November 6th, 2010 by J

As i am nearing my 33rd birthday i was having a little self indulgent wallow the other day after watching a program discussing peoples rights and the interviewer was talking to a group of teenagers about how laws etc. affected them and mentioned the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 bought in by John Major.

What caught me was that none of them new what he was talking about. Afterwards i thought about it and realised that why would they? This simple act gave the police the power to close down any gathering including a family bbq, It caused marches that bought London to a standstill and yet for the most part has been completly forgotten.

The 90’s did not start well The end of Maggie was followed by John Major and it began with the poll tax riots:

#1, #2

Now i understand that each generation has had these bits of history that are not forgotten but reduced to a footnote in history, The CND marches of the 50s/60s, The miners strikes etc. Occasionally though i think it is a good idea to take those bits out of the cupboard and give them a little shake before sending them back so i have done some digging.

One of the biggest events of my teen years apart from the poll tax riots was the road protests. What are you going on about i hear some of you say well exactly.

The A30 road protests were huge, Treetop walkways, tree houses, tunnels, arm lock traps so the police couldn’t get them out they had everything and the M11 Claremont road protest, none ended well with massive police incursions all along the a30 route and into Claremont road.

The general information out there is a little sparse written accounts,  an old website,  a couple of after the event newspaper articles #1 #2,  one photo of Tot hill and Swampys entry on Wikipedia.

I did manage to find a Flickr stream of photos from the Newbury bypass protest and some video for you to watch:

Road to Ruin P1, Road to Ruin P2, Road to Ruin P3 also the Claremont road eviction, news 1, news 2 and Twyford down #1

Call them Hippies or Hero’s it is up to you but at least that had the belief to stand up for something they believed in something which is a little lacking in England at the moment.

The 90’s were not all doom and gloom however as there was some great soundtracks of life provided by the Levellers and Sultans of ping FC and Nivarna.  There was also some Quality telly on 4 channels.

1997 saw the year of the great deluge at Glastonbury festival, for those of us who stayed (sort of had to as we were working) it was a great laugh. Where as 1998 saw a different deluge at the festival.

Fashion is probably best forgotten as the grunge and shell suit looks were not great.

Well i think that’s enough of a trip down memory lane for now hope you all enjoyed a little walk back in time.