In two short reflective talks, Sheila Rowbotham and Hilary Wainwright will contribute personal memories of links between events, movements and ideas which surfaced in 1968 and the emergence of the women’s liberation movement of the early 1970s. They will describe how these helped to shape their approaches to politics. These will be followed by contributions and discussion from the audience. In 1969, Sheila Rowbotham’s influential pamphlet Women's Liberation and the New Politics, argued that […]
As part of her collection of historically-based narratives which provoke questions about society today, Heather Jane will present a story set in her homeland of Gloucestershire. 'The Dispossessed' is a tale weaving poaching, 18th century criminality, and dispossession of people from the land in Berkeley and the Forest of Dean; followed by historical facts and discussion pondering the modern-day fall out of enclosures.
Di Parkin, Secretary of Bristol Radical History Group shares her memories of 1968 from the Vietnam anti-war demonstrations and the women’s equal pay strike at Ford's Dagenham to the 'Prague spring', the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia and Enoch Powell’s 'rivers of blood' speech. Watch this talk
Professor Bush offers a critical reassessment of the events of 1968 and their aftermath. He will look at May '68 in Paris in a broader context of global protest and changing narratives of political analysis and authentic action. He will give a brief account of his own experiences of the summer of 1968 at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, in the wake of the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and Malcolm X. Thirdly, Professor Bush will examine a late echo of the sixties in the […]
The Granary opened its doors as a jazz club in Bristol in 1968, establishing itself as a rock venue in 1969 when the collective Plastic Dog moved in. This session explores the Bristolian music scene, in a pioneering venue from the 60s to the 80s. From the tail-end of 1968 and into the Eighties the Old Granary in Bristol’s historic city docks became home to rock music and outrageously liberal attitudes. It is still remembered fondly by its acolytes. Al Read and Ed Newsom were part of a foursome […]
Born in 1951, Radical Stroud’s Stuart Butler recounts how the events of May '68 turned him from a mod into a Marxist. Stuart shares his personal journey during the year that rocked the world through prose-poetry. Prologue: Sixteen years’ old in the spring of 1968: bored with school; bored with A levels; why on earth did I stay on? Skint. Just got the sack from a Saturday job. No fags, no new records, no new clothes, no job, no money. Swindon have just had another rubbish season and now there’s […]
From the introduction of conscription in 1916 to the end of the war each year at least 80,000 men were reported missing as deserters or absentees from the British home forces. Among them was an unquantifiable number of men who identified themselves as Conscientious Objectors. Their stories of temporary or permanent escape are a part of the history of 1914-18 war resisters which has been largely ignored.
Otherstory presents – A puppet drama documentary about men on the run from conscription during World War 1. Using table top puppetry, photographs and posters from the period, the experience of men on the run is chronicled – including the extraordinary story of a secret chamber beneath a bike shop in Bedminster – and showing the wide network of support that enabled some men to reach the USA. This will be followed by a discussion/workshop looking at the historical material used in the show with a […]
Centred around the Shot at Dawn Memorial the talk looks at how war commemoration is viewed and how an artist's approach may differ from that of a commissioning body. It also looks at how war commemoration has changed, who is included and who is left out.
This documentary looks at the British Caribbean experience of the First World War and its legacies, as revealed by the last surviving veterans of the British West Indies Regiment. Central to the narrative is the mutiny at the allied base of Taranto in Italy in 1918. The film is formed of archival materials, drama reconstructions and eye-witness and expert interviews shot in Jamaica, Cuba, Guyana, Barbados, St. Lucia, Italy and the UK. The film's researcher and producer Tony T along with expert […]
