A Belated Update

It’s been a while so what is the latest news with the adaption of “Bash The Rich”? Basically I am about half way through the first draft which has already had the over seeing eye of Mr Bones approval. It has been over a year since I first spoke with Ian about adapting the book and that has been quite a journey this far, meeting up with a variety of colourful characters, and dusting off the skeletons from the cupboard.

I must give a mention to Jay Jay, whom I had a wonderful night of pints, at a pub in brixton where she filled me in on her role within the book and life back in Swansea. Jay was a character first involved in “The Alarm”, notably the flour bombing incident, then moving to London around the same time as Ian and being involved in the early issues of Class war notably “The One For The Girls”. It was fantastic to hear stories of life as a punk in swansea, dodging the beatings of narrow minded locals, as well as the squatting scene in Brixton during the early eighties. 

Since I last blogged I have also been kept busy with Ian and other former characters from the book. Firstly “Page 3″ (Ian Bone and Ray Jones) singing about the recession:

And also with John Rety:

But mainly my research has also led me to filming Ian’s very own radio show on Resonance FM called “Anarchism In the uk”. Firstly John Rety, the former editor of Freedom Newspaper, who appears in the book debating with Tariq Ali over the anti-vietnam demonstration.

On the show as well is a character I have been spending a lot of time with and who has been mentionned in this blog before, Ian’s partner in crime, Martin Wright.

And in a strange twist of fate I also ended up being interviewed talking about my previous feature films, adapting bash the rich and anarchism etc.

So what’s the plan? Well I need to get the second half of the script finish as well as the first half re-written which should be hopefully completed over the christmas period. Although the book ends in 1986 I am taking it up until the Poll Tax Riots of 1990.

Once the first draft is complete I will then get the script into funders, notably Film4 who I have already spoken to about the project, and though this may take a few months I have my fingers crossed and will keep the blog updated on it’s progress. The point of initially creating this blog was to archive the research I was digging out but I am also hoping it can chart the films full production. Whatever happens the film will get made by any means necessary. 

This has always been my approach as a filmmaker. My first feature The Plague, screening on BBC2 Monday 17th November at 01:15am (Sunday night kinda) obviously programmed for unemployed and students staying up late, pays testament to that fact. The video player of my interview on Resonance FM above explains it all really so I don’t want repeat myself. But basically in the mean time of getting Bash The Rich hopefully funded I will be making my third feature film “S.S.D.D: Same Shit Different Day”. Fed up of waiting around as usual I have decided to make my new film on absolutely no money, it will be workshopped with a small handful of actors over december, and filming happens during January 09. You can follow the whole journey on my personal blog Broke But Making Films where I will be keeping an online video diary that will show all the secrets of no-budget filmmaking from improvising with actors, shooting illegally, editing on domestic equipment to actually distributing and promoting your own film your self. That’s right, I will be attempting to put in place an independent distribution network with the independent cinemas across Britain, an infrastructure that can remain in place for other no-budget filmmakers. It seems we have all the tools to shoot and edit films for nothing but the one thing that fucks us over is the distribution. And also the methods of improvisation etc and digital technology are often kept secret forcing you to spend £60 on some pretentious book telling you how to do it. Save your money as I hope to show you all those details. So who knows, I will go at it full steam and see what happens. The plan is that off the back of “S.S.D.D” I can get “Bash The Rich” funded. Please support independent and british cinema. At the moment we have NO British Film Industry. Ultimately the distributors hold all the power. I am not interested in making “Four Weddings And Another Notting Hill” bullshit. The current climate we live in i.e. the recession, rising house, fuel and food prices, the continual growth between rich and poor – is the influencing factor as a filmmaker to feel an urgency to make “S.S.D.D: Same Shit Different Day”. To create contemporary and relevant cinema that will connect with people. Check out the progress on how to – or possibly how not to – make a feature film in Britain for no money. Thanks to Ian Shepherd for already supporting.

And this new lease of energy and enthusiasm? Well it must come down to spending all this time with a certain elderly gentleman…

Bristol, Swansea & meeting Jan Green

“She fucked the rich to redistribute their wealth – mainly to herself, but then, for sure, osmotically to her comrades by way of drinks, food, or dossing rights in her Ladbroke Grove flat.” (Extract from Anarchist by Ian Bone). 

A two day mission is planned as I get the train from Paddington station. Im to travel up to Bristol meeting Ian and former Class War comrades, stay the night, then head over to Swansea for the day to meet old members of Page 3 but most importantly a woman I had long been waiting to speak to. Early on in my chats with Ian over the character breakdown of the book it became clear that for legal reasons a certain person had been separated into various characters – and it is her story that weaves a thread throughout Ian’s life – she is the financier of Class War, the Alarm local council election candidate, Stonehenge Kate, Cynthia Payne’s girl and Page 3’s Jelly Baby dispenser. As a writer it’s like discovering the vital missing piece to a puzzle. A moment of clarity as a new main character steps to the fore. My imagination runs wild. I discover she has also been captured by the writer Daniel Lux, under the character name of Cleo in the novel Camden Parasites:        

“I heard she’d cleaned her act up, worked earning money at her profession, the oldest one around. Cleo was small or, as they say in the trade, petite, with a rather prominent conk, making her look like something out of a Tolkien fantasy.” (Camden Parasites extract).

In my mind she has been elevated to near mythic proportions. The life she has lived. The tales she could tell. I pensively mull it all over as the train rattles along the tracks towards Temple Mead Station. I am on my way to finally meet Jan Green.

But first off I am met by Ian at the station and we head to a pub to meet a local and longtime Bristol Class Warrior. Stories start pouring out about the violent times of the eighties, the daily conflicts between the State and the people, and the spontaneous and sometimes organised direct actions to fight back. Tales of entire housing estates being flooded by riot police, local people taking to the streets and defending the front lines of their communities. It’s an eye opening conversation that gives me a fresh perspective on the period of the book, gaining a wider understanding of the confrontational and violent times of Thatchers Britain and the very real sense of class war. It was more than just a catchy title. It was everyday life. The Tory Oligarch versus the “lumpen” masses. The riot to work.

After the pub I am treated to a delightful dinner cooked by a former character instrumental in Ian’s life and Class War. My previous conversation covering mass actions is now contrasted with a more in depth enlightenment of the character make up and conflicts of the founding london Class War mob. The diversity of colourful characters easily sparks a sense of anecdotal humour but it is also great to get a clearer understanding of the very real and ‘human’ relationships that were playing out amongst people. I sleep well with a feeling of beginning to grasp a grounding within the story I’m wanting to tell. It’s an early morning and a big day tomorrow.       

The train pulls into Swansea while Ian reflects back on the changing landscape since his first arrival as a university student in the sixties. We walk into town, swanning pass The Griffin bar as though we were Junkie Ginge and Kustard re-incarnate though minus the poncho’s and bump into a former friend Howard who shares a coffee with us. He reminisces about the Swansea that was. A rough and tough town. A time prior to cctv and security tags. It’s like the lawless wild west but with a shopping centre and fast food dependency. Howard tells us stories of shop lifting with Viv Cory and Ray Jones, who is pictured above with Ian singing in the band Page 3. I am painted a vivid picture of the thriving criminal underbelly that made up the fabric of working class existence during the 1970’s.   

I make my way with Ian to a tucked away pub which seems to be a favourite for heavy metal fans but at this time of the morning only a handful of locals quietly sip pints as the bar staff cleans up. A Page 3 reunion is planned as we are met by Glenn Evans a.k.a Dr. Richard Normal the former bass player from the band. Glenn also use to play with Venom and his brother Greg, who joined us, played with Autonomes so between them they had a fair knowledge of the Swansea punk scene. Despite the fact that Glenn was apologising for not being able to remember much about his time in Page 3, which to me tells me everything about the very nature of the band, he does run an excellent website and archive called Swansea Punk.      

Next to arrive was Jock “Negative” McVeigh the character in the book who was reported dead as a publicity stunt for the band in which Jock was the “exotic dancer”. Ian’s description of Jock as a “lovable, tattooed, gay proletarian Swansea ne’r do well” is very accurate. To describe Jock would come nowhere near doing him justice – he is a colourful and spellbinding character that is larger than life – I am sure that when people see him translated into the film they will say “People like that don’t exist in real life”. I assure you he does. I have met him. He truly does deserve the moniker of “living legend” that follows him in the town of Swansea.  

Finally the moment I had been nervously waiting for. Enter Jan Green. Petit as Daniel Lux had described, frail from health issues and walking with the aid of a crutch, but still a firery, passionate and wild woman. It’s good to see time doesn’t change all things. Her hatred for social workers remains relentless and she is still a massive fan of 2000AD comics as originally displayed in the Class War “One From The Girls” issue at the top of the post. 

As Ian and Jan recollect on old stories it becomes very apparent how their lives have been inter woven over the years. The thread of mystery around Jan Green unravels, the woman who within the book appears as a number of characters, now acquiesces for her role in the story to be represented. She even jokes that one day she will write her own auto-biography. My imagination races with the idea of her life tales. To say the woman has seen a lot would be an understatement. The photo below from the Kensington “Bash The Rich” March (11th May 1984), was only recently discovered by Phil Gard when rummaging through his archives, and shows Jan Green smiling directly at camera – dead centre of the photograph below bottom right hand corner of the banner.    

While “Bash The Rich” is the auto-biography of Ian Bone it would be nothing without the characters that cross paths with our protagonist. And the past few days have made that obviously clear as I mull it all over on the long train journey back to London. The role of Jan Green within the events that the book covers is paramount and I am happy to be able to make her involvement more evident. I begin to feel that I am getting to grips with the main characters from the book – having spent much time with Ian, Ray Jones, Martin Wright and now Jan Green – I just hope I can capture an honest essence of their characters and a fair representation of their stories as I continue adapting from the book into a script.

“…another Class War supporting working girl with a flat in Paddington had as a punter an aristocratic Scottish Lord who liked to be abused while he was whipped. ‘You rich fucking bastard!’ she screamed as his blood flecked buttocks turned beetroot. ‘You rich fucking scumbag!’ He always gave her a big tip. ‘Sounds like you really mean it’ he used to say. She donated the fees to Class War and if the Scottish Lord had ever looked under her bed he’d have discovered the Class War banners she was sewing in the dead time between punters.” (Extract from Bash The Rich)

The image above is a very rare political zine created by Jan Green from Swansea during the 1980’s.  

Crass, Conway Hall & Mr. Lux

“The scene was set for the battle to move the Crass anarcho-punks away from pacifism to violent street rioting.” (Bash The Rich extract).

While trawling the Kill Your Pet Puppy website I came across archive images of the Crass statement denouncing the anti-fascist violence against bullying right wing skinheads in Conway Hall 1979 which is mentioned as a pivotal occurrence of the London punk/ anarchist scene by Ian in Bash The Rich. It has been a great joy writing this scene and I have been relying heavily on the book “Anti-Fascist” by Martin Lux in portraying the event.

Penny Rimbaud denounced the anarchist confrontation against the British Movement skinheads as fascist: “It is not the National Front or the British Movement that represents the right-wing threat.” (Last Of The Hippies extract) whereas Martin Lux saw it very differently: “I suppose in my heart of hearts the reaction following the Conway Hall bloodbath didn’t really surprise me, although I was taken aback for a while. After years of abuse, insults and cold shouldering from many in the anarcho scene, it came as no great shock. Even so, it infuriated me. The group Crass and their support band The Poison Girls, issued weighty statements. There were shock horror reports of the carnage in the Guardian and Time Out. The BM Nazis were treated as sacrificial lambs, despite them outnumbering us over two to one. We and our friends from the left were ‘Red Fascists’, a ‘Football Gang’, ‘their leaders appeared to be Scots’, even in the supposedly liberal press of the day a by-word for ‘nutter’. Such parochialism – even the Nazis would blush. The odium was heaped on me and others, but I withstood it with the usual fortitude, a couple of minor outbursts aside. After all, my critics would soon disappear into the halls of academia, respectability, the Labour Party, the media and property-owning classes. Fuck ‘em.” (Anti-Fascist extract).

George Berger’s “The Story Of Crass” also offers an alternative to the Crass view on pacifism and violence during the changing period of Thatchers late seventies into the early eighties: “The punk squatters saw the reaction of Crass to the Conway Hall incident as a clear case of Crass being out in Epping and out of touch with their everyday lives in London. Some I’ve spoken to are incensed that Crass could even think this, given how heavy the violence was at the time. An example – ‘Penny Rimbaud… what a wanker. He probably thinks broomsticks shoved into unwilling anal cavities are wizard pranks much like what he use to get up to in public school, whato’”. (The Story Of Crass extract).     

Junkie Ginge spotted

“Junkie Ginge said we should organise a march from the Griffin one Saturday to the cop shop round the corner – no particular reason. When we got there he put on a tin helmet with an anti-slug smoke pellet on top, walked into the police station reception lit the pellet and started dancing about wildly as the flare exuded choking orange smoke. We ran to the pavement opposite as he exited the cop shop pursued by gasping red-faced Keystone Cops. Those were the days, my friend.” (Bash The Rich extract)

Rare footage has appeared of Junkie Ginge, the character from the Swansea late 1960’s part of the book, on a BBC Newsnight programme in rare archive footage of the 1968 anti-vietnam protest. Watch it HERE. 

He can be spotted briefly at the end of the video. Question is – Where is he now?

1968 And All That

A sunny Saturday 10th May over at Conway Hall (Red Lion Square) for “1968 And All That” a conference and book fair “to celebrate the hopes and dreams of May 1968 – forty years after” where Ian was doing a talk on his student days in Swansea. He was joined by Martin Wright, the video is below, and it was filled with humour and scathing class hatred to a packed room.

When I first read the book one of the main points that stuck out for me was the period around 1968 – firstly the comedy of student life as an anarchist in Swansea (Burning mushroom below!) – but secondly and most importantly the impact the Vietnam war and it’s opposition had on radicalising Ian and countless others of the sixties generation. I found the most poignant point to be the anti-war demo of October 1968 where the traditional left decided to hold a talk in Hyde Park while others scuffled with the police in Grosvenor Square trying to get to the American Embassy – a clear split in tactics to stop the continuation of an unjust war which as the book states seems to have echoed into the passivity of the current “Stop The War Coalition” and the opposition to the Iraq War. What attracted me to interpreting the book into a film is the prospect that I can convey – through an entertaining comedy – a sense of 30 odd years of radical british history through the eyes of Ian Bone to a contemporary audience.

The event at Conway Hall was a highly entertaining day, pints of bitter flowed in the blazing sunshine, and I got to meet some old characters from the book. It was like a “who’s who” with Ian, Martin, Phil the Printer, Young Chris, Ray Jones, Dave Douglas and Ian Slaughter. I was pleased to get the chance to meet Dave Douglas and talk about the Miners Strikes of 1984. Also meeting Ian Slaughter, a character who I had been hoping to come in contact with, and we had a great chat about the culture of zines in the late 70’s / early 80’s. I hope to catch up with them both properly in the near future. As usual the drunken day had many highlights – the heckling of Lindsey German and the Stop The War Coalition being one – but once again the performance of a NEW Page Three song “You’re All A Bunch Of Cunts” was the cherry on top for me. Ray Jones you are a fucking legend!

Phil The Printer

A rainy afternoon myself and Martin Wright walk pass the Broadwater Farm Estate as Martin begins recalling memories of the political climate around the time of PC Blakelocks murder as we make our way to Phil The Printers.

Both Ian and Martin describe the role of the printing press as the “aristocracy of the working class” and they also speak highly of the need to meet Phil to grasp a better understanding of the 1980’s and Class War. Within the book Phil plays a pivotal character in the creation and realisation of the newspaper and his archives pay testament to that fact. To the back drop of reggae music Phil tells me stories of Calverts Press while taking me through stacks of old political zines, photographs and flyers evoking memories in Martin as a wide grin beams with fond thoughts.

Some of those gems included the original Class War stickers created by Sean Mason (above) and the “Vermin In Ermine” flyer (below) which was handed out at the march on Biorex, bombing badly due to “speciesism”.

The archive of treasures is immense and a return visit is planned. This time I get to see old photographs of most of the key people mentioned in the book – which is a massive inspiration in being able to formulate the characters in my mind as I write the first draft of the script. Phil’s input into my research is priceless.

Having seen the development of Class War from it’s original paper and founding mob transforming into a federation and later organisation over a decade of social disorder, Phil has a wide and paramount perspective of the subject and period. His collection of Class War newspapers is an impressive archive and much needed source of research for the film and no doubt I will spend more time discovering gems in his dusty vaults. And which is Phil’s favourite issue? See below:

Ron The Builder

The morning after the Page 3 night at Cargo, I travel over the river to south london, with a mighty hangover made worse by a blazing sunshine I find my way to a building site in Brixton to meet up with Ron The Builder.

I originally had met Ron for pints one evening where he shared many stories on his involvement and reflections on Class War. Again we met at the dismal “Stop The War Coalition” 5th Anniversary (?!?) where Ron and many others heckled the speakers due to their passivity in not supporting direct action to stop the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ron passionately burst the bubble of pomposity out of his arch nemesis George Galloway! Having shared in our mutual joy of pints and roll ups a number of times, Ron tells me the story of his wedding, the chapter that is missing from the “Bash The Rich” book when he first met Ian.

I will let him tell it in his own words in this video.

Leaving the building site we walk together through Brixton, Ron takes me through a brief history of the development and gentrification of the area, filling me in with stories of how it was in the 1980’s. Stories of squats, riots, pubs and Crowbar magazine – a South London zine similar in fashion to the Class War paper.

After eating jerk chicken we have a pint at a local pub where we bump into Phil Thomas who tells me about his sister JayJay, Swansea, The Alarm and Class War. Ron’s recollections and input really help me understand a clearer picture of  life in Thatchers 1980’s and his passionate zeal still fights on. He can often be found at Speakers Corner and if you need a wall plastered then he’s your man.

Page 3 Legends Living on.

Thursday night and I make my way through the trendy surroundings of Shoreditch, over to Cargo for Tangent Books launch of Banksy’s “Home Sweet Home”, the very last place you would expect to find Ray “Roughler” Jones and Ian Bone. The two old boys are sat around a table discussing tales from the Swansea days, Ray seems to be breaking into a sweat, obviously withdrawal symptoms as he’s away from his usual west london haunts in Portobello. Ian surveys the crowd pensively, keeping an eye out for a Daily Mirror journalist, supposedly he has been in email contact and has spun them the lie that he is in fact Banksy. The idea makes me smile. Ian out at night with spray paints and stencils scaling a wall. Genius.

The venue starts packing out with the usual milieu of East London fashionistas and try hards. Grafitti artists are daubing the walls as the DJ plays records. And on the line up tonight, after a 28 year hiatus, Ian and Ray are back together as PAGE 3 to perform “Fuck Off Gordon Brown” and “John Bindon”. After a brief moment of worry when Ray goes missing (he went to the bookies and got lost!) – the two of them are on. The crowd is initially confused, this isn’t the kind of music they expect around here, but after a while the catchy rhythms of PAGE 3 become infectious. Well it’s not too difficult really as Ian tells me he writes all his songs to either “Knees Up Mother Brown” or “My Old Mans A Dustman”. The evening goes well, a packed night for the launch of Tangents new book (Which looks great!), and the video above is our impromptu performance of “John Bindon” featuring Ian and Ray, myself at the back (half cut by this point due to the wristband I was given that entitled me to free pints) next to the wonderful Jane Nicholls and two other women (Their names escape me now) but they are the new recruits to the Page 3 backing group. Also featured is Piers Thompson (One half of the “Portobello Laurel & Hardy” double act with Ray), who shot it by propping the camera up, from the excellent Roughler TV.

The image above are original lyrics from the old PAGE 3 days. For those who haven’t read the book the band were taken to court by The Sun newspaper over copyright infringement and we expected the gig at Cargo to be stormed by a Court injunction at any time. Though thankfully it never materialised. Part of my research has involved getting the original lyrics off Ian for the script and for your pleasure I include a section of “Tory Funerals” in memory of the recently deceased Doc Whelan:

“I couldn’t care less, I couldn’t give a toss,
At the sudden death of a factory boss,
The ruling class are really hated,
All I want is them cremated! Conservative Ministers or Tory MPs,
There’s one sure way for them to please,
They call me a bastard, call me a red,
In return just drop dead!
Tory Funerals, Tory Funerals,
I want more of Tory Funerals, Tory Funerals, Tory Funerals,
I want more of Tory Funerals.”

This image above is again courtesy of Young Chris Lows archives (More stuff to follow!). Original flyers from the Living Legends (The band that PAGE 3 became) gigs which pay a very close resemblance to the original Class War papers – I guess Ian just loves to get a Lucy Parsons quote in where ever possible.

Above is the artwork to the Living Legends single “The Pope Is A Dope/Dum Dum Bullets For A Dumb Dumb Dummy” featuring the controversial image of the Pope in cross hairs.

Ray Jones tells me he is off to Swansea to record some of the old songs and excited over the fact that PAGE 3 are back together. He is already trying to get me to book them for the premiere. Let me get the first draft nailed first. We also plan a trip to Swansea very soon to meet up with some of the key characters from the book.

The rest of my night is a drunken haze over in a pub in Whitechapel with Martin Wright and good friends. I wake up the next morning with flashbacks of me trying to get the other drinkers to sing “My Old Mans A Dustman” even though I couldn’t remember any of the lyrics and memories of Martin singing an old Irish folk song as a duet. The research so far has been going really well. The question is will my liver sustain this abuse?

Young Chris and The Archives

A drizzling night over in Archway and I meet the lively and enthusiastic Chris Lowe. The character in “Bash The Rich” who pops up as the 14 year old drummer of The Apostles and writer of the theoretical Class War paper “Angry”. Chris presents me with a scrapbook deep of newspaper cuttings, stacks of copies of the original Class War magazines, and a bundle of other punk and anarchist zines from the early eighties.

Amongst these many gems include the original copy of “Fuck Off”, the magazine that preceded “Class War”, which displays many of the same outspoken and confrontational characteristics.

Also featured below is a copy of Richard Parry’s “Logo”, the magazine mentioned in Ian’s book that ripped the piss out of Class War in an article entitled “The Alcoholic Road To Anarchism” as well as ripping the piss out of the rest of the Anarchist scene. Everyone was up in arms over it except the members of Class War who defended it. Alongside it is Ian Slaughters zine “Pigs For Slaughter”.

The most exciting part of my current research is immersing myself in the zines and countercultures of the late seventies / early eighties. The language and design of the underground press and D.I.Y zines is really influential. While the film will be the story of Ian’s life told through his eyes it will also be heavily driven by the political and cultural context of the period it is set, so it is great to flick through old paper cuttings, copies and peeling pamphlets collected by Chris over the course of fifteen years. For a more thorough collection of “punk” stuff check out Kill Your Pet Puppy.

Archiving documents from the time of the books setting is a major source of inspiration in able to get to grips with the script and its backgrounds. The images above are from the London Anarchist Youth Group (On left) and the London Workers Group (Right) both of which feature heavily in the book.

As well as the bundle of research Chris also gave me a dvd of treats including archive footage of the Class War conference in 1985, during the books setting, with the main figures reflecting back on Henley, Bash The Rich, Miners Strikes, Inner City Riots and the continuing Thatcher Tory Government. The above clip is the infamous hypothermia speech by Ian, as referred to in the book, at the Class War conference 1985. Chris jokes that Ben Elton must have seen Ian and ripped off his “anarchic” style of delivery. But unlike Ian, Ben Elton is a complete fucking sell out.

This clip above, again from the 1985 conference, is archive footage of one of the leading characters Martin Wright talking about the future of Britain, class struggle and an Anarchist revolution. Being able to see this footage is fascinating when trying to create a film that is based around real people and real events – although I am not making a strict bio-pic – it is great to get a taste of the characters persona’s.

This clip above is the final section from the 1985 conference with both Ian and Martin Wright talking about the Class make up of Class War, the writing and approach of the paper and building a wider movement while trying to break out of the Anarchist ghetto.

Having put a fair few beers away, Chris shares stories about the fun times at Martin Wrights old place in Duncan Terrace as a rebellious youth, which could make there own film. Having spent more and more time with Martin, walking the back streets of north London and reliving the old routes he use to walk as a road sweeper, I get a great understanding of Ian and Martins friendship. Both sharp, well read, witty, passionate and down to earth. Two men that would never compromise an inch of their integrity. And both great rabble rouser’s. This final clip is after the setting of the film/book, from 1998 and the Movement Against The Monarchy, it just goes to show that whenever Ian and Martin are together a rebellious mob is always close behind and trouble never too far away.

Back To Bashing The Rich

Having just moved down to London, Ian is back out on the streets of Portobello with an unruly mob trying to make it to David Camerons house. In the meantime I have broken down every chapter of the book onto cue cards and made a very long character list. We sit down after food and chat over all the people, their characteristics, their pasts and present.

Last I had heard of Martin Wright prior to going up to Manchester in 2006 was that he was very very ill. A blood clot on the lung. I had expected the worst. So was very pleased to meet up with him, looking in fine health and good spirits at our old haunt of the LARC library. We chat over his recollections of his Class War days and the general political climate of the 1970’s to the 1980’s. I meet with Martin regularly. At the Boo-A-Bobby event and round his flat to talk more about the characters in Ians book and his recollections of Class War. Like Ian, Martin is still very much filled with passion and political venom, yet is modest and realistic about the past and present. The cosh wielding maniac is articulate, humble and truly entertaining. A proper working class hero. Having recommended a few books for me to read, to get an understanding of the decade that spawned Class War, one particularly sticks out with it’s vivid and striking first hand account of fighting the national front from 1970s to 1980s, “Anti-Fascist” by Martin Lux (A former comrade of Martin and Ian’s). Covering a decade of rising right wing sentiments on a street level that would find themselves echoed through the reign of Thatcher and also “the lefts” reaction to defeating the fascists – the classic pacifism/violence debate – sentiments that were to come to the fore of the 1980’s and mark the birth of Class War and the confrontational class anger that surrounded it.

I begin to get in touch with more of the old Class Warriors. Firstly meeting with Ron The Builder and we put away a fair few pints, again at The Chandros, as he fills me in on the story of Martha’s wedding. He is excited at the prospect of cameoing and wants to play a copper. Brilliant. Next up to meet properly with is Phil Gard the printer and Chris Low the angry fourteen year old. I must also get in touch with Ian Slaughter!

A story appears in The Independent over Christmas about me acquiring the film rights. Trust the old Bone. Still got plenty of life in him. And more some. Cracking article on Page 14!!

From the cue cards I move into putting each scene down into a rough script format so I have something to work with. Then I can iron out the narrative and get a first draft nailed. In the meantime I have been waiting anxiously to hear if my other film “Dark Night Of The Soul” is going to shoot this summer. I’m itching to be filming. And desperate for employment. Need to channel my frustrations. Starting to get into the mood for writing “Bash The Rich”. It is epic. Yet exciting. And completley different to anything else I have made. A full out comedy.

And to help those writing juices flow I meet up again with the man who kick started it all into action. Ray Jones. The character in the book who links Swansea with London. A key figure. And funny fucker. Ian phones telling me that a new film is out called The Bank Job mentionning John Bindon so the three of us spring into action. The famous welsh punk band Page 3 is reformed – Ray “Roughler” Jones and Ian “Class War” Bone reunite to sing “John Bindon” a song dedicated to his party trick of balancing five pints on his cock!?! So we film it on the fly in Ladbroke Grove. The double act is faultless. And it is great seeing them together – helps formulate the characters in my own mind by seeing the real characters in the living flesh. All coming together nicely I think.