by Lewis MacLean. Immigration is a contentious issue for some and wishy-washy for others. In reality, things never change for the refugees themselves. After years of the press reporting on desperate immigrants losing their lives when attempting to cross the Mediterranean, the English Channel is now the focus. The...
Features
Southampton’s Speakers’ Corner
by Martin Brisland. Did you know that Southampton has its own Speakers’ Corner? It is located in Hoglands Park, the second largest of our Central Parks. Situated near the former Debenhams store it is complete with dias and railings. Today people use social media to voice their opinions. The...
Facing fines and deregistering children – not all parents agree that schools are ‘covid safe’
by Sally Churchward. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that every child should be in school. But many parents are choosing to face fines by keeping their children at home or deregistering them. Could the government’s hardline approach to getting children back to school backfire, with parents being...
Southampton’s new online music archive
by Geoff Wall. Stick It In Your Ear (SIIYE) has just launched an online archive of local music originally recorded on originally recorded on reel to reel tapes and published on cassette in the 1980s. Southampton-based SIIYE started life in the 1980s as a magazine, rather like a catalogue,...
From The Beatles to War Horse: Southampton’s Mayflower theatre has been at the heart of entertainment in the south for more than 90 years
by Martin Brisland. Did you know that the Mayflower, built in 1928, has one of the largest auditoriums in England with more than 2,300 seats and used to have a tea garden on the roof! In the late 1920s the Moss Empire theatre group built six 2,000 seater venues,...
Matchgirl strikes: women unite and fight
by Martin Brisland. Main image copyright TUC Archives, used with permission. The female sewing machinists’ strike of 1968 at the Ford Dagenham plant resulted in the passing of the Equal Pay Act 1970. Their story was told in the 2010 film Made in Dagenham. Eighty years before, in London’s...
Brave New Southampton: Wyndham Court, modern architecture & the municipal socialist city
by Owen Hatherley. This essay was originally written as a lecture to accompany Southampton photographer Rachel Adams’ exhibition Life Is Brutalist: a portrait of Wyndham Court, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the city’s landmark building. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the planned physical exhibition had to be called off, but...
Photos: reflecting on the end of shielding
Pictures and words by Mike Daish. Shielding has been paused so I am now gearing up to return to my normal job which is working a local shop. After four months spent mainly at home and having been on my own for much of that time, it will be...
Opinion: Industrial Workers of the World uniting in Southampton
by Nathan Brown and Pete Hayward. Activists from the Industrial Workers of the World union (IWW) are seeking to launch a Southampton branch. Currently they come under the auspices of the Reading branch, but as local members have started meeting and organising, they are going to go through the...
Photos: the little things
by Mike Daish. I often hear the phrase, it’s the little things that matter most and I tend to agree. Since being able to get outside, with the easing of lockdown, and enjoy the local countryside again I have loved watching all the little things I have missed so...