Way back, soon after Ian Bone moved to London, Class War began to produce a newspaper or magazine, an irregular tabloid size publication, which became notorious for some of its covers, several of which have more recently appeared as posters, such as ‘We have found new homes for the rich’, showing a huge cemetery of crosses. In its early days it was produced in an obscure tower block in North Kensington where Bone was living, which has more recently headlined the news, Grenfell Tower.
When Class War decided to produce a new issue of the newspaper, I was asked if they could use some of my pictures from their events, and I was pleased to let them do so. It was perhaps more serious than the earlier issues, with some substantial articles about Class, Housing, the Women’s Death Brigade etc, as well as some hilarious horoscopes and features on Duncan Disorderly and Potent Whisper.
The protest outside the White Cube Gallery had been planned earlier as a protest against gentrification, following on from earlier protests there in December 2015 – Class War at Gilbert & George ‘Banners’ and January: Class War Footy at White Cube. As with many Class War events, in started in a nearby pub, where copies of the newly printed newspaper were read.
Eventually people walked down the street to the yard in front of the gallery:
And people posed for a group photograph with copies,
before playing a little football, something which isn’t usually allowed on the yard, empty space in a crowded inner city with astronomical land prices, seen by Class War as akin to burning £50 notes under the noses of the working class population of the area, still present in the Peabody and council flats despite the increasing hipster invasion.
But the real treats of the afternoon were at a higher cultural level, though not appreciated by the gallery staff hiding behind police and security with the gallery locked for the afternoon. First Potent Whisper performed his latest spoken word piece on the housing crisis, Estate of War, followed up by speeches by Simon Elmer from Archtiects for Social Housing (ASH), Ian Bone and another well-known anarchist, Martin Wright, then songs from ‘one-man anarcho-folk-punk-hiphop phenomenon’ Cosmo, more from Potent Whisper and then a truly incredible new improvised performance from Adam Clifford and his guitarist (unfortunately not recorded for YouTube), after which Jane Nicholl performed her introduction to Adam’s performance of ‘The Finest F**king Family in the Land‘.
Adam ended his performance in his usual style:
and the event was still continuing with other musical performances when I had to leave. It had been, as I wrote at the time, a legendary performance, rather eclipsing anything the White Cube has had to offer at their site, and I felt privileged to have witnessed it.
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My London Diary : Buildings of London : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage
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