Essex May 68 - Books, writing, media
The Mustard Project is dedicated to research into the campus events of 1968 at the University of Essex. It has involved conducting filmed oral history interviews with participants in the events, and the digitisation of archival documents held in the Albert Sloman University Library’s University Collection.
Guardian, May 2017: 'I drove the car into the fountain’: causing mayhem at Essex University, 1969
Three intriguingly related events - from Alaistair Fraser. Added April 2018
The first ever public Women's Liberation meeting in the UK - from Sheila Rowbotham. Added April 2018
Dave Wilson: Ships at Sea - You ask for stories and so am sending you the chapter from my memoir which includes the Essex years. It covers my political life and so is not just about Essex, but others may recognise and share many of my pre- and post-Essex experiences.
May 1968 - hitchhiking from Essex to Paris - updated, April 2018
My First Demo: the Battle of Grosvenor Square - around 200 students from Essex marched against the war on 17 March 1968
May 1968 at Essex - one student's memory of 1968 - updated 7 May 2018, 50 years to the day after the Porton Down demonstration
A Very Essex Protest BBC R4, April 2016
Interview with Peter Townsend on his ‘Essex Days’
1998 Memories from Mark Robertson - Pasolini's Canterbury Tales, RSSF, deportations of Essex students, Ernest Dowson and more
From Dave Cox: I’d left Essex by 1968 – mostly working in Stoke Newington. In May 68 I was driving a bunch of American 6th Formers back from Morocco in a Land Rover and we spent a few hours in Paris. Someone mentioned that there was going to be a student demonstration but we had a tight timetable for a ferry and I recall commenting that “anyway it wont come to much”. So much for the benefits of 3 years studying sociology and majoring on La Novelle Class Ouvriere.
Left Field by David Wilson - includes a section on his time at Essex. 'David is an adventurer and a freethinker, who did something truly useful with his life.' - Brian Eno. 'David Wilson has lived a life and a half.The broken world needed people like David; it still does.' - Sir Tom Stoppard. 'What a life this man has led.' - Dorothy Byrne, Head of Channel 4 Documentaries. 'David's entire life has been dedicated to trying to make the world a better place.' - Craig Murray, ex-UK Ambassador. 'David Wilson shows us how political activism on the Left should be: engaged, informed and passionate. With more people like him, the world would be safer and happier. - Ken Livingstone.
Available from David's Wilson's website
Goodchild: A Kink of a Life by Paul Goodchild "I had a dysfunctional childhood with death, incest and thirteen schools, was a revolting Essex University student in London and Paris 1968, had a Kalashnikov stuck in my face in Arabia in 1974, passed through Iran just before Khomeini, Afghanistan just before the Russians, got chased up a lamp post by the crowds in New Delhi on India's 40th anniversary of Independence, met Blair, Benn, Blunkett and Straw, shook hands with Chuck Berry, smoked dope with Howard Marks, drunk milk from the same cow as the Dalai Lama, visited twenty Danish Free schools, re-built a ruin up a Spanish mountain, drove to Sri Lanka, hitch-hiked to Ethiopia and . . . . " Available here
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