Samuel Kelly was brought up and went to school in the Fishponds area of east Bristol. His love of his ‘manor’, Fishponds, played a large part in his life, ranging from his legendary ‘border patrols’, checking no one from BS5 had sneaked into BS16[1], to the local history in his website ‘Boy from Fishponds’.[2] He knew Fishponds inside out and revelled in directing me around using secret short cuts, telling me stories of its hidden heroes and showing me the concealed ‘Lido’ that once had a bar on stilts, or so they say.
Samuel had been attracted to anarchist ideas as a teenager and, as a young Trojan ‘rudeboy’, famously travelled down with a mate from his native Fishponds to visit the anarchist social centre in nearby Easton, known at the time as Kebele (now BASE). This was a big deal for him, meeting some real ‘anarchists’. Sadly, no one would talk to them, probably because they were too scared of Bristolian skinheads, so Samuel and his mate left…with them none the wiser and in fact very much poorer (Kebele that is).
Samuel, now a mental health nurse, first got involved with Bristol Radical History Group around the time of the university grant and college EMA student protests of 2010. An active anti-fascist and ‘black-blocker’, Samuel’s favourite revolutionary heroine was Voltarine de Cleyre, the American anarchist-feminist agitator.
However, after knocking about with troublemakers in London, where he met the real love of his life Hannah, Samuel switched his allegiance to Lucy Parsons. Parsons, the African American/mixed Mexican/Native American anarchist-communist founder of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) remained his revolutionary heroine and the subject of his pet history lecture ‘I love Lucy: More dangerous than 1,000 rioters’.
In the summer of 2012 Samuel travelled with BRHG to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit and finally Chicago, where he performed his ‘I love Lucy’ talk, famously calling Emma Goldman out for being behaving like a ‘cunt’ to Parsons in front of a shocked audience[3].
In Detroit, at the renowned Media Convention (DMC), after everyone in a workshop on ‘identity’ had relentlessly self-identified, Samuel politely pointed out there was something they had missed out. They replied, we have covered race, gender, sexuality, disability and mental health…. what else could it be? Samuel said how much are you worth?
During the trips to the US, Samuel made many friends and influenced debates with his charming approach, whilst retaining his critical political edge. Outside the White House he got into a row with some MAGA types who claimed that the NHS was ‘communist’ and thus ‘evil’. Samuel calmly explained that the same was true for the Fire Departments in the US, and that they should boycott them and put their own fires out, rather than rely on ‘communist evil’. He will be sorely missed from New York to Detroit to Oakland.
By 2012, Samuel was producing the radio show From Bristol With Love and performing on it as Durston Fletcher. Covering (with Dick Gherkin), subjects as varied as Bristol Rovers (their beloved gas), riots, identity and local politics, the show was an excellent antidote to the miserable crap being put out by other news outlets and podcasts.
Samuel’s need for intellectual challenges was becoming apparent when he and Hannah participated in the ‘Global Anarchisms’ conference at Cornel University in 2013. Asked what he thought about it all, he said, I want to do this, I want to be ‘middle-class’, read books and write articles for a living.
Subsequently, Samuel applied to do an honours degree at Ruskin College, Oxford. A difficult step for him and Hannah as he would be away from Bristol for the best part of three years. He went through the course with flying colours, achieving a first-class degree and new self-confidence.
Samuel was the lead singer in the band Tower Harratz and loved carrying out stunts. Like dressing up as Santa Claus last Christmas and handing our free gift vouchers in Cabot Circus shopping centre which carried a QR code link to a website on shoplifting techniques. And escaping from the cops as they could not work out how QR codes operated.
The last time I spoke to Samuel properly we discussed his ideas about ‘propaganda of the deed’. He had noted the huge positive reaction on social media in the US after the shooting in New York of Brian Thompson, the CEO of the American health insurance company UnitedHealthcare, allegedly by ‘pretty boy’ Luigi Mangione. Samuel pointed out that ‘propaganda of the deed’ had been rubbished over many years inside and outside the anarchist movement.
He then explained that from a historical research perspective we need to look back at these actions over the last 150 years or so, and try to determine what people actually thought and felt about them. This he said was a true ‘history from below’ project that had not been carried out (yet). Fascinated, I realised that he was right, no one had looked at this perspective.
An ‘ideas man’, who looked after everyone with care and humour, Samuel Kelly ended his life in the summer of 2025. He is profoundly missed by all who knew him and we send our love to his partner and family.
[1] Of course, with the gentrification of Easton over the last 10 years Fishponds is now full of inner-city exiles. Once again, there is a need for border patrols.
[2] All hail John Chiddy.
[3] Apparently, Goldman had said that Parsons ‘had no politics’ and ‘was hanging off the coat tails of her dead husband’. Lucy Parsons’ husband was Albert Parsons, one of the executed Haymarket Martyrs.
