HHH Video were an activist collective working out of a studio in Martello Street, near London Fields. This second edition of their “magazine” is a great round up of the London counter culture and protest scenes of the mid 1990s.
Thanks to History is Made at Night, we know that there was a showing of this video at the 121 Centre in Brixton on September 11 1995:
This flyer is also a handy guide to the contents, as we are without the cover…
The most relevant part of this edition is the coverage of the eviction of the Spikey Thing With Curves squat in Hackney Central, which I have written a separate post about.
And now here is the rest for you:
The Criminal Justice Bill was a huge piece of repressive legislation conjured up in 1994 – the dying days of the Conservative government. The bill targeted a diverse section of youth culture and the protest movement, although its powers would of course be used by the poilice in a wide range of contexts against ordinary people.
Whole sections of the CJB were aimed squarely at travellers, squatters, hunt saboteurs, road protestors and infamously ravers, with the much mocked definition of:
“any gathering of 20 or more people [where there is music…] ‘music’ includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.”
Other clauses gave the police even more powers of stop and search, of taking bodily samples – and reduced the status of the right to silence when under arrest.
On October 9th 1994, around 100,000 people marched against the Criminal Justice Bill in London. (A previous march in July, in which people climbed the gates of Downing Street is covered in HHH Video Magazine issue 1).
This clip begins with a bunch of Hackney squatters getting ready to attend the demo and speaking about various issues of the day.
It ends with the police violently attacking the protest after it reached its final destination of Hyde Park – and the protestors dong what they could to resist this. It was a messy evening. My friends and I were charged at by mounted police and then forcibly pushed down Oxford Street by riot cops…
The Criminal Justice Bill passed into law on 3 November 1994.
The McLibel trial was a huge issue in the late eighties and 1990s.
London Greenpeace activists being sued by an evil multinational corporation generated a lot of media attention and many solidarity actions, including the widespread dissemination of the “What is wrong with McDonalds” leaflet that had triggered the court case.
In this clip, activists disrupt the filiming of a McDonalds TV commercial in Ruskin Park south London, ensuring a frustrating day for the camera crew. You would need a heart of stone not to laugh.
The McLibel trial lasted nearly ten years, making it the longest-running libel case in English history. McDonald’s announced it did not plan to collect the £40,000 it was awarded by the courts and the European Court of Human Rights eventually ruled that the two defendants had been denied a fair trial.
“Anarchy In The UK: Ten Days That Shook The World” was an ambitious festival called by Class War founder Ian Bone. It took place from 21st-30th October 1994 at various locations across London:
“Anarchy In The UK” was the inspiration for Hackney Anarchy Week in 1996, which HHH Video also produced a documentary about.
The levitation footage is followed by a promo clip for an unknown (to me) band in a warehouse somewhere… this is probably the “Russian Techno Art Performance” on the 121 poster above.
In the summer of 1994 an entire row of houses in Claremont Road, East London was squatted in protest against the construction of the M11 motorway – a huge project which required the demolition of 350 homes and several wildlife habitats, so that commuters could drive to and from London more quickly.
The Claremont Road eviction lasted from 28th November to 5th December 1994. According to Squall magazine it was “the longest eviction in post-war European history”, featuring 400 protestors.
This footage is especially interesting as you get a sense of the community that had been created by the squatters and their alterations to houses and the street.
The M11 extension was eventually built, but it is widely acknowledged that the 1990s road protest movement made the construction of roads so complicated and expensive that several other projects were abandoned.
Cover photo by Hackney resident David McCairley
This clip is followed by a few minutes of firebreathing and fire juggling outside Hackney Town Hall. This was apparently a protest against the eviction of the Spikey Thing With Curves squat. A photograph from this ended up on the cover of Tony White’s debut novel Road Rage, which is a recommended pulp fiction take on 1990 UK road protests, with a nod to Hackney:
Road Rage! takes some liberties with the ‘sprawling consensual hallucination that is Hackney’, chiefly by relocating a lightly-drawn (no research, remember) analogue of the then M11 Link Road protests (which centred around the proposed ‘East Cross Route’ in Leytonstone) a few miles west to Well Street, E9. Events take place in a number of expedient and/or contingent locations around Well Street and London Fields: in the Pub on the Park, on Hackney Central railway station and the trains of the North London Line, in the Hackney DSS office and a still markedly pre-gentrification Broadway Market that would be unrecognisable now. This was where I lived at the time.
Tony white – Road Rage archive #1
There is more information about the book in the links below from Tony’s site.
HHH Video was ahead of its time – at what we used to call the “bleeding edge” of technology. It was very unusual to have access to a video camera thirty years ago, let alone the technology to do decent editing. There were only a handful of activist produced VHS tapes on sale in radical bookshops and through distributors – and public showings at squatted social centres like the 121 Centre were few and far between.
So it is pleasing that this footage has survived. For some of us it may trigger a nice trip down memory lane, whilst generating confusion and questions for younger viewers.
In 2024 many of us carry a video camera at all times. Widespread CCTV combined with repressive legislation such as the Criminal Justice Act and its successors have made direct action a riskier business. Nevertheless, I hope this footage is inspiring in some way…
I’ve added all the HHH video output I have found to archive.org where it can be downloaded. HHH were always clear that their work was anti-copyright, so use as you will! It’s also all on the Radical History of Hackney YouTube channel along with other videos of interest…
Spikey Things With Curves was an occupied building across the road from Hackney Town Hall. Many people lived there and its residents created a cafe, workshops and exhibtion space for artists, and a music/party venue. It was named after some eccentric sculputures that were placed by the windows by one of its residents.
Below is a five minute video about this squat and its eviction in late 1994:
As the video makes clear, Spikey Things With Curves was very much focussed on being a creative community space and most people seem to agree that it was briefly a happening hub for some innovative art and great parties.
The best account I have heard is by Rachel aka Miss Pink on a recent episode of the excellent Tales From A Disappearing Citypodcast/vidcast hosted by DJ Controlled Weirdness:
“There was a big community of squatters in Hackney, and particularly Ellingfort Road and London Lane, which is by London Fields. Most of the houses were all squatted there. And then a group of people squatted the building right opposite Hackney Town Hall.
And so it was opened up, it was squatted with a cafe, it had massive windows at the front. So someone had made all these sculptures of mad looking things that were in the window, trying to sort of draw attention.
At that time I was still at college making glass stuff. So I would make just piles of round circles of glass. And then there was, you know, photographs, a photographic exhibition. And then we started doing parties in the basement.
I’d never DJ’d. [laughs] It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter – at all. The vibe was, kind of – you might be getting drowned out by a punk band in the next room and whatever.
But yeah, I enjoyed it. And then I started to get more into it. And then I started to kind of seek out more of the sounds that I liked, which would end up be sort of early, jungly, like kind of breakbeat-y kind of stuff.
So yeah, the Spikey Thing With Curves, that’s [where I started] DJing. It was only going for a few months – just my boyfriend at the time and his decks and yeah, just getting into it.”
From Tales From A Disappearing City: Episode 18 – 90’s London Subculture. Fashion, Clubs and Ambient Soho – special guest – Miss Pink, 15 May 2024
Miss Pink went on to be an excellent DJ and a rare friendly face behind the counters of some of Soho’s trendiest dance music record shops, including Ambient Soho and Black Market. Perhaps this would have happened anyway, but it’s clear that the open creativity of a squatted space played its part in Rachel’s evolution.
Whenwas it squatted?
Suggestions of the dates when Spikey Thing With Curves existed seem to vary between 1994-1996. We can see from the video that it was winter and most accounts seem to agree that it was only occupied for a few months.
Hackney’s Anarchic Nineties (written in 1996) states 1994, so that seems like a good bet and is what I will say until a grumpy old squatter contradicts me!
That article also points out that 280 has been previously squatted as emergency accomodation in March 1988, following the mass eviction of Stamford Hill Estate.
This handy spreadsheet of London squats also mentions that the same building was squatted in the noughties by veteran London punk organisers the Reknaw crew (you need to read it backwards).
Any more information on any of these squats would be very welcome – please leave a comment! I’d be especially interested in people’s memories and photos.
London Remembers gives a nice summary of its earlier incarnation as a site for God-botherers:
Built for the Salvation Army in 1910. Their Women’s Social Work HQ moved here in 1911 from offices at another nearby Salvation Army address, 259 Mare Street. The work run from here included: women’s social and slum work, rescue homes and children’s aid, all that we now know as ‘social work’. Refurbished in 2008 the building is now used as council offices.
It appears that after 2008, 280 Mare Street became the soul-sappingly named “Kreativ House”:
“a collection of uniquely designed private studios and workspaces that support forward-thinking businesses and their teams.”
It seems to have been home to a bunch of businesses including massage therapy, hairdressers, desks for rent and a private home care company…
Sistah Space, an inspiring domestic violence charity for women of African Heritage was based in the building too (whilst being properly messed about by the council) before moving to Ashwin Street in Dalston.
Footways, a charity focussed on encouraging walking is also based there.
The building is between the Baxter’s Court Wetherspoons pub and the Picturehouse Cinema. Raise a pint to its previous occupants if you are in the area.
Raising Hell is a veteran UK squat-punk fanzine that has recently been relaunched, as well as compiling its classic issues from the eighties and nineties into a handy anthology. The zine’s Instagram feed carries on its irreverent spirit and is well worth a follow.
They recently posted a flyer for this gig from 1994 featuring Hackney squatters Coitus (apparently originally called Eternal Diarrhoea when the formed in 1989). The band included some former affiliates of the infamous nihilistic Hackney Hellcrew.
As Raising Hell say in a note accompanying the flyer:
January 1994…. 30 years ago the Putlogs pub in Clapton was home to a series of punk gigs until a gig on the eve of the “Hackney Homeless Festival ” (a couple of months after this gig) in nearby Clissold Park was ruthlessly attacked by the local Stoke Newington cops.
It was quite common for London cops to target punk gigs at this time, both at squats and regular pub venues, but this was a particularly vicious assault resulting in many busted heads and 16 people arrested and then fitted up on completely false charges.
None of the cops cock and bullshit stories stood up in Magistrates Court or Crown Court and none of the defendants were found guilty. However the tables were turned a few years later when an internal investigation into the corrupt and violent regime of Stoke Newington cop shop resulted in 7 of the cops present that night being prosecuted and put on trial at the Old Bailey….
A putlog “is a short horizontal pole projecting from a wall, on which scaffold floorboards rest”.
Putlogs was located at 2 Charnwood Street E5 8SH, on the corner with Northwold Road. It was also known as Pudlocks and was previously the Duke of York pub:
Photo of Duke of York courtesy of CAMRA
The pub closed in 2000 and was converted for residential use in 2003.
Hackney Homeless Festival took place on Sunday 8th May 1994, which means the gig at Putlogs that was attacked by the police was Saturday night of 7th May 1994. According to the Independent, local heroes Coitus also headlined this one.
Press clipping coutesy of Raising Hell
Officers from Stoke Newington police station being corrupt and violent was par for the course in the 1990s. This incident was highly unusual as it led to PC Paul “protagonist of brutality” Evans being jailed for six months for assault. None of the trumped up charges agains the punks led to any convictions either, which was not always the case.
As usual there seems to have been a great deal of work undertaken by Hackney Community Defence Association / The Colin Roach Centre to assist the victims of police crime. It has to be mentioned that suing the police is a very stressful and time-consuming activity. The significant number of Hackney residents who were prepared to put themselves through the courts was a major reason for the downfall of the extraordinarily corrupt cops at Stoke Newington police station in the 1990s.
There are several media stories about the incident at the foot of this post, but the most useful account comes from anti-capitalist weekly freesheet SchNEWS:
Cowards and Bullies
Yes it’s official, on Wednesday Judge Graham Boal sentenced P.C. Paul Evans from Stoke Newington, Hackney, for assaulting a student on the eve of a festival, to six months saying, “You are a coward and a bully and you have brought shame on the force”. A solicitor told SchNEWS. “Members of the public charged with these offences could expect six to twelve months but I would expect someone who was in a position of trust and respect (sic) to receive considerably more”.
Six other members of the same scum squad were cleared of all charges. On the night before the 1994 Hackney Homeless Festival, two police officers were called to a pub to investigate a vandalised slot machine. Despite admitting that they were not threatened in any way they called for assistance, this being provided by another twenty of Newington’s worst.
A series of random beatings began after police chased a man they wrongly believed to have smashed the window of their car. A bystander was knocked to the ground then assaulted and arrested by a passing plod, his friend complained and was dragged to the ground, kicked in the groin then held to the floor by a boot on the face.
P.C. Evans approached a group of people standing outside the pub saying, “I’ve never seen so much collected scum.” One man remarked to a friend, “I couldn’t agree more”. Evans then beat him to the ground with his torch. Another two who objected to this behaviour were also assaulted, arrested and taken to Stoke Newington police station where Evans continued to kick them about the head, demanding they “Call yourselves cunts” as he did so.
A police photo showing the injuries to one man later went missing. The seven officers involved then got together in the station canteen where it took them an hour and twenty minutes to write their notes, claiming they had faced “an angry and violent mob”.
All arrested were acquitted and all charges dropped. The irony about this case is not that the police launched unprovoked attacks on the public, Stoke Newington have a history of this, but that one of their own who saw them fabricating their notes was so disgusted he blew the whistle. The local area complaint unit recommended that the seven officers be charged with ‘conspiracy to pervert the course of justice’ on the strength of his statement.
But, surprise surprise, the Criminal Prosecution Service kept the existence of the officer and his statement from the jury. Neither was any mention made of the fact that these same officers were involved in an attack on a squatted pub or that they were also involved the day after in attacks on 29 members of the public at the festival. One, a woman, suffered a broken arm, another a man suffering from Spina Biffida. No-one who was attacked or arrested were ever convicted of any crime and a number are currently suing police.
During 1987-94 alone, the Colin Roach Centre (set up after Colin Roach was shot dead in the foyer of Stoke Newington police st.), dealt with over 500 allegations of assault, the planting of evidence, police drug dealing and fit-ups.The centre also told us P.C. Evans is under investigation for nine other claims of assault against members of the public. It’s clear to SchNews that it’s not one apple, it’s the whole fucking barrel.
Colin Roach Centre: 0181 533 711
* Vocab Watch:
Affray – The unlawful use or threat of violence
Conspiracy (not applicable to the police)
(From: SchNEWS Issue 144, Friday 21st November 1997)
Finally let’s end on a song, with Coitus performing “Submission/Domination” to an audience of Stoke Newington punks (not sure when/where excactly):
This clip is taken from this cool short film “Stokey Punx” from 1995. Other bands featured included Dread Messiah and the anthemic “Beer” performed by Suicidal Supermarket Trollies.
Text of Guardian clipping photographed above:
(Undated but probably September 1997)
Police ‘covered up brutal attack’ Seven officers ‘invented story after beating up youngsters’ Vivek Chaudhary
POLICE officers launched a brual and unprov;ked attack on a group of young people attending a music festival and then colluded with colleagues to cover up their illegal conduct, the Old Bailey was told yesterday. The officers. all from Stoke Newington police station. north London, attacked festival goers who were attending a two day event in a north London park in May 1994, the court was told. James O’Mahony. prosecuting, told the court that the youngsters, who were having a “Saturday night out’, had not done anything wrong. They were attacked after some of them protested at police brutality when officers attempted to arrest a man close to a pub where there had been trouble. He said one man was beaten with a torch, another had his head smashed into railings, while another was attacked in the yard of the police station. Others were punched, kicked and verbally abused by officers.
Mr O’Mahony said: “If that was not bad enough the officers then told lies about what happened. It was a beating up and then a cover-up. “They put together a framework of lies for the basis of the continued detention of those arrested. All the officers made entries into police note-books and made witness statements… These were then used for the prosecution of those who had been assaulted and unlawfully arrested.”
Police officers Martin Pearl, David Hay, Paul Evans, Colin MacLennan, Mark Astley, Dustin Irribarren and Emma Flannigan all deny conspiring to pervert the course of justice on May 8, 1994. Messrs Evans, Hay and MacLennan deny conspiring to commit perjury between May 7 and October 15. 1994, while Messrs Evans, Astley, lrribarren, Hay and Pearl deny affray on May 8. 1994. Messrs Evans, Astley and Irribarren deny assault on the same day and Messrs Evans, Astley, Irribarren, Hay and Pearl deny false imprisonment — again on May 8, 1994.
The court was told that the officers arrived following trouble at the Putlog pub, Stoke Newington.
Mr O’Mahony said: “No complaint could be made as to fair and firm enforcement of the law but police conduct here was brutal, unprovoked and over the top. It was deliberately directed at innocent people.”
He told the jury that not all seven officers in the dock were responsible for the violence but all seven were responsible for making false notes in their police note-books. Messrs Evans, Hay and MacLennan also lied on oath as to what happened during the trial of one of those arrested, he said. The man was, however, acquitted.
Mr O’Mahony described Evans as the “protagonist of brutality” who launched his attack, along with some colleagues, in two Iocations close to the pub.
“Those people had done nothing wrong. Again and again, protests were made at the heavy-handed, brutal violence but to no avail. It didn’t stop on the streets. It continued in police vans and it continued at Stoke Newington police aation.” The court was told that at least five festival goers sustained injuries and were then prosecuted on the basis of false witness statements made by the officers. They are all due to give evidence at the trial along with other witnesses who saw police launch the unprovoked attack, the jury was told.
Mr O’Mahony said: “That night all the defendants were in the canteen of Stoke Newington police station. All made notes in official note-books as to what happened and the contents later went into witness statements. The jury also heard extracts from the statemenek which alleged that police had come under attack.
Seven Metropolitan Police officers have been charged with offences including assault, unlawful imprisonment and conspiring to pervert the course of justice over incidents in east London, the force confirmed last night.
The charges follow incidents in May 1994 and February 1995 which prompted several complaints and an internal police inquiry, supervised by the Police Complaints Authority.
Two of the officers have already appeared in court and been remanded on bail. The others have been summonsed and will appear before magistrates in early November.
Six of the officers, all male, were based at nearby Stoke Newington police station, and were on duty at the time of the alleged offences. The seventh was based at Enfield, in north London.
The charges arise out of a public-order incident when 12 people were arrested outside the Putlogs pub in Hackney. The arrests came after a performance by a punk band called Coitus the day before a festival for Hackney’s homeless. All those arrested were charged with counts of obstruction, affray and criminal damage. All were subsequently acquitted.
One set of complaints is believed to centre on four people among those arrested. A second, and unrelated, set of complaints is believed to centre on accusations of assault in cells at Stoke Newington.
Charges were laid after advice from the Crown Prosecution Service. None of the complainants has been named. Additional case papers have been filed to the CPS and its decisions on further allegations of assault and perverting the course of justice are awaited.
Scotland Yard said that Constable Jason Cook and Sergeant Terence Norman had already been bailed by Bow Street magistrates on charges of assault in Dalston, east London, in February last year.
On Monday, summonses were served on PCs Martin Pearl and David Hay alleging unlawful imprisonment and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in Stoke Newington in May 1994. PC Mark Astley, based at Enfield, faces the same charges.
PC Colin MacLennan is charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice in Stoke Newington in May 1994. Yesterday, a further summons, alleging assault, unlawful imprisonment and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, was served on PC Dustin Irribarren.
All five are due to appear at Bow Street on 5 November.
Russell Miller, solicitor for nine of the complainants, hailed the decision to prosecute as “the culmination of 14 months’ work and an unprecedented example of co-operation between victims, their solicitors and those responsible for investigating police crime. It is an example all those concerned with the current crisis in policing should look to as a model”.
A police officer convicted of assaulting a reveller at a festival for the homeless has been jailed for six months at the Old Bailey.
PC Paul Evans, 32, from Stoke Newington police station, north east London, had brought disgrace on himself and shame on his profession, said Judge Graham Boal.
He was found guilty of assaulting Ben Swarbrick by beating him, and of affray and was sentenced to a total of six months.
Evans was cleared of false imprisonment and conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
He had denied all charges.
The judge told him: “As a constable in the Metropolitan Police, your duty was to uphold law and order.”
He said a prison sentence was inevitable and added: “Were it not so, the public would have cause for concern.”
Six other officers from the same station were all cleared on Monday of various charges they faced after the festival for Hackney’s homeless in May 1994.
The officers faced a total of 15 charges related to alleged attacks on the public or that they had conspired to pervert the course of justice regarding those events.
Mr Swarbrick said afterwards: “I was brutally assaulted by PC Evans that night. I’m not too happy with the verdict but I’m glad it’s all out of the way now.”
The officers had been called to a pub after they received reports of vandalism on a fruit machine.
They made 12 arrests but people involved alleged the officers had been heavy-handed.
The prosecution described PC Evans as the “main protagonist” in the events.
The Independent 18 November 1997The Times, November 19 1997
The Acton Arms was located at 296 Kingsland Road. According to The Lost Pubs Project, the pub existed since at least 1839 [actually 1832] and was substantially rebuilt in 1889. An Irish couple Luke and Mary Nolan took the place over in the mid-eighties and changed the name to Nolans. In the 1990s, the name reverted to the Acton Arms, but the pub closed in 2001 and was converted for use as a hairdressers’ salon. The ground floor was out of use the last time I passed by from what I can recall.
Before it closed, The Acton Arms was a popular venue for punks, squatters and anarchists. Indeed, veteran folk singer Robb Johnson was inspired to write a song about it called “Anarchy In Hackney”:
“Well the golden sun stops dead outside this window. There’s the dust of generations in this bar. That have gone down the Kingsland Road from the Dalston Junction. When the brave new Britain’s never got this far.
‘Cos we don’t do what we’re told to do. Whatever it is – fuck you! Anarchy, anarchy, anarchy in Hackney now!”
There are a number of live versions of the song on Youtube too, with updated lyrics in keeping with the folk tradition.
You can support Robb by buying the song on Bandcamp, (on its own for £1, or as part of the recommended 8 Songs About Anarchism album) – where he has added this great reflection on the scene around The Acton Arms:
In the mid 90s, a young anarcho punk, Mark the Mohawk, decided to run a series of gigs in a nondescript little boozer called the Acton Arms on the Kingsland Road. He called this “Making Punk a Treat Again”[1], & any money raised left after expenses went to good causes like the Anarchist Black Cross.[2]
Somehow I ended up being the support act quite a bit there. Mark Astronaut was another inspirational individual, a lovely man, a great songwriter & a unique performer – & also someone who encouraged other people to get creative too. His new drummer mentioned in this song turned out to be Andi Tuck, who for a while played drums with me too.
This acoustic version has updated a few of its references. Sadly the Acton Arms is no more, & Hackney definitely isn’t as punkrock as it used to be either. But who doesn’t like a song that encourages you to shout “fuck off” loudly at regular intervals? When we first recorded it in 1997 we left a gap & just did the shouty bit on the last chorus, but sometimes you realise in some situations, subtlety is over-rated.
Robb Johnson
[1] – This was a riff on “Making Punk A Threat Again” – a slogan by American anarchist punk newspaper and record label Profane Existence.
[2] – Longstanding organisation/umbrella concept to support anarchist and class struggle prisoners.
The flyers below show that several of the “Making Punk A Treat” gigs at The Acton Arms were benfits for political prisoners, in addition to ones for the striking Liverpool Dockers and refugees:
1996199619971997
Other events at the Acton Arms over the years included an anarchist pub quiz, a launch event for a book of anarchist poetry, a benefit for the Hunt Saboteurs Association, etc.
It being the 1990s, very few people had video cameras, so there isn’t much live footage to be found, except this set from Polish hardcore punk band Post Regiment:
With cruel irony, one of the collective that had organised so many benefits for political prisoners became one himself following the J18 Carnival Against Capitalism on June 18th 1999:
It looks like a bunch of people involved with the “Making Punk a Treat Again” gigs went on to be involved with London Celtic Punks.
If you want a some good first-person accounts and artwork about punk squatting in Hackney in the late 1980s and 1990s, check out They’ve Taken Our Ghettos: A Punk History of the Woodberry Down Estate, which is available cheap from the excellent Active Distribution. (Active was set up in the punk squat Lee House in the 1980s)
If you went to gigs at the Acton Arms and can remember anything, please leave a comment below…
The Radical History of Hackney 