Getting the history correct ……….. Faces from a Demonstration

For a historian I was pretty lax in recording the details of pictures l took in the 1970s and early 80s.  

Anti Cruise  demonstrator, 1981, Manchester

In my defence, l was very busy, was not quite sure of the quality of the images and anyway they were all very fresh in my memory.

And within a decade I had given up smelly photography, and the negatives, along with the enlarger, trays, and chemicals were confined to the cellar where they stayed until quite recently.

And now they have come out of the shadows.

With the passage of time, I have come to like what I took, but the details have become hazy.

Back then against a backdrop of rising inflation, growing industrial unrest and a steady increase in unemployment, more and more people resorted to the streets and joined protest marches, all of which was made more urgent by a deteriorating international scene with a heightening of the Cold War, made scarier by a proliferation of intermediate nuclear missiles which were stationed across Europe by both superpowers.

So, we marched on issues from cuts in Government spending, the loss of jobs, and the proposed closure of local factories, as well as the deployment of Cruise Missiles, and those Far Right nasty parties who were antisemitic, racist and harboured more than a few members who saw nothing wrong with the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler.

The Moss Side CLP, banner, Liverpool, 1980

The man with the flag was taken in 1981, at the start of an Antt Cruise Missile march, which began on some open ground close to Strangeways Prison, meandered around town before stopping either in Albert Square of Crown Square.

Unemployment demonstration, Birmingham, 1983

Other demonstrations often finished at Alexandra Park or Platt Fields having begun on another piece of water ground close to what is now the Aquatic Centre on Oxford Road.

Just who the man was I never asked, but he did bring a bit of humour to what was an otherwise grim issue.

Interestingly Alexandra Park has long been a destination for protest marches, from those calling for Votes for Women in the early 20th century to the Rock Against Racism Carnival which had been proceeded by a march through town in 1978.

Faces at the demonstration, Birmingham, 1983

And while it is hard now to believe, Stevenson Square was also a venue from the late 19th century for protest meetings, which superseded the much earlier site of New Cross, which was a popular place to demonstrate against food prices during the 1800s.  

Waiting for the demonstration to catch up, St Peter's Square, 1984

Indeed New Cross was the site of a second Peterloo where on the evening of the massacre in Peter’s Fields, a crowd had been dispersed my the military who inflicted casualties on the crowd.

Leaving me just to record that the banner, belonged to Manchester Moss Side Constituency Labour Party on a march through Liverpool in 1980, protesting at the actions of the Conservative Government,  two date from two years later, and were taken in Birmingham, at unemployment and reached 3 million and the last was from 1981 in St Peter's Square and another ant cruise missile, march from possibly 1984

Together they come from the series “Faces at a Demonstration”.*

Location; Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham

Pictures, Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham, 1980-83, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

“Faces at a Demonstration”, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Faces%20from%20a%20demonstration