The Ghosts Of Cable Street
A few years ago Mrs Akin and her 'bestie' went to a gin tasting festival at Tobacco Dock in London's East End, not being a big gin fan I accompanied them to their destination and wandered on further to parts of London I hadn't visited to explore and check out a few pubs. I was specifically interested in Cable Street. The day itself was steaming, humid and hot, I wandered up to Cable Street and onto a small park with a most magnificent mural representing an incident in London's rich history, that of the Battle Of Cable Street you can can the video about its origins and background at the link 'Battle Of Cable Street'. The mural itself is an impressive piece of artwork depicting scenes from the battle and was designed by Dave Binnington, Paul Butler, Ray Walker and Desmond Rochfort and was painted between 1979-1983. Hat's off to the artists!
It is so interesting as to how history just seems to continually repeat itself especially following on from recent events in the UK. I was glad to see a stand against the outright rioting and general thuggery that occurred recently and that local communities all stood strong to protect their families and livelihoods against the threats of fascism in order that above all democracy remains intact and after all the things our parents/grandparents fought for so hard for back in the 1930's and 40's are honoured and respected, people have the right to opinion, but thuggery, looting and violence are not an acceptable voice for it. Let's face it Britain as a country is built on immigration be it Roman, French, German, Norse as well as the fact that Britain would and will never function without immigration.
Anyway I am ranting a bit and so after I climb down off my soap box I will move on to the musical and artistic part of this post...
And Cue the Music...
For the music when I was viewing the mural the main track that I was mulling around my head was 'The Ghosts Of Cable Street' by folk punk band The Men They Couldn't Hang from all the way back in 1987 on the non-indie MCA Record label, when they started out with their thought provoking song 'Green Fields Of France' back in 1984 they were on the 'Imp Records' label, a record label originally set up by Elvis Costello and followed up with the anti capitalist 'Ironmasters' a year later, a proper dig at Margaret Thatcher's Britain of the day.
They Were Originally
- Stefan Cush - vocals, guitar
- Philip Odgers - vocals, guitar, tin whistle and melodica
- Paul Simmonds - guitar, bouzouki and keyboards
- Jon Odgers - drums, percussion
- Shane Bradley - bass
Seems to be that Britain as an Island doesn't do fascism very easily and the power of local communities and their treasured migrant history all come together when it counts to protect and stand strong, long may it continue!
Image Thanks
Photo by Lisheng Chang on Unsplash
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Video Thanks
Descent Into [email protected]
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