News / St Pauls
Radio 4 documentary explores St Paul’s riots and its impact
On April 2 1980 it was coming up to Marvin Rees’ birthday. That afternoon, the future mayor of Bristol was finding his friends from school to invite them to his party.
After going to Studios, an under-13s disco, Rees remembers hearing a “roar” signalling the start of the St Paul’s riots, which for somebody else definitely started when the police ripped a young man’s trousers who they had asked to empty his pockets.
These two anecdotes and many more form a documentary made by a team from BBC Radio Bristol to mark the 40th anniversary of the riots on Thursday, which is also being broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday.
is needed now More than ever
Produced by Tom Ryan, Michael Jenkins and Pete Simson, Riot Remembered skilfully weaves together a number of different narratives to tell the story of the day, its tinderbox beginnings and its aftermath.
“We had fun but under the surface of it was this in-your-face racism,” one interviewee remembers of St Paul’s at the time.
Jobs and housing were both a problem, and young black men – who unlike their parents had been born in Bristol – were becoming more radical.
According to Ray Mighty of trip-hop group Smith & Mighty, police were a “force of oppression” who “did stuff that was totally unnecessary because they could get away with it”.
A former policeman interviewed said that there was “tension” between the criminal elements in St Paul’s and the police, but it was not based on race, with a lot of single Irish men living in the area at the time while working on the construction of the M32.
The aftermath of the St Paul’s Riots – photo courtesy of Bristol Museum & Archives
For those who frequented it, the Black & White Cafe on Grosvenor Road was a place that you could go to have a meal, play pool or dominoes, “somewhere to congregate” because there were not many other facilities in the area.
But for the police, “it was already established as a centre of criminality”, with one officer comparing it to Fagin’s den from Oliver Twist.
The police raid on April 2 was focused on alcohol, not drugs, with the belief that the cafe was operating as an unlicensed drinking club.
“It was a quick in-and-out licensing raid,” one police officer remembers. “It was a raid that went horribly wrong.”
The riots are seen as an important chapter in Bristol’s history – photo (c) David Kirkpatrick
The documentary comes into its own when the riot starts, and also takes a detour to Southmead where a copycat riot took place the following evening.
“It felt great,” one man involved in the St Paul’s uprising remembered. “We were all together. Unity, unification.
“Getting together to fight the power, fight the enemy. show them that we had had enough. I can’t deny it. It was very exciting for a 15-year-old, you know?”
Police officers still in the cafe had to be rescued by other officers. Bystanders used confiscated bottles as missiles, with the police defending themselves with dustbin lids and milk crates.
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Read more: Bristol collective launch film to mark 40th anniversary of St Paul’s uprising
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A police car from Lockleaze came down the wrong side of Grosvenor Road and got overturned and burned. Police withdrew and local shops got looted – with some blaming white activists for this.
“One shout above all was the sound of freedom,” one person remembers.
Sixteen people were later charged with rioting but after a trial that lasted several weeks all were found not guilty.
Rees says that his role today as mayor is informed by growing up in Bristol. He said: “We take it for granted that time, and what we call education, takes us on this inevitable pathway to progress. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case.
“We have to fight for our democracy, fight for our communities, our peace, our society, our culture, every day.”
Riot Remembered will be broadcast on BBC Radio Bristol on Thursday at 1pm and on Radio 4 on Saturday at 8pm. To listen again, visit www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p088fgsl.
Main photo courtesy of BBC
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