughshares (60min, 2018) is an edited version of The Plan, a documentary made by Steve Sprung. It tells the story of how and why Lucas Aerospace workers in the 1970s evolved a Corporate Plan to change their output from those that serviced the armaments industry to socially useful products like kidney machines, heat pumps and wind turbines. An excellent film exposing a hidden history of great relevance for today. A compliment to the talk by Andy Danford.
100 Years of Struggle (30 mins) is a film made in 1973 to mark the centenary of the Bristol Trades Union Council. Although it was transmitted by BBC Bristol, it was produced and narrated by members of the Council. Each of them linked key events in the past - in 1873, 1892, 1914 and 1926 - to the industrial and political struggles of the time when the documentary was made.
Andy Danford brings to life his experience as a worker and senior union representative in Bristol’s arms industry during the 1970s and 1980s. During these two decades, life on the shop and office floors, and the strength of workplace trade unionism, shifted dramatically, as the advent of Thatcherism marked the beginning of the sustained attack on worker and union rights which extends to this day. Against this background of change, Andy provides a rich account of the actions of rank-and-file […]
A walking tour as part of Bristol Radical History Festival Meet at the MShed front entrance at 4.00pm. Finish at the Louisiana around 5:30pm. Bristol’s city centre has been a focus for squatters making a political point: on housing need and homelessness, in solidarity with strikes, in solidarity with land struggles and in defence of the natural environment. This short tour includes five buildings squatted in the Harbourside, Old Town and Redcliffe in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and […]
What is the connection between the Bristol Sharples family of artists, the American Revolution of the 1780s and the Royal West of England Academy of Art? Join Lee Cox in exploring the places where Ellen and Rolinda Sharples lived and worked at the beginning of the 19th century. Rolinda became the only female member of the Bristol School of Narrative Artists, whilst the Sharples family little known legacy led to the establishment of equal art training opportunities for women alongside men […]
‘Women’s Threads of Bristol’ aims to create a comprehensive visual illustration of places in Bristol that are named after women – roads, buildings, parks, blue plaques, murals – all are relevant. It encourages exploration of who these women were and what they did to earn recognition. But, just as importantly, it asks people to suggest who they think should be on the map. Who were our female community champions? Which women dedicated their lives towards science, health, teaching, equalities, the […]
Bristol Radical History Group presents an innovative exhibition of resistance to fascism in the city in the 1970s, through a collection of rare contemporary posters, badges, pamphlets, photographs and film. This visually powerful exhibition considers the role that Bristolians played in standing up to and confronting the rise of the far-right and racist National Front during the 1970s. The first warning came fifty years ago – the National Front decided to put up candidates in Bristol. The […]
An urban walk that explores the political reverberations of the first cholera outbreak in Bristol in 1832. The 1830s was a time of radical political and social division in Britain. At this moment a terrible disease arrived in the country – the Cholera Morbus. It seemed to afflict old and young alike, doctors were baffled by its cause, and for some of its victims it led to a terrible end. The walk examines the social, economic, cultural and political impacts of the epidemic in the South West. The […]
100 Years of Struggle is an unusual documentary made to mark the centenary of the Bristol Trades Union Council (BTUC) in 1973. Although it was transmitted by BBC Bristol, it was produced by the BTUC at a time when some organisations outside the Corporation were allowed to use BBC resources to have their own say. It was written, researched and presented by members of the BTUC and will be introduced by its director Colin Thomas.
Sheila Caffrey will talk about some of the picket lines and broader campaigns seen in Bristol in the last couple of years, and some of the bigger protests and how these have also affected the mood e.g. Black Lives Matter and COP-26, and the role Trades Unions have (or could have!) played in these. Sheila Caffrey is an active trade unionist in Bristol. She first got involved with Bristol Trades Council 15 years ago, after becoming a teacher and a campaigner in the National Union of Teachers […]
