Stealing Good Times from Bad - 80s casual fashions in Bermondsey

In the Face magazine, July 1984, Robert Elms wrote an article 'Good Times'. A follow up to his 1982 article 'Hard Times', it highlighted a shift in street fashion away from dressing down to dressing up and focused  on shops in the Bermondsey/Tower Bridge Road in particular. Here's a few extracts:

'Down the Old Kent Road they're wearing Cerruti. Gucci and Armani, spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on looking rich, and queueing up in front of anybody who can find new ways of separating them from their cash.

Amid the textbook urban decay of Tower Bridge Road there are three high-fashion, high-price clothiers, Le Pel, Platform 1 and Moda 3. In Moda 3 they sell menswear at prices that South Molton Strcet would think twice about and employ two bouncers on a Saturday afternoon to keep the kids out. That is serious business.

Hard times and suntans - the irony of recession Britain spending money like it's going out of fashion. Except that money has never been as thoroughly fashionable as it is right now. While governments tinker with redundant economics, so people, and in particular young people, have decided to buy themselves good times - whatever the price.

A Liverpool councillor said recently that despite the very real and appaling decay that his city has suffered, you'd be underestimating the resourcefulness of Liverpudlians if you thought they were bowing down and accepting Thatcher's recession - they find ways to get by. And a lot of people are getting by remarkably well. A self employed builder or plumber can earn a fair screw these days, but the standard profession in the Deep South seems to be "ducking and diving". Thatcher preaches self help. and there's plenty of helping yourself going on. There's a new euphemism for that kind of getting by: it's the one part of the economy that the Tories have been successful at boosting and it's now known as the informal sector. Considering what they're spending it on. perhaps casual might be a better word.

In Southwark there is the worst unemployment in London and among the worst housing. Yet amid the crumbling. Victorian red-brick blocks battered by the Blitz, there are half a dozen pubs on one estate alone which look like kitsch sci-fi spaceships that have landed in a barren, alien land.

These pubs are all dressed in pink and lime green with awnings that beckon like false eye-lashes and names like Gillies. EJ's. Sampsons and Southsides. Inside, the bars are stainless steel and the walls are covered in mirrors. They're a graphic. almost comic illustration of the mass desire to spend away the depression. Every night they're full of girls in cashmere sweaters downing drinks of many colours and boys in clothes with Milanese labels drinking every new overpriced bottled lager they can import. In Southsides these days the favourite tipple is champagne. In a tarted-up burger bar Dom Perignon costs £30 a throw; a bottle sent to the table is the polite precursor to an attempted pull. And outside they line up their Ford Escort XR3s with gold wheels and dream of the day it's a Porsche.

Tony Yusuff runs Le Pel, and two other equally exclusive and expensive clothes shops in the Old Kent Road and Lewisham. He makes regular trips to Italy to decide what hip South London is going to be wearing next season. He sells quality clothes to boys and girls in search of the Dolce Vita. In his new ladies shop he stocked a couple of jackets that retailed for £350 just to see how they went. They went very quickly indeed.. Money it seems is no object.

Next season he's going to move away from Italian classics into the more radical British designs of the likes of Bodymap. It's a risky move among conservative casuals, but he's sure that his increasingly sophisticated clientele will go with him. Le Pel has built up a reputation and a following by treating local kids with the kind of respect they rarely get from most of the snotty, effete shop assistants in South Molton Street.

"There's a kind of local pride. they even try to buy the bags. because like the clothes they're a status symbol".

[...]  Fashion inevitably weaves in and out, reacting against itself and everything else in an always fascinating chase. But in its broader sweeps, it's one of the most accurate barometers of an age, and we're in an age when fashion has swept broader than ever before. In the Sixties fashion was a powerful force because of new-found affluence - in the Eighties it's perversely powerful because of unabated depression. The art is one of stealing good times from hard'.

Le Pel is shown briefly in the 1985 Arena documentary 'Old Kent Road'

In his autobiography 'On a Plate' (2012), chef Gregg Wallace writes of this time: 'Bermondsey became alive with smart bars, like Sampson’s and Willows, two-floor affairs, with guys tapping their sovereign rings on their glasses of champagne in time to the music. Bus drivers pretended to be gangsters at the weekends, while dustmen with shirts from Moda 3 or Le Pel claimed they were going to have someone ‘blown away’. 

[Le Pel was at 268 Old Kent Road, its Lewisham branch was in Lee High Road; I believe Moda 3 used to do a Bermondsey t-shirt; I think the Gillies he refers to was actually  Gilly's piano bar in Wild Rents, SE1, off Long Lane; Samsons, sometimes known as Samsons Castle, was a pub in Grange Road SE1]

See also: South London Casuals: White Hall Clothiers, Camberwell Road 1983

Music Monday: Peckham Blancmange

Synth duo Blancmange had a string of early 1980s hits, starting with Living on the Ceiling in 1982. Singer Neil Arthur hailed from Lancashire but at the peak of their success he was living in 'London SE15 in a huge Georgian house. It's not mine I share it with four other people'. (don't know where but Peckham Peculiar has previously mentioned that he used to get his hair cut at Georgiou’s barbers on Atwell Road).

In the same 1983 interview with weekly pop magazine No.1, Arthur tells of his love for Young Marble Giants, seeing the Human League at the Nashville with Bowie in the crowd and of his wish 'that the Conservatives don't get in again' (spoiler: they did).

No.1 magazine, May 21 1983

My personal favourite of their's is their fine 1984 cover of Abba's The Day Before You Came. Of course the original is a synth pop classic in its own right and Abba's best song. Blancmange's video cuts in scenes from Abba's own promotional film for their version, and their Stockholm rail journey is replaced with a London one including going over Hungerford bridge, so presumably on the London Bridge to Charing Cross line. Pop obsessives may spot Blancmange change one line in the song - can you spot it?*

* answer - in the Abba version they sing 'I must have read a while, The latest one by Marilyn French or something in that style'. Blancmange change the author to Barbara Cartland.  I was always thought it was cool that Abba namechecked a feminist writer though.

Update: confirmation on Twitter, that Neil Arthur lived in Choumert Road SE15

Women in Revolt at Tate Britain

'Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990' at Tate Britain features a huge amount of archive material from different 1970s/80s feminist currents alongside the art works which taken together give a strong sense of the visual culture and politics of the period. 

Lots of South London content included, here's a few I spotted:

'Shrew - Women's Liberation Workshop' (1970)- I noticed on the cover that this copy was at one time held in 'The Fawcett Collection, temporarily at 67 Barry Road SE22'. The Fawcett Collection later became the Women's Library. Barry Road in East Dulwich just across the road from Peckham Rye, where as discussed here previously one of the first London Women's Liberation groups was formed, a group that was involved in the production of Shrew.

'In Print' - newsletter of Peckham Black Women's Group, at one point ran Peckham Black Women's Centre, 69 Bellenden Road SE15

Leaflet for a demonstration from Brockwell Park called by the Groce Family Support and Community Defence Campaign. Cherry Groce was shot and seriously injured by police during a raid on a house in Brixton in 1985, sparking off a riot.

'Defend the black community! fascists off the streets' - a leaflet mobilising for the anti-National Front demonstration in New Cross/Lewisham in August 1977, that became known as the Battle of Lewisham. Would like to see the back of this leaflet to see who produced it.

The exhibition includes issues of Rock Against Racism zine 'Temporary Hoarding', one of which features this picture of Adam and the Ants playing a RAR gig at Elephant and Castle'. This was at South Bank Poly (now Uni) on 17 June 1978.

Chain Reaction at the Market Tavern in Vauxhall, 1980s women only SM/fetish club 

 


Quite a few visitors delighted in spotting images of themselves or friends, or things they had been involved with and by the end I was doing the same with pictures from the Clause 28 demonstrations and copies of Shocking Pink zine which my friend Katy Watson was involved with and which was based for a while at the 121 Centre in Brixton.



The exhibition closes on 7 April 2024.

Women's Day for Disarmament 1983

'Women's Day for Disarmament' took place on May 24 1983, with hundreds of events across Britain. This was the period of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp against cruise missiles and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was at its height.

In South London events included a temporary peace camp on Clapham Common near to the South London Women's Hospital, which was threatened with closure. South East London Greenham Women put white crosses on Peckham Rye before marching to the Imperial War Museum. Later 5000 women gathered in Trafalgar Square before making a chain around the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall

Socialist Action, 13 May 1983

Socialist Organiser, 26 May 1983

Elvis Costello at Deptford Albany with Squeeze

In August 1980, Jools Holland played his last gig as keyboardist with Squeeze at The Albany in Deptford. In fact they played three nights at the venue (12,13,14 August), a deliberate return to their roots at a time when they were riding high commercially and selling out much bigger venues than this one, which Danny Baker characterised in his NME review of the gig (reproduced at Elvis Costello Wiki) as follows:

'For those — and there are some — who've never been to the Albany Empire and are ignorant to the venue's overwhelming size, maybe the following local joke will illuminate: a fella goes to the Albany and opens the door. "Can I come in?" he asks, and the bloke behind the desk says, "Only if I come out." (NME, 23 August 1980). This was in the Albany's original location on Creek Road - badly damaged by fire in a suspected right wing petrol bomb attack  in 1978, it was in limited use until new building was built in Douglas Way in 1981 (see here for picture of new building under construction).

The gigs featured support acts including Alexi Sayle, John Cooper Clarke and 'mystery' act  'Otis Westinghouse And The Lifts' who were in fact Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Elvis Costello also joined Squeeze for their encores (pictured below):

Review from Smash Hits, 4 September 1980

SE London Women Against Rape - Lewisham demo, 1980

I found this browsing at the interesting digital archive of feminist magazine, Spare Rib. The July 1980 issues records a 300 strong march through Lewisham on May 10 1980, called by South East London Women Against Rape - a group set up 'by Lewisham women after some of them had become involved in helping a woman who had just been raped. They had been shocked not only by the rape but at the harsh and unsympathetic treatment the woman had receivd at the hands of police and doctors'. The group contacts were given as Gill Chambers and Linda Stewart at Deptford Women's Centre, 74 Deptford High Street, and feminist singer Frankie Armstrong was also mentioned as being involved. The photo shows placard reading 'Stop Crimes Against Women Now', sadly as relevant in 2017 as it was in 1980.

The Anarchist Festival in Lewisham Odeon that never was - 1986

Source: Freedom, April 1986.

Lewisham Odeon opened as the Gaumont  Palace cinema in 1932, and was renamed the Odeon in 1962. As mentioned here before it was the scene of many iconic gigs before it closed in 1981, being finally demolished in 1991 to make way for a road widening scheme in the town centre.

In 1986, the Odeon was squatted and plans made for a London Anarchist Festival, to include films, bookstalls, workshops and a performance of Dario Fo's play 'Accidental Death of an Anarchist'. But it wasn't to be. I found this report of what happened in an issue of the Christian Anarchist zine 'A Pinch of Salt' (no.3, 1986) at the interesting Sparrows Nest digitial archive:

'The outing to the London Anarchist Festival was fairly surreal and bizarre. Planned to be held in the squatted Lewisham Odeon, the police raided the place the night before with a High Court injunction banning the Festival (anarchist paranoia has a strange habit of either being justified or perhaps self-fulfilling). So it was a farily deflated, undecided bunch of anarchists sitting outside the Odeon, wondering what to do next. The inside of the cinema was wonderful - a strangely floating space which hadn't seen a film in years but still the curtains seemed expectant... Eventually some people meandered to Greenwich Park and a rambling anarchist picnic was somehow held. The warm spring sunshine was subduing... Meanwhile the forces of law and order muster and clear all the lazy sun-soaked  anarchists out of the park onto Blackheath, where there was once a peasants revolt or something. However, nothing was particularly revolting on that sunny day'.

As The Ruinist mentions, the following day 'The festival decamped to The Ambulance Station [squat on Old Kent Road] for a discussion about whether the Station should become a London Anarchist centre. All seemed well with that during the discussions until a punkette who was living there said that the meeting would have to check with some guy who was living in a caravan in the yard whether using the squat as a centre would be okay. In classic anarchoid fashion, nothing ever came of the 3-hour debate and plans'.

Update July 2025:

Thanks to the Undercover Policing Inquiry we now know that the plans for the festival were under consideration by the police for some time before. A Special Branch report filed by police infiltrator Bob Lambert outlined the plans as early as March 1986. The report mentions various groups planning to take part, including Streatham Action Group, and a planning meeting arranged at the 121 Centre in Brixton.

One factor was that the police were monitoring the potential for protests during the July 1986 Royal Wedding between Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. Another report from Lambert mentions that the subject was likely to be raised at the proposed festival in Lewisham.

See previously on Lewisham Odeon:

Rock Around the Clock 1956

The Beatles and Ray Charles 1963

David Bowie 1973

Rod Stewart and Paul McCartney 1974

The Specials 1979

Adam and the Ants 1980

Desmond Dekker, Madness and Go Gos, 1980

Tony Benn, Allan Boesak & Squeeze commemorate Peasants Revolt on Blackheath 1981

A picture posted as part of the ongoing argument within the Labour Party has prompted me to dig up an episode in local history - the commemoration of the 600th anniversary of the 1381 Peasants Revolt, held on Blackheath in 1981.

 

Jolyon Green published a crowd scene on twitter with the caption 'Huge crowd in Lewisham for Tony Benn before 1983 election (Spoiler: Labour lost both seats to the Tories in 1983)'. Subsequent discussion on twitter seems to have narrowed this down to Blackheath in 1981, within the borough of Lewisham.

 

 

 

Tony Benn did indeed address a crowd there, the occasion being an event to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the Peasants Revolt. In 1381 the rebels had gathered on Blackheath before heading into London, so it was an obvious place for the commemoration on May 4th 1981. As well as speakers there was music on this May Day bank holiday from Squeeze, Frankie Armstrong & Leon Rosselson, Traitors Gait, Rubber Johnny, Bluebird and Icarus. So it was more of a festival than just a political rally, and certainly not specifically a 'Bennite' rally.

 

 

Other speakers included Jack Straw - pictured below with Benn and the young Will Straw at the Blackheath event - and Canon Paul Oestreicher, then parish priest at the Church of the Ascension in Blackheath. The latter is an interesting figure who was chair of Amnesty International, hence no doubt the continuing connection between that church and Amnesty (a great Amnesty book sale takes place twice a year at the church).

 

Allan Boesak, the South African anti-apartheid activist, gave a liberation theology-inspired sermon taking as his starting point John Ball's 1381 Blackheath sermon with its famous statement 'Matters shall not be well in England until all things are held in common' (Boesak's Blackheath sermon is included in his book 'Black and Reformed: Apartheid, Liberation and the Calvinist Tradition').

 

 

 

Does anyone have any memories of the 1981 event?

 

As for its contemporary political relevance, I don't want to get into internal Labour politics here. Jolyon Green's point seems to have been that large left wing rallies do not necessarily translate into Labour winning elections. It is a little misleading to compare Blackheath in 1981 to a current day rally of Corbyn supporters, the former was as we have seen a broader cultural festival, the crowd weren't there just to listen to Tony Benn. But it is historically accurate to note that despite the left sometimes being able to mobilise large numbers on the streets in that period (maybe 250,000 at London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament demo in 1981, where Benn also spoke) it was the Tories who won the 1983 general election by a sizeable majority.

 

Lewisham East was won in 1983 by Colin Moynihan, who went on to be the Conservative sports minister at the time of the Hillsborough disaster. Moynihan's victory was no doubt assisted by the fact that Polly Toynbee stood in the constituency for the short lived Social Democratic Party, which had split from Labour to join with the Lib Dems. Lewisham West was won by John Maples who, like Moynihan, held his seat for the Conservatives until losing it to Labour in the 1992 election. 

Rave at the Crypt - St Paul's Deptford 1988-1991

As mentioned here before, the crypt of St Pauls Church in Deptford was extensively used for gigs and parties in the 1980s and 1990s. From the great phatmedia rave flyer archive, here's a couple more to prompt your memories. 

Mary's House in November 1988 promised '100% pure house sounds' with 'DJ Merran and Graham Meacham'

Insanity Promotions' Hallelujah was a fortnightly event starting in August 1991, with DJs including Andy Nichols, Scott Smith, Danny Monk with forthcoming guests Steve Lee and 'Andy Weatherall (unconfirmed)'. Wonder if he ever made it? In those pre-internet days, membership was available from promoter Alan Main at an address in Lenville Way SE16 - that's on the now demolished Bonamy Estate:

See previously:

Babylon filmed in the Crypt

More tales from the Crypt - pyschedelic club, reggae sound systems and gigs

Saxon International at the Crypt

'Psychedelic Nites' at the Crypt - late 1980s flyers

Will Greenwood and Ozric Tentacles at the Crypt

30 years of Band of Holy Joy - including their early days at the Crypt

Subconscious deep house at the Crypt 1989

Music Monday: Anarcho punk 1984 in New Cross & Old Kent Road

'Not Just Bits of Paper', edited by Tony Bull and Mickey Penguin is 'A series of recollections, memories, imagined dreams perhaps from the collective memories of those who lived through the punk and anarcho-punk years' of the 1980s (available from Situation Books). It includes lots of flyers and other 'ephemera' and I noticed these two from the Transpontine area.

The first is from November 1984 and is for a gig at the Ambulance Station on the Old Kent Road. This famous squatted venue was in what is now the home of Blue Mantle Antiques across the road from Old Kent Road Tescos - confusingly it is generally known as the old fire station; maybe it housed both emergency services in its history (see more on the squat by the Ruinist). 

The line up for this gig looks good - Antisect were an incredibly powerful, almost heavy metal, hardcore band from Northamptonshire. 

No Defences, my favourite band from that scene, were very different - kind of mutant punk funk with mesmerising deadpan vocals. They recorded an album for Crass's label but it never got released - apparently there was too much bass for Crass to handle! Former members of the band are working on putting out some of that material now, so maybe it will finally get the appreciation it deserves 30 years later.

'No Defences' banner at the Ambulance Station-
'The worst thing imaginable is happening now'
(from Graham Burnett's anarcho-punk archive)

Karma Sutra were my friends from Luton, where I was living at the time. I travelled down with them in their van to the Ambulance Station a few times, and I know I saw them play there as well as Conflict, Chumbawamba, No Defences and State Hate, but I have no memory of seeing Antisect there,  so not sure if I was at this particular gig. Exit-Stance were from Milton Keynes and Sedition from Northampton.

The fire station in its hey day (opened 1903)

Hagar the Womb

The second flyer is for a gig at the Goldsmiths Tavern (now the New Cross House) on 12 May 1984. Headliners Hagar the Womb were originally an all-woman band which was very rare in the punk scene at that time, though later they also had male members including drummer Chris Knowles - who went on to become London acid tekno DJ/producer Chris Liberator. Hagar, once described by Billy Bragg as the new Shangri- Las, reformed a few years ago. Support act State Hate  were in the Conflict hardcore punk mode.

The picture below of Hagar the Womb was from an NME interview (11 August 1984), and was apparently taken in New Cross's Fordham Park in the rain. At least one member of the band then lived in the SE14 Nettleton  Road 1980s punk nexus (lots more about this band, and indeed the whole scene at the excellent Kill Your Pet Puppy site)

Debating Disarmament at Riverdale Hall, Lewisham (1984)

There are plans to turn Riverdale Hall next to Lewisham shopping centre into a temporary 'street food emporium' (as reported at Brockley Central) As a public space it has been underused in recent years but it has had its moments in the past - hosting Saxon Sound System and an Elvis Presley exhibition among many other events. 

At the weekend I went to the Imperial War Museum, primarily to see the excellent Lee Miller: a Woman's War, but also to see the exhibition of work by anti-war photomontage artist Peter Kennard. His iconic images defined the visual culture of the 1980s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and related movements, and I came across this poster there from March 1984: a Great Debate at Riverdale Hall featuring Jennifer Edwards of CND versus Lady Olga Maitland, Women and Families for Defence (a Conservative pro-nuclear weapons group)

Anyone remember this or other interesting events at this venue?

South London Rosettes

Some great photos of women in early 1980s style sub-cultures by Anita Corbin here, including this one captioned 'Laura and Janet, South London Rosettes, April 1981'. Anyone know more about these mod revival scooterists?

Peckham Black Womens Group 1985

From Bishopsgate Institute on facebook, a 1985 flyer for a Peckham Black Womens Group 'Black Womens Open Day' at the St Giles Centre in Benhill Road, Camberwell. Line up included 'Asian Women's Dance plus dub poetry and song by Lioness Chant'.

Peckham Black Women's Group later opened Peckham Black Women's Centre at 69 Bellenden Road, SE15. It closed in around 1990 following funding cuts.

South East London Women Oppose the Nuclear Threat (1984)

1984 was a busy year for the movement against nuclear weapons. American cruise missiles had been deployed in Britain, and there were protest camps at the US bases at Greenham Common and Molesworth. Cold War tensions were rising, and many people worried that a nuclear war was a real possibility.

Thirty years ago, Thursday 24 May 1984, was marked as International Women's Day for Disarmament, and was marked locally by what Peace News reported was  'a small but colourful march to Lewisham Common' organised by South East London WONT (Women Oppose the Nuclear Threat).The women only march started from The Albany, Deptford.

The Museum of London has a WONT leaflet from this period in its collection. It starts of with the statement that 'Lewisham has declared itself a nuclear-free zone,  but Government predictions show that a nuclear attack on Croydon could kill over 90% of Lewisham people. Of these the vast majority would die slow, painful deaths from radiation, with no medical help available'. 

The leaflet goes on to express the radical feminist perspective that was dominant amongst the women's peace movement at Greenham and elsewhere: 'Toys for the Boys... we see the nuclear threat as the ultimate expression of male aggression'.

Music Monday: Akwaba and Lewisham Bridge Primary School Choir 1983

Last week I was DJing at the Agit Disco benefit for Housmans bookshop at the Surya Bar in Islington, also on the bill was John Eden (Uncarved) who kindly gave me this record he had found in his crate digging for reggae classics and obscurities.

'El Condor Pasa' by Akwaba is a cover in a lovers rock style of the Simon and Garfunkel song. It was released on Small Axe records in 1983 and recorded at Mad Professor's Ariwa Studio, which as we have established here before was at 42 Gautrey Road SE15 in this period. Not one of the greatest productions from this studio, but what is of Transpontine interest is that it features 'Garry Hall and the Lewisham Bridge Primary School Choir'. I don't know any more about it than that, but would be interested if anybody who was at the school at that time, or was even in the choir, can tell us more.

If someone who sang on it comes forward with the story, they can have the 7" single as a prize!

Music Monday: Test Dept and the Miners Strike

Continuing the series of posts on the 1984/85 miners strike and South London, we turn to Test Dept. As discussed several times here before, the influential industrial band started out in New Cross, specifically at 8 Nettleton Road where some of the band were living.

Many bands played benefit gigs for the miners, but Test Dept went further and put out a joint album with the South Wales Striking Miners Choir. The choir and the band played gigs together around the country, as well as putting out the album to raise funds for the strike. One of the gigs was at the Albany in Deptford on 18 September 1984, recalled by Neil Stoker: 'We did a huge benefit at the Albany Empire in London with a Welsh male-voice choir, and a band called Test Department. I can only describe Test Department as a band which filled plastic drums with water and sand and banged them in a rhythmic way. It was a bizarre night--these Welsh miners came down in a coach and were stuck in the middle of Deptford with these punks banging plastic drums--but there were a thousand people there!'

The album. Shoulder to Shoulder,  was recorded at various venues including Crynant Rugby Club (South Wales), Snowdon Colliery Welfare Club (in Kent coalfield), and Cold Storage studio in  Brixton. Some tracks featured the choir, and some Test Dept, but on what track - Comrades - they performed together.

From the back of album - note that at this time the contact address for Test Dept was 41 Billington Rd SE14

Last month Test Dept founders founders Graham Cunnington and Paul Jamrozy put on installation commemorating the strike at the AV Festival on Tyneside.  Paul told the Quietus: 'for the people who took part in it and lived through it, it's certainly not forgotten, and bringing up the 30 years of the strike brings it to the fore. People are still very bitter, there's a lot of anger. I think it's important to engage with that. Seumas Milne is bringing out the new Enemy Within book, and there's some stuff coming out with the Freedom Of Information Act, there are people still looking for some truth and justice to come out of it, with Orgreave and how the strike was policed... It was also the first signs of the militarisation of the police force in a way that is now just accepted: whether you're a pensioner or a student you're going to come across against people in full riot gear ready to attack you at the slightest excuse. That all became normalised during the Miners' Strike'.

Shoulder to Shoulder - the label

Housmans benefit this week

As it happens, Paul Jamrozy and myself are both DJing this Thursday 10th April at a benefit for Housmans, the long established radical bookshop at Kings Cross. The event, at Surya on Pentonville Road, is themed around the Agit Disco project, with people playing tunes they define as political. I'm actually going to be playing a short set of tracks linked to the miners strike, and had already decided to include Test Dept when I heard that Paul is playing too. Others taking part include Stewart Home and John Eden - full details at Facebook

See previously:

Lewisham Miners Support Group/Women Against Pit Closures

Supporting the Miners at Goldsmiths

Lewisham Miners Support 1984/5

 During the miners strike of 1984/5, which started 30 years ago this month, there were support groups set up across the country. Previously here we have mentioned support at Goldsmiths in New Cross. Another local group was Lewisham Women Against Pit Closures. This flyer from January 1985 tells us that:

1. The group held planning meetings at Lewisham Labour Club, Limes Grove SE13.

2. They 'invited women from the mining community of Shirebrook to Lewisham to speak to local people about the dispute'.

3. One of the women from Shirebrook was due to speak to a Lewisham Miners Support Group meeting at the Albany in Deptford on 24 January 1985.

4. There was a 'Women's Party' planned to take place at Women's Employment Project, 28 Deptford High Street, to raise funds for Shirebrook Women's Action Group (Shirebrook Colliery was in Derbyshire)

Neil Stoker wrote a little about Lewisham Miners' Support Group on the 20th anniversary of the strike in 1984:

'My father is from the Caribbean and my mother's Irish. The black community in south east London at that time was under constant abuse from the whole structures of society--the police, the government, the executive. The 'sus' laws had gone, but in terms of police brutality, mental health issues, housing, no one really cared what was going on. What struck me was the huge collective nature of the struggle. We got a collective spirit from a part of society that I didn't know and that was completely alien to me. There was a great sense of these people getting to know and understand what we suffered in terms of oppression, and vice versa. In a sense, we were somewhat cocooned by Thatcherism: we'd not had the same levels of redundancies, etc, in London as they had in the north of England. I got an understanding of what was really happening north of the Watford Gap.

Small events had a big impact: a miner from Dennington colliery came to stay with me and my family while he was in London collecting money. He came down to breakfast one morning and said, 'I've got to apologise.' My parents looked at each other--we thought maybe he'd broken a vase or something--and said, 'What for?' He said, 'I worked in a mine in South Africa in the early 1970s, and I feel really guilty about it now.' Things like that politicised people. There's a culture that miners and miners' support groups and Women Against Pit Closures hadn't been aware of before, and there's a culture that we took on as well.

We did a huge benefit at the Albany Empire in London with a Welsh male-voice choir, and a band called Test Department. I can only describe Test Department as a band which filled plastic drums with water and sand and banged them in a rhythmic way. It was a bizarre night--these Welsh miners came down in a coach and were stuck in the middle of Deptford with these punks banging plastic drums--but there were a thousand people there!

The miners' strike created this level of cultural understanding in a way nothing else could have. I remember going to the Notting Hill Carnival the year of the strike, and one of the most popular badges was 'Black people support the miners--oppose police violence'. (Socialist Review, March 2004)

Chris Schwarz: Every Picture Tells a Story

Chris Schwarz (1948-2007) was a remarkable photographer who documented everyday life in SE London and historical events (such as the 1977 'Battle of Lewisham'). Later in life his photos of the remains of Jewish presence in Poland- ruined synagogues etc - prompted him to sell his flat to finance setting up the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow. This weekend sees the first in a series of events and exhibitions built around his work:

'An exhibition of photographs by acclaimed photographer Chris Schwarz opens at three Lewisham venues - The Albany, Lewisham Library and Lewisham College– in March 2014. The images record Lewisham and Deptford in the 1970s and 1980s and the work of The Combination Theatre Company and were taken by Chris when he was photographer in residence at The Albany. They provide a fascinating legacy of the changing faces of Deptford over a 15 year period.

The photographs form an invaluable record of life in North Lewisham in the 1970s and 1980s and show children, young people and their families participating in cultural and creative activities. Highlights include images of totters, Millwall Football Club fans, adults at work and performances by the Albany’s resident theatre company The Combination. They include images of the old Albany that was located at the junction of Creek Road and Deptford Church Street, the New Albany in Douglas Way and its opening by the late Princess Diana in 1980.

Chris Schwarz was a professional photographer who worked for the Guardian, Time Out and many other publications. His work was exhibited at the Photographers Gallery in London and overseas, and his work was published in several books. He also founded the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow, Poland. Chris died in 2007 and bequeathed his vast collection of over 8,000 photographs to The Art of Regeneration, a creative regeneration project that was at one time based at the Albany.

There will be special storytelling performances at each venue by members of The Deptford Stories Theatre Company, who will interpret selected photographs. Their performances will be based on oral history interviews that have been conducted between 2011 and the present. The performances take place on:

• The Albany, Douglas Way, Deptford, SE8 4AG
Performances: Saturday 22 March at 12.45 and 13.45 (performances last approximately 30 mins)
Exhibition: Saturday 22 March until 31 March

• Lewisham Library, 199 – 201 Lewisham High Street, SE13 6LG
Performances: Tuesday 25 March at 19.00 (performances last approximately 30 mins)
Exhibition: Monday 24 March until Friday 28 March

• LeSoCo Lewisham and Southwark College , Breakspears Building, Breakspears Road, SE4 1UT
Performance and exhibition: Thursday 27 March at 19.00

The exhibition and performances are free of charge.

After the exhibition the photographs, along with the rest of the vast collection of Chris Schwarz Deptford and Lewisham work will be stored by the London Metropolitan Archives and will be available to the public to download.

Ballard House, Thames Street, Greenwich

The Deptford Stories Theatre Company was founded by director, John Turner and Jenny Harris. Jenny was the creative producer and after a lifetime of creative production in theatre, education and community arts development including the Combination at the Albany, The Education department at the National Theatre and the Art of Regeneration, Every Picture Tells a Story was Jenny’s last production for the Art of Regeneration and the Deptford Stories Company. Jenny herself died before she could see Every Picture Tells A Story or hear the stories the Deptford Stories Company will tell; this is a chance for the public to witness her final production.

The Every Picture Tells a Story project has been supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and includes the exhibition, performances and digitisation of the photographs as a permanent public record'.

Chris Schwarz obituary in the Guardian

Reflections on Chris Schwarz

Facebook event details

Supporting the Miners Strike at Goldsmiths in 1984/5

It's thirty years ago this week since the start of the miners strike, a long and bitter dispute that defined the mid-1980s in Britain. Ultimately the miners lost, and their claim that there was a secret Government plan to close down coal mines en masse was soon to proved correct. Miners support groups were set up all over the country, and there were all kinds of expressions of solidarity including countless benefit gigs. I was actually living in Kent at the start of the strike and was involved in supporting miners at local pits. There were many support groups in London, and the latest issue of Goldsmiths' student paper The Leopard includes an interesting article by Colin Fancy recalling support for the miners at Goldsmiths in New Cross. Here's a few extracts:

'the first meeting of the Goldsmiths’ Miners Support Group. We rattle buckets all around college crying: “Dig deep for the miners!” We propose a solidarity motion that is debated and passed at a packed Students’ Union meeting. We paste up posters saying ‘VICTORY TO THE MINERS’ all along Lewisham Way and down Deptford High Street.

My department, Media and Communications, announces that lecturers are to be cut from the small staff team. The Student Untion calls a meeting on the College Green to begin action. Some people suggest letters to the College Dean whilst we call for an occupation. The anti-cuts campaign begins with petitions, motions and lobbying the governors but soon picks up speed. Before we know it we are occupying the Administration building (which would later be renamed Whitehead building). James Curran, the recently appointed Head of the Communications department, is known for his book, Power Without Responsibility – and with the addition of a question mark this phrase is emblazoned on a huge banner hung across the occupied building...

Richard Hoggart, the College Dean, is reaching retirement and plays a waiting game rather than call the police – not that we do much to provoke him. With summer holidays approaching we end the occupation after eight days and sit our exams. The cuts to staff are postponed and we cautiously celebrate...

Goldsmiths College Student Union banner on a miners march in Whitehall in 1985

Women from the mining communities are playing a more and more crucial role as the strike fights to sustain itself. Two women from the Shirebrook Colliery in Derbyshire come to our Union meeting. Though nervous and reluctant to speak they tell moving tales of hardship, solidarity and resilience...

.... Surprisingly, Goldsmiths has its own local coalfield  – there are five pits less than an hour away in Kent [think there were only three left at this point  - Betteshanger, Snowdon and Tilmanstone]. One Sunday afternoon in December a coach load of students head down to Betteshanger Colliery with some Christmas presents. We have an evening in the Miners’ Social Club and are put up in miners’ family homes. We rise before dawn to join the other miners and students marching down the dark country lanes to the pit, singing: “I’d rather be a picket than a scab.” Not a single miner has crossed their picket line, but neither have they persuaded the foremen at the pit to join the strike, so the picket is a dignified but frustrating affair and we’re soon back to the social club for sausage sandwiches'.

Read the full article here. If you have any stories of the miners strike, especially as it was supported in South London, please leave a comment.

See also: Lewisham Miners Support Group/Lewisham Women Against Pit Closures 1984/85

Old Kent Road 1983: A Smash Hits Advert

Like Punk Never Happened- Brian McCloskey's Smash Hits Archive is a great site featuring fortnightly scans of issues of the pop magazine from 30 years ago. This Premium Bonds advert from June 23 1983 features a young woman standing by an Old Kent Road street sign and dreaming of an advance to Mayfair (i.e. from the cheapest to the most expensive property on the Monopoly board).