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Free Education Sheets for Radical History on Glasgow Green

This 25-minute Powerpoint film draws together 1000 years of writings about the area now known as Glasgow Green.

The film demonstrates the deep attachment people feel for this Green Space. It shows some of the ways Glasgow Green has played a part in the lives, deaths and struggles of local people. Despite destitution at times, they have guarded it in imaginative ways against the city economy and landgrabbers.
Accompanying access sheets for young people are FREE to download to help open up Glasgow Green for future generations.

You can help young people access the history of this urban space by making additional education support sheets for this SoR theme, just send them into our email address: info@spiritofrevolt.info

Download worksheets (in PDF format):
Worksheet-1 | Worksheet-2 | Worksheet-3 | Worksheet-4

Stuart Christie was an anarchist from Glasgow, however his anarchism took him to fields further away, eventually settling in the south of England. Spirit of Revolt has a small collection of Stuart Christie’s  material, sadly we never got round adding to this, time moves so fast, and Stuart was a busy anarchist.

We re-post the Kate Sharpley Library’s obituary of Stuart. He will be sadly missed and leaves a large whole to be filled.

Stuart Christie 1946-2020 Anarchist activist, writer and publisher

Stuart Christie, founder of the Anarchist Black Cross and Cienfuegos Press and co-author of The floodgates of anarchy has died peacefully after a battle with lung cancer.

Born in Glasgow and brought up in Blantyre, Christie credited his grandmother for shaping his political outlook, giving him a clear moral map and ethical code. His determination to follow his conscience led him to anarchism: “Without freedom there would be no equality and without equality no freedom, and without struggle there would be neither.” It also led him from the campaign against nuclear weapons to joining the struggle against the Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco (1892-1975).

He moved to London and got in touch with the clandestine Spanish anarchist organisation Defensa Interior (Interior Defence). He was arrested in Madrid in 1964 carrying explosives to be used in an assassination attempt on Franco. To cover the fact that there was an informer inside the group, the police proclaimed they had agents operating in Britain – and (falsely) that Christie had drawn attention to himself by wearing a kilt.

The threat of the garotte and his twenty year sentence drew international attention to the resistance to the Franco regime. In prison Christie formed lasting friendships with anarchist militants of his and earlier generations. He returned from Spain in 1967, older and wiser, but equally determined to continue the struggle and use his notoriety to aid the comrades he left behind.

In London he met Brenda Earl who would become his political and emotional life partner. He also met Albert Meltzer, and the two would refound the Anarchist Black Cross to promote solidarity with anarchist prisoners in Spain, and the resistance more broadly. Their book, The floodgates of anarchy promoted a revolutionary anarchism at odds with the attitudes of some who had come into anarchism from the sixties peace movement. At the Carrara anarchist conference of 1968 Christie got in touch with a new generation of anarchist militants who shared his ideas and approach to action.

Christie’s political commitment and international connections made him a target for the British Special Branch. He was acquitted of conspiracy to cause explosions in the “Stoke Newington Eight” trial of 1972, claiming the jury could understand why someone would want to blow up Franco, and why that would make him a target for “conservative-minded policemen”.

Free but apparently unemployable, Christie launched Cienfuegos Press which would produce a large number of anarchist books and the encyclopedic Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review. Briefly Orkney became a centre of anarchist publishing before lack of cashflow ended the project. Christie would continue publishing, and investigating new ways of doing so including ebooks and the internet. His christiebooks.com site contains numerous films on anarchism and biographies of anarchists. He used facebook to create an archive of anarchist history not available anywhere else as he recounted memories and events from his own and other people’s lives.

Christie wrote The investigative researcher’s handbook (1983), sharing skills that he put to use in an exposé of fascist Italian terrorist Stefano delle Chiaie (1984). In 1996 he published the first version of his historical study We the anarchists : a study of the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI), 1927-1937.

Short-run printing enabled him to produced three illustrated volumes of his life story (My granny made me an anarchist, General Franco made me a ‘terrorist’ and Edward Heath made me angry 2002-2004) which were condensed into a single volume as Granny made me an anarchist : General Franco, the angry brigade and me (2004). His final books were the three volumes of ¡Pistoleros! The Chronicles of Farquhar McHarg, his tales of a Glaswegian anarchist who joins the Spanish anarchist defence groups in the years 1918-1924.

Committed to anarchism and publishing, Christie appeared at many bookfairs and film festivals, but scorned any suggestion he had come to ‘lead’ anyone anywhere.

Christie’s partner Brenda died in June 2019. He slipped away peacefully, listening to “Pennies From Heaven” (Brenda’s favourite song) in the company of his daughter Branwen.

Stuart Christie, 10 July 1946-15 August 2020

Because of the Covid19 pandemic, Spirit of Revolt’s most recent Show and Tell had to be a virtual affair, but never the less exciting for that. We were very fortunate in getting anarchist, writer, historian Máirtín Ó Catháin as guest speaker. Máirtín lead off with a talk, taking questions and then a general discussion. All extremely interesting and informative. So despite the handicap Covid19 threw at us this Show and Tell was a great success. the video is also available on our Audio/Video Section

So have a look, enjoy and send us your comments.

Belfast Glasgow Anarchists.

An idea floated around in one persons head, in 2011 he spoke to some comrades, they decided to meet in a cafe and discuss the idea. That was the day that Spirit of Revolt was born. It was the cafe in the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow, five like minded people started to plan and shape the idea, after much discussion they agreed on the name, Spirit of Revolt, today we are very proud of that creation. Of course it is no longer five individuals, it is quite a wide group of people some come and some go, but we always have a core group of dedicated volunteers that work away in the background, building, expanding and publicising what we believe is a unique archive in Scotland. Apart from gathering, recording, digitising and making easily accessible, anarchist and libertarian socialist history, we arrange outreach programs, in an attempt to bring the history of people’s struggles to a wider public.

In this present situation of a lockdown, we can’t at the moment work in our room at the Mitchell Library, so we do the best we can working from home and arranging virtual meetings via Zoom, to make sure the archive continues to be a source of interest and information. We have thousands of documents, leaflets, pamphlets, serials, books and booklets, letters, personal documents, posters, comics, banners and other memorabilia. Thousands of these documents/articles are already digitised and can be accessed on our website, so please have a we look and let us know what you think, or if you wish to participate as a volunteer, or you may have material that you wish to donate as long as it fits our criteria.

We consider what we have achieved to be of great value in recording the history of the ordinary people’s struggles, a history that is all too often overlooked and lost, but is part of what we are and what we want from our society. We are also proud to state that we have done this without any funding, support or association from political parties of trade unions, we owe our success to the dedication of our group of gallant volunteers.

Four of the original five at the Cafe in the Royal Concert Hall in 2011, the fifth member, Stasia, took the photo, as usual she works away diligently in the background.

Saturday 15th February saw Spirit of Revolt’s first of the year outreach affair. It was a stall at the Workers Theatre Group’s Ceilidh. Though the stall didn’t get that much traffic, everybody enjoying the rousing and fun Roma dancing, we did however give out lots of info leaflets and managed to raise some funds for the Archive.

Our next out reach affair is the Dundee Anarchist Bookfair, March 14th. Hope to see you there.

Two coming events that Spirit of Revolt will be present at with a stall where we will have info about Spirit of Revolt Archive, leaflets, books, CDs, T-shirts, badges, etc, plus info on how you can get involved, along with friendly chat. First up is the Workers Theatre Group, www.workerstheatre.co.uk February 15th. Ceilidh, 8:00pm, Pollokshaws Burgh Hall doors open about 7:30pm. Why not come along and have a chat with us before you dance your heart out.

The next event that we will take part in is The Dundee Anarchist Bookfair, dundeeanarchistbookfair.org. Again we will have a stall with lots of interesting “stuff” plus the usual friendly members on hand to give info and friendly chat.

Both events are well worth supporting, come along, have fun, meet old friends, make new friends, gather info, network.

The death of Alasdair Gray on Sunday 29th. December 2019 will be a tremendous loss to the People of Glasgow and much further afield. As well as being a generous man, donating to Spirit of Revolt as well as many other groups, he was a man of compassion, insight and a battler, never afraid to speak out in defence of justice and humanity.

The following video is from the last event he shared with Spirit of Revolt, “Writers for Miners” held November 2018 in Mono, where, despite the dreadful November weather he turned up and read one of his poems, which he referred to as “A long poem about humanity”. Thanks Bob at City Strolls for the video.

Alasdair Gray reading at,  “Writers for Miners” Video

The volunteers at Spirit of Revolt are as always busy trying to bring the people to the archive, and bring our history to the people. We are delighted to state that two more of our collections have been fully digitised and therefore you can now read them from the comfort of your home, library, cafe, etc. No need to make you way into the Mitchell Library to do so. Though you will always be made welcome should you wish to visit us at the Mitchell.

The two collections are:

GB243 T/SOR/23 Collection No. 23, Clydeside Hunt Saboteurs.

GB243 T/SOR/35 Collection No. 35, Shirley Sampson Collection.

Enjoy perusing these wonderful and informative collections from the comfort of your  home. Of course there is a wealth of information already digitised on our website, so you could spend endless hours in that comfy chair trawling through the thousands of documents, leaflets, booklets, posters, letters, photos etc. all from grassroots activities in your local Glasgow/Clydeside area, with lots from further afield. Have a look and let’s know what you think.

Just a wee report on Spirit of Revolt’s Monday 16th. September, Show and Tell event, Workers City, held in the Mitchell Library. It was by any standard a success. My rough head count put the number of those that attended as about the 50 mark. Lots of Glasgwegian stalwarts from that period, but encouragingly, lots of younger faces, and lots of interest shown in the material from the archive that was on display. During the open discussion there were plenty of very interesting points raised and discussed, so a big thank you to all those who turned up, and also to all those speakers and contributors a big thank you. A special big thanks to the volunteers who put in the work behind the scenes, the donkey work, preparing, pushing the publicity, setting up and the clearing up afterwards, well done.
Another pleasing feature from the event, the Spirit of Revolt group raised £32 from sale of merchandise and donations towards their running costs, so thanks to those who made that possible.
Let’s hope that some of the ideas that came out of this event can by brought from ideas to reality. One of the ideas raised was the re-launch of the “Keelie” and to that end there will be a meeting next Monday, September 23rd. 2pm. in the Scotia Bar, Stockwell Street, Glasgow.
Thanks again to all involved.

Those wishing further information on Spirit of Revolt’s events, or wish to become involved, can contact us at, info@spiritofrevolt.info