A RADICAL HISTORY MEET (Thursday)

He texted: Tonight - talk on Stokes Croft. Bridewell Island ?old police station? 7:30 radical history group
I texted: You going?
He texted: No working. Saw it in the Metro
I texted: Might pop along if i can find the way in

I found my way in with a little help: ‘Through the corridor, left, up the stairs,’ he said, making it easy.
Three talks - 1) Packers Field; 2) Castle Park; 3) Stokes Croft - the theme, the enclosing of common land for the benefit of a few, to the detriment of the many, and how to oppose this transfer of “ownership” by proposing the space in question be declared, “Town Green.”
What each speaker implied, was that these conflicts are part of the frontline of a class war, common usage being under threat from the progress of private/individual profit and Bristol council is one the side of developers and not the people of the city.
Toward the end of the Stokes Croft talk I said that, even though I lived in the area I hadn’t heard about the protest march of three weeks ago. I wasn’t angry, I was frustrated and understood the need to build a movement slowly to avoid the fate of the recently deceased Transition Montpelier.
In a few weeks the PRSC is opening an office in the Souk shop that’s closing because it can’t compete with the Tesco’s on Lower Maudlin Street. And while on the subject of Tesco’s, they’re in negotiations with the owner to rent the Jesters building on Cheltenham Road.
I left the meeting wishing I hadn’t spoke, that I’d kept my head down. At the flats I waited, until the drunks from the fifth floor had time to call the lift from the top, get in and go up, thinking how hard I find joining a group and involved doing things with others, that really I’m so much better at and more comfortable being invisible.