HHH video mag: 1994 protests, parties and direct action

HHH were an activist video crew, based in Hackney in the 1990s. Their postal address was 10 Martello Street E8, which had been a space for creatives since 1971 (artist Bruce Lacey and industrial music group Throbbing Gristle had studios there).

The above image is a cover of the VHS tape which was the first HHH video mag issue. Thanks to a comrade who had a digitised version, I have now uploaded this to Youtube:

Some great footage of Hackney Homeless Festival, Sunday May 9th 1994. This was a free festival run with the co-operation of Hackney Council who may not have been made aware that most of the people involved were squatters in Hackney. This piece includes some great interviews with people about the homeless issue as well as music and a bunch of people having a good time in the sunshine. See if you can spot yourself / old friends / your parents.

I’ve previously covered the festival here.

The second section includes two protests in 1994 against the Criminal Justice Bill including some Suffragettes re-enacting their tactic of chaining themselves to the fence around Parliament and small homeless people’s protest march and rally on 29th May.

The final section is the huge 24 July 1994 London protest against the Criminal Justice Bill, which marched from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square. Several protestors also rattled the cops and gates of Downing Street. There was some ensuing interaction with riot police. Some of this seems pixellated, possibly to protect some people from accusations of naughtiness?

Some smiley Hackney squatters on the anti CJB march

The end of the video includes some brief footage of Park Crescent (“The Crescent”) – a row of squats opposite Clissold Park in Stoke Newington. And some cheeky shots of the HHH crew themselves…

I’ve had to convert the .vob files I was given to get them on Youtube but I’ve uploaded the unedited/compressed versions to archive.org in case you want them.

According to McSpotlight, issue 2 of HHH featured “McLibel protestors sabotaging the filming of a McDonald’s commercial in Ruskin Park, London, No M11, Battle of Hyde Park, anti criminal justice demo, last stand at Claremont Road, and others.” If you have access to that, please get in touch?

I’ve also previously uploaded the HHH film of Hackney Anarchy Week.

Astrid Proll – on the run in Hackney

Astrid Proll: under arrest in Germany

In Germany

Astrid Proll was a household name in the 1970s along with her comrades Ulrike Meinhof, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and other members of the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction – aka The Baader-Meinhof gang).

Astrid’s older brother Thorwald Proll introduced her to the circle of radicals that would become the RAF – indeed, she would be one of its founders. The group’s politics were broadly anti-imperialist: opposed to the Vietnam war and outraged by the prominence of former Nazis in West Germany. The state would brand them “anarchist violent offenders”, but most anarchists I know would categorise them as Maoists (and point out that urban guerilla movements with no connection to the working class do not end well).

On 2nd April 1968 (before becoming the RAF), the group had organised arson attacks on two Frankfurt department stores. This was in revenge for the killing of Benno Ohnesorg (a protestor shot by a policeman during a demonstration opposing the Shah of Iran’s visit to West Berlin. The killer would eventually be revealed as an East German Stasi agent) – and also against the ongoing Vietnam war. Days later, Baader and several others including Thorwald Proll were caught by the police and imprisoned.

Baader was eventually freed by armed members of the group during a staged interview with Ulrike Meinhof at a library on 14 May 1970. Astrid Proll was the getaway driver. She was also involved in bank robberies around this time to raise funds for the RAF’s operations and underground existence. She became one of the most wanted women in West Germany.

Proll and RAF member Manfred Grasho were stopped by the cops on 10 February 1971 but managed to get away under police gunfire. It was falsely claimed that she had shot at the two officers attempting to arrest her. However in Hamburg on 6 May of the same year, Astrid was finally caught after a pump attendant at a petrol station recognised her from a wanted poster and alerted the authorities. She attempted to flee but was surrounded by armed officers and arrested – and then charged with offences including attempted murder and robbery.

In November 1971, Astrid Proll became the first of several RAF members to be held in solitary confinement in the new “dead wing” of Cologne-Ossendorf prison. She was 24 years old. The “dead wing” or “silent wing” was an ingenious facility of six cells in which the walls and furniture were painted entirely white. A bare neon light turned on 24 hours a day was supplemented by meagre daylight through a narrow slit too high to see out of. The cells were designed so that no external sounds could penetrate them. It was forbidden for prisoners to hang pictures on the walls.

These conditons amount to torture and would be one of the factors that led subsequent RAF prisoners to go on hunger stirke. Proll spent two and half years in solitary confinement (four and half months of which were in the dead wing). She developed circulatory problems, difficulty breathing, panic attacks and was sometimes unable to walk.

On February 4, 1974 Astrid’s trial was adjourned because of her ill health, and she was granted bail. Shortly after this she fled West Germany under a false passport. After spending some time in Italy, she arrived in London in August 1974.

Astrid in London

I fled to Britain […] and realised how overtly ideological and misguided the German left had become. In Britain the left was more pragmatic and had more realistic goals; it was also more tuned into the real world. A concept as deluded as “armed struggle” would never have come to pass here.

Astrid Proll, The Matured Spirit of ’68

Precise details of Astrid’s early time in London are hard to pin down. She seems to have moved around a lot, living in Holland Park, Mile End and Kilburn as well as several addresses in Hackney. In interviews she has mentioned the support she received from feminists, squatters and Hackney members of the libertarian marxist group Big Flame.

Using her false passport, Astrid got married to Robin Puttick at Stepney registry office on January 22, 1975. She took the name Anna Puttick. This is generally believed to be a marriage of convenience as she was on the run – and a lesbian. As she told Iain Sinclair “I had to have papers, I was so German.”

Living in Hackney

“Solidarity was the precept of the counterculture. The squats were the material basis and preconditon for the emergence of political activism, art and alternative life. These houses, removed from the circulation of capitalist valorisation, were open spaces for experimentations of all kinds towards a life lived without economic constraints”

Astrid Proll, Goodbye To London

So where did she live?

Several contributors to the Kill Your Pet Puppy website mention her being hidden away in the squats of Brougham Road near Broadway Market (the street would later be an epicentre of anarchist punk activity in the 1980s).

Court documents from the time mention her “first squat” at the end of 1974 being 25 Marlborough Avenue E8. Astrid herself in Goodbye To London recalls “squatting with a female friend in a former shoe store in Broadway Market” and she told Iain Sinclair:

“When I heard about the death of Ulrike Meinhof in Stammheim Prison, I lived in a street that no longer exists, Lamb Lane. Beside London Fields. I lived around Broadway Market a lot. There was a huge women’s movement thing, a whole scene.”

Meinhof died in mysterious circumstances on 9 May 1976. The general trajectory of the RAF after Astrid left Germany had been increasingly desperate. Life in exile would have been stressful, but must have seemed like the better option.

There was a thriving alternative scene in the capital at the time and Astrid mentions attending women-only dances as well as suppoting the striking Asian women workers on the picket lines at the Grunwick dispute in West London. But the past was never far away…

Writer Philip Oltermann suggests that Proll and “a group of lesbians from Bow” were in the crowd of 80,000 at the free Rock Against Racism / Anti-Nazil League gig in Victoria Park on 30 April 1978. He mentions her “panic rising” when she saw the RAF logo onstage on the t-shirt worn by Joe Strummer of The Clash:

Joe Strummer’s Red Army Faction t-shirt at Victoria Park Rock Against Racism gig 30 April 1978

(Incidentally the burgeoning “punkademic” industry seems inexorably drawn to making connections between the RAF and punk. Personally I think it’s clear that Strummer was a poseur with a nice turn in protest music and social observation, but he was sorely lacking in political analysis. Tom Vague concludes his RAF book with a fantastic photo of Sid Vicious and John Lydon posing in front of a Baader-Meinhof wanted poster in Berlin in 1977. In the same year anarchist punks Crass pasted up a poster near Covent Garden’s Roxy club with the slogan “Germany got Baader-Meinhof, England got punk but they can’t kill it”. I’d say one t-shirt, one photograph and one poster were slim evidence, but I’m not a lecturer with a quota of publications to fill. I’d be much more interested to hear about what other gigs Astrid Proll and her social circle were going to in mid-70s London…).

“I always knew that a photo of me could give me away and destroy my London life. So I avoided being photographed. When the book ‘Hitler’s Children:The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang’ was released, female friends went out and stole the book off bookstore shelves or tore out the pages with my photograph”

Astrid Proll, Goodbye To London

Friends from the time mention her being a good neighbour and putting down roots:

“The children would be in and out of her house at the weekends, she’d be delighted on the occasions they stayed the night there because she revelled in their company and because it left me free. [She put] all her energy into her work, into friendships, into the squatting and local communty as a whole.”

Anonymous friend quoted by Friends of Astrid Proll

This lifestyle and support network would do a fine job of keeping Proll out of sight of the authorities… for a while.

“Women Work In Hackney”

Astrid’s work in London is better documented than where she lived. Each of her three jobs had a Hackney connection.

In the Spring of 1975 she was employed as a gardener by the council:

“I went to get a job with Hackney Council. I was a park keeper. In Clissold Park, my favourite park. I was working with an Irish guy, raking, mowing. They threw us both out, him and me. After six months. […] I had Clissold Park. I had London Fields. I had a little park which was in Shoreditch. It was around a church, a little garden. I had to go out in the morning and open it.”

Quoted by Iain Sinclair

Hackney Council also paid for Astrid to train as a car mechanic:

[…] in 1976 [she] enrolled on a government training course in car mechanics at Poplar Skill Centre. She left the course with a City and Guilds Certificate and, [had] taken an evening class in welding […] She had obtained all the necessary qualifications; national insurance card, union card and driving licence in the name of Senta Puttick.”

Court documents

She was apparently the only woman on the training course. Car mechanic was an unusual profession for a woman in the 1970s and especially one trying not to attract attention. Not to mention being photographed for an exhibition:

Alleged photo of Astrid Proll by The Hackney Flashers

I’ve used this image before in a piece about radical photography collective The Hackney Flashers and hadn’t noticed the connection. The exhibition was in 1975 and is interesting as it connects Astrid Proll with the radical feminist groups of the time.

“I did not live underground in England,” she insists. “I lived with other youths who also read Marx and idealised the working classes. I worked on the shop floor and as a car mechanic. This attitude was very admired in the Seventies.” 

Quoted by Tina Jackson

Her new skills got her nicknamed “Anna the Spanner”. She put them to good use, running a car maintenance class for women and in 1977 got a job at the iconic Lesney factory next to Hackney marshes. Lesney’s made “Matchbox” toy cars and was a big employer in the borough. She started as a fitter’s mate and was eventually promoted to be a supervisor. She was a member of the Amalgamated Electrical union. (Speculation – the Big Flame group were quite big on this sort of shop floor activity?)

“At work, Anna had to cope with the suspicion, ribaldry and loneliness that comes with being the only woman in a traditionally male job. At Lesney’s some of the men wouldn’t work with her because she was a woman, and one of the supervisors was always really down on her. Anna is an inspiration to me, and to other women, in her determination to fight this sex discrimination and not let herself be discouraged.”

Anonymous friend, quoted by Friends of Astrid Proll

In late 1977 she got a job training young offenders as mechanics at Camden Enterprises on Finchley Road, West Hampstead. Accordng to journalist Tina Jackson she subverted the training programme by “showing some of her students how to use the skills she’d taught them to steal cars”.

It would be her last job in London for some time…

Arrest

On 15 September 1978 a couple of uniformed policemen visited the Camden Enterprises workshop. Astrid’s manager Vincent Wilcox assumed they wanted to speak to him about a motoring offence. He soon realised he was off the hook:

“The next moment about ten plain clothes officers from Scotland Yard came in and took her up to the recreation room, pushed her up against the lockers and searched her.”

Quoted in BBC: On This Day

Proll did not resist arrest. It is heartening that she doesn’t seem to have been grassed up by anyone in the London counterculture:

“I was most likely recognised by a policeman when I accompanied a young man who was always stealing cars and getting into trouble to the police station. As the officials from Scotland Yard took me away from the garage, the young men looked at me, stunned. I just said ‘I won’t see you again’.”

Astrid Proll, Farewell To London

She quickly released a statement through her solicitor: “I have lived in England for the past four years – I have no contact with the Red Army Faction and I have tried to settle down as best I could in the circumstances.”

The RAF women had long been salivated over by the media and so Astrid’s arrest was predictably sensationalised. Her contacts were interrogated by reporters and every aspect of her lifestyle picked over:

Tabloid press cutting reproduced in Tom Vague’s Televisionaries: the Red Army Faction story

Proll would later tell journalist Kate Connolly “The British tabloids were one of the most terrifying things I have experienced.”

Campaign

“Free Astrid Proll” graffiti in West London from Christopher Petit’s film “Radio On”

Whilst Proll was being held and questioned at Paddington Green police station, her support network sprang into action:

Graffiti backing her rapidly appeared. Lee Nurse and a friend cycled late one night down to Old Street where they painted ‘No extradition for Astrid Proll’ across the top of the large ventilation shaft in the centre of the roundabout. It remained in place for many years and only disappeared when the new ‘silicon roundabout’ appeared as part of the transformation of the area into a ‘technology hub’

Christine Wall

One of the most remarkable things about the story of the RAF is the widespread support they seemed to have had in West Germany at the time – with some estimates suggesting 10,000 sympathisers. Similarly in London, the “Friends of Astrid Proll” solidarity campaign appears to have been sizeable and multifaceted.

Poster for November 1978 benefit gig

“The Passions and the Nips, Shane MacGowan’s pre-Pogues group, appeared at a Rough Theatre benefit for the defence fund of Astrid Proll of the Baader-Meinhof gang”

Tom Vague

“We actually helped to organise the Astrid Proll thing because she was a friend, we knew her as Anna and she worked as a mechanic teaching young people at a youth project in North London. I remember her being very interested in my old Vauxhall and then later reading about her Baader Meinhof exploits, it seems she was their getaway driver! I also remember Crass phoning up and desperately wanting to play at the gig (being anarchists I suppose they would), but there wasn’t space on the bill for them. They were very disappointed. It was a good gig, well attended if I remember correctly.”

Richard Williams, drummer for The Passions

The gig was followed by a discussion at the Scala Cinema and a film benefit at the Womens Art Alliance, showing “Shirin’s Wedding” – which is about the unfortunate life of a young female Turkish migrant to West Germany:

Discussion advertised in anarchist newspaper, Freedom 14 October 1978

Benefit notice from feninist magazine Spare Rib #77

A further benefit event from March 13th 1979. Photo from Hackney Museum’s “Making Her Mark: 100 years of women’s activism” exhibition

Singer Nik Turner (most famous for his time in Hawkwind) was inspired by Proll’s plight (and apparently her time squatting in Brougham Road?). The first single by his new band Inner City Unit was originally called “Solitary Astrid”. However “to avoid controversy” the song was given the title “Solitary Ashtray”. Which does beg the question why the b-side was called “SO T RY AS I D” (“so try acid”)?

Before performing the song in Bristol in 2016, Nik told an amusing tale of donating to the Friends of Astrid Proll support fund – and because of all this being raided himself by Special Branch for drugs and terrorist materials.

This cultural solidarity provided the funding and wider context for the political work being done. Astrid was transferred to Brixton prison shortly after her arrest. Friends of Astrid Proll organised pickets of the prison and protests at Bow Street Magistrate’s Court where her case was being heard:

The Times 10 April 1978

Demo notice in Freedom, December 1978.

Brixton was – and remains – a male prison. There were two other female prisonsers at the time: Iris Mills (an anarchist arrested as part of the “Persons Unknown” case – who would be acquitted) and young Palestinian activist Khloud al Mugrabi (who may have been Iraqi or Lebanese? And spoke no English). All three were “Category A” prisoners – requiring maximum security.

Proll was allowed visitors though – and was able to write letters to supporters that were used in their literature.

Naturally one of the objectives of the campaign was that Astrid be transferred to the female Holloway Prison in North London. Alongside this the main demand was that she should not be extradited on the grounds that she would not get a fair trial in West Germany and that the new anti-terror laws there were draconian.

She was understandably terrified of returning to Germany as she was still suffering from the trauma resulting from her imprisonment in the “dead wing”:

“Not even today, six years later, have I completely recovered […]. I can’t stand rooms which are painted white because they remind me of my cell. Silence in a wood can terrify me, it reminds me of the silence in the isolated cell. Darkness makes me so depressive as if my life were taken away. Solitude causes me as much fear as crowds. Even today I have the feeling occasionally as if I can’t move.”

“I do not expect to survive if I return to Germany.”

Astrid Proll quoted in Friends of Astrid Proll literature

Three leaflets from Friends of Astrid Proll are available as PDFs here.

Extradition and Trial

Various attempts were made to thwart the extradition process including Astrid applying to be a British citizen by dint of her marriage and several years of residence. This was a longshot – complicated by her using false papers to get married and the lack of affection for her by the British state and media. The case is still cited today in legal textbooks.

The legal battles were eventually exhausted and Astrid returned voluntarily to Germany in June 1979. Her trial there commenced in September and went a great deal better than anyone was expecting.

The most serious charge was of the attempted murder of police officers during an attempted arrest back in February 1971. This was dropped when it emerged that the state had evidence all along that she hadn’t opened fire.

Astrid Proll leaving her trial in Germany 1980.

In February 1980 Astrid Proll was sentenced to five-and-a-half years for bank robbery and falsifying documents. But as she had already spent more than two thirds of her sentence in British and West German jails she was released immediately. She was 32 years old.

Freedom and aftermath

The British Home Secretary banned her for life from entering Britain. After a lengthy legal battle she was allowed to return in 1988.

She studied film and photography in Hamburg and subsequently worked as a picture editor for the German magazine Tempo and The Independent newspaper in London.

Her 1998 book Baader-Meinhof: Pictures on the run 67-77 apparently documents the pre-London years (and is now prohibitively expensive).

In 2010 she contributed to the exhibition “Goodbye To London: Radical Art & Politics in the 70s” and edited the accompanying book which includes some excellent material about squatting, LGBT culture, Hackney Flashers, Grunwick etc – as well as an essential foreword by Proll that is quoted above.

Sources / Plagiarism / Further Reading

Anon – The Passions: Frestonia, Fiction and Friction (The Passions website)

Jean Barrot – Letter on the use of violence (1973)

BBC “On This Day: 15 September” – 1978: German terror suspect arrested in UK

Kate Connolly – Astrid Proll’s journey to Terror Chic (The Guardian 6 October 2002)

Friends of Astrid Proll – The Court Situation (1978)

Friends of Astrid Proll – Freedom For Astrid Proll (1978)

Friends of Astrid Proll – The Case Against Her Extradition (1978)

A. Grossman – “State-Fetishism”: some remarks concerning the Red Army Faction (1979/1980)

Tina Jackson – The Terrorist’s Family Album (The Indepedent 8 October 1998)

Andre Moncourt & J. Smith – The Red Army Faction: A Documentary History volume 1 Projectiles For The People (Kersplebedeb & PM Press 2009)

Philip Oltermann – Keeping Up With the Germans: A History of Anglo-German Encounters (Faber & Faber 2012)

Astrid Proll (ed) – Goodbye To London: Radical Art & Politics in the 70s (Hatje Cantz 2010)

Astrid Proll – The Matured Spirit of ’68 (The Guardian 19 March 2011)

Iain Sinclair – Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire: A Confidential Report (Hamish Hamilton 2009)

Nik Turner / Inner City Unit performance, The Louisiana, Bristol 25 August 2016 Youtube

Tom Vague – Euroterrorism: Well It’s Better Than Bottling It Up (Vague #201988)

Tom Vague – Televisionaries: The Red Army Faction Story 1963-1993 (AK Press 1994)

Tom Vague – Westway Psychogeography Report 3 (Colville Community History Project #13, October 2015)

Christine Wall – Sisterhood and Squatting in the 1970s: Feminism, Housing and Urban Change in Hackney (History Workshop Journal #83 Spring 2017)

Various – Brougham Road, Hackney, London E8 (Kill Your Pet Puppy 15 May 2008)

Legal documents

Puttick v. Attorney-General and Another 1979 April 30; May 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 http://uniset.ca/other/cs4/puttick1.html

Regina v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Puttick 1980 Oct. 31; Nov. 14 http://uniset.ca/other/cs4/puttick2.html

Puttick Orse Proll v Secretary of State for the Home Department Immigration Appeal Tribunal 9 August 1984 https://www.refworld.org/cases,GBR_AIT,3ae6b6571c.html

Past Tense – London Rebel History Calendar

A highly recommended daily London radical history blog from our comrades at Past Tense: https://pasttenseblog.wordpress.com/category/rebel-history-calendar/

(Also on facebook and twitter.)

Not all Hackney related, obviously, but always an inspiring read.

Recent articles of interest include:

• Impromptu street party after ‘Stokefest’ event, Clissold Park, 2007
• Hackney Social Centre squat opens, Lower Clapton, 2008
• Workers occupy St Leonards Hospital, Hackney, 1984
• Bread rioters in the East End seize food, 1855
• Tony’s Cafe re-occupied, Broadway Market, 2005
• Fascist rally in Ridley Road market, smashed by Jewish 43 Group, 1947
• Antisemitic Nazi march opposed, Clapton, 2015

Past Tense are also helping to organise a FREE central London squatting history walk this Thursday (15th of June) which will be well worth a look…

Oh and don’t forget their publications!

Spin magazine on Hackney squatters and the CJA, 1994

SPIN was a glossy American music and style magazine which featured a six-page article on protests against the Criminal Justice Act and Hackney squatters (living on “The Crescent” oppositie Clissold Park) alongside adverts for Jack Daniels and Levis in 1994.

Below is a scan of the introduction and Hackney squatter bits – you can read the whole article (and the rest of the issue if so inclined) on Google Books.

There is more information on “skateboard squat” Lea House elsewhere on this site.

The Criminal Justice Act didn’t end squatting, but perhaps curtailed it slightly. Ditto the 2012 law against squatting in residential properties.

More info: Advisory Service for Squatters.

A Radical History of Hackney Parks

“The Park is called the People’s Park
And all the walks are theirs
And strolling through the flowery paths
They breathe exotic airs,
South Kensington, let it remain
Among the Upper Ten.
East London, with useful things,
Be left with working men.

The rich should ponder on the fact
Tis labour has built it up
A mountain of prodigious wealth
And filled the golden cup.
And surely workers who have toiled
Are worthy to behold
Some portion of the treasures won
And ribs of shining gold.”

An ode to Victoria Park, 1872
(from Victoria Park, East London: The People’s Park)

The text below was originally published as a pamphlet, bashed out for the Radical History Network meeting on “Community Empowerment and Open Green Spaces”, July 10^th 2013. (I have a couple of the pamphlets left – drop me an email if you want one.)

It’s full of holes, a work in progress. Get in touch with additions, criticisms, comments.

1275 The area that is now London Fields was recorded as common pastureland adjoining Cambridge Heath. In 1540 the name London Field is found recorded as a separate item consisting of around 100 acres in changing ownership of land. London Field was one of the many “commonable lands” of Hackney where the commoners of the parish could graze their livestock on the fields from Lammas Day (Anglo Saxon for bread mass), August 1st, celebrating the first loaf after the crops had been harvested, to Lady Day, March 25th. This arrangement was known as Lammas Rights and was protected by law. (from here)

1700s In the Marshes towards Hackney Wick were low public houses, the haunt of highwaymen. Dick Turpin was a constant guest at the “White House” or “Tyler’s Ferry” and few police-officers were bold enough to approach the spot.

1750 onwards Clissold House (originally named Paradise House) was built, in the latter half of the 18th century, for Jonathan Hoare, a City merchant, Quaker, philanthropist and anti-slavery campaigner. (His brother Samuel was one of the founders of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade.). The grounds of the house went on to become Clissold Park.

1793 Big open-air demonstration on Hackney Downs, in support of the revolutionary gains in France. The tutors Richard Price, Joseph Priestley and Gilbert Wakefield organised lectures on the French Revolution at the New College, a non-conformist academy (“by-word for revolutionary opinion”) at Lower Clapton.

1840 Abney Park Cemetery opens as the first fully non-denominational burial ground in Europe (where anyone could be buried, but especially non-conformists, dissenters etc). Many anti-slavery campaigners are buried there.

1845 Victoria Park is opened following a petition by 30,000 local people to Queen Victoria. “There was no bathing pool provided and local youths were in the habit of bathing – naked! – in the adjacent Regent’s Canal.  Attempts to police such shocking behaviour were unavailing and within a few years a pool was provided in the park itself.” – Victoria Park, East London: The People’s Park

1848 Chartists meet at Bonners Park (near Victoria Park) to march on Parliament.

1860s Hackney Downs open space (originally common land) preserved as parkland as a result of pressure by the Commons Preservation Society.

1866 Widespread pickets and demonstrations for universal male suffrage as advocated by the Reform League during summer. After disorder at Hyde Park the Tory government banned all protest meetings throughout London. The ban was widely ignored; a huge “illegal” rally took place in Victoria Park.

1872 180 acres in Hackney are preserved as public open space and protected from the encroachment of development. Including Clapton Common and Cockhanger Green (now boringly called Stoke Newington Common).

In the 1880s the grounds of Clissold House and the adjacent Newington Common were threatened with development, and two prominent campaigners, Joseph Beck of The City of London and John Runtz of The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) persuaded the Board of MBW to buy the land and create a public park. (from Clissold Park User Group, as was the image above)

1885 William Morris speaks at Victoria Park:

The political culture of the day was not simply confined to the clubs and indoor meeting places. The open-air meeting, whether in the park, or on the street corner, remained the principal forum for addressing the uninitiated, convincing the unconvinced, spreading the word. William Morris was one of the mast well known public speakers for socialism of the period, and visited Hackney often. There is a fine portrait of him speaking to a crowd in Victoria Park in 1885 in Tom Mann’s Memoirs:

He was a picture on an open air platform. The day was fine, the branches of the tree under which he was speaking spread far over the speaker. Getting him well in view, the thought came, and has always recurred as I think of that first sight of Morris – “Bluff King Hal”. I did not give careful attention to what he was saying, for I was chiefly concerned to get the picture of him in my mind, and then to watch the faces of the audience to see how they were impressed…. Nine-tenths were giving careful attention, but on the fringe of the crowd were some who had just accidentally arrived, being out for a walk, and having unwittingly come upon the meeting. These stragglers were making such remarks as: ‘Oh, this is the share-and-share-alike crowd’; ‘Poverty, eh, he looks all right, don’t he?’ But the audience were not to be distracted by attempts at ribaldry: and as Morris stepped off the improvised platform, they gave a fine hearty hand-clapping which showed real appreciation.

(From Hackney Propaganda: Working Class Club Life and Politics in Hackney 1870-1900)

1887 Free speech demo in Victoria Park in March.

1889 Clissold Park was opened by the newly formed London County Council (LCC). The two ponds in the park are named the Beckmere and the Runtzmere in honour of the two principal founders.

1926 Victoria Park is the site for some enthusiastic speeches in support of the General Strike. The park is closed briefly to the public during the strike when the army is stationed there – for reasons which seem to be unclear.

1930s Hackney Red Radio (a branch of the Workers Theatre Movement) perform agit prop and pro-working class skits and plays. The group performs in parks, streets etc, including London Fields, where they are pelted with over-ripe tomatoes by an unappreciative audience on one occasion.

“We are Red Radio,
Workers’ Red Radio,
We Show you how you’re robbed and bled;
The old world’s crashing,
Let’s help to smash it
And build a workers’ world instead.”

1936 British Union of Fascists holds regular rallies in Victoria Park including clashes with anti-fascists. Also a large anti-fascist meeting in July organised by the Trades Councils of North and East London: “A mile long procession headed by a brass band culminated in a large public meeting which declared its unalterable opposition to fascism and to the war which it would inevitably lead.” Fascists attempt to march through East London in October for another Victoria Park rally, but are prevented from doing so by anti-fascists: The Battle of Cable Street. They did not pass.

1939 Trenches are dug in Hackney Downs, Victoria Park and other open spaces at the outset of the 2nd World War.

(There is a bit of gap here! Can you help fill it? What happened between the 1930s and the 1970s?)

1971 American GIs and others attend a rally protesting against the Vietnam War in Victoria Park. Includes performances from actors Mia Farrow and Vanessa Redgrave and a set by folk singer Barbara Dane amongst others.

1978 80,000 attend huge Anti-Nazi League concert in Victoria Park (apparently the stage was in Hackney but the audience was in Tower Hamlets!).

1980 10th August. Hackney Anti-Nuclear Festival in Clissold Park.

1980s Three GLC-organised festivals in Victoria Park. Two are themed around peace / against nuclear weapons – including one on Hiroshima Day, 6 August 1983.

1981 Funk The Wedding concert takes place in Clissold Park on the day of the marriage of Charles and Di. (from History Is Made At Night, as is the image above)

1983 Clissold Park Free Festival, August?! (mentioned here, any further info welcome)

1990s The demolition of London Fields Lido is resisted by the people of Hackney, including standing in front of the bulldozers. Local people led campaigns to reopen the Lido and cleared away vegetation. The children’s paddling pool which was closed in 1999, was reopened by local people for summer seasons. In 1998 the Lido was squatted for housing, a café and communal events. In August 1998 there was the Carnival of the Dispossessed, a benefit for Reclaim The Streets. The Lido was squatted for a second time 2002-2005. (From Past Tense)

1990 Hackney residents burn Poll Tax bills in Clissold Park.

1991 Anti-Fascist Action sponsor Unity Carnival on Hackney Downs:

“AFA had surprised everyone by organising the biggest anti-fascist event for over a decade, drawing 10,000 people to the Unity Carnival on Hackney Downs. Supported by a wide range of organisations, from the Hackney Joint Shop Stewards Committee, to the Fire Brigade Union, the Carnival programme again drew attention to rising levels of race attacks and urged people to become pro-active: ‘We have organised today’s event to draw attention to the growing number of racist attacks especially in east London. The fact that some sections of the community virtually live under siege is unacceptable and we hope you are prepared to do more than just come to this symbolic show of unity. Support the activities on the back of this programme to get organised and do something to stop racist attacks.'”

Sean Birchall – Beating The Fascists: The Untold Story of Anti-Fascist Action (Freedom, 2010) p250

1994 Hackney Homeless Festival, Clissold Park – 30,000 people. Clashes with police afterwards. (image by Jamie from tribe.net)

1996 Hackney Anarchy Week, a ten day festival including a punks’ picnic and 3-sided football match in Clissold Park.

2007 After much resistance and protest, the Manor Garden Allotments (near Hackney Wick, but apparently not technically in Hackney!) are demolished to make way for the Olympics. Similar struggles take place on Hackney Marshes (where football pitches are closed to make way for a coach park)

2012 A small “Occupy London” camp sets up briefly in Haggerston Park.

Sources/Acknowledgements

http://www.londonfieldsusergroup.org.uk/

http://www.clissoldpark.com/park-history/

Victoria Park, East London: The People’s Park

Barry Burke and Ken Worpole – Hackney Propaganda: Working Class Club Life and Politics in Hackney 1870-1900 (Centerprise, 1980) (William Morris)

Barry Burke – Rebels With A Cause: The History of Hackney Trades Council (Centerprise. 1975)

History Is Made At Night (Funk The Royal Wedding)

Past Tense (London Fields Lido)

Getting Involved

Hackney Council’s list of Park User Groups.

Further Reading: Modern

The Rise of the Friends Groups Movements, by Dave Morris

Finsbury Park: A History of Community Empowerment, by Hugh – Friends of Finsbury Park

The Community-Led Transformation of Lordship Rec, by Friends of Lordship Rec

Further Reading: Older

Down With The Fences: Battles For The Commons In South London, by Past Tense

Subversive of Public Decency: Open Space In North / North East London: radical crowds, immorality, and struggles over enclosure, by Past Tense (not online yet)

Film: Hackney Anarchy Week 1996

edit Jan 2015: This is now available in better resolution:

Or worser resolution as orginally posted here:

Some kind soul has uploaded the Hackney Anarchy Week film to Youtube. You might want to view it as “full screen” though, as it’s slightly low resolution.

The film includes:

• Alternative TV
• Stewart Home
• Anarchist Football
• Mr Social Control
• Small Press Book Fair
• Class War
• Reclaim the Streets & Critical Mass
• McDonalds Picket in support of the McLibel Campaign
• The Association of Autonomous Astronauts
• Punx Picnic
• Ken Loach at the Rio – Interview

and a host of others. The film necessarily focuses on the more visual and social aspects of the festival (demos, gigs, performances etc) rather than the meetings and discussions.

It was shot throughout the festival and then shown as a rough cut on the last night in the small theatre above the Samuel Pepys pub (next door to the Hackney Empire). A VHS video was available for sale shortly after the festival had finished.

It’s good to see a number of familiar faces appear, many of whom are still active in 2013 and a couple of whom have sadly passed away over the last 17 years.

Other HAW material on this site:

• The initial programme. (Which also included the article Hackney’s Anarchic Nineties and the original version of our Timeline).
• The final programme.
• Reviews of and responses to the festival.

Hackney Homeless Festival, Clissold Park, May 1994

The always excellent “History is Made at Night” on this free festival.

It was a great day, and I’m relieved that my terrible haircut of the time is absent from the video footage. I seem to recall mainly hanging around the Club Dog stage, which was on the Green Lanes side of the park and included the awful MC Teabag alongside some great DJs and the awesome Test Dept. I suspect I also saw some or all of Back To The Planet, Dreadzone and/or Radical Dance Faction, because they seemed to be lurking at every festival going around then.

Without rubbing too much salt in the wounds of the younger generation, this was a much less tame affair than recent “Stokefests” in the park.

The above is from the programme, which is available in full online here.

This site already has a photo of the aftermath of the police’s antics of the day:

From Hackney’s Anarchic Nineties.

People who witnessed or were victims of police violence were encouraged to contact Hackney Community Defence Association if I remember rightly.

Hackney Anarchy Week reviews/responses 1996

Hackney Anarchy Week flyer

Coverage below from:

• The Observer
• Earth First UK!
• Gridlock discussion list
• Goal! Magazine
• The Fifth Times Book of Best Sermons

“Anarchy puts its house in order”
The Observer (UK) 26 May 1996

What do the following have in common: Ronald McDonald, a sandpapered testicle, a three-sided football match, Luis Bunuel and space travel? The answer is that they are all on the agenda at Hackney Anarchy Week.

This is a celebration of DIY culture that marks new interest in an ideology most had written off as dead or – in the year the Sex Pistols re-formed – sold out. Not true, say the ‘organisers’ of Britain’s biggest anarchist bash, who promise activities as diverse as a punk picnic, an anti-fascist football-match (no right-wingers) and a workshop on the Unabomber manifesto.

The McLibel Trial will be discussed, along with sexual freedom and the Operation Spanner case.

Anarchy – they insist – is alive and well and living in the UK. from the Twyford Down, Newbury and M11 protests to the anti-veal campaign, to the new frontiers of cyberspace, a new kind of anarchy is abroad – one that would have Tolstoy, Emma Goldman, Bukanin or the Barcelona syndicalists spinning in their graves.

Earth First UK
Action Update 28 June 1996

As part of the Hackney Anarchy Week in London there was a Reclaim The Streets action to draw attention to the fact that the Borough of Hackney has one of the lowest proportion of people owning cars in the country, yet still suffers from the ecological and social consequences of all the commuter traffic that passes through the area every moming.

A road blockade was planned and on Thursday 30th May an assortment of cyclists and pedestrians met at 7.30am to try to block rush hour traffic. About fifty people walked to a point where the road was due to be blockaded. Unfortunately the police had discovered the tripods and they couldn’t be used. Despite this everybody closed the main road and then walked and cycled slowly around the area.

There was a comparatively large police presence, both from local Hackney police and also quite a few from the Forward Intelligence Team there to gather infonnation about people involved.

Remember to keep your diary free on Saturday 13th July for the Reclaim The Streets festival in London. Contact Reclaim The Streets on: 0171 281 4621 for more information.

ANARCHY IN HACKNEY?
its coming some time, maybe?
(Nicked from here)

For ten days from May 24th Hackney anarchos enjoyed a festival “celebrating subversion in East London”.

It included a bookfair, a punks picnic, poetry, comedy, music, workshops and actions. Hundreds came to hear Ken Loach speaking about his films. A Reclaim the Streets action disrupted the morning rush hour traffic. There were different musical events every night. McDonalds was picketed. Class War won the football tournament (after nearly having a punch-up with the North London Buddhists). The workshops were interesting, varied and generally well attended. Our squat cafe was open and busy every night. Altogether it went really smoothly and was much appreciated by a lot of people. people came from France, Belgium, and even South London. the only intervention of Stoke Newington cops (who should have been more involved as they break the law more than any anarchos) was to trash two punk gigs, beat people up and nick them.

In many ways it could be interpreted as something of a barometer on the state of the anrcho scene in Hackney. All the known groups and individual organisers in the area had been contacted and invited to organise something. The resulting programme reflected the current range of interests and activities.

Few people were interested in organising actions apart from around environmental issues. Most wanted to put on cultural events which invariably cost money but were pretty good.

We received glowing coverage in the Hackney Gazette:

“(the organisers) are hoping the special week will highlight their positive work”

“CYCLISTS SHOW WAY. Pedal-pushers brought anarchy to Stoke Newington on Saturday……. one of the highlights of Hackney Anarchy Week.”

It seems that anarchism has become a recognised and relatively respectable position.

But what has all this got to do with revolt, revolution, transforming our lives and our world? Not a lot I’m afraid. There’s a lot of struggles going on in Hackney and elsewhere, and plenty to be angry about, to rebel against, and you don’t have to be a fulltime activist to be involved. The problem is to get together those who are fighting and who want to fight, who want to find a way to rebuild the world, to find what we really have in common instead of hiding behind labels and scenes that are scared even to confront internal problems.

The Anarchists’ Ball – 3-Sided Football
Report by Michael Hodges
Goal! Magazine 1996

Three goals, hexagonal pitches…The rules have changed over the years, but FIFA would have a field day with this lot. Goal shrugs off the shackles of organised leagues and hangs out with the anarchists.

It is unlikely that Luther Blissett is even aware of the fact that he’s the inspiration behind three-sided football, a form of the game that ‘deconstructs the mythic bipolar structure of conventional football’. But then Watford is not a hotbed of class war and, although it is rumoured that he organised a three-sided football league during his playing days, Blissett probably isn’t attending Hackney Anarchist Week in east London. Goal is, however, and it is here that we encounter the Luther Blissett 3-Sided Football League, named after the man himself. The game has been further developed by anarchist group the London Psychogeographical Association (LPA).

Played on an hexagonal pitch between three sides, each defending one goal, the aim is not to score the most goals, but concede the least. Goals are conceded when the ball ‘is thrust through a team’s orifice’, so dissolving ‘the homoerotic/homophobic bipolarity of the two-sided game’. Put simply, three-sided football is, ideally, an exercise in co-operative behaviour, with one side persuading another to join in a campaign against the third – thus breaking down the very basis of capitalist organisation – and all before teatime.

Hmm. Today’s game involves fellow anarchists the Association of Autonomous Astronauts (AAA) who are developing an independent space-travel project based on the premise that all we require to travel the universe is imagination and a map of another planet. Accordingly, today’s match is to be played on the surface of the moon, or Hackney, depending on who you believe.

Gathering in St. Barnabas church hall, the assembled anarchists, amateur astronauts, baffled hacks and the merely curious are asked to form three groups, autonomously of course, and issued with Bartholomew’s maps of the moon’s surface.

John Eden of the AAA joins our side, Group One. “We’re going to the moon now to find a suitable site to play three-sided football. We’re starting from one of the lunar seas, the Mare Heraculem.” So, we begin milling around looking for a football pitch and resisting all bourgeois notions of imposed order. Consequently we fail to get anything together. Perusal of the map suggests that the north end of the moon is flattest, and thus more suitable for a pitch. Eventually, following what suspiciously sounds like an order to get on with it, we start out, and immediately get lost. No wonder. According to the map, we are in a 20-mile crater with no obvious way out.

A friendly local stops to offer assistance. “What you looking for mate?” The north end of the moon. Unimpressed, he walks off to the pub, muttering. It’s tempting to join him but at that very moment one of our number finds a street corner and, according to the map, Apollo 13’s landing site. Appropriately, the American flag is found – or at least a pair of trousers on a line. Beneath them, uncannily, at some point in the past goalposts have been painted on the wall. John looks triumphant; his plan (sorry, autonomous collective decision) is working. Sadly, if not strangely, the playing area is only the width of an east London pavement. Defeated, we return to the Mare Heraculem (let’s call it the church hall for convenience).

Groups Two and Three report back. A serious and politically committed conversation ensues, punctuated only by the mobile phone of another journalist. He is, perhaps, a man who hasn’t got the hang of the property-is-theft side of anarchism. Group Two report that not only did they find a spaceship (to be expected on the moon) but also a ‘No Ball Games’ sign, which is something of a blow to our hopes.

The third group have found a part of the moon which bears astonishing resemblance to Grove Street Park. One astronaut thinks carefully, “It’s probably better to play on grass.” Conventional? Probably. Bourgeois? Perhaps. Sensible? Definitely.

We head for the park. Richard Essex of the LPA gives us a short lecture. “Three-sided football offers unique problems. How do you keep your team together? What is your identity? The very boundaries of what a team actually is can loosen; we can discover new ways of organisation.”

It is at this point of anti-hierarchical anarchist debate that the correspondent from another football magazine chooses to ask Richard Essex if he is in charge. This really is the wrong question. Essex, kindly, lets it go and continues. “This is not just a case of scoring goals and its not just about footballing skills, other skills are required, too.”

Mainly, it seems, the skill to trick people from another team into thinking you are going to form an alliance with them. This is illustrated early on in proceedings when Jason Skeet of the AAA, calling for the ball, takes delivery of the pass and promptly scores in the goal of the side the pass came from. Embarrassingly, this is the end that Goal is defending. More embarrassingly, it is one of our representatives who has been so obviously and completely duped. Worse still, it’s me. It has taken a very short time to realise that with three sides playing one is going to be picked on. It is us.

Both the other two groups press towards our goal, indulging in an orgy of free-scoring libertarian collectivism. The attempt to defend is made all the harder by not knowing any of the people on your side, while furthermore most of them are turned out in gear that could best be described as ‘New Age’. Gradually I recognise the man with the purple spiral on his head as being on my side. We start to develop an understanding down the right-hand side. Unfortunately, it isn’t an understanding of three-sided football.

We remain under the cosh and the score reaches 4-0-0. But then Group Three let in a goal and suddenly the wisdom of their pact with Group Two seems less sure. Tentative steps are taken to reform the on-pitch alliance, but talk of oppressive structures and fascistic centre-forwards gets us nowhere. Then a burly Australian in a rugby shirt, who’s come for the fun, barges through and lays it on. The goal may be no more than a discarded Cure T-shirt and a smelly black jumper, but it’s there in front of me. I shoot, I score, the Australian cuddles me. We’re 4-1-1 and the game is anyone’s.

A singular feature of three-sided football is that casual passers-by are as entitled to play as the original participants. Before long an Italian runs on and proceeds to push, dig, goal-hang and score with all the flamboyance and petulance his footballing heritage can muster. Ignoring one third of the pitch, he’s either a fascist or he doesn’t see the third goal, but as his only words of English are “Goal! Goal!”, it’s difficult to find out which.

The man runs riot and soon the scores are in the region of 5-3-6, but no one is really sure. The more professional of the anarchists respond to the challenge in a suspiciously organised way. John, however, maintains a rigorously un-ordered democracy, regularly swapping keepers and giving the ball away whenever the build-up looks promising. Jason, in Group Two, has no such qualms, taking advantage of a pitch which allows him to be both libero and striker.

The correspondent from another football magazine, unable to play because he is wearing an Armani suit of doubtful provenance, looks on from the sidelines, baffled. Our Italian guest, unaware of three-sided football’s commitment to the non-fostering of aggression or competitiveness drifts off when it becomes apparent that everyone else is ideologically unwilling to fight for victory at all costs, or in my case, simply too knackered to carry on.

The cure T-shirt is recovered, breath is regained, and ‘homoerotic/homophobic bipolarity’ declared soundly beaten. We head off autonomously and literally, over the moon.

Christmas, King Herod and Anarchist Football
Rev Mike Starkey
Appears in The Fifth Times Book of Best Sermons (Cassell, 1999), edited by Ruth Gledhill

[Needless to say this includes some dubious 3rd hand reporting embellished with some outright nonsense about goals being ripped down, which of course didn’t happen at Hackney Anarchy Week. Just goes to show you can’t trust a man of the cloth!]

One of my favourite stories from the Hackney Gazette this year was their report on the annual Anarchists’ Five-a-side Football Tournament. No, this is serious. Every year the local Anarchist community celebrates Hackney Anarchy Week. And the centrepiece of the week is a grand picnic in the park and football tournament. Now, you might think the idea of Anarchist football is a contradiction in terms. After all, anarchy means the absence of order or rules. It comes from the Greek word anarchos which means ‘without a ruler’. And all my fears were confirmed when I read the Gazette’s account of the games.

During the football matches, said the reporter, ‘anarchy prevailed’. It all came to a great climax as the matches ended with the goal posts being symbolically ripped down. Presumably by way of protest against people dictating to them where they ought to be kicking, or drawing oppressive distinctions between real goals and missed goals. Far better, thought the Hackney Anarchists, to rip down the goals altogether so that everybody could do their own thing.

I enjoyed the report. This was partly due to some unintentional irony. The reporter informed us that all the Anarchists wore ‘bright Mohican hairstyles’ and ‘trademark safety pins’. Now I find it oddly heart-warming to think of Anarchists having a rigid dress code, or trademark anything. Anarchist uniform does rather seem like a contradiction in terms. I would have thought any consistent, self -respecting group of Anarchists might wear a chaotic mixture of pinstripe suits, cassocks, boiler suits and pyjamas- the only ‘rule’ being that there are no rules. If I were an Anarchist leader (which, of course, I couldn’t be since they don’t have leaders), I’d excommunicate as a heretic any member who dressed remotely like another one.

But there was a deeper irony afoot. Before the event, posters went up around Hackney promoting it. And on these posters the event in the park was billed as a ‘celebration of subversion in east London’. The young anarchists were claiming to be subversives: in other words, challenging the basic values of our society, undermining all that the rest of us hold dear. In fact, their soccer tournament turned out to embody, in miniature, all the central values of their generation. It was another utter act of conformity. Why do I say that?

Well, we need to look at what these anarchists were claiming: through their attitudes, their doctrines, and even the way they played football. They were claiming that no external authority should have power to determine people’s lives. They were saying that there are no absolutes in life. They were saying that the only morality or rules are whatever we can piece together for ourselves. And that’s what you’d expect them to do-because that’s what Anarchists have always stood for. The problem is, to say these things just isnt radical or subversive anymore. To most of todays young adults, the ideas behind behind Anarchism – that authority is oppressive, there are no absolutes, the only morality is what we concoct for ourselves – these are no longer subversive. Theyre simply the new common sense. Its what practically all my contemporaries were bought up to believe. Its what most academics in our universities believe. Its what most of our media promotes. Its what most of our neighbours in Finsbury Park believe as well.

We live in a culture today where all the old certainties of the past are crumbling away. People no longer automatically trust the police, the monarchy, the judiciary, the social services, the Church. All the moralities of the past are questioned too. Our culture works on a supermarket shelf model of truth, where you simply cobble together whatever works for you, whatever happens to make you feel good. We like a personally-defined truth, which prefers words like relative to words like absolute. It prefers words like rights over words like duty or obligation. And ours is a society whose favourite concept is freedom of choice.

So you see why it struck me that the Hackney anarchists seem rather safe and predictable. Theyve chosen to make a political ideology of something that most of my contemporaries believe anyway. Wheres the radicalism in that? Let me suggest what a real celebration of subversion in East London might look like. How about this: an event which undercuts everything my generation has been bought up to believe, which challenges our most basic assumptions from the roots up. An event held in honour of a great King, who has supreme authority. An event which announces uncompromisingly that he alone is Lord, and that to him every knee should bow in service. It would be an event which tells us the only sure path to freedom is complete submission, putting yourself out of the picture and putting others first.

Hackney Anarchy Week, final programme 1996

NB: This updated programme was published on the first day of the festival – Friday 24 May, so events on that day are not included.

All Week

Squat Cafe • Cheap vegan food • Every evening 18.00-23.00 • Note the cafe provides food only and not accommodation

“Mistakes” art exhibition • Barnabas Hall • Mon-Thurs afternoon & evening (not Wednesday evening)

The Wormfarts of Art open exhibition • Bring your own stuff as well • The Factory Squat • Daily 17.00-21.00

Saturday 25 May

14.00 • Anti-Fascist 5-a-side Football Tournament • Teams indude: Legal Defence & Monitoring Group, Class War, Rugger Bugger FC., The Nation’s Vibration, Hackney Patients’ Council, the Albion, Squall, Active Badminton Crew, the Co-ordinators + teams from Bradford, Brighton & Bristol + many more • Sign your own team up on the day • Bring balls! • Clissold Park • free

16.45 • Facilitating Meetings • workshop • Squat Cafe • free

18.00 • Defending demonstrators • workshop • Legal Defence and Monitoring Group • Squat Cafe • free •

20.00-02.00 • Dub Soundsystem • The Nation’s Vibration • The Factory Squat • £donations

Sunday 26 May

16.15-20.15 • Films at the Rio • 16.15 Themroc (dir. Claude Faraldo) + 18.20 Un Chien Andalou (dir. Luis Buinuel) 8.40 Ghosts of the Civil Dead (dir. John Hilcoat) • ABC prisoner support group stall • Rio £4.50/3.50

19.30 • Visions of Poesy • Riff Raff Poets • Hackney launch of this anarchist poetry bock with readings from contributors • The Acton Arms • £2

20.00 • Exploding Cinema *A visual feast – no budget and low budget shorts, films, videos and live performance • The Factory Squat • £3

Monday 27 May

All day

• Three P Pirate Radio • 102-106 FM • straight out of the ghetto with kicking music, deliberate fun and hard-hitting politics

The WormFarts of Art exhibition opens • see All Week

13.00-18.00 • Small Press (Book) Fair • Books, comics, zines, records, Tshirts, underground’s finest • Expect to see AK Distribution, Active Distribution, A Distribution, Black Flag, Slab-O-Concrete, Bypass, ACE, McLibel, Squall, Freedom, Survivors, Between the Lines, ASS, Hackney green groups and many more … • Barnabas Hall • free

19.30 • Anti-Election Alliance Meeting • Class War and the Anarchist Communist Federation (ACF) • Barnabas Hall • free

Tuesday 28 May

11.00 • Perspectives of Anarchism • workshop • Barnabas Hall • free

12.30 • Picket of McDonalds • Meet outside McDonalds, Narrow Way, Mare Street, Hackney E8 • (BR and buses: as Samuel Pepys)

14.30 • McDonalds under the Grill: lessons for fighting multinationals • McLibel Support Campaign • The essential tool kit for taking on greedy corporations with live demonstration by McSpotlight (http://ww.mcspotlight.org/) • Barnabas Hall • free

16.30 • The Unabomber Manifesto – Key Ideas • discussion • Barnabas Hall • free

19.30 • Survivors Poetry & acoustic music night • Survivors Poets • Readings & performance by survivors of the mental “health” system with Billy Childish, Dave Russell, Ray Wilmot, Fiona Branson • Barnabas Hall • £2.50

19.30 • Sexual Freedom • workshop + cafe + risuals • From free lore to the Spanner trial, with especially sexy steamy food at the cafe • Squat Cafe • free

20.00 • Acoustic night • The Astronauts, The 1926 Committee, the Dole Claimers, Dr Feelshite • The Acton Arms • £2

Wednesday 29 May

14.30 • Training day for autonomous communities in space • Association of Autonomous Astronauts • Barnabas Hall • free

19.30 • Politics and Inner Change • Discussion • Unity Club, upstairs meeting room • free

20.00-24.00 • A Night of Extraordinary Acts • Comedy night compered by Tony Allen • With Mark Kelly, Mr Social Control, Col. Fitz, Steve Ignorant, Rory Motion, Julia Palmer, Jenny Moseley + more • Chat’s Palace • £2. 50/4.00

20.30 • late addition • Grunge, punk, reggae: Penalised, Brassic Park, possibly NothingFace, possibly P.A.I.N and other bands (subject to alteration) • Acton Arms • £1.00 21.00 •

Uncle Bob’s Special Film Night • Noam Chornsky’s Manufacturing Consent + Cable Street footage (60th anniversary) + more • Technobabble • free

Thursday 30 May

7.30 • Reclaim The Streets action Stop the Commuter-Polluters • meet outside Chat’s Palace • People on bicycles needed

15.00 • Anarchism & Mental Health • talkshop • Barnabas Hall • free

18.00-19.00 (maybe longer) • Organising in the Education Industry: Discussion for students and workers, what to do in terms of organisation and resistance. Barnabas Hall • free

18.45-23.00 • Ken Loach double bill • 18.45 Riff Raff + 20.30 discussion with Ken Loach + 21.15 Land & Freedom • Rio Cinema • £4.50/3.50

19.30 • Anarchism, Islamic Fundamentalism & the Kurdish Struggle discussion • 5th of May Group (Turkish/Kurdish anarchist group)^• Barnabas Hall • free

20.00-23.00 • Out-take charity event • Academy 23, the Apostles, John Antiss (queer poet), Sam & Mono band (anarchistic cabaret) • Out-take – Gay & Lesbian Survivors of the mental “health” system • Chat’s Palace • £5/:.3)

Friday 31 May

17.45 • Critical Mass • Regular monthly action • Cyding mayhem in central London, meet on South Bank below Waterloo Bridge • Followed by films at Squat Cafe (see below)

20.00-01.00 • Stricknien D.C., Terminal Heads, Substandard, The Restarts, Walking Abortions • Reknaw • Venue t.b.c., look out for posters • £3

20.45ish • Critical Mass film night • Screening of Return of the Scorcher, film from California that gave Critical Mass its name • Starts after the regular London Critical Mass • Squat Cafe • free

21.00 • Farrago Poetry Slam Poets vs. Rant Poets • Farrago Poets, MC John Paul O’Neill • Current Farrago London slam champions – Mark Rathmell, Annie Byfield, Brian Lynch – against the Rant Poets – Steve Tasane, Gabby Tyrrell, Vic Lambrusco, Annie Rouse • Squat Cafe • suggested donation 12

20.00 • Bad Attitude magazine party/benefit • Women only, mesas guests • The Factory Squat • t.b.c STOP PRESS: Now on Sat 1 June

Saturday 1 June

12.00-14.00 • Critical Mass 2: This time it’s Hackney • Cycle ride through Hackney from London Fields to Clissold Park (and the Punx Picnic) • By Pub on the Park, London Fields • free

14.00 • Punx Picnic • Reknaw • Possibly with the Tofu Love Frogs • Post-picnic gig at the Albion • Clissold Park • free

17.00 (after Punx Picnic) • Aus-rotten (USA), Oi Polloi, Special Duties, The Nerves, MDM, Coitus, Red Flag 77, English Dogs, The Varukas • Reknaw • Venue to be announced at the picnic • £4

20.00 • Bad Attitude^. see Friday 31 May

LATE • United Sound Systems party • Phone for venue details on the night 0181-959-7525 £donations

Sunday 2 June

15.30-19.00 • Mad Hat Tea Party • Requirements for attendance: bring a hat • Bands – Dead Dog Hat, Ming Hat, Dole Hat • Springfield Park, outside cafe • free

19.00-22.30 • HHH Video Evening • HHH cooperative • Screening of first edit of the “official” Hackney Anarchy Week film made by HHH throughout the week + HHH films “It’s a bit rough, ain’t it?”, Spikey, ARCH, 75A, demolitions etc. • Samuel Pepys upstairs

Organising groups

5th of May Group • PO Box 16881, London 118 7L

ABC-Anarchist Black Cross • c/o 121 Bookshop, 121 Railton Road London SE24

Anarchist Communist Federation • c/o Freedom Press (address below)

Association of Autonomous Astronauts • BM Box 3641, London WCIN 3XX

Bad Attitude • c/o 121 Bookshop (address above)

Class War • BM Box 357, London WC1N 3XX

Critical Mass • just turn up

Exploding Cinema • 0956-823712

Farrago Poets • 106 High Street, West Wickham, Kent BR4

HHH • email: HHH@phreakintermedia.co.uk

Riff Raff Poets • c/o Freedom Press, 84b Whitechapel High Street London E1 7QX

McLibel Support Campaign • 0171-713-1269

McSpotlight • http://www.mcspotlight.org/ & email: info@mcspodight.org

Nation’s Vibration • 0171-639-8702

Out-Take • Derek 0171-613-5326

Reclaim The Streets • 0171-281-4621

Spare Change Press • Box26,136-138 Kingsland High Street, London E8

Survivors Poets • 0171-916-5317

United Sound Systems • 0181-959-7525

Bust Info

Look out for the Legal Defence and Monitoring Group bust cards and carry them at all times.

These are their recommended solicitors:

Moss & Co. • 0181-986-8336, Pager 01459-103582

MacCormacks • 0171-790-4339

Thanks to Hackney Squatters Collective, 75A, 67A, the Factory, Chat’s Palace, Charles @ the Rio, Rick, pHreak, Tao Links, Calverts, Giles and all the groups & individuals who organised events this week. See you next year!

Venues

Free maps from the council, try Hackney Town Hall

Acton Arms • 296 Kingsland Rd (corner Arbutus St), Haggerston E8, 0171-254-7056 • Bus 22A, 22B, 67,149, 243, 243A, N243 • Access: ground floor

The Albion • please note the Albion is now being boycotted

Barnabas Hall • 109 Homerton High Street, Homerton E9 • BR: Homerton, Bus 228, 236, 276, 52, W15 past the door; 221., 30, 38, 55, 106, 253, N38, N253 nearby • Access: ground floor

Chat’s Palace • Brooksby Walk, Homerton E9 • Buses and BR: see Barnabas Hall • Access: good

Clissold Park • Stoke Newington Church Street/Green Lanes N16 • Bus 73, 106, 141, 171.

The Factory Squat • 8 Shelford Place Industrial Estate, Stoke Newington Church Street N16 • Bus 73, 141, 171 Tube Arsenal • Access: ground floor

London Fields • Pub on the Park, Martello St E8 • on your bike

Rio Cinema • 103 Kingsland High Street, Dalston E8, 0171-254-6677 • BR: Dalston Kingsland, Bus: 67,76 (not Sun),149, 236, 243, 243A, 8243 past the door; 221., 228, 30, 38, 56, 277, 38 near­by • Access: good

Squat Cafe • 67A Stoke Newington Road (entrance on Princess May Road) 816 • BR: Dalston Kingsland, Bus: 67,76 (not Sun),I49, 236, 243, 243A, 8243 past the door, 236 goes near • Access: lots of steps

Samuel Pepys • Mare Street, Hackney E8 (next to Hackney Empire), 0181-533-7709 • BR: Hackney Central, Hackney Downs, Bus 221., 228, 38, 48, 55,106, 236, 253, 277, D6, N26, H253 past the door, 30, 56 nearby • Access: poor, up stairs

Springfield Park • Spring Hill ES, near Clapton Common. Bus: 253 outside, 106 nearby

Technobabble • 40 Underwood Street, Hoxton NI • Tube: Old Street, Bus: 43, 76, 141, 214, 271 nearest, 55, 243, N243 nearby • Access: poor, up stairs

Unity Club • 96 Dalston Lane, Dalston E8 0171-241-0923 • BR: Dalston Kingsland, Bus: 22k 30, 38, 56, 236, 277 • Access: poor, upstairs

Food

all cheap with vegan & vegetarian

Squat Cafe • cheap vegan food every evening 18.00-23.00

Pumpkins • 76 Clarence Road E5, 0181-533-1214 • 12pm-21.30pm ^•veg & vegan

Cafe Alba • 183 Mare Street E8, 0181-985-8349 • Mon-Fri 12.00-15.00 & 18.00-23.00, Sat & Sun 12.00-23.00

Centerprise • 136 Kingsland High Street E8, 0171-254-9632 • 10.30-17.00

Info updates during the week

Posters at events • Squat Cafe noticeboard • http://www.pHreak.co.uk/anarchy/ • pHreak bulletin board • email: anarchy@phreak.intermedia.co.uk • HAW @ BM Active, London WC IN 3XX

Message From The Organisers

So it’s finally happening, but what is it and why? First, it is whatever you “the people” make of it, if riots and insurrection ensue during or following the week you can bet we’ll be blamed or cele­brated, depending on the bias. All that the co-ordinators have done is in fact what you see on these pages of the pro­gramme. We asked those who call themselves Anarchist or Anarcho-something to do their thing during this week. Hackney Anarchy Week is therefore just a concentrated reflection _.of what the Anarchists of Hackney and London are, however weak, disorganised, diverse or dynamic that is. For those who are unfamiliar with Anarchist politics it may seem confusing but take heart that there are people who believe in chang­ing things away from the tired hypocrisy of government and trendy left (and right) wing revolutionar­ies who can’t see past their paper sales!

We did not aim to provide a Hackney Anarcho-Butlins Holiday camp. The festival has come through a Do It Yourself structure and we see it as an on­going path for the week and the eventual revolution itself. Hackney Anarchy Week did not ask the council for any­thing, and in fact all they have done is attack us, and we do not expect to be asked of anything ourselves. We want to inspire. to bring together, to celebrate and to advertise, not to patron­ise, regulate or act as benevo­lent guardians of revolutionary anger. We’ve done something, it won’t end here, what about next year’?

Dedicated to Albert Meltzer, Emma Cray and Joshua Compston for lives of dedi­cation and enthusiasm.

The Bread and Circuses Roadshow

Are you fed up with an unsatisfying, meaning­less existence’? Would you like to do something about it’? Fancy researching Ozone-hole depletion in Antarctica’? Or maybe doing that bit of metal- sculpture that you always want­ed to’? Or maybe trading in your polluting car for an environmen­tally-friendly pony and trap’? Wanna get a band together’? Or just get a break from the con­sumerist treadmill for a few years?

Well, tough shit. You can’t and there’s nothing you can do about it, because that’s the way it is. Yes, welcome to the BastardWorld (TM) Bread and Circuses roadshow. Here’s the low-down… what would you really like to do with your life instead of the dead-end tread­mill existence you’ve been allo­cated’?

Yes, that’s right, just fill in the triplicate form enclosed and return it to the Department of Social Control. Then, after it’s been bent, folded, mutilated and stapled, lost, found, lost again and then put at the bottom of the pile enough times, we’ll arrange for you to see a group of our own hand-picked professionals doing exactly what you’ve always wanted to do but aren’t allowed to. Remember, all the interesting jobs are reserved. If we allowed the likes of you to get a look in, there wouldn’t be any plum jobs to hand out to the privileged members of society, their offspring and their min­ions.

Musn’t grumble, otherwise we’ll stitch you up as a social deviant and send you off for rehabilitation therapy and find a dozen good reasons why you shouldn’t get a look in. So remember, get into vicarious living, because that’s all you’re gonna get. Don’t get any funny ideas about voting in a different government to change things at the next election, because it won’t make a jot of difference. Why? Easy, because all the political parties are just another aspect of tile Department of Social Control’s very own “Bread and Circuses” roadshow. We’ve had it all sewn up long before you were even born and were not about to change any­thing for some little git like you. Sure, everything’s bullshit and we don’t care because, we don’t give a toss. Get used to it. We control everything and that includes you.

Don’t like it’? Well, there’s nowhere to go, buddy. So you can either put up and shut up or check out.

Albert Meltzer

A life time of Anarchist struggle ended this month with his death. A public procession to his memorial service is planned for 10am Friday, 24. March from Celestial Gardens, off Lee High Road, Lewisham, SE 13. Bring Black Flags, respect, but no Golden Angels.

There follows an excerpt from his recently published auto-biography Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels, Sixty Years of Commonplace Life and Anarchist Agitation:

“Personally I want to die in dignity, but my passing celebrated with jollity. I’ve told my executors that I want a stand-up comedian in the pulpit telling amus­ing anecdotes, and the coffin to slide into the incinerator to the sound of Marlene Dietrich. If the booze-up can begin right away, so much the better, and with a bit of luck the crematorium will never be gloomy again. Anyone mourn­ing should be denounced as a repre­sentative of a credit-card company and thrown out on their ear. Snowballs if in season (tomatoes if not) can be thrown at anyone utter­ing even worthy cliches like “the struggle goes on” and should any one of a religious mind offer pieces of abstract consolation they should be prepared to dodge pieces of’ concrete con­frontation.”

Reclaim the Streets…

…is an autonomous group who take direct action against ‘car culture’. Hackney has the lowest propor­tion of car ownership in London, yet every morning and evening commuters bring their pollution through Hackney on their way to the City. Stop the Commuter- Polluters and join the RTS action. Thurs, 30 May. Meet outside Chat’s Palace at 7.30 am.

Hackney Anarchy Week, 1996

This ten day festival in the borough was inspired by the London-wide “Anarchy In the UK” festival of 1994. It commenced exactly 15 years ago to the day.

HAW was the culmination of six months of a small crew  holding at least weekly meetings, originally held in a squatted social centre around Newington Green, and then HQ was set up in a squatted block on the corner of Kingsland High Street and Princess May Road. Contacts were pooled, favours were called in.

The main programme was a massive foldout thing (click on the images for bigger versions):

The inner pages of the programme included a Hackney Timeline and other material which will appear here shortly.

There was also a Hackney Anarchy Week film – does anyone fancy getting that up on Youtube?