The Wanstead Chestnut Tree

The Wanstead Chestnut Tree, originally uploaded by londoninflames.

Firstly, this isn't my picture. I copied it from someone on the internets and forget where from. But it's a great picture and represents my earliest experience of activist politics. I grew up a couple of miles down the road and found myself captivated by what was going on here. So I asked questions, and the answers I got made me agree with the protesters. Some facts about the Chestnut Tree - it was legally recognised as a dwelling based on the fact that the local postman delivered letters there. It was subject to firebomb attacks by local nazis. The remains of it still lie on George Green in Wanstead, a sick memorial to a tree that had bee the focal point of a pretty suburban green. I wasn't there at the time it was evicted, it was before I had joined up, though I occupied the post-Chestnut Tree site plenty of times in the next couple of years. If you were there drop me an email with your memories.



What's next? Well, this is from London Student magazine. It is, as you can see, a minor analysis of the Criminal Justice Bill 1994 - a bill that basically outlawed a fuck of a lot of things that we took for granted back then - and most famously (though perhaps not most importantly) targeted repetitive beats - making the very playing of most music (though they aimed at techno) in public a potential criminal offence. Wikipedia covers it well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Justice_and_Public_Order_Act_1994, and my adotted online hometown www.urban75.com was set up partially as a response to the use of legislation to target gatherings of football fans.

I apologise for the missing words in this scan (and others to come) but this was all scanned very quickly to facilitate my return of the docs before the lovely boohoo moved.