August 1977: the Battle of Lewisham

The Battle of Lewisham has gone down in anti-fascist history as one of the 'great moments' along with the Battles of Olympia and Cable Street in 1934 and 1936, or the other great moment of anti-fascism in the 1970s, the fighting at Southall in the run-up to the election of 1979. So let me begin with a paradox: why isn't Lewisham remembered even more widely, still? After all, Lewisham was a victory and Southall a defeat. Lewisham culminated in the routing of a fascist demonstration attended by about 800 people, and was the start of a long period of decline for the National Front. At Southall, by contrast, a crowd of several thousands was unable to stop a National Front group of less than 20 people from taking occupation of Ealing Town Hall. While Lewisham ended with anti-fascists triumphant, the Southall events culminated in the death of an anti-fascist demonstrator Blair Peach and the arrest or forced dispersal of several hundred residents. Southall was also followed days after by the election of Margaret Thatcher. Yet no histories of Lewisham have been written. It is Southall and not Lewisham, which has been recorded as 'the birth of a black community'.

Before returning to that last question, it is worth putting events at Lewisham in context. They took place when the National Front was on the rise. At Leicester in April 1976, the Front won a total of 44,000 votes in local elections. Combined with the National Party, the total fascist vote reached 38 per cent in Blackburn. In March 1977, the Front beat the Liberal Party in a bye-election at Stechford in Birmingham, and pundits warned that the NF could displace the Liberals as Britain's third main political party. The NF received 119,000 votes in the May 1977 GLC elections, and almost quarter of a million votes across the country in that year's local elections. During this period, the NF claimed to have up to 20,000 paid-up members. The National Front stood 413 candidates in local elections in 1977, and promised to stand 318 candidates in the 1979 General Election.

With Labour in office, unemployment rose from 600,000 in 1974 to over one million, five years later. 'Career opportunities', the Clash sang, 'the ones that never knock'. The government reduced spending on public services, demoralising its most ardent supporters. The period of the Wilson-Callaghan government was a time of sharp popular disillusionment, which paved the way for the Conservatives' election victory in 1979.

Many of the people I've interviewed had some sort of feeling that history was turning against them. The historian Sheila Rowbotham began to record in her diary evidence of popular disillusionment with Labour, and bitterness against the left, for the first time in 1976. Somehow, the movements of the late 1960s had begun to lose their ιlan. For the first time, it no longer seemed certain that the new political movements would win. 'We were very active', she recalls, 'But there was some peculiar notion of a pause.' In autumn 1976, another anti-racist Lorraine wrote to her friend Di in Oxford. 'England is tilting, tilting,' she said, 'and from below evil is rising.' She wrote of how 'manifestly politically dispirited many comrades are, the crisis resonating into our own lives: bone cold fears.'

One response was Rock Against Racism. Launched in 1976, after the rock guitarist Eric Clapton interrupted a set to make a speech supporting Enoch Powell, RAR's first document was a letter to the music press. 'What's going on Eric? You've got a touch of brain damage. So are you going to stand for MP and you think we are being colonised by black people. Come on … you've been taking too much of that Daily Express stuff. You know you can't handle it ... We want to organise a rank and file movement against the racist poison music ... P. S. Who shot the Sheriff Eric? It sure as hell wasn't you!'

The events at Lewisham began when police arrested eighteen black youths in South London and charged them with street robbery. They were arrested in an apartheid-style raid: doors were knocked down, people grabbed from their beds. In the aftermath of this police action, Tony Bogues and Kim Gordon of the black socialist group Flame met up with David Foster, father of one of the defendants. According to Bogues, 'David was an ordinary, nice fellow who had believed in the early stages of his life the myths about British justice, but on arriving in Britain he was immediately aware of the question of race. We sat down and talked with him for days. His house became the community house. The question of self-defence from the fascists and the police came up in discussion with the youth. We spent a lot of time, persuading people to work with us.' A defence campaign was soon organized, for the Lewisham 18, later the Lewisham 21. The Front retaliated by calling an anti-mugging march. This in turn set the scene for the clashes on 13 August.

On that day, around six thousand anti-fascists, including large numbers of local black youths, prevented some eight hundred supporters of the National Front from marching through Lewisham. Activists were determined to halt the National Front, and prevent them from gaining control of the streets. The police, armed with long batons and perspex shields, were equally determined to keep the Front's march going. The day ended with the Front march broken into many pieces, the police in disarray, and anti-fascists in control of central Lewisham

I have conducted several interviews with people who were present on the day. One was with Ted Parker, then a college lecturer in his late 30s. For an activist of his generation, Parker has an unusual background. He grew up in Folkestone in an oddly patriotic but Irish Catholic family. 'I always used to read war books', he recalls. Parker joined the RAF at sixteen, on a three-year apprenticeship. They had education classes, at the base, which set him thinking. Together with a friend Mike, he joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. They were court-martialled and given eight-month sentences. Parker later ended up at LSE during the heady years of 1966-9. He had also participated, at a distance, in various  insurgency campaigns. In 1967, he toured South Africa, delivering clandestine leaflets for the banned ANC. In the early 1970s, Parker spent several weeks in Derry, and had spent some time watching the Free Derry movement fight back against the police.

At Lewisham, Parker told me, the demonstrators had faced a particular logistical problem. The National Front was due to assemble on the top of a hill, Clifton Rise, and then march through Lewisham, ending up in the centre of the town. All police leave in London would evidently be cancelled. The police were also expected to employ batons and riot shields: tactics from Northern Ireland being employed for the first time on the mainland. The organisers therefore decided not to try and occupy Clifton Rise, the designated start of the march, but to concentrate their forces on central Lewisham, its intended destination. They hoped to catch the police off guard. The problem was that the tactic meant taking large numbers of anti-fascists, perhaps as many as 6,000 people, away from the National Front, in order to confront them again after.

Using published sources, interviews and press accounts, I have tried to create a timeline of what happened on the day.

August 13 began at 11am with a march called by the Communist Party, Catholic organisations, councillors and members of the All-Lewisham Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (Alcaraf). Mayor Godsif of Lewisham and Mervyn Stockwood, the Bishop of Southwark led the march. Each of the three main parties was represented. The 4000 people who took part expressed their opposition to the National Front, and then many of them left the scene. According to the Sunday Times, 'The [marchers] wanted to demonstrate peacefully against the National Front by marching from Ladywell Fields along Lewisham High Street and Lewisham Way to Railway Grove. Although this was perilously close to where the National Front was due to assemble, Alcaraf argued that its march would be over at least 90 minutes before the Front assembled.'

Having taken part in the first demonstration, members of Rock Against Racism the SWP then handed out a leaflet calling upon the demonstrators to join a second protest, which would assemble at the National Front's planned assembly point. Despite some hostility between the organizers of the two events, hundreds did join the second march.

Red Saunders was part of the crowd who joined both the first and second demonstrations. 'What I really remember is that there were all these Christians and Communists, telling us to go home. Most people stayed. But we were all just milling about, when this old black lady, too old to march, came out on her balcony. She put out her speakers, as loud as they could, playing "Get up, stand up". That did it for me.'

Angus MacKinnon, a journalist on the New Musical Express, missed the first protest, arriving directly at Clifton Rise, 'On the day', he wrote, 'I arrived at New Cross and couldn't get any further. It was about eleven o'clock and there were already a lot of people there, most were trade unionists. It said in the press the next day that there were three thousand, but it must have been twice that number. They said it was the standard rent-a-mob. It wasn't. Many had come from all over the country, for the same reason as myself, enough was enough.'

The fighting began near Clifton Rise at 1.30. According to the journalist John Rose, 'The whole of New Cross High Road and the top of the Nazis' intended assembly point, Clifton Rise, was occupied by anti-fascists. It was then that the police made their first, unprovoked attack. Foot police tried unsuccessfully to clear a path for the Nazi march, and then mounted police moved in. They too, were soon forced to retreat – but not before the police had taken revenge by grabbing people at random. Unable to clear the top of Clifton Rise, the police finally made the Nazis move up onto the main road through a sideroad 200 yards along ... Suddenly, hundreds of police and a score of police horses began to charge down the road clearing a path for the head of the Nazi column. The crowd of anti-fascists exploded. Sticks, smoke bombs, rocks, bottles, were thrown over the police heads at the Nazis.'

Einde was also at Clifton Rise. Born in Derry, then studying at City University in North London, he recalls 'a huge police cordon between us and the NF's meeting place. As the Front march set off it had to come out onto the main road at the bottom of the hill. We had linked arms by this stage and were facing the police cordon that stood between us and the NF march ... To be quite honest I didn't want to be in the first row as I knew what was supposed to happen.' The fascist march was located downhill from the anti-fascist contingent. On hearing a signal, anti-fascists would charge down towards the NF march.

The sign to attack was delivered by Jerry Fitzpatrick. Einde describes Fitzpatrick standing on a box, by the traffic lights, waiting for the Front, as they crossed the road at the bottom of the hill. 'We charged down the hill against the police cordon. The rows of demonstrators in front of me broke under the strain of the pushing, but by the time our line came to the front the police cordon had weakened sufficiently and we broke through into the middle of the march. I can remember that we grabbed an NF banner and in a tug of war we managed to get it off them, all the while maintaining linked arms - how we did it I don't know. Eventually the police managed to push us back but I remember that there was a hail of bricks from some convenient building sites alongside the route of the march and assorted other stuff, including at least one dustbin.' The anti-fascists charge had a dramatic effect, Pete Alexander recalls, 'I still remember seeing NF marchers with green faces. They were so scared. I'd never seen people go green before.'

According to the Sunday Times, 'After about 20 minutes of confusion, the police regained control of the whole of Clifton rise and the top of New Cross Road. Their tactics then were to hide the National Front in Achilles Street and then send the marches up Pagnell Street into New Cross Road and on their way to Lewisham. The plan almost worked. The left-wingers were milling around at the top of the Front column emerging from Pagnell Street [But with the police outnumbered on New Cross Road, protesers were able to charge through and catch the middle of the National Front demonstration] ... When they reached the march, a wedge of police tried to hold the two sides apart. But demonstrators simply hurled the ammunition they had collected along the way at the Front and the police protecting them became sitting targets.'

To summarise: the National Front arrived at the junction of New Cross Road and Brookmill Road at about 1:30pm. The Front tried to assemble to the North of Clifton Rise. The Front were attacked there, and their march broken up by the group including Einde and Jerry Fitzpatrick. But the police charged back at the anti-fascist demonstrators, who then broke away. The Front were just about able to reassemble, and then marched Northeast along New Cross Road in the direction of Lewisham. Crowds threw fruit at the retreating members of the Front. Smaller groups attacked them from the side streets.  

Much larger numbers, were able to follow the anti-fascists' original plan, and march East along Lewisham Way. Ted Parker led on a megaphone, shouting 'Defend the Clock Tower'. Why the Clock Tower? 'It's right in the middle of Lewisham. If we went anywhere else, I was worried the police might pen us in, and lead the NF through by one of the side streets'. Marching East, anti-fascists were walking along a similar route to the Front – but along a shorter, and more direct way – and without the fighting that slowed down the NF march. By 2:30, this large contingent had arrived at central Lewisham, about the mid-way point in the National Front's planned route. In this way, they were able occupy the ground before the Front had arrived.

According to Charli from the International Marxist Group: 'When my contingent reached the police we couldn't turn round because at that point the demo came to a complete halt ... We were the first banner, and marching with no police 'escort' at all, but by the time we'd done half a mile there was a group of black youth, generally in the 14 to 20 age range, demoing ahead of us, and this group grew until it was maybe 400-strong as we went along. Big contrast between the all-black youth ahead of us and the 95 per cent plus white contingents from the original demo. There were people hanging out of windows and waving and cheering as we went along.'

In Jerry Fitzpatrick's words, 'There was a buzz on the day, a networking. It wasn't communicated by posters or leaflets, but by people talking. This was West Indian youth making a stand.'

By 2:30pm, the bruised remnants of the Front march had reached Lewisham Station. The marchers could then look South, where the whole of Lewisham was occupied by the largest group of anti-Front protesters, outnumbering the police and the Front combined. Not daring to continue along their planned route, the Front headed instead North, towards Blackheath, where they stopped in a car park, and NF leader John Tyndall gave a short, concluding speech, calling for the police to be armed with guns. His followers slunk away.

By 3pm, the Front had been dispersed. Yet the police were still determined to clear all anti-fascists from the streets. Ted Parker was now at Lewisham Clock Tower. 'There was a tide of people blocking the road. There were no signs of the police, at all. Marchers were even redirecting the traffic. Then the police began to appear.' The Sunday Times blamed the subsequent fighting on the left, 'The most violent scenes came when some 3,000 demonstrators realised that a secret arrangement between the police and National Front had allowed the NF marchers to slip away. Enraged left-wingers rioted along Lewisham High Street, smashing windows, wrecking police vehicles.' It would be more accurate to say that people were defending themselves from the police.

By 3pm, Einde was standing near the clock tower: 'The police attempted to clear this area several times, but without success. Then they brought out the horses. This was the first time I'd ever encountered police horses. It's quite a frightening experience, but together with some other comrades we got the people to link arms facing the police lines and retreated slowly and without panic. At that time the pavements along Lewisham High Street were being newly paved with conveniently sized bricks. These were used to pelt the police. It was quite terrifying at first. We were occupying the street facing a line of police. Behind us were large numbers of young blacks who were lobbing half-bricks over our heads into the middle of the police - miraculously none of us seemed to be hit. The police would charge us, our line would part and the young blacks would simply melt away into the side streets. Then the whole thing was repeated facing in the other direction. At some stage the police brought out the riot shields.'

A third of the entire Metropolitan police force was on duty that day. It was the first time that they had used riot shields in England, and even on their own terms, the police hardly knew what to do. BBC footage shows the police in gangs, three or four officers at a time, running behind their great over-sized screens. The officers charged, in broken lines, arresting more than 200 demonstrators. People were clubbed, as they stood, grabbed and taken. Police and protesters could reach out and touch. There were no lines, just a melee.

Maeve was a young black teacher, of South African origin. She worked at a school in South London. In the run-up to the events at Lewisham, she recalls sticking up posters for the demonstration. A prominent activist, she was sure that she was going to be arrested. 'I washed my child's teddy bear. I took him to my mother's. I didn't want her to say anything, if she had to look after him for several days.' Maeve recalls being at Lewisham Way, as the police lines scattered. 'I was cut off, round the back from the Clock Tower. The police were really abusive, one said to me "If I wasn't in this uniform, I'd show you, Nigger".' Maeve was separated from her brother, who was also marching, and from other activists. By now, the crowd was much younger and blacker. 'I remember one of the organisers was on the megaphone shouting to us to all link arms, but when I turned to the people next to me, they just laughed.'

The crowd was more divided than it had been earlier. Parts were also angrier. According to Parker, 'The cry went up from the marchers, "Let's go to Ladywell Station", but we meant to go to the train station, to go home. The black youth took it up, "To Ladywell, Ladywell police station". That was the nearest police station. I heard later from people who'd been arrested earlier in the day – that just as we were getting ready to depart, suddenly all the cops stopped doing any paperwork, they began preparing the building for what they saw as an inevitable attack. The black youth stoned the station.'

After several hours of fighting, one thing was clear: the Front had failed to pass. According to Dave Widgery's Beating Time, 'We were frightened and we were brave and proud and ashamed at the same time. As the day became more brutal and frightening, and the police, furious at their failure, turned to take revenge on the counter demonstrators, there was one big flash of recognition on the faces in the groups: between dread and socialist, between lesbian separatist and black parent, between NME speadfreak and ASTMS branch secretary. We were together  … the mood was absolutely euphoric. Not only because of the sense of achievement - they didn't pass, not with any dignity anyway ... but also because, at last, we were all in it together.' Maeve's strongest memory is similar, of an overwhelming elation that sustained her for weeks after.

After Lewisham, the media took the side of the police. The daily newspapers ran with the hundreds arrested and the fifty policemen injured, ignoring the causes of the protest, and portraying the conflict as a senseless battle between two parallel sets of extremists. The front page of the Sunday Times reported David McNee, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner condemning the 'determined extreme element' of the left for preventing a 'lawful march' from taking place. The Sunday People featured the headline, 'Bobbies pay the price of freedom'. The Daily Mail used a front-page picture of a policeman holding a studded club and a knife, weapons supposedly found at Lewisham, and beside him was the headline, 'After the Battle of Lewisham, a question of vital importance, now who will defend him?' The Daily Express went further, 'We have no time or sympathy for the Front ... All the same, the Front does not go in for violent attacks on the police or on authority.' Yet among anti-racists and within the labour movement the exact opposite conclusion was reached: the Front had been defeated, more Lewishams were required.

Thus Lewisham forms part of a longer history, which includes the formation of the Anti-Nazi League, the growing opposition to the National Front, the great Rock Against Racism carnivals of 1978, and the decisive, low vote achieved by the National Front in the elections of April 1979; a defeat from which that party and its successors were unable to emerge for years.

But I want to end with the question with which I began: why aren't events at Lewisham better known?

The black political context to Lewisham seems to me to be different from the black context to Southall. There are some protests which occur on the backs of years of organising, and there are others which are more sudden, emerge quicker, and disappear sometimes just as fast. Beneath Southall, there was a black organisational history which went deep into a community, into the histories of the Indian Workers' Association and the Asian Youth Movements, a history which continues in events such as the recent Gate Gourmet dispute.

Some voices suggest that Lewisham should be seen in the same way. 'Lewisham was the climax', recalls Tony Bogues, 'of a series of activities in the black underground.' Bogues himself had only been in London for a year, having arrived from Jamaica. 'My politics was all about self-organisation. There was a way in which you talked with working-class people. You started from what they thought. It was a different style from the British left. We didn't leaflet people. We asked what they thought ... I made initial contacts, with the people in Flame, and also with family, friends, the sorts of people you drink with in the bar. After a year, I knew a lot of people, some friends, some political. There were the people in the Socialist Workers Party. Kim Gordon was militant, quick-witted. The International Marxist Group had a guy called Fitzroy, from Nigeria. There was the Black Marxist Collective in Croydon. It was a different kind of politics, based on the immigrant cultures.'

As well as the people named by Tony Bogues, Ted Parker describes the establishment of a permanent protest centre opposite Clifton Rise, used in the weeks leading up to August 13. Other people have described similar activities being organised on the nights of August 11 and 12. But when I hear these accounts they seem to me to have been shorter in duration, more immediate, shallower than the equivalent events in the run up to Southall. Lewisham did not take place in Brixton or in Notting Hill. I'm also not saying that deep community organising was absent – more that my impression is that it took place after August 13 and not before.

Yet while Lewisham is not celebrated to the extent of the similar events at Southall, as a moment of anti-fascist history, it was of greater importance. For Lewisham knocked the stuffing out of a generation of fascists, splitting the leaders of the National Front in two, between one group who gave up immediately on previous ideas of dominating communities physically, and turned instead to electoralism; and a second group who adopted violence intensely and without political purpose. Each group was far smaller than the previous whole. For anti-fascists, it showed that fascism and racism could be confronted and defeated. It was the start of an upwards curve.