Paul Trevor.

Originally broadcast May 19th 2011 on Resonance FM.

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This week Alex Vukodlak joins Malcom Hopkins to discuss Past Tense, publishers of radical London history pamphlets.

Originally broadcast March 3rd 2011 on Resonance FM.

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This week Malcom is joined by Keith Bonnick from The Cuming Museum and Martin Humphries from The Cinema Museum to discuss these forthcoming Cuming Museum events:

Silver Screens of Southwark – Museums at Night at the Cuming Museum

Friday 13 May, 6pm to 8pm

Come and join us for an evening about cinemas in Southwark. See objects from the Cinema Museum and find out about riots in cinemas in the 1950s. Why not come in period clothes and get swept up in the magic of the cinema.

Activities will include

• An opportunity to get a closer look at objects from the Cinema Museum’s incredible collections
• Chris Roberts, London writer and erstwhile editor of the 21^st Century penny dreadful One Eye Grey will recount Teddy Boy riots in Elephant and Castle cinemas in the 1950s
• Martin Humphries from the Cinema Museum will talk on the Cinema Museum and early cinema
• Andrew Pavord from Southwark’s film office will discuss modern filming in Southwark

Pictures, Places, People: Elephant to Camberwell

Saturday 28 May to Saturday 29 October 2011

This exhibition will explore the history of the area through the voices of its residents. On display will be paintings, photographs and prints drawn from the Southwark Art Collection and Local History Library. These rich resources provide a visual record of changes up, down and around the Walworth Road, both to the physical environment and social spaces. The exhibition will include images of buildings now lost to development or reused in new ways, streets scenes showing long-gone retail outlets and outmoded forms of transport, and events and aspects of community life unfamiliar to many of the borough’s younger or newer residents. The stories of the people of the area who lived through these changes will be central to this exhibition, which will be developed with groups at Blackfriars Settlement, InSpire and Southwark Pensioners Centre.

Originally broadcast May 5th 2011 on Resonance 104.4FM.

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To conclude our series of Brixton riot programmes, we invited Mia Morris in to recollect and reminisce with Malcom Hopkins.

Mia Morris was at the Brixton Law Centre on the night that Michael Groce handed himself into the police following the shooting of his mother. When he made his ‘one permitted call’ it was to the Brixton Law Centre to request that Paul Boateng represent him. Mia Morris answered the call.

Since then Mia has firmly established herself as a community activist and founder of the Black History Month website as well as the Well Placed Consultancy.

Originally broadcast April 28th 2011 on Resonance FM.

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April 2011 marks thirty years since the first Brixton riots. This is the third of four Lost Steps progammes exploring Brixton during that era.

This week Malcom is in conversation with Michael Groce.

In a previous life Michael was known as the man who sparked the Brixton riot of 1985. Police raided his mother Cherry’s house early one morning looking for Michael and Inspector Douglas Lovelock shot her while she was in her bed. She was permanently paralysed from the chest down. Michael was not there.

OK, so Michael was a bad boy, but as I said before, this was in a previous life. There’s plenty to read online about his early life and the circumstances leading up to his mother being shot and in this episode Michael does speak candidly about those events, but that was over 25 years ago and, like Brixton, Michael is now a different being. The past cannot, and should not, be erased, but I think it sometimes weighs heavy on Michael’s reputation and I sense he’d rather not be known solely for his 1980′s antics. In the 25 years since the riots Michael has become a published and celebrated poet. His youth workshops have a reputation for reaching and inspiring hard-to-engage young people. One day his memoirs will make a fascinating read. Meanwhile you can listen to him in conversation with Malcom Hopkins.

A thirty minute version of this conversation was originally broadcast on April 21st 2011 on Resonance FM. You can download (right-click and ‘save link as’) or listen to that show here.

Below is the full 62 minute conversation.

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April 2011 marks thirty years since the first Brixton riots. This is the second of four Lost Steps progammes exploring Brixton during that era.

To continue from Mavis Best’s story last week we invited Alex Wheatle to discuss his life and Brixton’s role in it.

Alex’s story is fascinating and will one day make for an incredible biography. In a nutshell, Alex arrived in Brixton in the late 1970′s after growing up in a Surrey care home. He soon found himself at home but was becoming increasingly aware of the tensions between the youth and the local Police.

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JIXM2Wga-4&feature=related

Jailed for his part in the original Brixton riot, Alex discovered a love of literature and, under the tutelage of an older rasta ‘sage’, he decided to become a writer and tell the stories of his generation. I’m so glad he did.

Alex Wheatle Bibliography

Brixton Rock Black Amber, 1999

East of Acre Lane Fourth Estate, 2001

The Seven Sisters Fourth Estate, 2002

Checkers (with Mark Parnham)   X-Press, 2003

Island Songs Allison & Busby, 2005

The Dirty South Serpents Tail, 2008

Brenton Brown Black Amber, 2011

A thirty minute version of this conversation was originally broadcast April 14th 2011 on Resonance FM. You can download (right-click and ‘save link as’) or listen to that show here.

Below is the full sixty minute conversation.

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April 2011 marks thirty years since the first Brixton riots. This is the first of four Lost Steps progammes exploring Brixton during that era.

To set the scene we invited Mavis Best to the studio. Mavis left rural Jamaica for a new life in London, capital of  ’the Mother Country’, in 1958. She recalls the those first few years with amazing clarity and goes on to describe how tension was mounting through the 1970′s and how the Met’s implimentation of the 1824 Vagrancy Act in the form of the SUS law was seen as a direct attack on Black people. Mavis spearheaded the Scrap SUS Campaign which eventually forced the government to repeal the act in July 1981, three months after the first Brixton riot.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the Brixton Uprising there will be a special event at Windrush Square and Brixton Tate library on Sunday 10th April. Starting at 12 noon in Windrush Square and then from 1pm inside Brixton Tate library, the event will hear first hand witness accounts from members of the public on the Uprising, performances from special guests including Linton Kwesi Johnson, moving images and sound clips from radio and news archives, photographic stills on display and an opportunity for the public to relate their own testimonies of the Uprising to be recorded and archived by the Black Cultural Archive. This will be followed by a debate on how Brixton has recovered from 1981 and look ahead to its future.

Originally broadcast April 7th 2011 on Resonance FM.

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This week’s show features Malcom in conversation with the writer Jonathan Kemp.

Jonathan’s debut novel London Triptych was published last summer by Myriad Editions to rave reviews. Jonathan tells Malcom of his own experiences in the city and describes the inspirations and motives for writing the book.

Three men, three lives and three eras sinuously entwine in a dark, startling and unsettling narrative of sex, exploitation and dependence set against London’s strangely constant gay underworld. Rent boys, models, aristocrats, artists and gangsters populate this bold debut novel as the lives and loves of three men interweave in three distinct and pertinent historical periods.

 
Here’s a clip of Mich Jamieson and David Hoyle reading from London Triptych at the book’s launch last year.

London Triptych was shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize and has been nominated for The Authors Club Best First Novel Award 2011.

Jonathan teaches creative writing and comparative literature at Birkbeck and his second novel, Hannah Rose, will be published in Spring 2012.

Originally broadcast March 25th 2011 on Resonance 104.4FM.

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Hear Malcom in conversation with Blue Badge Guide Diane Burstein.

It struck me that maybe guided tours suffer from an image problem. Is this fair? Do modern urban adventurers consider themselves too cool to be led around town? Would these people only consider a guided walk if under the tutelage of a ‘groovy’ artist or writer? By inviting Diane in to record a show we thought we could explore this idea and invite you to draw your own conclusions. I think Diane gave a great account of herself and her chosen career and it’s clear that she’s a woman of immense knowledge with a genuine passion and enthusiasm for our city. Have a listen and see what you think.

Diane offers over seventy different walks on her Secret London Walks site and is quite happy for you to call her on 0208 881 2933 to discuss or book a walk. Go on, I dare you…

Originally broadcast March 17th 2011 on Resonance FM.

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This week  the writers Matthew Beaumont and Gregory Dart join Malcom to discuss the book Restless Cities which they edited and contributed to.

Restless Cities is a collection of essays where ‘…leading writers reimagine the city as a site of ceaseless change and motion’. ‘The ‘leading writers’ referred to include Marshall Berman, Chris Petit, Iain Sinclair, Patrick Keiller and Esther Leslie, alongside lesser known, but equally talented writers.

Matt and Greg are both Senior Lecturers in the English Department at UCL where they play an active part in the City Centre project.

Both Matt and Greg have some interesting future projects. Matt has written an introduction to the forthcoming Penguin Classics edition of GK Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday and Greg has just finished a book on cockney art and literature in the early 19th century.

Matt and Will Self will be talking alongside the artists Joy Sleeman and John Timberlake this Sunday, March 13th 2011, between 2-4pm as part of the After London exhibition at the Stephen Lawrence Gallery in Greenwich.

Originally broadcast March 10th 2011 on Resonance FM.

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