LONDON RADICAL HISTORIES

The Savoy Hotel Strikes, 1946-7 “When the hotel workers in London, starting with the Savoy Hotel, came out on strike in 1947 I think there was still a good bit of the war-time spirit among them, the esprit de corps developed among people during the Blitz.

‘I’ll Still be Dreaming Of You… CROYDON (and NORWOOD) Some radical history To coincide with the London Radical Bookfair delving way down into Southeast London, south of the ridge of hills that fence in South London… to South Norwood of places!

The 1926 General Strike around the Elephant & Castle Amended text of a walk organised by past tense in May 2026 around the Elephant area, attended by some 60 people.

Saving Tooting’s Commons After a struggle lasting a number of years, an attempt to enclose and build over a large part of Tooting’s Commons was defeated in 1871, when a court blocked the enclosures.

The text of a talk given by Alex Hodson of Past Tense, at Sydenham Library, Southeast London, in May 2026, hosted by Calico Libraries – part of Lewisham’s Borough of Sanctuary events.

This is a post about a Reclaim the Streets action in 1997, the police response to it, and the police infiltration of activism that we now know underpinned the event.

On 19th January 1999 Roger Sylvester died, eight days after being after being arrested by police officers and taken to a psychiatric hospital.

The battle for Wimbledon Green Following on from a previous post detailing the long and intricate campaign that preserved Wimbledon Common from enclosure in the 1860s… a reminder that not all campaigns to save open space from that era were successful.

Swamps, huge and inundate St George’s Fields was a large open space lying between Southwark and Lambeth, lying between modern Newington Causeway/Borough High Street to the east, and Kennington Road/Baylis Road to the west.

An account of how the squatted anarchist 121 Bookshop/ 121 Centre was targeted by undercover police officers (‘spycops’) working for the Metropolitan Police Special Branch’s ‘Special Demonstrations Squad’ (SDS) in the 1980s and 1990s.

Squatted army camps in South Buckinghamshire After the Second World War, homelessness, a shortage of homes due to bomb damage, millions of ex-servicemen suddenly returning from the war, and chronic overcrowding sparked a nationwide movement of squatting.