Bristol Anarchist Bookfair.
Di Parkin (BRHG)
Radical History Zone.
20th of April.
2pm-3pm
Di Parkin was a revolutionary activist from the early 1960s to the 1980s. She was employed as a community worker and an Equal Opportunities Adviser. Her PhD was on opposition to the myth of National Unity in Second World War Britain and she published a book on the history of a militant coal mine (Betteshanger) in Kent
Now retired, she devotes most of her energy to the Bristol Radical History group: working on recording the names of paupers in unmarked graves at the Eastville workhouse.
The talk focusses on her personal memories as an anarcho-syndicalist in the 1960s and on records/ interviews with other members of the Syndicalist Workers Federation (British section of the IWA) and its links to the Spanish CNT in exile in London.
Di recalls first-hand her journey towards the International Socialists and then anarchism, ‘disorderly demonstrations’ and attending meetings where she might encounter the likes of a Wobblie, a veteran of the Durutti column… or a police spy. “Viva La Revolucion, Viva El CNT!”
