1.6 The New Cross Fire & Brixton Riots with Jacob Ross and Stephen Reicher The Comma Press Podcast

Hosted by Ra Page of Comma Press, a Manchester-based independent publisher specialising in the short story.

Jacob Ross is a novelist, short story writer, editor and creative writing tutor. His crime fiction novel, The Bone Readers won the inaugural Jhalak Prize in 2017. His latest book is Tell No-One About This, a collection of stories written over a span of forty years, and more than a dozen new ones. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been a judge of the V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize, the Olive Cook, Scott Moncrieff and Tom-Gallon Literary Awards. Jacob is Associate Fiction Editor at Peepal Tree Press, and the editor of Closure, Contemporary Black British short stories. Jacob is the author of 'Bed 45', a short story inspired by the New Cross Fire and following unrest included in the Protest: Stories of resistance anthology.

Stephen Reicher is a professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews, a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and an academician of the social sciences. Broadly his research interests include the issues of group behaviour and the individual-social relationship. He is currently working on a Leverhulme funded project (jointly with Nick Hopkins of Lancaster University) looking at the impact of devolution on Scottish identity and social action in Scotland.

Published in 2017, Protest: Stories of Resistance assembled twenty authors to re-imagine key moments of British protest from the last eight centuries. Written in close consultation with historians, sociologists and eye-witnesses - who also contribute afterwords - these stories follow fictional characters caught up in real-life struggles.

Note: Sorry about some sound quality issues in the first 10 mins and one of the guests having a cold!

1. Protest: Stories of Resistance https://commapress.co.uk/books/protest-stories-of-resistance-1
2. New Cross Fire http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/18/newsid_2530000/2530333.stm
3. Linton Kwesi Johnson
4. 'Bed 45' single story eBook https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bed-45-story-Brixton-Singles-ebook/dp/B079LQ14JC/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=bed+45&qid=1563268987&s=digital-text&sr=1-4
5. Black People’s Day of Action https://www.revolutionarycommunist.org/britain/fight-racism/4337-ao200516
6. Brixton Riot 1981 - https://home.bt.com/news/on-this-day/april-11-1981-brixton-riots-leave-more-than-300-people-injured-11363974876698
7. Swamp 81 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4854556.stm
8. Kettling - confinement by police of a group of demonstrators or protesters in a small area, as a method of crowd control.
9. Nottingham Riots (1976) http://home.bt.com/news/on-this-day/august-30-1976-racial-tensions-run-high-as-notting-hill-carnival-ends-in-riots-11364000534127
10. Mark Duggan and the Tottenham Riots (2011) https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/07/tottenham-riots-peaceful-protest
11. The Scarman Report http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/3631579.stm
12. Stephen Lawrence and the Macpherson report https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/feb/22/macpherson-report-what-was-it-and-what-impact-did-it-have
13. Brixton 1981 & Tottenham 2011 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/09/tottenham-2011-brixton-1981
14. Food poverty in modern Britain https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/21/britain-hunger-food-poverty
15. C. L. R. James
16. St Paul’s Riots (1980) https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/st-pauls-riots-37-years-17634

Produced and edited by Becca Parkinson.