New Cross Party in the Park 2016

Tomorrow (Saturday 3rd September) sees the New Cross Party in the Park returning to Fordham Park, a free community festival 'for all ages, with family events, arts and crafts, stalls, spoken word, as well as local bands and acts for all tastes from disco to reggae, punk rock, soul and folk'.

 

The party follows on from previous events in 2013 and 2014 (see report here), and traces its origins back to the legendary Deptford Urban Free Festivals held in the park in the 1990s. Remember seeing RDF  (Radical Dance Faction) back there then and they are playing tomorrow. 

 

New Cross Party in the Park

The 1990s Urban Free Festival in Fordham Park was a major London event, bringing together people from what at the time was a big free party/squat/punk/rave scene. 20 years later (13 September), similar sounds were to be heard in the same place at the  Party in the Park - including Back to the Planet who were on the bill there in 1992. Quite a few of the people organising sound systems etc. were also veterans from that scene, as were some of the crowd.  But there were also lots of new young bands in the event organised by New Cross Learning, the Madcap Coalition and others.

Unlike last year's Party in the Park which was cursed by bad weather, this year it was sunny enough to bring out what may well have been the biggest crowd in the park since the final Urban  Free festival in 1995 - nothing like on the scale of  that event, which attracted about 30,000 people in very different times, but a decent free community festival.

Shocks of Mighty

Siren Sound System

Step 13 on the Siren stage by the Moonshot - great breakbeat anthems

Urban Free Festival 1992

'The Dewdrop Inn. Deptford. For all the old punks n freaks' is a great facebook groups with loads of photos of that pub from the 1980s and 1990s. The Dew Drop Inn was on the corner of Clifton Rise and Angus Street SE14 - sadly now converted to flats (I will do a post about it another time). As the pub faced on to Fordham Park it was the main drinking hole during the legendary Urban Free Festivals held in the park from 1990 to 1995, which attracted tens of thousands of people from all over London and beyond. I have taken some of the photos of the festival from the facebook group to give a flavour of it - hope nobody minds, this is priceless cultural history.

1992 programme - Uban Free Festival III
Conscious Collective - 'You can't kill the spirt').

The line up in 1992 included Back to the Planet, Brain of Morbius, The Seas, Sensor, Fat Dinosaur, Sidi Bou Said, Attila the Stockbroker, Moral Panic, The Rythmites, Levitation, Dr Phibes and the House of Wax Equations, RDF, Test Department, Co-Creators, Community Charge  and many more. All this and the 'Free the Spirt Rave Big Top'.

Groups involved in organising the festival that year included South East Musicians Collective, SYLVIA (Support Your Local Venues and Independent Artsits), Conscious Collective, Dole House Crew (who squatted the Peckham dole office) and Sonic Relief with sponsors including The Dew Drop Inn, Music City,  Catford TUC Centre for the Unemployed and Lewisham Council.

I believe these photos were taken by Seran Tahsin, who was not sure whether they are from 1991 to 1992. I think probably 1992, because there is a great bit of film footage from 1991 and the structures look a bit different.

Dancing in Fordham Park in 1993

I had some great times at those festivals will write some more about the later ones at some point. Any good memories or stories, leave a comment as always (and why was it the Deptford Urban Free Festival when it was plainly in New Cross?!)

Update: here's a couple of interviews with people remembering the festival (film was made by people from Deptford.TV Collective in 2007)