Next weekend (16th-18th July) Bristol Radical History Group will be at Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival and will present a series of short punchy talks about booze. How much of a metaphour the word ‘punchy’ turns out to be rathe rdepends on how much we have had to drink. This list of talks is thus:

• Short history of brewing in Britain
• Pre-enclosure home brew demo
• Beer shops, Captain Swing and the Hanging at Kenn
• Cider Riots
• Sugar, Tobacco, Capitalism and Conservative Clubs
• ‘From the Pledge to Straight Edge’
• Smuggling and alehouses, taverns and inns
• Rise of breweries, negative impact on Forest of Dean
• Gin Lane/Beer St. and Hogarth’s satire
• Peoples pubs

BRHG have release two new pamphlets:

#12 Tolpuddle And Swing – The Flea And The Elephant and #13Bristol’s White Slave Trade – Indentured and Enforced Labour In The 17th Century.

A gallery of  photos from the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival 2009 has been added to The Archive.

12.15 pm: RADICAL POETRY: Introducing the work of John Gregory – radical poet, cobbler and friend of Tillet and Bevin (all of us)

13.30-14.15: CAPTAIN SWING: A discussion on the rural rebellion that swept across the south of England 3 years before the events in Tolpuddle (Roger)

UNLEASH YOUR INNER LUDDITE! Join us and take a swing at some mechanised bling (a Pinata frenzy, Zoey, Kev, Roger, Rich etc.)

15.00: SWING IN DORSET: A discussion on the impact of the Swing riots in and around Tolpuddle (tbd). This may change to ‘The Flea and the Elephant: How we remember Tolpuddle and Swing’ as Rose cannot do the original talk.

16.00: A MATTER OF TIME: A play by Alan Plater (Chinese Alan and a Welsh bloke)

Full details of the Tolpuddle Festival (inc. directions) are at: http://www.tuc.org.uk/the_tuc/tuc-16170-f0.cfm?regional=8

A new article has been added to the BRHG archive.

Tolpuddle and Swing: The Flea and the Elephant