Back to index of Nerve 16 - Summer 2010

The Reunion

Nearly 70 old lefties joined up in March for a reunion to celebrate the 1970 occupation of the Liverpool University Senate House, which was a protest against links with the racist apartheid regime in South Africa.

Many of those involved had kept memorabilia - leaflets, posters and cuttings from pretty extensive (and unsympathetic) press coverage. Most valuable of all, though, were files retained in the University archives - compiled, ironically, by critics and officers who were hostile to the protestors. There was also an archive collected by History Professor Hair. who was concerned about growing student militancy from late 1969 and collected leaflets, copies of the Guild Gazette student newspaper and even subscribed to a press cuttings service.

The documents revealed how the University responded to the sit-in and put ten students on 'trial' afterwards. We found the 'equal responsibility statement', signed by 174 students who believed that the ten had been unfairly victimised.

Using all of this, we managed to put together possibly the most detailed account on the web of a British student protest of that era: www.senatehouseoccupation.wordpress.com

Moral: if you want your protest to be immortal, keep all the records and stay in touch!

The Foot-soldier

Mass Meeting in five!

By Andrew Lowe, 1st year Politics student 1969 - 1970
Liverpool University communard

This cry regularly rang round the large hall in the Senate to discuss the latest threat to security or to debate tactics.

I was a first year Politics student, stuck out in digs in Bootle, so occupying the Senate was not just a political act but an amazing social opportunity.

I had taken part in my first major demo against the Vietnam war in December 1968. In the summer of 1969 I had caused one of those relationship-shredding, explosive arguments within my family about racism and apartheid so I wasn't a total ingénu. Then I had been introduced to an alternative reading list by a senior student. 'Read these for a good degree, but read these to learn about politics!'

I had of course watched closely the events at the LSE and Sorbonne with rapt attention and was filled with that sense best expressed by Wordsworth in The Prelude - the bliss to be alive - the sense that everything was possible.

I guess I was a student in another sense - watching and learning. The union was the hub of my experience. The fiery and challenging oratory of the debates had powerful effect. I could also see live rock music every week - Taste, Colliseum, Pink Floyd and the like.

So imagine how quickly my hand went up when the vote to occupy was called. The sheer excitement of walking in a body across the campus to the Senate building was inexpressible. To be in that body was indeed very heaven.

I particularly remember hearing 'Volunteers' by Jefferson Airplane and Frank Zappa's Hot Ratz for the first time in the Senate. I also remember being on a rota to call the Vice Chancellor throughout the night on a private number we discovered in the building.

So, what was it ultimately about for us foot-soldiers? I learned that we could make choices and impose those choices on the world; that the era of deference and orthodoxy was at an end and that life could be made much better.

The budding rose above the rose full blown.
What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!

One of the Ten

By Ian Williams

In 1970, Liverpool was not the unalloyed left-wing city of its later reputation. It was the last British city to be ruled by the Conservative Party, based largely on working class votes from the Orange Lodges. But there was also a staunch tradition of working class activism. Besides the Communist Party, the city was a stronghold of Trotskyism, from the Socialist Labour League to what became Militant, often engaged in a three cornered battle with communist-influenced left and catholic oriented right.

The University was detached from all that. It represented the old conservative establishment of the imperial trading city, but it did have some enclaves of progressiveness.

As a local, I was semi-detached from student politics and rarely drank in the students' union bar. But in the chaos of the occupation, I was elected to the committee and took charge of security. It was quite therapeutic to have something to do, which included thwarting attempts to take the red flag off the roof. Thanks to Phil Gusack's inspired stage management we all had fun.

The trial afterwards was a farce, but I couldn't really get indignant. Coming from a leftist family, you took your lumps in the great class war. After two years I went back for six weeks, found the course had changed but passed anyway.

The inspiring thing about this year's reunion was that the sectarian squabbles had all faded away. We remained a group whose deep social concern remained, and most of us had remained active in various ways. Many of us had, for example, spearheaded the revolt against the domination of the local Labour Party and city by Militant while eschewing the careerist seductions of New Labour's matching lack of principles.

It's always good to get back to my Liverpool home - but this occasion was one to treasure.

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