Kent University students, pub owners who aren't in with the police, as well as the small group of revolutionaries who are all regarded s equally subversive. This means almost r one who is young, everyone who isn't " respectable"
aurally this creates a eling of being ir Sether and breaks down to some extent.? suspicion the different groups might fep for the otbers. This is increased by the physica layout of the town. The only lively pub and coffee bar with a juke box are opposite each other which means that everyone is concentrated in the same area every night, so again they tend to get mixed up together rather than keeping themselvos to themselves, The High Street is very steep and narrow. Nearly every night the police tand outside watching everyone. They come in repeatedly, frequently searching Everyone young becomes outside the law This is minforced at school and at home to hear Tarig all cuse act of hours: Tiny to hear Tariq All cutside school hours: Cliff and Tom Fawthrop were prevented from representatives from she police are almoned speaking school: join the NUS: no schools groups allowed Dwarf carried a report (No. I7) of the hysterical reaction by a beadmistress and parents when some giris sold Vanguard. This is similar to the response in Dover when the YCL organised a schools group there. There has been too a growing political consciousness which can ocus the general resentment of being generall layers of the Folkestonian authority structure.
From a large Vietnam Solidarity group has emerged a general left action group, free of any sectarian conflict, although Folkestone contains in microcosm nearly every 'tendency Besides the specifically political members this has a large periphery of the disatfiliated and up. For their side the local fuzz saw their Brunt a man whom previous experience had taught not to love the local constab., refuses as he has done nothing against the law. hit. Brunt then unceremoniously bundled into police van Everyone angrily responded to this attack b banging on the police van and demanding hi release. When the fuzz tried to drive off, they surrounded the van and stopped it dead. The fuzz radioed for minforcements who eventually lispersed the local inhabitants sufficiently te ree the policeman and the now imprisoned M Brunt. In the intervening period the police van was overturned and several scuffles between crowd and fuzz occurred. The number of people resisting the police brutality was a least 100 Saturday May 17: In line with his "nip it in the bud" mentality, Inspector Clarke responded to he previous night's upsot by sending more o his top and the Him reign See ag at top and bottom of High Street. number of fuzz converge on local comrades from both ends. Not wishing to be ensnared and very aggrieved by this escalated d several people are arrested. in retaliatio ical comrades who were not at all oblivious the political pressures at the root of the irsecution smashed windows of shops elonging to Tory councillors, bank window and stoned the front of the newly opened, very expensive Tory Party H.Q.. causing considerable damage Sunday May 18: By this time the conflict bad polarized both sides and had assumed a very xplicit political nature. Posters linking poli iolence with the capitalists' need to defer their sordid property interests had been drawn Dion carly invented crimes. One of those arrested was Ted Parker, a veteran undesirable from LSE. Ted merely walked out of the coffee bar into the road with some posters and was charged with brasching the peace, At the police station, fuzz push people around. "Fascist!", exclaims on comrade -he is punched in the stomach. "I stil! think you're a fascist," the response too is repeated.
Friday May 23: Demonstration of about 150 people outside magistrates court. Among the demonstrators are some middle-aged, working carrying visiting journalists but not to the local residents everyone is found guilty on the most laughable of evidence, and given very stiff sentences (3 months imprisonment and fines of AFTERTHOUGHTS One of the results of the avents in Folkestone was the formation of Follestone Committee for Civil Liberties with the following demands: 1 Dropping of charges against all involved in the rebellion. 2 End to council meetings closed to the press as some have been of late, 3 End to the undemocratic powers of the Folkestone Watch Committee and to censorship of books in libraries and films 4 Folkestone polico to be responsible to a committee of citizens.
ne of the things to impress visitors t olkestone about the local comrades was the spontaneous instinct of demccracy. All decisions were discussed by anyone who was interested aDd Every one encouraged irticipate. Comrades agreed among themseh 1 such issues as whether or not to talk to t press and although hotly contested at the time, the decision was obeyed by everyone. As one enthusiastic London comrade told this Dwarf: "I can just imagine them setting up a soviet down here to run Folkestone". Thare are various elements in the situation which are of different groups who usually neither say por recognition in the world of the polite and the official, and who generally hate each othor's guts have allied, is important. Fragmentation and isolation are more common. This is not being starry-eyed, some of the rockers said: "We're against the police too, even if you lot do dress funny". But some others smashed up the coffee bar later. People who are fucked up and fighting a lot of things can be dubious allies. But if the politics revolutionary transformation is anything but a -rater idles it has to he ahle to exnlain itself an
и 14 1969 Page be on a level divorced from reality and also on