Thanks for all your input chaps - as someone who moved to Brixton less than 20yrs ago I found it a thoroughly interesting watch but of course my views were nothing to do with contemporaneousness.
Thanks for this. Interesting to see Brixton in late 70s. Couple of years before I came. Then it was seen as example of immigration/ race relations as they were termed then. Brixton hadn't been gentrified then.
Given recent deportations of Windrush generation it was particularly annoying to see the Conservative candidate say that the Tories wouldn't be sending people back.
From several comments in the newsreel sounds like Thatcher ( not sure if she was leader of party then) had made recent speech about the country being "swamped".
From
Thatcher was catalyst who pushed UK towards their split with Europe
I'm not sure the tories of the late 70's are comparable to the knee-jerking xenophobes that populate some of its ranks today - but that's before my time. I'd be interested to hear the view of some brixtonians in that regard if they feel the tory (and other right-wing groups) diatribe has veered against non-brits in general, or specifically against non-whites. As I see it, the tories are merely just trying to find and spotlight as many scapegoats as possible whilst they do their best to fuck up the futures of everyone (divide and conquer, ad nauseum, ad infinitum), but that's just my horrendously biased opinion.
The program at end is rather in hindsight over optimistic. The Youth Worker in the local pub ( the Effra?) speech on how Thatcher had harmed herself with swamp speech.
Yup this was what I was mostly doubtful of - the overall message of the film I thought was lovely and totally right-on for a liberal like myself but, given the still-present tensions, the riots and all the rest of it I did wonder if the environment as a whole was anywhere near as idyllic as the program made it seem at times.
very helpful link got me looking at what else is on the free BFI website
It's fair to say I've been working my way through the A-Z of the archive for most of the weekend. An absolute treasure trove in every way, shape and form. There's an absolute shedload of stuff from all around south london that I'm still working my way through.
I showed the this to my partner who is from another EU country. She knew about Thatcher. I checked and Thatcher had replaced Heath when she made the swamp speech. She won the election year after this news piece was made.
The parallels with today are surprising. UKIP followed up on Thatcher. Instead of Afro Carribbean being the target it is people from other EU countries.
Yeah, aside from the historical footage what made me want to post it was how so many of the arguments seemed ripped from the headlines from the past few years. Same shit, different day I guess - the target and the language changes but the overall arguments and sentiments remain much the same. To my mind the perennial trigger always seems to be economic inequality in times of strife, but that's a discussion for another thread
This country has never got over losing an empire imo.
I'm not sure any country ever gets over losing an empire, not entirely. My partner is italian and the former glories of the roman empire (and even the ill-fated fascist era, itself a deliberate reincarnation of rome) still looms large in their collective national consciousness as far as I can tell. America are in the midst of losing theirs and the results aren't going to be pretty.
yes, it even says George Canning on a poster behind the band.
Thanks for that, I was living just round the corner at the time, but didn't have a telly and have never seen it before. It's worth looking at just to see how poor and decrepit the area was back then, conveyed quite well by the boarded up shops, roofs with holes and a beaten up old van used as an election vehicle.
I seem to remember beaten-up old vehicles being
de rigeur]/i] for election vehicles back in the day, but I didn't grow up here so I could be wrong. The general shabbiness of the area from some bits of the film didn't really stick out for me, it just reminded me of how I remembered it looking much like it did in the late 90's.
Someone posted this pic of a gent called Bill Boaks on fb tonight....he was an eccentric political activist, with complicated views, mostly in the realm of public safety, he was aligned with the monster raving looney party. and was a thorn in the side of Lambeth council, here he is pictured with his armoured bike which he rode around the manor to raise awareness of road safety.......
![bx].jpg](https://www.urban75.net/forums/data/attachments/154/154817-569e8469234436291b2c1563502ec165.jpg "bx].jpg")
