Stonehenge - 25 years

Event published by 1in12

Event date: June 01, 2010 19:30

Published by group: 1 in 12 Club

Tagged as: culture free_spaces repression social_struggles

Places: bradford

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June 1st will be the 25th anniversary of the Battle of the Beanfield, a notoriously brutal one-sided confrontation between 450 unarmed travellers and a quasi-military police force of over 1,300 police and MoD.

Bolstered by a mandate from on high - and some dodgy injunctions, preventing 83 named individuals from approaching Stonehenge - the police brought to a violent end the 11th annual Stonehenge Free Festival, and set about ‘decommissioning’ the new Travellers’ movement.

We'll be remembering these events at the 1in12 Club with a showing of "Operation Solstice" and considering the links between the attacks on the counterculture in 1985 and organised labour in 1984 (miners) and 1986 (printworkers), and how that set the pre-conditions for the acquiesce-or-else debt-based consumerist experiment which has now culminated in the return to power of the architects of some of the 1980s most shameful episodes.

Handy links:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/05/312088.html - article by Alan Lodge (incl links to original photographs and footage) 20 years on - Indymedia

http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news25.htm " title="Wikipedia">Wikipedia

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jun/12/ukcrime.tonythompson  (20years on - review of "Battle of the Beanfield" book

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/battle-of-the-beanfield/ Link to the book

http://www.batrewick.co.uk/Beanfield/index.htm 20years on - text and pics

http://www.urban75.com/Action/beanfield.html Urban75 - some text and pics from the book

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/jun/01/remembering-the-battle-of-the-beanfield

24 years on - Andy Worthington, author of "Battle of the Beanfield"  (and some gormless commentators)

 

Contact email: oneintwelve@riseup.net

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