Modern History (Post World War II) Archives - Page 4 of 18 Bristol Radical History Group

That’s Ange! Angela Carter’s Coming of Age as a Writer in 1960s Bristol

Stephen Hunt of Bristol Radical History Group will be speaking at the Clevedon Literary Festival. From the website: Stephen Hunt, author of Angela Carter’s Provincial Bohemia, will explore how Carter’s experiences during the 1960s strongly influenced her development as a writer and will discuss how in recent years we have begun to memorialise her residence in the area. Steve is a member of Bristol Radical History Group and has written several highly acclaimed pamphlets on Bristol artistic […]

Mark Stewart (10/08/60 – 21/04/23): A Tribute

By Peter Webb

History is important, people are important and individuals are important. When people pass, we have moments of instant memorialisation, the obituaries are written, and then often we forget, or the memory of that person passes into the background as the noise and bustle of life continues. We can forget the impact, the power, the energy and the force that people can wield with their creative endeavours. Mark Stewart is someone we must never forget, but also one whose impact and legacy are all […]

Subvertising – The St Just Mob

Bristol Radical History Festival 2023 poster, featuring a Walter Crane print

The Saint-Just Mob have been active subvertisers in Bristol since 2001 intervening on billboards, hoardings and statues using pasted words on lining paper. Part of the battle to free our Commons. Over that time around 10 comrades have contributed hands, ideas and ladders and acted as look-outs. Named after Antoine Saint-Just, co-drafter of the Franch Revolutionary Constitution of 1793 that included the abolition of slavery. The title is useful inasmuch that mention of Saint-Just riles anarchists […]

Conflict and Struggle in the Arms Industry

A Memoir of a Bristol Trade Union Activist

Andy Danford brings to life his experience as a worker and senior union representative in Bristol’s arms industry during the 1970s and 1980s. During these two decades, life on the shop and office floors, and the strength of workplace trade unionism, shifted dramatically, as the advent of Thatcherism marked the beginning of the sustained attack on worker and union rights which extends to this day. Against this background of change, Andy provides a rich account of the actions of rank-and-file […]

Bristol City Centre Squatted: the last 50 years

A walking tour as part of Bristol Radical History Festival Meet at the MShed front entrance at 4.00pm. Finish at the Louisiana around 5:30pm. Bristol’s city centre has been a focus for squatters making a political point: on housing need and homelessness, in solidarity with strikes, in solidarity with land struggles and in defence of the natural environment. This short tour includes five buildings squatted in the Harbourside, Old Town and Redcliffe in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and […]

Curating Angela Carter: Bristol, Art and Writing

Angela Carter is one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, renowned for her dazzling imagination and radical creativity. Whilst living in Bristol for most of the 1960s, she took a degree in English Literature, started writing novels, played folk music and took art classes. To commemorate 25 years since her death in 1992, Marie Mulvey-Roberts and Fiona Robinson curated a major art exhibition at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol, Strange Worlds: The Vision of Angela […]

The life and legacy of artist, activist, eco-feminist and writer Monica Sjöö (1938-2005)

The Women For Life on Earth march took place in 1982 and as we pass 2022, 40 years later we are drawn back to the work of Monica Sjöö, artist, activist and writer, who continued to hope that the struggle, courage and sacrifices, particularly of women imbued with Her trust in the Goddess would make the difference to our protection of Gaia, our Earth Mother. Monica was a Swedish born visual artist, resident in Bristol and her paintings and writing were foundational to the development of feminist […]

Myanmar Diaries

Citizen journalism against 21st century regime terror

Two years and one month after the military coup in Myanmar, the BristolWithMyanmar campaign will be showing Myanmar Diaries at Bristol's Cube Cinema on March 1st, from 7pm. It is a film about life under the regime of terror in Myanmar since February 1st 2021, told through personal stories by a group of anonymous young Burmese filmmakers (the Myanmar Film Collective). This is the second annual event at the Cube, following on from last year’s A night of solidarity with Myanmar, organised by […]

Facing up to the Fascists

Confronting the National Front in Bristol in the 1970s

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Thurs 27th October 12.30-1.30pm Foyer, Bristol Central Library, College Green, Bristol, BS1 5TL As part of the ongoing exhibition of resistance to fascism in the city in the 1970s at the Central Reference Library Colin Thomas will speak about how the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism resisted the National Front in Bristol in the 1970s and 80s – and won. The first warning came fifty years ago – the National Front decided to put up candidates in Bristol. The party was led by John Tyndall […]

A Very British Conspiracy

The Shrewsbury 24 and the Campaign for Justice

By Eileen Turnbull

This is an account of the case of the Shrewsbury 24, one of the longest, if not the longest, campaign to overturn injustice in this country. The Shrewsbury 24 were building workers convicted of various charges arising from picketing during the 1972 national building workers’ strike. The book takes us back to a very different time when there were 12 million members of trade unions in the country and a wave of strikes which led to the defeat of the Conservative Government by the National Union of […]