Field Study's Man in E11 recalls a cry of “Bollocks!” at the edge of Wanstonia.

The Wanstead Fringe - ‘Remembering the M11’

A discussion with John Rodgers, Ian Bourn & others

At, The Wanstead Tap.

Tuesday 9^th September 2014. 7.30pm-

“Bollocks!” This was the dismissive response to Ian Bourn’s comments about the social make up of some of the anti-road protestors who resisted the construction of the M11 Link Road in Leytonstone/Wanstead in the early 1990s. Film-maker Ian Bourn had described some of the anti-road protestors as middle class ‘crusties’ on their gap year. Their hedonistic interventions in the protest against the building of the link road had, Bourn asserted, alienated some, if not many, of the local residents. Full volume all night parties/weekenders (e.g.) had only served to disturb and undermine the authentic local nature of the anti-road campaign. “Bollocks!” rang out again, disturbing the audience’s polite attentiveness. Ian Bourn tried to qualify his judgments about various people involved in the anti-road protests and this elicited more objections; from the person who’d cried “bollocks!” and from the rest of the audience objecting to the person’s cantankerous interjections (his “bollocks!”). John Rodgers ably steered the discussion away from a link road discussion pile-up and there followed more illuminating insights into the long, complex, conflicting and contentious histories of the A12/M11 Link Road.

The audience (an assembly of ‘pre-‘ and ‘post-‘ road people, to use a distinction proffered by John Rodgers) witnessed again some of the representations of the M11 Link Road protests – through video, photography, literature and discussion. There were video montages comprising clips from various sources including the news, and those from activists who had observed, recorded and participated in the protests. Photographs were displayed on the walls of The Wanstead Tap. Members of the audience spoke of their involvement in and connections to the protests. John Rodgers read from his book, This Other London. The overarching themes and/or issue of the discussion, for me, were power and violence – how they are exercised and resisted.

The video clips showed the sheer brutality and physical force used by various authorities to break up the protests and clear the area in readiness for the equally brutal road build. The resourcefulness and ingenuity of the protestors was shown in the many ways they connected themselves to the landscape; ways which would severely impact on the progress of the road building project. For all their spectacular ingenuity and obstinacy there seemed to be an equal, if not greater, spectacular reaction on the part of ‘the establishment’ to impose its will on the landscape. But those video clips are perhaps the entertaining (perversely and voyeuristically) surface of the protest landscape. What lies beneath a darkly comical scene of a protestor fixed to a detached chimney stack being wheel-barrow-ed out of sight/off site? Twenty years on how might the protestor remain attached to the chimney?

The site remains a sensitive territory, as was in evidence by the emanation of “bollocks!” during the discussion. The discussion explored some of the layers and interconnections of power, protest and violence. We learned via Ian Bourn how local artists/activists contested the road building through the legal system, a contest which was wholly unequal in terms of access to various legal resources. Throughout various hearings the Department of Transport could employ large teams of expensive lawyers to research and impose its will. The anti road campaigners, by contrast, could afford the services of just one lawyer for just one day – at an exorbitant cost of several thousand pounds. The campaigners otherwise employed performance art antics to demonstrate the lamentable lack of egality in the proceedings. The essence of the protest as a Utopian whole seemed to be about trying to slow down an inevitable. The ‘inevitable’ might well include the stationary, overcrowded and nigh on gridlocked chasm that is the Link Road on many an evening – the barely contained emanation of many noxious processes.

I wondered about the subversion of the protest given recent revelations about undercover police operations, particularly in the environmental movement. This was, I thought briefly, only running the risk of bringing more ‘bollocks’ (or bullshit) into the discussion. But the thought, or fear, was there. It led to thoughts about the complex psychological landscape of the road protest. How could/do different people collaborate in their resistance (to the road) without acting out other struggles; all of which would involve some form and level of violence, be it physical, mental and emotional – in the context of fields as diverse as e.g. personality, class, gender, race, religion and ethnicity. The discussion at The Wanstead Tap showed how making a sweeping statement about the complex web of social relations could touch and irritate a nerve.

There was some will to reflect positively on the outcomes of the protest; that there is a positive legacy above and beyond the psychological trauma of the Link Road. The atmosphere of the discussion was on the whole, comfortable and convivial, although it might not be bollocks to say that what makes such an event possible or likely to happen is that our feelings and memories about such subjects as road building are all too often suppressed.