During 2010-11, I used to write semi-regularly for Radar, a Birmingham based arts and culture magazine, which sadly closed at the beginning of this year.
The editors' open-minded approach enabled me to write about subjects I had never previously covered, and I've therefore decided to put some of my old articles up on here. The preceding five posts are all reproduced from various issues of the magazine.
I wish Pete and Paul all the best for future projects.
Saturday, 3 November 2012
The Art of the Possible
This article first appeared in Radar magazine, Issue 12, September 2011. The original version also contained additional photographs by Fiona Cullinan
On the 29th of July a new art exhibition,
Preclusion, opened in Stirchley. This is an unusual enough occurrence in itself
for this part of Birmingham, but the venue makes it more unusual still.
Preclusion is housed in the Whit Marley building - a disused factory taken over
by squatters and now being used as a makeshift Social Centre.
The exhibition is just one of several projects being
undertaken or planned at the Centre, although it is perhaps the most ambitious
so far, with work on display from over twenty artists, some local, others from
further afield.
There is no admission fee, and on the opening night the Whit
Marley’s big wooden shutter is opened to reveal a path formed of two parallel
lines of candles leading through a dark area to the old factory floor, where the
various paintings, photos, illustrations, montages and models are spread along
the walls, and occasionally the floor itself.
There is a conspicuous sense of fun running through many of
the pieces here, such as Felipe Molina’s painting of a brightly coloured,
smiling butterfly in whose patterned wings are hidden several other happy
creatures.
Other works deal with more down-to-earth, local subjects.
Martin Pickard’s photos show a Highgate tower block in the process of being
torn down, its grey outer walls stripped away to reveal the range of different
coloured interiors of the former homes.
The organiser of the exhibition, Harry Starling, has some of
his own pieces on display, including my ten-year-old son’s favourite object in
the room - the Necronograph – a clock in which the numbers are replaced by a
variety of animal skulls painted in silver and gold
Preclusion is due to last for only a week, which seems a
shame given it’s uniqueness, although some of the pieces, such as those by Gintarė
Inokaitytė, will undoubtedly be around for longer as they have been
spray-painted directly onto the walls.
On a second visit to the Social Centre a few days later I
talk to a couple of the activists, Hannah and Josh, in the ‘tea room', a small,
cheerfully redecorated area which was once presumably one of the factory’s
offices.
The tea room is run as an anti-capitalist project – you pay
what you can afford, or what you think it is worth. I paid nothing for my
coffee, not because I had no money or because they had run out of milk, but
because I completely forgot.
Amongst the other activities currently underway at the Whit
Marley building are a guerrilla gardening project, which aims to transform the
factory's disused car park, and a Free
School
Josh offers to teach my son guitar, providing we can come up
with a guitar between us which is small enough for him to comfortably get his
arms around.
The centre holds regular meetings which anyone can come
along to, either with ideas about how the space could be used, or just to see
what is going on.
Hannah tells me that rather than encountering any opposition
from suspicious local residents, many are genuinely pleased that the building
is now being occupied as it had been used in the past by burglars as a means of
gaining access to the backs of local houses.
The squatters hope to be able to remain in the Whit Marley
building for up to twelve months before it is finally demolished. The site is
then expected to have some role in the new Asda store which is controversially
due to open up nearby.
When they eventually have to leave, the group intend to set
up something similar in another empty building elsewhere in the city. There is
certainly no shortage of candidates. Common sense suggests that a great many of
Birmingham 's
disused industrial buildings could be reclaimed as community resources of one
kind or another.
Maybe this is the fundamental point about the Social Centre
- beyond providing living space for the activists, and space for individual
projects, it also provides a sense of possibility - a tangible example of what
can be done with a little imagination and an empty building.
Anyone interested in getting involved can contact the Centre
via their website (birminghamsocialcentre.wordpress.com) or just pop along to
the Whit Marley building itself on Ivy
Road .
Friday, 2 November 2012
Fearful Pleasures
This article originally appeared in Radar magazine, Issue 15, October 2011
Is there are a part of you that enjoys being scared, enjoys that nervy, edgy feeling that perhaps someone, somewhere might be out to get you?
For most people this indulgence in fear might involve nothing more than watching the occasional horror movie or reading True Crime books about the lives of serial killers. But for a few it goes much further, taking them into a strange world where coercion and consent can appear to be indistinguishable.
Did you know that there are people out there who will, at your request and for a fee, 'kidnap' you and then subject you to mental or physical torture?
Today I'm meeting one such professional, fantasy kidnapper - a Birmingham-based dominatrix who has agreed to be interviewed, but asked that her name not be used in this article. The Kidnap Zone section of her website begins with the following passage -
'YOU have made the arrangements, You have paid the deposit. You know the outline of what will happen, but the menacing laugh of the women you have been talking to for the last week echoes in your mind. She has assured you that you will be returned in good order, and has reminded you that this is YOUR fantasy, something you have been dreaming of for years. But your heart is still beating fast, and you keep wiping your moist palms on your jacket.'
So who does this appeal to and how exactly do you go about abducting someone, even consensually, from a public area?
I meet the dominatrix at her chambers close to the city centre, where she has at her disposal several fully equipped dungeon rooms, a bare cellar, and a prison cell. There are no clients present this morning, and so she is casually dressed, but still speaks with the deliberate, authoritative voice of someone who expects to be listened to.
She runs through the preliminaries that must take place before the actual scenario can begin. The client must initially send an email detailing the exact nature of their fantasy. They also need to provide a phone number, proof that they are over 25, and details of any relevant health problems. Most importantly, they need to provide an email confirming that they have consented to the abduction. This email will be printed out and kept close to hand at all times.
The exact nature of the scenario varies from person to person. Some clients will come along voluntarily to the chambers under a fantasy pretext, such as arriving for a business meeting. They can then easily be detained and the chosen punishments can begin.
It is only when someone wants to be taken off the street in broad daylight that the logistics become more complicated, as she explains -
'I'm very lucky. My past employment was in security. We always survey the area first, and if there are any cameras then I'll go to the local police station. I'll tell them I'm doing a fantasy kidnapping. I give them my car registration number and basic details of the person, and I always have the email ready. I have to be careful – I don't want a squad of police cars outside with guns!'
The risk of any passing member of the public getting the wrong idea is often reduced by the fact that the clients can be so eager for their fantasy to begin that very little in the way of manhandling is required to get them into the waiting vehicle.
'Some of them even put on their seatbelts!' she smiles. I ask her what happens if the client becomes overwhelmed by the whole thing and starts to panic, and whether she employs safewords.
'People want to panic. They want it to be as realistic as safely possible. But if someone's in danger of hyperventilation or some other health problem then I'll back off. I'm not here to permanently damage anyone.'
So what does she think the appeal of it is?
'It's about an adrenaline rush, that is why people want it. The human body has its own powerful drugs. Why do people need social drugs when they can use this underrated resource that everyone has? And it is natural.
'Most of these people are also in high-powered positions. For once they want someone else to control them. They want to be taken and not have control over what happens to them.'
She has a client booked in for next week. He will arrive at the chambers, pretending to believe that he is here for an interview, before being held in one of the dungeon rooms where he will endure eight hours of dominatrix's skilful attentions. He will receive all of the extreme punishments he has requested, but due to the experience of his captor he will leave without any marks on his body. She is keen to emphasise that there is nothing sexual about the abductions –
'It's all about mind control. It's not only about the body, it's about the mind. It's not only about pain, it's about sensation. It is sensual not sexual.'
These fake kidnappings are just one of several fetishes where the perception of danger is an intrinsic part of the appeal.
Knifeplay, for instance, involves running blades or razors across the skin, either to create the fear of harm, or sometimes in order to actually make superficial cuts. Again, mind control plays a large part. Subjects are often blindfolded so that they cannot see, for instance, that the razor-sharp knife they were originally shown has now been replaced, and it is only a butter knife that is being pressed hard against their skin.
There are even dominatrixes who will, on request, blackmail their clients into parting with regular chunks of cash. This is not an activity which the domme I'm interviewing undertakes as she believes the legality of it to be questionable, even if the individual signs a contract agreeing to the whole thing.
Maybe the rise in interest in these kinds of fear-based fantasies is due to the fact that, for most of us, our day-to-day lives contain an almost negligible amount of genuine risk. While this means that we are likely to have a longer average life expectancy than any previous generation, the problem is that many people need the occasional burst of fear-induced adrenaline in order to remind themselves that they are actually alive.
Undoubtedly it is only a tiny minority who would ever want to combine this fear with fetish and end up being bundled into the back of a van with a bag over their head. But for everyone else there is always bungee-jumping.
Radar Issue 15, October 2011
Is there are a part of you that enjoys being scared, enjoys that nervy, edgy feeling that perhaps someone, somewhere might be out to get you?
For most people this indulgence in fear might involve nothing more than watching the occasional horror movie or reading True Crime books about the lives of serial killers. But for a few it goes much further, taking them into a strange world where coercion and consent can appear to be indistinguishable.
Did you know that there are people out there who will, at your request and for a fee, 'kidnap' you and then subject you to mental or physical torture?
Today I'm meeting one such professional, fantasy kidnapper - a Birmingham-based dominatrix who has agreed to be interviewed, but asked that her name not be used in this article. The Kidnap Zone section of her website begins with the following passage -
'YOU have made the arrangements, You have paid the deposit. You know the outline of what will happen, but the menacing laugh of the women you have been talking to for the last week echoes in your mind. She has assured you that you will be returned in good order, and has reminded you that this is YOUR fantasy, something you have been dreaming of for years. But your heart is still beating fast, and you keep wiping your moist palms on your jacket.'
So who does this appeal to and how exactly do you go about abducting someone, even consensually, from a public area?
I meet the dominatrix at her chambers close to the city centre, where she has at her disposal several fully equipped dungeon rooms, a bare cellar, and a prison cell. There are no clients present this morning, and so she is casually dressed, but still speaks with the deliberate, authoritative voice of someone who expects to be listened to.
She runs through the preliminaries that must take place before the actual scenario can begin. The client must initially send an email detailing the exact nature of their fantasy. They also need to provide a phone number, proof that they are over 25, and details of any relevant health problems. Most importantly, they need to provide an email confirming that they have consented to the abduction. This email will be printed out and kept close to hand at all times.
The exact nature of the scenario varies from person to person. Some clients will come along voluntarily to the chambers under a fantasy pretext, such as arriving for a business meeting. They can then easily be detained and the chosen punishments can begin.
It is only when someone wants to be taken off the street in broad daylight that the logistics become more complicated, as she explains -
'I'm very lucky. My past employment was in security. We always survey the area first, and if there are any cameras then I'll go to the local police station. I'll tell them I'm doing a fantasy kidnapping. I give them my car registration number and basic details of the person, and I always have the email ready. I have to be careful – I don't want a squad of police cars outside with guns!'
The risk of any passing member of the public getting the wrong idea is often reduced by the fact that the clients can be so eager for their fantasy to begin that very little in the way of manhandling is required to get them into the waiting vehicle.
'Some of them even put on their seatbelts!' she smiles. I ask her what happens if the client becomes overwhelmed by the whole thing and starts to panic, and whether she employs safewords.
'People want to panic. They want it to be as realistic as safely possible. But if someone's in danger of hyperventilation or some other health problem then I'll back off. I'm not here to permanently damage anyone.'
So what does she think the appeal of it is?
'It's about an adrenaline rush, that is why people want it. The human body has its own powerful drugs. Why do people need social drugs when they can use this underrated resource that everyone has? And it is natural.
'Most of these people are also in high-powered positions. For once they want someone else to control them. They want to be taken and not have control over what happens to them.'
She has a client booked in for next week. He will arrive at the chambers, pretending to believe that he is here for an interview, before being held in one of the dungeon rooms where he will endure eight hours of dominatrix's skilful attentions. He will receive all of the extreme punishments he has requested, but due to the experience of his captor he will leave without any marks on his body. She is keen to emphasise that there is nothing sexual about the abductions –
'It's all about mind control. It's not only about the body, it's about the mind. It's not only about pain, it's about sensation. It is sensual not sexual.'
These fake kidnappings are just one of several fetishes where the perception of danger is an intrinsic part of the appeal.
Knifeplay, for instance, involves running blades or razors across the skin, either to create the fear of harm, or sometimes in order to actually make superficial cuts. Again, mind control plays a large part. Subjects are often blindfolded so that they cannot see, for instance, that the razor-sharp knife they were originally shown has now been replaced, and it is only a butter knife that is being pressed hard against their skin.
There are even dominatrixes who will, on request, blackmail their clients into parting with regular chunks of cash. This is not an activity which the domme I'm interviewing undertakes as she believes the legality of it to be questionable, even if the individual signs a contract agreeing to the whole thing.
Maybe the rise in interest in these kinds of fear-based fantasies is due to the fact that, for most of us, our day-to-day lives contain an almost negligible amount of genuine risk. While this means that we are likely to have a longer average life expectancy than any previous generation, the problem is that many people need the occasional burst of fear-induced adrenaline in order to remind themselves that they are actually alive.
Undoubtedly it is only a tiny minority who would ever want to combine this fear with fetish and end up being bundled into the back of a van with a bag over their head. But for everyone else there is always bungee-jumping.
Radar Issue 15, October 2011
Strange Taboo
This article originally appeared in Radar magazine, Issue 12, July 2011
Not long ago I happened to be standing around at Moor Street Station, waiting for a train out to Tysley. From the back of the platform it's possible to look down across some of the old side streets leading off from Digbeth. Most of this side of the city centre has been heavily redeveloped over recent years and even now the skyline bristles with cranes. Just ahead, at the end of Park Street, is the Hive, a new block of cream and brown apartments, now complete enough to be touting for occupants. Then there is Millennium Point with its gleaming glass and strange, orange slats, while behind me are the silver saucers of Selfridges.
However, one of the first things I can see, almost immediately below me, is the Taboo adult cinema club – a windowless brick building, painted in brown and black, from which emanates an aura of dismal seediness.
Taboo stands hemmed in by modernity and yet unchanged and overlooked, seemingly a throwback to grubbier times when pornography was seen to be the preserve of lonely men. Today there is pornography being made by and for women, although people will obviously have differing opinions on whether this represents progress or not.
Just a few hundred yards away, in the heart of the Bull Ring shopping centre, there is another indisputable sign of changing times - an Ann Summers store, which is generally busy with women, men and couples browsing through the merchandise as unselfconsciously as if they were shopping for breakfast cereals.
So who in the world still feels the need to go to an adult cinema in 2011?
Later, sitting on the train, I google the place on my iPhone and find the address of a website for the cinema, although it seems to be down at the moment. There is also a rumour on a forum, from last year, that Taboo is about to close. There were no For Sale or To Let signs on it, but otherwise it's hard to see how the exterior would look noticeably different even if it had long since gone out of business.
Other than that the cinema is mainly mentioned in various forums as a place where gay men, transsexuals and cross-dressers can go to indulge in some anonymous intimacy, which at least provides a plausible explanation for why the place could still be open.
The search also turns up a phone number for the cinema. It sits on my iPhone screen, as oddly tempting as a button saying 'Don't Press.'
It rings just once before a male voice with a softy Brummie twang answers –
'Hello, Taboo cinema Birmingham.'
'Erm.. what time are you still open today 'til?' I ask rather incomprehensibly.
'We're open 'til eleven today.'
'Ok. Thanks.'
'Thank you.'
He hangs up. Not the greatest piece of investigative journalism, but at least I've established that the place hasn't closed down.
Maybe the seediness and secrecy is all part of the appeal for today's clientele, regardless of how it might appear to passers by.
But if you agree that consenting adults ought to be able to do what they like to and with each other, then it follows that people have to be free to pretend they are not free, to pretend that there really is something forbidden, 'dirty' or wrong about what they are doing. Maybe it is this strange part of our psyche that explains why Taboo is still in business, just as it explains why Ann Summers sells handcuffs.
Radar Issue 12, July 2011
Not long ago I happened to be standing around at Moor Street Station, waiting for a train out to Tysley. From the back of the platform it's possible to look down across some of the old side streets leading off from Digbeth. Most of this side of the city centre has been heavily redeveloped over recent years and even now the skyline bristles with cranes. Just ahead, at the end of Park Street, is the Hive, a new block of cream and brown apartments, now complete enough to be touting for occupants. Then there is Millennium Point with its gleaming glass and strange, orange slats, while behind me are the silver saucers of Selfridges.
However, one of the first things I can see, almost immediately below me, is the Taboo adult cinema club – a windowless brick building, painted in brown and black, from which emanates an aura of dismal seediness.
Taboo stands hemmed in by modernity and yet unchanged and overlooked, seemingly a throwback to grubbier times when pornography was seen to be the preserve of lonely men. Today there is pornography being made by and for women, although people will obviously have differing opinions on whether this represents progress or not.
Just a few hundred yards away, in the heart of the Bull Ring shopping centre, there is another indisputable sign of changing times - an Ann Summers store, which is generally busy with women, men and couples browsing through the merchandise as unselfconsciously as if they were shopping for breakfast cereals.
So who in the world still feels the need to go to an adult cinema in 2011?
Later, sitting on the train, I google the place on my iPhone and find the address of a website for the cinema, although it seems to be down at the moment. There is also a rumour on a forum, from last year, that Taboo is about to close. There were no For Sale or To Let signs on it, but otherwise it's hard to see how the exterior would look noticeably different even if it had long since gone out of business.
Other than that the cinema is mainly mentioned in various forums as a place where gay men, transsexuals and cross-dressers can go to indulge in some anonymous intimacy, which at least provides a plausible explanation for why the place could still be open.
The search also turns up a phone number for the cinema. It sits on my iPhone screen, as oddly tempting as a button saying 'Don't Press.'
It rings just once before a male voice with a softy Brummie twang answers –
'Hello, Taboo cinema Birmingham.'
'Erm.. what time are you still open today 'til?' I ask rather incomprehensibly.
'We're open 'til eleven today.'
'Ok. Thanks.'
'Thank you.'
He hangs up. Not the greatest piece of investigative journalism, but at least I've established that the place hasn't closed down.
Maybe the seediness and secrecy is all part of the appeal for today's clientele, regardless of how it might appear to passers by.
But if you agree that consenting adults ought to be able to do what they like to and with each other, then it follows that people have to be free to pretend they are not free, to pretend that there really is something forbidden, 'dirty' or wrong about what they are doing. Maybe it is this strange part of our psyche that explains why Taboo is still in business, just as it explains why Ann Summers sells handcuffs.
Radar Issue 12, July 2011
Beyond Bizarre
Kinky Sex in the Second City
This article originally appeared in Radar magazine, Issue 6, December 2010
A few feet in front of me, on the floor of the nightclub, stands a young guy, perhaps in his early twenties, wearing only white underpants, a studded belt, and a collar. His female companion, wearing stockings, black stilettos and a fur coat, is stroking the top of his head. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back slightly, with the quietly ecstatic expression of a dog being fussed over by its beloved owner.
Just behind them, a scantily clad woman is strapped to a rack, and is being whipped by a guy dressed in a sharp business suit, with a respectable haircut, looking for all the world like some sadistic manager dishing out his favourite punishment to a wayward employee.
I'm at the Beyond Bizarre fetish club. This is held on the third Sunday of each month at the top floor of Nightingales, on Kent Street. The club takes its name not from the activities which go on here but from the fact that it is the official afterparty for the Birmingham Bizarre Bazaar, a fetish market which takes place at the same venue earlier in the day.
The market itself is a bigger affair, occupying all three floors of the club, and attracting visitors and vendors from all over the country. Among the wide variety of stalls it is possible to buy clothing and equipment to facilitate just about any sexual fantasy or practice which consenting adults might wish to engage in.
The market is open until 5pm, and Beyond Bizarre starts immediately afterwards. This means that unlike most nightclubs it is actually busier early in the evening as stallholders and shoppers stay and play for a while before heading for home.
My girlfriend and I have been to the market a couple of times in the past but have never stayed for the afterparty. Today we've missed the market and have arrived at the club just after nine. There are perhaps fifty people here now, with more leaving than arriving, although the girl on the door tells me they've had one hundred and fifty in today.
There is a 'fetish' dress code, which seems rather vague, but I get the impression that as long as you look like you have made an effort, and have some idea of what the club is about, then you will be let in.
I'm dressed entirely in black, but most of the men here have been a bit bolder and more imaginative. One guy is wearing a surgeon's outfit, another head-to-foot pvc, still another only a pair of pink panties. The women are similarly adventurous with lots of fishnets, corsets and skimpy underwear to be seen.
A man walks past us dressed in an almost non existent garment consisting of only a leather pouch and a couple of studded straps which reach up and around his shoulders. My girlfriend watches him go by and then suggests this might be a good outfit for me to try next time. I don't reply.
There are about half a dozen pieces of equipment dotted around - racks, benches and a cage, which anyone is free to make use of, although you are expected to bring your own floggers, paddles or other implements of choice. There is a house rule of no genital nudity and no sex acts, not due to any prudishness on the part of the organisers, but owing to licencing requirements.
The age range of the people here is from early twenties up to sixties at least, and there are all kinds of body shapes and sizes. There is no drunken stupidity going on, and everyone seems relaxed and unselfconscious.
Given how fascinated we are as a society with sex and sexuality, and how enamoured we are of diversity, it seems surprising that there is only one such club in the city, operating just once a month on one floor of a nightclub.
Even though 'coming out' about having a non-vanilla side is likely to be a daunting prospect for almost anyone, it still hard not to think that it ought to be possible for events like this to nudge their way nearer to mainstream recognition.
So, if you think you have a kink or two inside you but have never been sure what to do about it then maybe a visit to the market, or even Beyond, could be the place to start.
Radar Issue 6, December 2010
This article originally appeared in Radar magazine, Issue 6, December 2010
A few feet in front of me, on the floor of the nightclub, stands a young guy, perhaps in his early twenties, wearing only white underpants, a studded belt, and a collar. His female companion, wearing stockings, black stilettos and a fur coat, is stroking the top of his head. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back slightly, with the quietly ecstatic expression of a dog being fussed over by its beloved owner.
Just behind them, a scantily clad woman is strapped to a rack, and is being whipped by a guy dressed in a sharp business suit, with a respectable haircut, looking for all the world like some sadistic manager dishing out his favourite punishment to a wayward employee.
I'm at the Beyond Bizarre fetish club. This is held on the third Sunday of each month at the top floor of Nightingales, on Kent Street. The club takes its name not from the activities which go on here but from the fact that it is the official afterparty for the Birmingham Bizarre Bazaar, a fetish market which takes place at the same venue earlier in the day.
The market itself is a bigger affair, occupying all three floors of the club, and attracting visitors and vendors from all over the country. Among the wide variety of stalls it is possible to buy clothing and equipment to facilitate just about any sexual fantasy or practice which consenting adults might wish to engage in.
The market is open until 5pm, and Beyond Bizarre starts immediately afterwards. This means that unlike most nightclubs it is actually busier early in the evening as stallholders and shoppers stay and play for a while before heading for home.
My girlfriend and I have been to the market a couple of times in the past but have never stayed for the afterparty. Today we've missed the market and have arrived at the club just after nine. There are perhaps fifty people here now, with more leaving than arriving, although the girl on the door tells me they've had one hundred and fifty in today.
There is a 'fetish' dress code, which seems rather vague, but I get the impression that as long as you look like you have made an effort, and have some idea of what the club is about, then you will be let in.
I'm dressed entirely in black, but most of the men here have been a bit bolder and more imaginative. One guy is wearing a surgeon's outfit, another head-to-foot pvc, still another only a pair of pink panties. The women are similarly adventurous with lots of fishnets, corsets and skimpy underwear to be seen.
A man walks past us dressed in an almost non existent garment consisting of only a leather pouch and a couple of studded straps which reach up and around his shoulders. My girlfriend watches him go by and then suggests this might be a good outfit for me to try next time. I don't reply.
There are about half a dozen pieces of equipment dotted around - racks, benches and a cage, which anyone is free to make use of, although you are expected to bring your own floggers, paddles or other implements of choice. There is a house rule of no genital nudity and no sex acts, not due to any prudishness on the part of the organisers, but owing to licencing requirements.
The age range of the people here is from early twenties up to sixties at least, and there are all kinds of body shapes and sizes. There is no drunken stupidity going on, and everyone seems relaxed and unselfconscious.
Given how fascinated we are as a society with sex and sexuality, and how enamoured we are of diversity, it seems surprising that there is only one such club in the city, operating just once a month on one floor of a nightclub.
Even though 'coming out' about having a non-vanilla side is likely to be a daunting prospect for almost anyone, it still hard not to think that it ought to be possible for events like this to nudge their way nearer to mainstream recognition.
So, if you think you have a kink or two inside you but have never been sure what to do about it then maybe a visit to the market, or even Beyond, could be the place to start.
Radar Issue 6, December 2010
Thursday, 1 November 2012
Hidden Histories
This article originally appeared in Radar magazine, Issue 7, February 2011
Forgotten Stories from the Fight Against Fascism
75 years ago this year, in Spain, a group of right-wing generals, led by Franco, launched an offensive against the democratically elected Republican government. They were aided in this by the Fascist regimes of Italy and Germany. The civil war that ensued lasted until 1939 and ended with the defeat of the Republicans, and a period of Fascist dictatorship that lasted until 1978.
One might not imagine that there was any direct connection between this traumatic period in Spanish history and Birmingham. But just a ten minute walk from New Street Station, in a quiet corner of the St Thomas Peace Garden on Bath Row, there is a plaque commemorating the volunteers from the city who joined the International Brigade, an ad hoc army of anti-fascists who converged upon Spain during those years, after Western democracies such as Britain and France refused to intervene, still clinging to the hope that appeasement might prevent a wider European conflict.
It is estimated that over 30,000 volunteers from over fifty countries fought in the Brigade. Of the 2,000 that came from the UK and Ireland over 500 lost their lives.
The inscription on the plaque reads –
‘In honour of the volunteers who left Birmingham to fight in the International Brigade, Spain 1936-1939.
They fought alongside the Spanish people to stop Fascism and save liberty and peace for all.
They went because their open eyes could see no other way.
No pasaran!’
These days the story of the International Brigade has largely slipped from popular consciousness. Anti-fascist history has a habit of doing this.
In the post-war period in Britain, the 43 Group, composed mainly of Jewish ex-servicemen were so successful in disrupting the activities of Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists that they were a significant factor in the BUF’s eventual decline and disappearance.
In the eighties and early nineties, Anti-fascist Action provided such an effective physical opposition to the BNP that the party gave up trying to hold public marches or rallies. (An authorised history of Anti-fascist Action, Beating The Fascists, was published recently. It contains a section detailing the group's activities in the West Midlands and is well worth seeking out.)
But, however successful such groups are, they tend to remain almost unknown outside of left wing circles.
About twenty years ago, some friends and myself were involved in any number of left wing or anarchist projects, usually short-lived and usually centred around Zebedee’s vegetarian cafe in Saltley. A group of us would occasionally go out to leaflet some of the estates around Birmingham where the NF were still active. We would often be joined by one of the café’s regulars, an old guy called Ernie, and sometimes a mate of his, who had both actually been volunteers in the International Brigade. They were both affable, friendly guys who were happy to get involved with whatever was going on, but they never spoke in detail about that part of their lives and, as is the way with young, know-it-all idealists, it never occurred to us to ask.
Over time the café closed, the NF dwindled, and Ernie and his mate disappeared back to wherever they had come from, taking their untold stories with them.
It’s hard not to wonder what advice they might have had for anti-fascists today, when the far-right has arguably been more successful at reinventing itself than the left.
The BNP may still be small, but they have been growing steadily for over a decade, and if you believe their leader Nick Griffin, they are looking forward to the next general election when the credibility of all the mainstream parties is likely to be utterly threadbare.
So if you are ever in town with time on your hands then you could do worse than take a stroll up to the Peace Garden, have a look at the plaque, and remember that old saying about those who don’t know their history…
Forgotten Stories from the Fight Against Fascism
75 years ago this year, in Spain, a group of right-wing generals, led by Franco, launched an offensive against the democratically elected Republican government. They were aided in this by the Fascist regimes of Italy and Germany. The civil war that ensued lasted until 1939 and ended with the defeat of the Republicans, and a period of Fascist dictatorship that lasted until 1978.
One might not imagine that there was any direct connection between this traumatic period in Spanish history and Birmingham. But just a ten minute walk from New Street Station, in a quiet corner of the St Thomas Peace Garden on Bath Row, there is a plaque commemorating the volunteers from the city who joined the International Brigade, an ad hoc army of anti-fascists who converged upon Spain during those years, after Western democracies such as Britain and France refused to intervene, still clinging to the hope that appeasement might prevent a wider European conflict.
It is estimated that over 30,000 volunteers from over fifty countries fought in the Brigade. Of the 2,000 that came from the UK and Ireland over 500 lost their lives.
The inscription on the plaque reads –
‘In honour of the volunteers who left Birmingham to fight in the International Brigade, Spain 1936-1939.
They fought alongside the Spanish people to stop Fascism and save liberty and peace for all.
They went because their open eyes could see no other way.
No pasaran!’
These days the story of the International Brigade has largely slipped from popular consciousness. Anti-fascist history has a habit of doing this.
In the post-war period in Britain, the 43 Group, composed mainly of Jewish ex-servicemen were so successful in disrupting the activities of Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists that they were a significant factor in the BUF’s eventual decline and disappearance.
In the eighties and early nineties, Anti-fascist Action provided such an effective physical opposition to the BNP that the party gave up trying to hold public marches or rallies. (An authorised history of Anti-fascist Action, Beating The Fascists, was published recently. It contains a section detailing the group's activities in the West Midlands and is well worth seeking out.)
But, however successful such groups are, they tend to remain almost unknown outside of left wing circles.
About twenty years ago, some friends and myself were involved in any number of left wing or anarchist projects, usually short-lived and usually centred around Zebedee’s vegetarian cafe in Saltley. A group of us would occasionally go out to leaflet some of the estates around Birmingham where the NF were still active. We would often be joined by one of the café’s regulars, an old guy called Ernie, and sometimes a mate of his, who had both actually been volunteers in the International Brigade. They were both affable, friendly guys who were happy to get involved with whatever was going on, but they never spoke in detail about that part of their lives and, as is the way with young, know-it-all idealists, it never occurred to us to ask.
Over time the café closed, the NF dwindled, and Ernie and his mate disappeared back to wherever they had come from, taking their untold stories with them.
It’s hard not to wonder what advice they might have had for anti-fascists today, when the far-right has arguably been more successful at reinventing itself than the left.
The BNP may still be small, but they have been growing steadily for over a decade, and if you believe their leader Nick Griffin, they are looking forward to the next general election when the credibility of all the mainstream parties is likely to be utterly threadbare.
So if you are ever in town with time on your hands then you could do worse than take a stroll up to the Peace Garden, have a look at the plaque, and remember that old saying about those who don’t know their history…
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