Sheep magazine Archive 2: issues 10-17

Frances O’Grady. Every five years, since 1986, Cable Street veterans
have passed on their experiences at such events, but their numbers are
dwindling.
Fortunately, the events of that day have been captured for subsequent
generations in a breathtaking, politically charged mural on the side of
the former St George’s town hall in Cable Street. It depicts the battle at its
height: banners waving, bottles and tools flying through the air, mounted
police with truncheons drawn. But this mural has its own anniversary this
year, and its own dramatic story to tell.
Forty years ago, in the town hall basement, the work was commissioned
and the first sketches made; it was finally unveiled seven years later. During
that period, East Enders were being terrorised by a new generation of
fascists whose targets included the mural itself.
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Longstanding Cable Street residents Dan Jones and Roger Mills were part
of the basement group. ‘The idea of a mural lasting any amount of time is
ridiculous, but it has been preserved and looked after,’ says Jones, grateful
that this extraordinary landmark has survived the rapid gentrification that
has swept aside communities, cultural memories and sites of struggle.
The mural embodies physical resistance and owes its existence to a
collective act of cultural resistance. In 1974, Thames Television unveiled its
Arts Council-backed Eyesights project. Professional artists would descend
on Tower Hamlets and inspire residents through posters on advertising
hoardings. The basement group, completely bypassed, nicknamed the
scheme ‘eyesores’ and fought for alternative, locally inspired projects,
October 2016