Events Archive - Page 24 of 56 - Bristol Radical History Group

Studio 1 & 2: Pressure Drop? What did the protests of ’68 achieve?

Bristol Radical History Festival 2018 Poster Light

Professor Bush offers a critical reassessment of the events of 1968 and their aftermath. He will look at May '68 in Paris in a broader context of global protest and changing narratives of political analysis and authentic action. He will give a brief account of his own experiences of the summer of 1968 at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, in the wake of the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and Malcolm X. Thirdly, Professor Bush will examine a late echo of the sixties in the […]

Studio 1: On the run – Remembering the men who went away

From the introduction of conscription in 1916 to the end of the war each year at least 80,000 men were reported missing as deserters or absentees from the British home forces. Among them was an unquantifiable number of men who identified themselves as Conscientious Objectors. Their stories of temporary or permanent escape are a part of the history of 1914-18 war resisters which has been largely ignored.

Studio 2: Strikes, equal pay and workers’ control: the workplace in ’68

The events of 1968 are often represented by university occupations, protests against the war in Vietnam and the rise of the counter-culture. This however is a partial picture which excludes the aspirations of workers and their organisations in the period. Although action by Trade Unions was improving wages and conditions particularly in large industrial enterprises, the strength of these sections of the working class in Britain was being reflected in new, more radical demands. Equal pay and […]

Studio 2: What I remember…memories of 1968

Di Parkin, Secretary of Bristol Radical History Group shares her memories of 1968 from the Vietnam anti-war demonstrations and the women’s equal pay strike at Ford's Dagenham to the 'Prague spring', the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia and Enoch Powell’s 'rivers of blood' speech. Watch this talk

Performance Space: May 1968: From a Mod to a Marxist

Born in 1951, Radical Stroud’s Stuart Butler recounts how the events of May '68 turned him from a mod into a Marxist. Stuart shares his personal journey during the year that rocked the world through prose-poetry. Prologue: Sixteen years’ old in the spring of 1968: bored with school; bored with A levels; why on earth did I stay on? Skint. Just got the sack from a Saturday job. No fags, no new records, no new clothes, no job, no money. Swindon have just had another rubbish season and now there’s […]

Studio 2: The Granary: Music in Bristol ‘68

The Granary opened its doors as a jazz club in Bristol in 1968, establishing itself as a rock venue in 1969 when the collective Plastic Dog moved in. This session explores the Bristolian music scene, in a pioneering venue from the 60s to the 80s. From the tail-end of 1968 and into the Eighties the Old Granary in Bristol’s historic city docks became home to rock music and outrageously liberal attitudes. It is still remembered fondly by its acolytes. Al Read and Ed Newsom were part of a foursome […]

Studio 1: Film Showing: Mutiny at Taranto

The British West Indies Regiment in World War One

This documentary looks at the British Caribbean experience of the First World War and its legacies, as revealed by the last surviving veterans of the British West Indies Regiment. Central to the narrative is the mutiny at the allied base of Taranto in Italy in 1918. The film is formed of archival materials, drama reconstructions and eye-witness and expert interviews shot in Jamaica, Cuba, Guyana, Barbados, St. Lucia, Italy and the UK. The film's researcher and producer Tony T along with expert […]

Studio 1: Starting the flame: Agitators, Conchies and Miners in the Forest of Dean

In August 1917 a meeting of Forest of Dean Miners passed motions against the conscription of miners and in favour of an immediate negotiated peace to end the war. This talk will discuss the role agitators and conscientious objectors played in this process and what happened next. Ian Wright recently authored Ring Out the Thousand Wars of Old: The Forest of Dean World War One Conscientious Objectors.

Performance Space: Story Telling: ‘The Dispossessed’

As part of her collection of historically-based narratives which provoke questions about society today, Heather Jane will present a story set in her homeland of Gloucestershire. 'The Dispossessed' is a tale weaving poaching, 18th century criminality, and dispossession of people from the land in Berkeley and the Forest of Dean; followed by historical facts and discussion pondering the modern-day fall out of enclosures.

Studio 2: From Festival to Carnival: 50 Years of St Paul’s

St Pauls Carnival is held, usually on the first Saturday of July in Bristol. The celebration began life in 1968 as the St Pauls Festival, when the idea was "to create an event to help improve relationships between the European, African, Caribbean and Asian inhabitants of the area." Called the St Pauls Carnival since 1991, it is run by a non-profit organisation, St Pauls Afrikan Caribbean Carnival Limited. In 1968 the St Paul's Festival, had the aim of bringing together the European, […]