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Voyage of Despair: The Hannibal, its captain and all who sailed in her, 1693–1695

People’s University of Fishponds – Sunday 30 June 2024 – 7:00pm – The Nissen Hut, Eastville Park, Bristol. In 1693, Captain Thomas Phillips embarked on a voyage from London to Guinea in the Hannibal, where he purchased enslaved Africans on behalf of the Royal African Company. The subsequent journey across the Atlantic witnessed a tragic toll, with hundreds of the enslaved captives, and many of the crew, losing their lives before the ship reached the shores of Barbados.Fast forward to 2010, three […]
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The boldest experiment in civil government

Labour in Power 1974-1979

With the likely victory of the Labour Party in the upcoming election it seems apt to remind ourselves of what previous Labour governments actually did. Memories of 'New Labour' under Blair and Brown (1997-2010) have been popularly tarnished by the lies surrounding the disastrous invasion of Iraq and the subsequent banking collapse of 2008-09. However, other policy decisions by 'New Labour' such as the increasing privatisation of the state sector particularly in health care and education, the […]
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Kurdish Women’s Movement

History, Theory, Practice

By Dilar Dirik
Front cover of Kurdish Women's Movement featuring woman in landscape
Our defence is not for a piece of land, but for the protection of life’s ability to unfold itself (Nûda, member of the YPJ, the women’s defence units, 237). This is a meticulously researched and critically argued book from an author writing not only about but from within the Kurdish women’s movement. In the West, Dilar Dirik is one of the most prominent and articulate voices on the role of women in the Kurdish struggle for participatory democracy, ecological sustainability, and women’s […]
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Hartcliffe Betrayed

The fading of a post-war dream

By Paul Smith
Front cover showing girls playing in front of a Hartcliffe council house
How a garden city became a housing estate, 1943-1963. A salutary lesson for current planners can be drawn from this detailed examination of the failure of an ambitious project in the immediate post-war environment to live up to its expectations. Houses were desperately needed: What principles should underpin a new ‘settlement’? Where should the houses go? Who were they for? And what provision should be made for the likely political and financial changes over the timescale of the project? […]
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“Behold Ye Ramblers” A new play by Neil Gore at the Alma Theatre, Clifton (14 May 2024)

By Stephen E. Hunt
  This was a warm and extraordinary performance. It captured the spirit of the Clarion clubs, a nearly – but not quite – lost world, dear to the hearts of many radical historians. It was brought to us by Neil Gore, a man of many parts it seems, actor, songsmith and musician, dramatist, compere, promoter, ticket collector, programme seller, lights technician, and slide projectionist. This summer, Neil is AKA Robert Blatchford (1851-1943), likewise a man of many parts, and the hero of the […]
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Red Notes Choir

Catch Bristol’s wonderful Red Notes Choir, who will support the Bristol Radical History Festival by performing at 11:30am. They’ll be singing in the Ground Floor Foyer by the M Shed main entrance. The Red Notes Choir is a Bristol-based socialist choir. They have a repertoire of songs from around the world on historical, union, peace, green and human rights themes. We use the streets of Bristol and further afield to spread our message of fighting for the rights of working people, those who are […]
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Bristol Miners Support Group 1984/85

By Ian Wright
In the last few weeks, people have been looking back to the 1984/5 miners’ strike, and celebrating the tremendous solidarity shown by National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) members to sustain their fight to protect jobs and communities. The strike provoked a wave of solidarity from people across the UK that helped to sustain the striking miners. It also had an impact on levels of political organisation more generally. Many younger activists became more confident and developed organisational skills […]
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