HISTORY IS WHAT’S HAPPENING
Past
Tense is a publishing
project based in South London, exploring London radical history. Initially it
began as the work of one person, uncovering the subversive, hidden and esoteric
past around the Elephant and Castle and Southwark. As it exists now it has grown
to include several individuals, autonomously following their own historical
trails, publishing new texts and reviving old, out of print ones.
However we also work together, forming the core of the South
London Radical History Group, which has been meeting irregularly since January
2003, as an open forum, discussing historical issues, organising history walks,
inviting speakers on various topics. Our discussions have wandered across many
struggles and neighbourhoods, including gentrification in North Southwark, the
battles to preserve green spaces in South London, anti-war movements both historically
and in our own experiences, the 1983-4 occupation of the South London Women’s
Hospital, Mayday in tradition and modern times, and many more. Although we mainly
meet in South London, we aren’t bound by arbitrary borders, we've trespassed
all over London at times! Past Tense has published several pamphlets
based on the Radical History Group’s talks and walks.
While there are different interpretations of history and varying reasons for
people’s interest in the past, the Past Tense crew broadly share an activist
background; most of us have spent many years more or less involved in the numerous
struggles of the past twenty years or more. Our
interest in history is not just as an academic exercise divorced from our own
time, but as relevant to current struggles and including our own experiences.
History is often either repackaged and sanitised as ‘heritage’,
stripped of political content and brushing over conflict, rebellion and repression
with a rosy glow; or it appears academic, distant and unconnected to our every
day experience. To us the past, present and future are linked by shared experiences
of social relations and our attempts to change them. A knowledge of
the movements, ideas and events of the past can help to shape our actions in
the present and beyond...
To contact Past Tense or South London Radical History Group, email: pasttense@alphabetthreat.co.uk
Or drop us a line c/o 56a Info Shop, 56 Crampton Street, London, SE17 3AE.
Check Out Some Past Tense Texts
South London Radical History Group: Talks, Walks and more...
Down These Mean Streets: Some walks through the Big Smoke's subversive past and present.
Maps: Some hystorical maps of capital and labour