0:00:02 > 0:00:03This programme contains very strong language
0:00:03 > 0:00:06Hello, how are you? Here we are, talking about Villa Road.
0:00:08 > 0:00:10Hello, hello.
0:00:10 > 0:00:13MUSIC: Come The Morning by Sol Invictus
0:00:25 > 0:00:31# The world and all its angels Are talking in my head
0:00:31 > 0:00:35# The world and all its angels... #
0:00:35 > 0:00:38SHE SCREAMS
0:00:38 > 0:00:43# ..The world and all its angels Set table for a feast
0:00:44 > 0:00:49# The world and all its angels Come to toast the suckling beast
0:00:51 > 0:00:54- # Come the morning - Come the morning
0:00:54 > 0:00:57- # By the dawning light - By the dawning light
0:00:57 > 0:01:00- # Such crimes and stories - Such crimes and stories
0:01:00 > 0:01:02# Behold the wondrous sights... #
0:01:14 > 0:01:17Power to the...biosphere!
0:01:27 > 0:01:32In the 1970s, Villa Road in south London was a squatted street.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40Behind these doors, anarchists mixed with hippies and feminists.
0:01:40 > 0:01:46A primal therapy commune established itself across the street from a wholefood cafe.
0:01:46 > 0:01:50And homeless single mothers rubbed shoulders with Marxist revolutionaries.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54This was a generation that wanted to change the world.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16Squatting was in its idealistic heyday in the mid-'70s.
0:02:16 > 0:02:22In London alone, there were over 30,000 squatters, often occupying whole streets of abandoned houses,
0:02:22 > 0:02:26with hundreds of squatters living together in communities.
0:02:26 > 0:02:32In Brixton, the town planners' futuristic '60s blueprint for a new town centre had been shelved,
0:02:32 > 0:02:38and streets like Villa Road lay empty, stranded between the past and the future.
0:02:38 > 0:02:43Into this vacuum came the squatters. They were politicised, and they were on the left.
0:02:43 > 0:02:49They believed in collective living and collective action, and they chose to live by their beliefs.
0:02:51 > 0:02:55We actually thought that we could produce a revolution.
0:02:55 > 0:03:00We could produce very radical change in the way things were organised.
0:03:00 > 0:03:04We could increase the power of ordinary people, of working people,
0:03:04 > 0:03:08we could reduce oppression, all those sorts of things.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12We thought all those things could be done at that time, we were trying to do them.
0:03:12 > 0:03:14It was a politicised generation.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18I mean, we were Marxists, I suppose. Dialectical materialism
0:03:18 > 0:03:19and historical materialism
0:03:19 > 0:03:22were phrases that tripped off the tongue.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25What would your ideal goal have been?
0:03:27 > 0:03:29My goal is always revolution.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32Absolutely.
0:03:32 > 0:03:33Absolutely.
0:03:33 > 0:03:38The idea was that people would organise and would rise up against capitalism,
0:03:38 > 0:03:41and there would be a revolution.
0:03:41 > 0:03:47One was always a little big vague about exactly what form that might take in Britain,
0:03:47 > 0:03:49but, you know, a general strike, whatever.
0:03:49 > 0:03:53It sounds and it was wildly Utopian.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56- But you believed it? - Yeah.
0:03:56 > 0:04:01Practically everybody I knew was political in one way or another, and you know, it was a moment in time
0:04:01 > 0:04:07where we thought we knew everything, we had incredible energy, there were things happening.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11There'd been the miners' strikes, there were factory occupations,
0:04:11 > 0:04:14there were things like...the Black Power movement in the States,
0:04:14 > 0:04:20there was the anti...and so on, so there was something positive which was that people were optimistic.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23People thought they could change the world, and wanted to,
0:04:23 > 0:04:29and so there was a lot of activism around and obviously one of the areas was housing.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31So would you personally get the crowbar and be...?
0:04:31 > 0:04:33Yeah. Yes, I would.
0:04:34 > 0:04:39We would go along perhaps late at night and get in the houses and get the electricity
0:04:39 > 0:04:46sorted out and then help the people to clear out the houses and make them habitable really.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50When we moved into the houses, they had had council wreckers
0:04:50 > 0:04:55in them who had broken a lot of the fabric of the houses.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59They broke the toilets and they poured concrete down them.
0:04:59 > 0:05:05The broke a lot of the windows, they tore up floorboards and pulled down ceilings.
0:05:05 > 0:05:12And we all set to fix them, and when I look back on it, the sort of things we did were quite astounding.
0:05:12 > 0:05:15Because they had poured concrete down the drains,
0:05:15 > 0:05:22it meant that you had to dig up the connection to the main sewers out in the street.
0:05:22 > 0:05:27We just used to dig up the whole lot and connect it up to the mains.
0:05:27 > 0:05:32What do you remember about that house, 39, when you got there?
0:05:34 > 0:05:38- How terribly filthy... it was, and...- No floorboards...
0:05:38 > 0:05:44- No, no floorboards.- There was an old guy who had shell-shock, caught him living there.
0:05:44 > 0:05:46- That's right.- The basement was full of excrement,
0:05:46 > 0:05:50- because he had mental health problems. - It needed a lot of cleaning up.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52We went out skipping -
0:05:52 > 0:05:56skipping was going round and looking in the skips
0:05:56 > 0:05:59that were on the streets and...
0:05:59 > 0:06:01collecting whatever it was you needed.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05So that was, you know... There were two activities, skipping and wooding.
0:06:05 > 0:06:11Wooding was going out and reclaiming all the wood from the houses that were being demolished,
0:06:11 > 0:06:14and, you know, you basically built your environment.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17In winter, the ice was on the inside of the windows.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20Heating was like one bar,
0:06:20 > 0:06:23one of those long fires mainly for bathrooms, I think.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27We used to cook on that as well, beans on toast - total fire hazard.
0:06:27 > 0:06:32The wiring was totally bent and, you know, illegal, the gas was.
0:06:32 > 0:06:38It was, you know... I remember seeing a huge rat coming up from the basement at one time.
0:06:38 > 0:06:40Yeah, it was pretty rough.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47Perhaps surprisingly, in the middle of a black community in Brixton,
0:06:47 > 0:06:51the core group that colonised Villa Road were white, middle class graduates,
0:06:51 > 0:06:55mainly from Oxford and Cambridge universities.
0:06:55 > 0:07:00Xander Fraser arrived in 1974 with a fire in his belly
0:07:00 > 0:07:03and a degree in architecture from Cambridge University.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05Were you rich?
0:07:05 > 0:07:09No, from the day I left Cambridge,
0:07:09 > 0:07:17I never took or asked for money off my parents but, yes, am I from a relatively well off family? Yes.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20But again, we go back to the spirit of the times.
0:07:20 > 0:07:27I felt it didn't make any sense for me to be ultra critical of my parents
0:07:27 > 0:07:31and their view of the world, and then sit there taking money off them.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35The people that I became friendly with and spent most of my time with
0:07:35 > 0:07:39were university graduates who found themselves on Villa Road.
0:07:39 > 0:07:45You know, Oxbridge, very educated,
0:07:45 > 0:07:49very committed, political, leftist kids.
0:07:49 > 0:07:54Well, I was working class and not very well educated and I didn't know much
0:07:54 > 0:07:59about Marx's theory of blah, blah, blah, you know, and I do now, I have to say.
0:07:59 > 0:08:01So it was an education for me really.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04I was from a very typically middle class background.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08I'd had a private education
0:08:08 > 0:08:10and then I'd gone to university.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13So...
0:08:13 > 0:08:18and I probably sounded a bit posh.
0:08:18 > 0:08:22# In 1649 to St George's Hill
0:08:22 > 0:08:25# A ragged band they call the Diggers
0:08:25 > 0:08:28# Came to show the people's will
0:08:28 > 0:08:30# They defied the landlords
0:08:30 > 0:08:33# They defied the laws
0:08:33 > 0:08:37# They were the dispossessed reclaiming what was theirs
0:08:37 > 0:08:39# "We come in peace" they said... #
0:08:39 > 0:08:43Pete Cooper was a graduate from Oxford who chose to squat for political reasons.
0:08:43 > 0:08:48He lived at number 31, the most rigorously political household on the street.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51What were you doing, signing on?
0:08:51 > 0:08:55Signing on and I got a job briefly as a road sweeper,
0:08:55 > 0:08:59which was great, because I got the blue council jacket, you know,
0:08:59 > 0:09:02which was sort of a workers' uniform, it was great, you know.
0:09:02 > 0:09:07I hadn't any career plan at all, I didn't really think in those terms.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11I think actually people seriously thought that the revolution was coming.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19We were certainly a student, ex-student house.
0:09:19 > 0:09:24I would say we were one of the sort of lefty houses rather than the sort of hippy houses.
0:09:24 > 0:09:28I wouldn't say that I was particularly taken by the politics
0:09:28 > 0:09:31of it all, involved in the politics of it, before I went to Villa Road.
0:09:31 > 0:09:36It was only really after I got there that that started to develop.
0:09:36 > 0:09:41Before Cambridge, I went to Eton. It was a bit of an education in class consciousness for me, if you like.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44And I remember the second day I got there, when I started, I was 12 -
0:09:44 > 0:09:481965 or '6 -
0:09:48 > 0:09:53and there was a speech from the headmaster to all the new boys
0:09:53 > 0:09:57who explained that we were going to be running the country and that we were at Eton
0:09:57 > 0:09:59to learn how to do that.
0:09:59 > 0:10:03It seemed absurd, and so I'm sure I wasn't the only person
0:10:03 > 0:10:07who went to Eton who got pushed or went in a different direction.
0:10:07 > 0:10:12# ..The sale of property we do disdain
0:10:12 > 0:10:16# No man has any right to buy and sell the Earth
0:10:16 > 0:10:19# The private gain by theft and murder
0:10:19 > 0:10:22# They took the land
0:10:22 > 0:10:26# Now everywhere, the walls spring up at their command. #
0:10:26 > 0:10:29There were two influences on us. One was obviously Marx.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33We were Marxists, we saw ourselves as Marxists.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36We were in things like Marxist reading groups and we studied Marx.
0:10:36 > 0:10:40But we were also influenced by people like Laing
0:10:40 > 0:10:41and Cooper
0:10:41 > 0:10:46and were into the death of the nuclear family.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52This rejection of the nuclear family was born of an intellectual analysis
0:10:52 > 0:10:57which saw the family as an essential unit of a capitalist society.
0:10:57 > 0:11:02We felt it was necessary - or should be possible -
0:11:02 > 0:11:07to have supportive, economically viable,
0:11:07 > 0:11:14emotionally rewarding relationships, familial sexual relationships,
0:11:14 > 0:11:20with people without creating, or commodifying as we like to call it, commodifying the family unit.
0:11:20 > 0:11:27We had a lot of theories around the family unit being the building block of capitalism.
0:11:27 > 0:11:32These beliefs made life complicated at the squatters' resource centre that Paul helped to run.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37If people within a sexual relationship had or wanted...
0:11:37 > 0:11:41to have an intimate physical relationship,
0:11:41 > 0:11:43whether it was sexual or not, with other people,
0:11:43 > 0:11:47then that had to be acknowledged and it had to both be acknowledged
0:11:47 > 0:11:50by both partners, but also allowed to happen.
0:11:50 > 0:11:54It was agonising, because you were supposed to say it before you do it,
0:11:54 > 0:11:59not just come back and say, "Oh, by the way, I've bonked Bill."
0:11:59 > 0:12:03You would...have to explore
0:12:03 > 0:12:06the feelings you had,
0:12:06 > 0:12:10the pressures - emotional and sexual - on you and the other person
0:12:10 > 0:12:15with the group or with the people it directly impacted on
0:12:15 > 0:12:17before you did the deed.
0:12:17 > 0:12:19I mean, I don't know anybody
0:12:19 > 0:12:22who like thought they want to get married.
0:12:22 > 0:12:26I certainly didn't think I wanted to get married
0:12:26 > 0:12:31and I consider myself proud never to have got married.
0:12:31 > 0:12:35And it is quite different again now, but, yeah, I mean,
0:12:35 > 0:12:43nuclear family... a lot of us had come from pretty unpleasant nuclear families.
0:12:43 > 0:12:46And that does open up ideas for how you might live.
0:12:46 > 0:12:50It seemed that the nuclear family was really in crisis.
0:12:50 > 0:12:57And...you know, the idea of a stable couple having children
0:12:57 > 0:13:05was not really part of most people's experience in that particular kind of sub society, you know.
0:13:05 > 0:13:11And it also implied a degree of isolation from others.
0:13:11 > 0:13:15I mean, there was a great collectivist vibe at that time.
0:13:18 > 0:13:23How you live together was very much open to question,
0:13:23 > 0:13:28and I think we...partly just out of necessity, but we tended to live in communes,
0:13:28 > 0:13:33and that seemed as if that was the way that that could work more generally in society.
0:13:44 > 0:13:50By the mid-'70s, there were about 5,000 squatters in Lambeth, more than in any other London borough.
0:13:52 > 0:13:59Down the road from Villa Road was St Agnes Place, another squatted street, populated by Rastafarians
0:13:59 > 0:14:02and many members of the Workers Revolutionary Party.
0:14:02 > 0:14:07Jane Halsall-Dixon has squatted here since she was three years old
0:14:07 > 0:14:10and is one of very few squatters left in Lambeth.
0:14:13 > 0:14:15We're going up.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31This is the very small bathroom,
0:14:31 > 0:14:38which is used by about 15 people at the minute.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47This is kind of a bicycle room.
0:14:51 > 0:14:57'There' been, you know, a transient community of people who have moved in here
0:14:57 > 0:15:02'and sorted their lives out a bit, got themselves together and possibly moved on, possibly not.
0:15:02 > 0:15:08'In my case, not! But, you know, it's provided housing for a hell of a lot of people in 30 years.'
0:15:17 > 0:15:23There's probably about 12 people, and what I remember about it was I didn't have to cook.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27Probably once every 12 days, because everyone had to cook.
0:15:27 > 0:15:33There was a rota system, so I didn't have to do the housework every day, I didn't have to cook every day,
0:15:33 > 0:15:37I didn't have to shop every day, I had to do it like once every so often,
0:15:37 > 0:15:39and it was fantastic, I liked that.
0:15:39 > 0:15:43Cos I'm not really a domesticised person, to be quite honest.
0:15:43 > 0:15:50There was this Polish girl and, God, I was just in a fury at her the whole time!
0:15:50 > 0:15:54We pooled all our money, and then we would each take turn making dinner.
0:15:54 > 0:15:59She was always really going for THE most bargain basement bargains she could.
0:15:59 > 0:16:03So one day she comes home with like...
0:16:03 > 0:16:10I don't know, 4 lbs of pork chops, right, that just stank, you know.
0:16:10 > 0:16:15And she said, "Don't worry, I'm going to soak them in vinegar."
0:16:15 > 0:16:21So she soaks these pork chops in vinegar and I said, "I'm not going to eat these pork chops
0:16:21 > 0:16:25"that have been soaked in vinegar and they're rotten. Where are you buying rotten food?"
0:16:25 > 0:16:30Anyway, after I left, she started sleeping with my boyfriend! Then I was mad at her for another reason.
0:16:30 > 0:16:37I do remember in the first house that I visited before I moved onto Villa Road, I'd be in the kitchen.
0:16:37 > 0:16:42You'd have people wandering in and out of this kitchen. There were teacups everywhere.
0:16:42 > 0:16:46Someone might take a teacup and just go rinse it for half a second in the sink.
0:16:46 > 0:16:51You'd be drinking out of these incredibly - to my mind now and even then - grotty cups.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55You know, we were young, it didn't matter. We just sort of did it.
0:16:55 > 0:17:00The house that I moved into,
0:17:00 > 0:17:02number 20, was much more tidy.
0:17:02 > 0:17:07Things like toilet paper instead of newspapers, things like that.
0:17:07 > 0:17:11It was like, "OK, I can live here, we have toilet roll."
0:17:11 > 0:17:14And we washed our glasses, we washed our mugs.
0:17:15 > 0:17:16Hi, Pim!
0:17:22 > 0:17:27What you're looking at is a very first experiment
0:17:27 > 0:17:35of a...system of...
0:17:35 > 0:17:37well, nomadic living, perhaps you could call it.
0:17:37 > 0:17:42Or perhaps retractable housing systems.
0:17:43 > 0:17:48Pim, originally from Holland, came to Villa Road in the early '70s.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51Having lived in a teepee in California,
0:17:51 > 0:17:57he believed that the environmental way forward was for people to build their own dwellings.
0:17:57 > 0:18:02'For a long time, he lived in a handmade hut in the garden of 31 Villa Road.
0:18:02 > 0:18:07'He now squats a few doors down, living in a domed tent inside his house.'
0:18:13 > 0:18:19Often...it sort of strikes me, when I wake up in the morning...
0:18:19 > 0:18:25the moment of opening your eyes, and what is it that you see?
0:18:25 > 0:18:30And it often sort of strikes me, how delightful it is
0:18:30 > 0:18:34when you open your eyes and just look up at the ceiling.
0:18:34 > 0:18:37It is not the ceiling. You look up at the sky.
0:18:37 > 0:18:44'How I see from the bottom down and then have this...view.
0:18:44 > 0:18:47'It's a beautiful start of the day.
0:18:47 > 0:18:51'It is something that could be available to anyone.'
0:18:51 > 0:18:56In the '70s, all aspects of living were being called into question.
0:18:56 > 0:18:59These were the early days of feminism, and women on Villa Road
0:18:59 > 0:19:03were as keen to end male domination as to overthrow capitalism.
0:19:03 > 0:19:07I think over time we had several different Marxist reading groups going on.
0:19:07 > 0:19:11The one I remember in Villa Road, the one I remember going to,
0:19:11 > 0:19:15was an all women's Marxist reading group.
0:19:15 > 0:19:21Through that, I think we started to think about redefining our role as women.
0:19:21 > 0:19:26We were doing consciousness raising. We would go away for weekends and have weekends away and stuff.
0:19:26 > 0:19:33We did things like...we had a book called Our Body Ourselves, which was fantastic.
0:19:33 > 0:19:38Women learned about how to have orgasms
0:19:38 > 0:19:43through Spare Rib and vibrators, which was absolutely fantastic.
0:19:43 > 0:19:47And, um, I think, yeah, that was brilliant.
0:19:47 > 0:19:52We read books, sort of Marxist books, I suppose.
0:19:52 > 0:19:55We did self-examination, which was quite popular in those days.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58- What does that mean? - You know, when you examine...
0:19:58 > 0:20:03I remember one meeting that we had a speculum, because Maureen's a doctor.
0:20:03 > 0:20:08So she could have them, and we examined ourselves and learnt about our bodies.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11Which bit of your body?
0:20:11 > 0:20:14You're getting me so embarrassed!
0:20:14 > 0:20:18We, you know, we tried to find out where our cervixes were,
0:20:18 > 0:20:20which was a journey in itself.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23Do you remember examining your cervix?
0:20:23 > 0:20:26No, I didn't do any of that.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31But, yes, that was going on. Lots of use of mirrors.
0:20:31 > 0:20:36I realised that it is perhaps a useful exercise for human beings
0:20:36 > 0:20:41to try and live at the lowest possible level of a standard of living
0:20:41 > 0:20:47rather than always trying to get to the higher...up the ladder and getting more and more and more.
0:20:47 > 0:20:52Maybe perhaps less is perhaps also beautiful.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56The Villa Road community governed itself.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59Villa Roaders were antagonistic to the police,
0:20:59 > 0:21:02who they viewed as an embodiment of their enemy, the state.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06Would you ever have called the police?
0:21:06 > 0:21:08- No.- What did you do instead?
0:21:08 > 0:21:16Well, where there were instances of theft and so on within the street,
0:21:16 > 0:21:19then those were dealt with at street meetings.
0:21:19 > 0:21:26One incident I remember, we jailed the guy for a week, I believe.
0:21:26 > 0:21:29Everyone was losing their stereos
0:21:29 > 0:21:32and, um...
0:21:32 > 0:21:37we eventually managed to catch this young, black guy,
0:21:37 > 0:21:40who was, I think, 15 at the time.
0:21:40 > 0:21:47And, um, so...he said that he had been thrown out of home,
0:21:47 > 0:21:53that he had nowhere to go and he was stealing all this stuff so that he could survive.
0:21:53 > 0:21:56And so in typical Villa Road fashion,
0:21:56 > 0:22:00we held a street meeting, emergency street meeting, what to do about him.
0:22:00 > 0:22:06And we decided that we would give him a home, give him somewhere to live and we would give him money.
0:22:06 > 0:22:09And so he lived with us then.
0:22:09 > 0:22:13Villa Roaders identified politically with the working class.
0:22:13 > 0:22:18They supported striking workers. They had a Villa Road banner and travelled en masse
0:22:18 > 0:22:22to march in support of the striking firemen and the Grunwick workers.
0:22:22 > 0:22:27They wanted to link the squatting struggle to other anti-capitalist struggles.
0:22:27 > 0:22:31Can you explain why, as squatters,
0:22:31 > 0:22:36you thought it was important to join ranks with workers?
0:22:36 > 0:22:43Because the general atmosphere of the time was, we were all...believed in, you know, everybody getting together
0:22:43 > 0:22:47and the only way to change the world was for everybody to get together
0:22:47 > 0:22:52to recognise that we all had interests in common, and so on - a sort of general leftism.
0:22:52 > 0:22:55There was a strike on by the tarmac workers.
0:22:55 > 0:22:59And I went along on behalf of the squatters and spoke with a megaphone,
0:22:59 > 0:23:02just explaining that we supported their struggle
0:23:02 > 0:23:07and inviting them to take part in a joint march on the town hall.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11The workers were going to be the ruling class of the future.
0:23:11 > 0:23:16'Xander Fraser even became a squatters' representative in the Transport and General Workers Union,
0:23:16 > 0:23:20'allowed in as a mark of their solidarity with the Villa Road struggle.'
0:23:20 > 0:23:25They should be organised. We are anxious that they should join forces...
0:23:25 > 0:23:30Were you the only squatter who was a member of the T&G?
0:23:30 > 0:23:34Well, I have to say, I did find it slightly unusual, yeah.
0:23:34 > 0:23:36Because, technically...
0:23:36 > 0:23:41I was a building worker, so on that level,
0:23:41 > 0:23:43I assume I was entitled to be there.
0:23:43 > 0:23:46But yeah, really, I was in that branch as a representative
0:23:46 > 0:23:49of Villa Road, not because I was working in the building trade.
0:23:53 > 0:23:58Oh, no. Watch out for this telephone...thing.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01Just step over it.
0:24:04 > 0:24:05This room is...
0:24:07 > 0:24:09problems with the flooring.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12It is a...
0:24:12 > 0:24:15a kind of communal work space.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19Um, and it functions quite well like that for us.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28Some on the left had more ambitious political goals
0:24:28 > 0:24:32and were explicitly focused on building a revolution to overthrow the state.
0:24:32 > 0:24:35Piers Corbyn was an astrophysicist,
0:24:35 > 0:24:39a full-time squatting activist in West London and a revolutionary.
0:24:39 > 0:24:46He was well-known in squatting circles and always present at protests and demonstrations.
0:24:46 > 0:24:49Everybody seems to remember you charging round London with a carrier bag,
0:24:49 > 0:24:53containing peanut butter sandwiches that was your sole sustenance.
0:24:53 > 0:24:57- Is that right?- Er, I used to eat a lot of peanut butter sandwiches.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00I believe there's a jar of peanut butter over there still!
0:25:02 > 0:25:04Mainly the bags contained leaflets.
0:25:04 > 0:25:09In those days, I was a remember of the International Marxist Group.
0:25:09 > 0:25:11I'd been so for two years.
0:25:11 > 0:25:18I joined the IMG and I was excited about being in this political organisation.
0:25:18 > 0:25:22The IMG was a Trotskyist-derived group,
0:25:22 > 0:25:26and the initials stand for the International Marxist Group.
0:25:26 > 0:25:33There is a very complex genealogy of the IMG's relationship to the Fourth International,
0:25:33 > 0:25:40which was, as you may know, the alternative to the Stalinist International.
0:25:40 > 0:25:45What the IMG was...it called itself the British section of the Fourth International,
0:25:45 > 0:25:50the Trotskyist Fourth International, which was like a liaison
0:25:50 > 0:25:54or an alliance of revolutionary groups around the world.
0:25:54 > 0:26:02Their general activity was to build Labour movement support, activity and trade unions and so on.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06They saw this type of stuff as possibly peripheral, possibly not.
0:26:06 > 0:26:07There was ambiguity.
0:26:07 > 0:26:13Some hardline Trotskyist groups were unenthusiastic about getting involved in a political issue
0:26:13 > 0:26:18as woolly and vegetarian as squatting. They preferred to focus on workers' struggles,
0:26:18 > 0:26:22hoping to build a disciplined vanguard that would bring on the revolution.
0:26:22 > 0:26:26But some revolutionaries did take squatting seriously.
0:26:26 > 0:26:30- Was the IMG the only revolutionary party? - PHONE RINGS
0:26:30 > 0:26:32Oh, there's your phone.
0:26:32 > 0:26:34Er...
0:26:34 > 0:26:36Weather Action.
0:26:38 > 0:26:41Oh, magic! How are you?
0:26:41 > 0:26:44Oh, fine. I'm just... It's all right. Carry on.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47I'm being interviewed by some...
0:26:47 > 0:26:50The BBC are here interviewing me about squatting and housing.
0:26:50 > 0:26:53But it doesn't matter. Carry on. Carry on, tell me.
0:26:54 > 0:26:56Bye.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00Sorry. Yep, someone just wanted something.
0:27:00 > 0:27:04Um... I should have ignored that really, shouldn't I?
0:27:04 > 0:27:09Was the IMG the only revolutionary organisation to get behind squatting?
0:27:11 > 0:27:17Um, yes, in a serious way, anyway.
0:27:17 > 0:27:22The IMG, fanatical about correct Marxist terminology, nitpicked about whether or not
0:27:22 > 0:27:27squatting could strictly speaking be defined as a revolutionary act.
0:27:27 > 0:27:30On Villa Road, Pete Cooper had joined the party.
0:27:30 > 0:27:36Was squatting in and of itself a revolutionary act?
0:27:36 > 0:27:37Oh, God, I can't remember.
0:27:37 > 0:27:41From the Trotskyist point of view, I think it would have been foolish
0:27:41 > 0:27:47not to engage the energies of these people who were clearly very willing to take part in direct action.
0:27:47 > 0:27:52For you in the IMG, would you have said that squatting itself was a revolutionary act?
0:27:52 > 0:27:55Well, some of us did, yes,
0:27:55 > 0:28:01because it was expropriation of property, and we said it had a dynamic of revolutionary act.
0:28:01 > 0:28:04But for the IMG, the real point of demanding housing
0:28:04 > 0:28:08was not to GET housing, but to expose the weaknesses of capitalism.
0:28:08 > 0:28:11Those demands for housing...
0:28:11 > 0:28:15What was it? Housing and jobs...
0:28:15 > 0:28:16Not evictions and lay-offs, yeah.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19They were, in kind of...
0:28:19 > 0:28:23Trotskyist terms, those are transitional demands, are they?
0:28:23 > 0:28:29That's right. Transitional demands were demands that couldn't really be met within the terms of the system.
0:28:29 > 0:28:32So transitional demand is a demand
0:28:32 > 0:28:35- that sounds like a reasonable demand...- Yeah.
0:28:35 > 0:28:40..but that will expose the shortcomings of the capitalist state in their inability to deliver it.
0:28:40 > 0:28:45Yeah, like housing for all. It seemed reasonable. Why shouldn't everyone have somewhere to live?
0:28:45 > 0:28:49But the system probably couldn't deliver without fundamentally changing.
0:28:49 > 0:28:51Could housing for all be achieved?
0:28:51 > 0:28:55Well, they would say, the IMG would say, no, it couldn't be achieved
0:28:55 > 0:28:59under capitalism, so this was therefore an anti-capitalist demand,
0:28:59 > 0:29:01a transitional demand,
0:29:01 > 0:29:06which is something everybody wants, but can only be achieved if capitalism is destroyed,
0:29:06 > 0:29:11so the dynamic of the movement will lead to the destruction of capitalism
0:29:11 > 0:29:14along with other sort of demands, other transitional demands,
0:29:14 > 0:29:19if support in a united front gets wide enough.
0:29:19 > 0:29:25That is, I think, how Trotskyist method works.
0:29:25 > 0:29:27That really made a lot of sense to me.
0:29:31 > 0:29:35I have a bit of a...compulsion.
0:29:35 > 0:29:40Particularly when I keep passing by a particular spot,
0:29:40 > 0:29:44and there is every time the same kind of items there,
0:29:44 > 0:29:49and then this process of thinking..."What can I do with it?"
0:29:49 > 0:29:53Particularly with these items, and, um...
0:29:59 > 0:30:03..here is a nice example.
0:30:03 > 0:30:10For the first few weeks or months, I just didn't think I should pick it up.
0:30:10 > 0:30:15Then at some point, I thought, "Well, I'll start picking up just a few pieces
0:30:15 > 0:30:18"and take them home and see what I can do with it."
0:30:21 > 0:30:26Some on Villa Road saw their inner world as the route to changing society.
0:30:26 > 0:30:31Luise Eichenbaum had come to London from New York as a trained psychotherapist,
0:30:31 > 0:30:34attracted by British feminist writing.
0:30:34 > 0:30:35From her squat in Villa Road,
0:30:35 > 0:30:38she set up the Women's Therapy Centre with Susie Orbach,
0:30:38 > 0:30:42believing that therapy could be harnessed to left-wing goals.
0:30:42 > 0:30:45For me, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy
0:30:45 > 0:30:50absolutely came right out of my political activity,
0:30:50 > 0:30:53because, as a feminist,
0:30:53 > 0:31:00we really understood that in order to change one's self, you couldn't just say,
0:31:00 > 0:31:04"I no longer want to be this person, the person I was raised to be,
0:31:04 > 0:31:09"the little girl raised to be a certain kind of feminine character,
0:31:09 > 0:31:15"who defers to people, who is submissive, who feels insecure, who doesn't feel entitled and so on."
0:31:15 > 0:31:19We knew that we no longer wanted to be that person, and so,
0:31:19 > 0:31:23if one wanted to change deeply, we had to look to the unconscious.
0:31:23 > 0:31:27I think people came to see that
0:31:27 > 0:31:32bringing change wasn't just about
0:31:32 > 0:31:37changing physical social aspects of society.
0:31:37 > 0:31:40I think people started to recognise
0:31:40 > 0:31:48that change actually maybe has a psychological dimension, an internal dimension, as well.
0:31:48 > 0:31:50- What could you do?- Why should I...?
0:31:50 > 0:31:54What could you do if you let go, Jimmy baby?
0:31:54 > 0:31:57What could YOU do if YOU let go, Jimmy?
0:32:01 > 0:32:04'I was very political, right from my teenage.'
0:32:04 > 0:32:06I come from a very political family.
0:32:06 > 0:32:10I spent a very intensive ten years from the age of 17 on,
0:32:10 > 0:32:13utterly involved in outward politics.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16But I was also engaging in a lot of personal relationships.
0:32:16 > 0:32:22A girlfriend of mine, a German girl, who was also very active in politics, committed suicide.
0:32:22 > 0:32:27And I just thought, I could go that way so easily, because I so often felt suicidal.
0:32:27 > 0:32:32I started to think, "Just a minute, we're in a very radical left-wing movement
0:32:32 > 0:32:37"with very radical left-wing boyfriends, and she was unhappy enough to do that,
0:32:37 > 0:32:39"and I'm unhappy enough nearly to do that."
0:32:39 > 0:32:44So, I thought, "Hmm, it's not all out there, it's also inside."
0:32:44 > 0:32:47Having decided to devote her life to therapy,
0:32:47 > 0:32:53Jenny James became a follower of Wilhelm Reich, an associate of Sigmund Freud's.
0:32:53 > 0:32:57Significantly, Reich was a communist whose left-wing goal
0:32:57 > 0:33:01was to adapt therapy to make it available to the working class.
0:33:01 > 0:33:07More controversially, Jenny also followed Californian psychotherapist Arthur Janov.
0:33:07 > 0:33:12He had developed a therapy known as primal scream, in the course of which
0:33:12 > 0:33:14patients relived the trauma of their own birth.
0:33:16 > 0:33:20- It's the only place I had. - That's right.
0:33:20 > 0:33:22It was mine. It was safe.
0:33:43 > 0:33:49Despite having no formal training, Jenny set up a primal therapy commune in Donegal in Ireland.
0:33:49 > 0:33:55At the same time, she established a sister commune in a squat at number 12 Villa Road.
0:33:55 > 0:34:00The idea was that therapy should not be the preserve of the moneyed bourgeoisie,
0:34:00 > 0:34:03but should be available free of charge to anybody.
0:34:03 > 0:34:08I was called the black sheep of the... Oh, I'd brought the therapy movement into disrepute.
0:34:08 > 0:34:12This came from the big, posh therapy centres. What it boiled down to was I wasn't asking money.
0:34:12 > 0:34:18Anyone can do therapy if they go through things themselves. They don't need some posh training.
0:34:18 > 0:34:23It was just a question of human empathy and, of course, knowing yourself really well,
0:34:23 > 0:34:27being honest with yourself. And so I just opened the doors.
0:34:27 > 0:34:31It was primal scream and it did involve...screaming.
0:34:31 > 0:34:34Letting... Which was... Sorry, I'm not laughing at that.
0:34:34 > 0:34:36It was very genuinely felt.
0:34:36 > 0:34:41It was about letting out your inner anguish.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44Um, it was noisy.
0:34:44 > 0:34:45SHE SCREAMS
0:34:45 > 0:34:48That's what I say to you! Ah...!
0:34:48 > 0:34:53It is extremely organic and well worked out. Nothing's false. It is something that comes out.
0:34:53 > 0:34:57When things do really come out from very far down in the body, they can sound quite animal-like.
0:34:57 > 0:34:59They can be quite scary.
0:35:01 > 0:35:05What wasn't nice was that they were all naked while they were doing it.
0:35:05 > 0:35:09When you're six, and there's a big group of people rolling round the floor naked,
0:35:09 > 0:35:11you're thinking, "What is going on here?"
0:35:11 > 0:35:15There was my friend's mum - she was the one that did it - Babs.
0:35:15 > 0:35:18You just think, "It's so strange,"
0:35:18 > 0:35:23cos you're playing out in the garden, you pop in for a drink, and someone's in the kitchen naked.
0:35:23 > 0:35:28Helen Russell joined the primal scream commune in Villa Road in 1976.
0:35:30 > 0:35:36Jenny...Jenny is very charismatic and very, very strong.
0:35:36 > 0:35:39Her personality is very, very strong.
0:35:39 > 0:35:43It's like she has an aura... like this, you know.
0:35:43 > 0:35:49Our one-to-one sessions were extraordinary and incredibly valuable.
0:35:49 > 0:35:55I wouldn't ever regret any of that or want it to be any different.
0:35:55 > 0:36:01Um, but the downside was the group. Living...
0:36:01 > 0:36:05The thing was, we're all there, we're all feeling really vulnerable.
0:36:05 > 0:36:07We're all looking for ourselves.
0:36:07 > 0:36:12We're all looking for friends and support and home and family and answers.
0:36:12 > 0:36:20So everybody was vulnerable and everybody was at different stages of this exploration, this journey.
0:36:20 > 0:36:26And there was no account taken of that in any structured way
0:36:26 > 0:36:28or in any way really.
0:36:28 > 0:36:34Throughout the years, what would happen is, now and then, some of the stronger characters would
0:36:34 > 0:36:38actually cross the metaphorical line. They'd cross the line, come in, get involved.
0:36:38 > 0:36:40We had a lot of lovely-looking women in our commune.
0:36:40 > 0:36:45- They'd form relationships. They'd start to look at it. - So was that what drew them in?
0:36:45 > 0:36:52- The women?- I would say that was probably obviously a first hook, if you like.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55But then they'd see and it was very interesting what we do.
0:36:55 > 0:36:57They'd see that and they'd see that it worked.
0:36:57 > 0:37:00They'd get interested. It was a deeper way of living.
0:37:00 > 0:37:03I remember that, um,
0:37:03 > 0:37:06the primal screamers...
0:37:06 > 0:37:09The story was... I think it was probably true, too.
0:37:09 > 0:37:14..that the primal screamers sort of sent vixens out onto the street
0:37:14 > 0:37:19to seduce the handsome boys who were on the left,
0:37:19 > 0:37:25and to get them to scream instead of, you know, agitate or something.
0:37:25 > 0:37:29I don't think it was that organised. It sounds a bit of a conspiracy theory to me.
0:37:29 > 0:37:31You weren't lured in by a woman?
0:37:31 > 0:37:34I was lured in by a woman, actually. So, you never know, do you?
0:37:34 > 0:37:38I don't think she was acting on orders. I think she just fancied me.
0:37:38 > 0:37:42It always reminded me of that film, The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers,
0:37:42 > 0:37:45in that one would wake up and discover
0:37:45 > 0:37:48that somebody else from the street had been captured by the primal scream.
0:37:48 > 0:37:51INDISTINCT SCREAMING AND SHOUTING
0:37:55 > 0:38:00In May 1976, Pete Cooper crossed the road
0:38:00 > 0:38:02and went to live at number 12.
0:38:02 > 0:38:06There was a view that the personal is political,
0:38:06 > 0:38:12and that the way you have relationships with other people is actually as significant as...
0:38:12 > 0:38:16as significant a part of social transformation as the actual...
0:38:16 > 0:38:19the institutions of the state, and what have you.
0:38:19 > 0:38:25So I'd sort of resigned from this sort of leadership position in the street,
0:38:25 > 0:38:29in favour of a kind of inward journey. It seems strange now.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32It seems one was Marx, one was Freud,
0:38:32 > 0:38:35but actually Reich seemed to offer a position to...
0:38:35 > 0:38:38I didn't think of it as being as less revolutionary.
0:38:38 > 0:38:44I thought of it as possibly more a further step in a revolutionary direction.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47Was he lost to the IMG at that point?
0:38:47 > 0:38:50I would say so, yeah. Yeah, yeah...
0:38:50 > 0:38:53It took me by surprise, it really did...
0:38:53 > 0:38:58cos you spend some time railing against these personal or politics people, you know,
0:38:58 > 0:39:00and then he became one.
0:39:00 > 0:39:05In a sense, I felt he joined it in rather a similar...
0:39:05 > 0:39:08um, with a rather similar impulse that he joined the IMG,
0:39:08 > 0:39:12and that was that he was looking for something that would engage him.
0:39:12 > 0:39:17This continuing search for a belief system led Pete Cooper
0:39:17 > 0:39:21to embrace ideas that were far removed from his rigorous left-wing analysis.
0:39:21 > 0:39:27Along with the therapy, there was a whole ragbag of kind of new age, humanistic ideas.
0:39:27 > 0:39:31For example, better eyesight without glasses.
0:39:31 > 0:39:34So I stopped wearing me glasses for a while,
0:39:34 > 0:39:41believing that my short-sightedness would go, as my energy flowed more, um, freely.
0:39:41 > 0:39:44What I wanted was my hands to grow...
0:39:45 > 0:39:47..because I'm a piano player.
0:39:47 > 0:39:50And so what I wanted, was my hands to grow.
0:39:50 > 0:39:53I got this idea that my hands had stopped growing,
0:39:53 > 0:39:58when I was about nine, which was when my little sister was born.
0:39:58 > 0:40:02You know, you put these twos and twos together, and you come up with 79!
0:40:02 > 0:40:06And so I have no idea of the truth of this or not, really,
0:40:06 > 0:40:09but it was something that Janov wrote about in his books,
0:40:09 > 0:40:14that people had gone through such deep, therapeutic healing,
0:40:14 > 0:40:18that parts of their bodies which had been stunted...
0:40:18 > 0:40:24unstunted themselves, and they kind of picked up your life where it had got stopped.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27So I had this daft idea...
0:40:27 > 0:40:31To me, it was a really real idea. ..that my hands would grow. My hands didn't grow!
0:40:31 > 0:40:36Helen Russell left the screamers and crossed the road in the opposite direction.
0:40:36 > 0:40:39Embracing the political fervour of her fellow Villa Roaders,
0:40:39 > 0:40:43she became passionately involved in the politics of defending the street.
0:40:43 > 0:40:48There's another bedroom upstairs, but the person whose room it is isn't here,
0:40:48 > 0:40:54and I don't really want to go up and invade their space, cos it's not really like that.
0:40:55 > 0:40:58Do you want to come out?
0:41:04 > 0:41:06So...this is my room.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10Yeah, it's all right, this room. Although nowadays the pigeons keep me awake.
0:41:10 > 0:41:12PIGEONS COO
0:41:17 > 0:41:22By 1976, there were at least 200 squatters living on Villa Road.
0:41:22 > 0:41:27As temperatures rose during the exceptionally hot summer of that year,
0:41:27 > 0:41:31the confrontation between squatters and the council intensified.
0:41:31 > 0:41:34Under threat of eviction, the squatters on Villa Road
0:41:34 > 0:41:38decided to defend the houses by barricading themselves in.
0:41:38 > 0:41:43They were now living behind their own iron curtain in a state of siege.
0:41:43 > 0:41:49The barricades came about because... the, um,
0:41:49 > 0:41:55Lambeth Council wanted to demolish the whole of Villa Road.
0:41:55 > 0:41:57This had been their long-term plan.
0:41:57 > 0:42:02They couldn't do it because we were living in the houses.
0:42:02 > 0:42:07But they, I think, probably served eviction orders on us
0:42:07 > 0:42:11and we decided that we were going to stay,
0:42:11 > 0:42:14and so, we thought, "Well, we'll barricade ourselves in.
0:42:14 > 0:42:20"The bailiffs will come, but if they can't get into the houses, they can't evict us."
0:42:20 > 0:42:24So that was another form of direct action.
0:42:24 > 0:42:28We would scour Lambeth, looking for wood,
0:42:28 > 0:42:32sheets of corrugated iron, barbed wire.
0:42:32 > 0:42:37There were a lot of building sites that went short of things in those days!
0:42:37 > 0:42:43And the ingenuity of people to get all these materials together was phenomenal.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46The barricade in front of 7 and 9 Villa Road was very beautiful,
0:42:46 > 0:42:50because we painted it. It was a carefully tended barricade.
0:42:50 > 0:42:53"Victory Villa" was the big sort of slogan.
0:42:54 > 0:42:56"Property is theft." That was another
0:42:56 > 0:42:59of the slogans on the barricades. We were all into that.
0:42:59 > 0:43:05There was an anarchist tinge to the Villa Road collective political will.
0:43:05 > 0:43:12New arrival on the street was committed anarchist Tony Cook, who became Helen Russell's boyfriend.
0:43:12 > 0:43:17He believed in continual struggle, and built his barricades accordingly.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21The first thing I and the two chaps who moved in with me
0:43:21 > 0:43:25began to do was to sort out the barricades
0:43:25 > 0:43:28on our house. We had, um...
0:43:28 > 0:43:31It was like triple barricades
0:43:31 > 0:43:35of corrugated sheets and joists, and then more corrugated sheets,
0:43:35 > 0:43:39then joists and props, all put together with six-inch nails.
0:43:41 > 0:43:45Then on top of the barricade was barbed wire
0:43:45 > 0:43:47and a gutter,
0:43:47 > 0:43:51the plan being that we would fill the gutter with petrol
0:43:51 > 0:43:53and have bits of burning tyre,
0:43:53 > 0:43:58so we would have a sheet of flame to meet the bailiffs,
0:43:58 > 0:44:01before they could even get to the house itself.
0:44:03 > 0:44:09And we also had this huge, great, big wooden ball, like, um,
0:44:09 > 0:44:14on the ball and chain, but this was made of wood with big six-inch nails stuck in it,
0:44:14 > 0:44:20on the end of a rope, that you could swing and it would lazily move in front of the house
0:44:20 > 0:44:26as another disincentive to come anywhere near us.
0:44:26 > 0:44:29Sitting at a piano in a basement behind the barricades,
0:44:29 > 0:44:32Helen Russell worked through the night composing music,
0:44:32 > 0:44:35deeply affected by the threat to the street.
0:44:35 > 0:44:39It was the most special time of my life, actually.
0:44:39 > 0:44:43It crossed my mind that I should do a setting of the Requiem Mass.
0:44:43 > 0:44:46I'd learned Latin at school. I was very bad at it,
0:44:46 > 0:44:50but I loved the poetry of it, I loved the sound of it.
0:44:50 > 0:44:55And, um...there's a line in the offertorium -
0:44:55 > 0:44:58tantus labor non sit cassus...
0:45:00 > 0:45:02..which, um...
0:45:02 > 0:45:06It just means "let not this great work be in vain".
0:45:06 > 0:45:09PIANO MUSIC
0:45:09 > 0:45:12And that's everything. That is everything.
0:45:12 > 0:45:13The great work.
0:45:31 > 0:45:37In January '77, the council decided to destroy squatters' homes.
0:45:37 > 0:45:43They targeted St Agnes Place, and came to demolish it, bringing with them an army of 250 policemen.
0:45:45 > 0:45:48Villa Roaders rushed to the rescue.
0:45:53 > 0:45:59Very early in the morning, we found out that the council were moving in bulldozers,
0:45:59 > 0:46:05there were large busloads of police turning up at the end of the street, and all the rest of it.
0:46:05 > 0:46:11We all shot off down there. Quite a lot of the residents had already climbed up onto the roofs,
0:46:11 > 0:46:16basically saying, "If you're going to knock the house down, you'll have to knock us down with them!"
0:46:18 > 0:46:23Got all the council workers digging up the pipes, down at the front.
0:46:23 > 0:46:27They filled the drains with cement, and took out water and gas pipes.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30They really went to town to make sure they were uninhabitable.
0:46:30 > 0:46:33In this picture, you can see a protester.
0:46:33 > 0:46:36He's one of the squatters who tied a rope round his waist...
0:46:36 > 0:46:42There was a few of them. ..and actually walked across the top of this, what's left
0:46:42 > 0:46:45of the main framework of the house.
0:46:47 > 0:46:52We, together with the lawyers from the Law Centre,
0:46:52 > 0:46:55managed to get an emergency High Court injunction
0:46:55 > 0:46:58by midday or one o'clock that day,
0:46:58 > 0:47:00forcing the council to withdraw their equipment,
0:47:00 > 0:47:02'and to leave us alone.'
0:47:02 > 0:47:08St Agnes Place was saved, and the council was publicly and humiliatingly defeated.
0:47:08 > 0:47:11Lambeth Council had to rethink its approach.
0:47:11 > 0:47:14But Villa Road was still under threat,
0:47:14 > 0:47:18and the barricades remained in place there for another two years.
0:47:28 > 0:47:32In 1977, Tony Wakeford was living at number 15.
0:47:32 > 0:47:37He was a member of the Socialist Workers Party
0:47:37 > 0:47:41and wrote anti-police songs for his punk band, Crisis.
0:47:41 > 0:47:43# ..To keep you silent
0:47:43 > 0:47:45# And he can poke And he'll punch you
0:47:45 > 0:47:48# With a 3ft bloody truncheon
0:47:48 > 0:47:49# PC, what are they for?
0:47:49 > 0:47:52# PC, what are they for?
0:47:52 > 0:47:54# PC, what are they for?
0:47:54 > 0:47:58# PC, what are they for?
0:47:58 > 0:48:00# PC, what are they for?
0:48:00 > 0:48:03# He's got sanitational violence
0:48:03 > 0:48:05# To keep you silent
0:48:05 > 0:48:08# And he can poke And he'll punch you
0:48:08 > 0:48:12# With a 3ft bloody truncheon
0:48:12 > 0:48:14# PC, what are they for?
0:48:14 > 0:48:17# PC, what are they for?
0:48:17 > 0:48:19# PC, what are they for?
0:48:19 > 0:48:23# PC, what are they for? #
0:48:23 > 0:48:27- Were you doing a lot of drugs at Villa Road?- Yeah.
0:48:27 > 0:48:29And before. And after.
0:48:29 > 0:48:31Yeah, mainly, um, lots of speed
0:48:31 > 0:48:33and some acid.
0:48:33 > 0:48:35Terrible.
0:48:35 > 0:48:37HE LAUGHS
0:48:37 > 0:48:41I'm a fat git now, but then I was, like, nine stone.
0:48:41 > 0:48:45And it got to the stage where I woke up one morning,
0:48:45 > 0:48:49looked in the mirror, pushed my teeth, and all my teeth just went...
0:48:49 > 0:48:53They sort of bent inwards. Yeah, terrible. Lots of speed.
0:48:53 > 0:48:56- Are they your teeth now? - They're capped. Awful.
0:49:01 > 0:49:04That decade, things did seem very black and white.
0:49:04 > 0:49:07People really took sides
0:49:07 > 0:49:12and made decisions over what they were going to do.
0:49:12 > 0:49:15It was a very, you know, um,
0:49:15 > 0:49:20no-middle-ground type of thing. At the time, we were all very committed.
0:49:36 > 0:49:42Despite their committed struggle, the outcome for the Villa Roaders was only a partial victory.
0:49:42 > 0:49:45In 1978, the council came up with a deal.
0:49:45 > 0:49:51They would preserve the north side of the street on condition that the south side was destroyed.
0:49:51 > 0:49:54This was agreed. The squatters took down their barricades,
0:49:54 > 0:49:56and in the summer of '78,
0:49:56 > 0:50:02the south side of Villa Road was demolished to make a small patch of green alongside the A23.
0:50:07 > 0:50:12Most of the houses on the north side became a housing co-op.
0:50:12 > 0:50:15A few squats remained, including Pim's house,
0:50:15 > 0:50:19where he continues to live by his ideals.
0:50:21 > 0:50:24Actually, I never use this bathroom.
0:50:24 > 0:50:27I have a composting toilet.
0:50:27 > 0:50:32I have a lifestyle which does not require running water.
0:50:32 > 0:50:38I've been doing that ever since I lived in a tepee and I also was doing that in the little hut out there.
0:50:38 > 0:50:40So where's your toilet, Pim?
0:50:40 > 0:50:42It is a composting toilet.
0:50:42 > 0:50:44As a matter of fact,
0:50:44 > 0:50:50next to the branches, that is where the toilet and the kitchen waste and everything...
0:50:50 > 0:50:55and it is a beautiful, um, compost there.
0:50:55 > 0:50:57Fertility.
0:50:57 > 0:51:03The street became much less of a cohesive, exciting place to be.
0:51:03 > 0:51:09There were a few houses that still now have people in them
0:51:09 > 0:51:12who were in them at that time.
0:51:12 > 0:51:16But a lot of people went away to different parts of the world.
0:51:16 > 0:51:19I left, eventually.
0:51:19 > 0:51:22I feel really proud of what we achieved, actually.
0:51:22 > 0:51:26The revolution didn't happen, but the houses were saved.
0:51:33 > 0:51:39St Agnes Place refused to compromise and continued to battle for survival for the next 30 years.
0:51:39 > 0:51:45It became one of the only '70s squatting communities to survive until now.
0:51:45 > 0:51:51But the council have recently taken action to repossess the street once and for all.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55All the remaining squatters have now received eviction notices.
0:51:55 > 0:52:01I love living here, you know. It is my home. I've thought about the fact that...
0:52:01 > 0:52:07you know, if Lambeth weren't coming to evict me, would I just live here for my entire life?
0:52:07 > 0:52:13From the age of three years old till I peg it, whatever age that would be, you know what I mean?
0:52:13 > 0:52:16To be honest with you, I probably would.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19Some part of me sort of thinks, "That's really sad,"
0:52:19 > 0:52:24you know what I mean? God, get a life, go out. Go and live somewhere else.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27But it's my home. And, um...
0:52:28 > 0:52:31You know, the idea of not having it
0:52:31 > 0:52:35is...is...is a difficult thought.
0:52:37 > 0:52:38But, um...
0:52:41 > 0:52:43Sorry, can I stop?
0:52:48 > 0:52:53# From the men of property the orders came
0:52:53 > 0:52:58# They sent their hired men and troopers to wipe out the diggers' claim
0:52:58 > 0:53:02# Tear down their cottages Destroy their corn
0:53:02 > 0:53:08# They were dispersed but their vision lingers on
0:53:08 > 0:53:10# You poor take courage
0:53:10 > 0:53:13# You rich take care
0:53:13 > 0:53:16# This earth was made a common treasury
0:53:16 > 0:53:18# For everyone to share
0:53:18 > 0:53:21# All things in common
0:53:21 > 0:53:23# All people one
0:53:23 > 0:53:28# You diggers all stand up for glory Stand up now! #
0:53:32 > 0:53:36- Do you live as a nuclear family now? - Yep.
0:53:36 > 0:53:40And what are your political ideals now?
0:53:40 > 0:53:45Would you still like to see the end of capitalism?
0:53:45 > 0:53:47Yeah, I would, really. Yeah.
0:53:47 > 0:53:49I don't care about capitalism.
0:53:49 > 0:53:56I get a pension out of the tax... pay taxes off everybody,
0:53:56 > 0:54:02so it would be counter-productive to be anti-capitalist, right?
0:54:02 > 0:54:05You don't slap the hand that feeds you.
0:54:05 > 0:54:09- Do you live in a nuclear family now? - Yes, I got married, um...
0:54:11 > 0:54:16I'm supposed to know that! ..about seven years ago.
0:54:16 > 0:54:20Do you still hold the same left-wing beliefs that you did?
0:54:20 > 0:54:22Absolutely.
0:54:22 > 0:54:29I feel quite strongly about the environment, um, and certainly, I support things like...
0:54:29 > 0:54:32There were people at Crystal Palace who were trying to save it.
0:54:32 > 0:54:36They were living in trees. I very much supported those tree people.
0:54:36 > 0:54:40How would you describe your politics now?
0:54:40 > 0:54:43Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep green!
0:54:43 > 0:54:48Extremely green. I, for example, have never had a fridge in my life.
0:54:48 > 0:54:52If I'm ever in a house where there is one, I switch it off immediately.
0:54:52 > 0:54:55What do you do now, Sue?
0:54:55 > 0:54:59I'm going to work on a llama farm. I'm going to have some time in the country.
0:54:59 > 0:55:01Sue, what do you do now?
0:55:01 > 0:55:07Um, well, I paint and, um, I like to spend some time in India.
0:55:07 > 0:55:10I teach and I practise psychotherapy.
0:55:10 > 0:55:13I'm the America's editor of the Economist.
0:55:13 > 0:55:15I still see myself as a...
0:55:15 > 0:55:18you know, as a left-wing anti-capitalist,
0:55:18 > 0:55:21but it's of no consequence to anybody,
0:55:21 > 0:55:23because I'm not doing anything about it.
0:55:23 > 0:55:29What I do now is, I'm Professor of Romantic Poetry, Queen Mary University of London.
0:55:29 > 0:55:32Did you go on to live in a nuclear family?
0:55:32 > 0:55:34Yes.
0:55:34 > 0:55:37More or less. Yes.
0:55:37 > 0:55:39not particularly successfully!
0:55:39 > 0:55:46Would you still see yourself as someone who was hoping for the overthrow of capitalism?
0:55:46 > 0:55:51Um, I think that's a very long shot now.
0:55:51 > 0:55:54Would you still welcome the overthrow of capitalism?
0:55:55 > 0:55:59Probably not. It's not really an option, is it?
0:55:59 > 0:56:02You have to be really strong to keep on fighting.
0:56:02 > 0:56:04You know.
0:56:04 > 0:56:05Um...
0:56:05 > 0:56:09I am fighting. And we all are.
0:56:09 > 0:56:14Those of us who are still doing what we're doing in this way. We are still fighting.
0:56:14 > 0:56:18You know, I'm doing my bit for the housing co-operative movement.
0:56:18 > 0:56:20I think capitalism
0:56:20 > 0:56:24has got a dynamic which will have to end.
0:56:24 > 0:56:29The internal conflicts of capitalism are quite horrendous.
0:56:29 > 0:56:31What do you do now?
0:56:31 > 0:56:33I do long-range weather forecasting.
0:56:33 > 0:56:36# The world and all its angels
0:56:36 > 0:56:39# Are talking in my head
0:56:39 > 0:56:42# The world and all its angels
0:56:42 > 0:56:45# They lay upon my bed.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48# The world and all its angels
0:56:48 > 0:56:52# Set table for the feast
0:56:52 > 0:56:55# The world and all its angels
0:56:55 > 0:56:58# Come to toast the suckling beast
0:56:59 > 0:57:03- # Come the morning - Come the morning
0:57:03 > 0:57:06- # By the dawning light - By the dawning light
0:57:06 > 0:57:09- # Such crimes and stories - Such crimes and stories
0:57:09 > 0:57:11# Behold the wondrous sights
0:57:12 > 0:57:15- # Come the morning - Come the morning
0:57:15 > 0:57:18- # By the dawning light - By the dawning light
0:57:18 > 0:57:21- # Such crimes and stories - Such crimes and stories... #