Towards the end of last year I chipped into a crowdfunder for Until the Last Oak Falls a photography book by Adrian Fisk (avaliable to buy here).
The book was recently published, and is a fascinating document exploring the British anti-road protests of the mid to late 1990s.
Until the Last Oak Falls is led by Fisk’s photos, as well as equally fascinating ephemera including posters, flyers and publications generated by the anti-road building activists and the wider Reclaim the Streets Movement. It is studded with snatches of text, which bring in the memories of activists, as well as providing a sense of where the protests came from, what they meant in the context of 1990s Britain and what their long term import has been.
Arranged chronologically from early 1995’s Shenworth Valley Protest against the M65 extension in eastern Lancashire, through to the Carnival Against Capitalism in June 1999, it documents the story of opposition to the John Major Government’s road building programme from start to finish.
Fisk attended and documented these actions at length as well as the iconic Newbury Bypass Protest, the action against the M11 Extension in East London and countless other protests.
In his photographs he captures the determination, privations, as well as the sense of community forged between often very young activists. Their willingness to spend months camped in the woods, slowing the progress of the chainsaw gangs and bulldozers, their actions seemingly futile, but steadily piling up the costs for the transport ministry, local government and their contractors, undermining the economic rationale for the projects.
Ultimately the protestor’s tripods, treehouses, tunnels and lock-ons did not save the woodlands they occupied. However, they did lead to the ultimate scaling back of the road building programme which was loudly cancelled, and partly apologised for in the run-up to the 1997 General Election.
Whilst the anti-road protests were not hugely popular with the general public it is hard to argue that they did not lead to a general raising of environmental consciousness in the UK at a time when the issue of climate change and conservation was relatively low on the radar. Likewise, whilst soaring inequality, failing public services, open corruption, utter disconnection from the zeitgeist and many, many other failings were what ultimately doomed the 1979-1997 Tory Government, no doubt the road protests added to a general sense of disarray, crisis and dissent which ultimately swept the post-Thatcher Conservative Party from power. Critical signs of descent and countercultural challenge at a time when the UK was supposedly living through a long period of affluence “at the end of history” between the early 1990s recession, 9/11 and the 2007-8 Financial Crisis.
The other fascinating series of protests documented in Until the Last Oak Falls is the Reclaim the Streets movement. Emerging in parallel and sympathetic with the road protests which mostly took place in rural areas across the UK, Reclaim the Streets took the struggle against climate change, urban degradation and all of the social problems created by giving over cities to the car, into the heart of London and other cities.
Like the road protests there was a heavily performative element to Reclaim the Streets. Activists occupied road intersections and major thoroughfares in urban areas, literally reclaiming them as spaces for performance and sociability, rather than unpleasant places most people zoomed or crawled through in metal boxes trying to get somewhere else as quickly as possible.
These protests were something fairly new to the UK. All good protests have something of the carnivalesque about them, however, Reclaim the Streets brought a creative strand, recalling continental Europe’s traditions of autonomism and other libertarian left protest traditions. The idea being to show the public what allowing the car to dominate Britain’s towns and cities, holding the urban realm in a deadly vice, meant that they were missing out on.
It is inarguable that both the anti-road building movement and Reclaim the Streets drew energy from rave culture and other late 1980s and early 1990s countercultural movements. With a somewhat crustier ecological edge, Fisk’s photographs clearly document raver’s transforming into environmental protesters. The timing of the emergence of the anti-road building movement in early 1995 is perhaps instructive here as it was shortly after the provisions of the 1994 Criminal Justice Bill which criminalised aspects of the new age traveller and more politicised rave culture’s lifestyle. Doubtless many adherents to the style, drop-outs and countercultural heads who had been drawn to rave and played a part in it were looking for a new outlet, a new cause to flock to.
This said, it clear from the number of older people captured at protests in Fisk’s protests, as well as the importance (incredibly symbolic) for Reclaim the Streets of children at play, that a far wider demographic sweep of concerned campaigners were attracted to the anti-roads movement than had been the case for rave culture which was primarily a phenomenon of older teenagers and younger adults. This crossover appeal and evident solidarity is testimony to the fact that the anti-road protests appealed to concerned conservationists, public and active travel activists as well as seasoned climate campaigners. In one sequence of photographs Fisk documents the – rightly controversial – David Bellamy (former BBC broadcaster and ultra right-wing conservation activist) addressing protestors at the Newbury Bypass Protest. Evidence of the support from unlikely quarters which meant that – unlike rave and free party activists in the late 1980s and early 1990s – the mid to late 1990s anti road protests did achieve partial fulfilment of their demands.
From the standpoint of the early 2020s the photographs present a world which seems both near in time and far away. This is not just in terms of the fact that the campaign against greenhouse gases, for greater sustainability, against car centric culture and capitalism is still being waged. It is also in documentation of Britain on the cusp of the new millennium, a society much like contemporary Britain but different. This is partially because the pendulum of fashion has swung back towards many of the colours, brands and stylings favoured by those in photographs. Whilst the differences are obvious in the occasional pictures of bystanders with very large mobile phones and protestors and security guards alike co-ordinating by walkie-talkie.
That the photographs were made during another technological age is evident in the pictures of ephemera from the protests presented alongside Fisk’s work. This includes meticulously hand written and drawn instruction leaflets explaining how to make your own “tripod” to physically impede the progress of road workers, flyers bearing the details of national information hotlines and PO boxes, and my personal favourite a handwritten note advising Fisk that he had been added to the Newbury Bypass protests weekly newsletter list distributed by fax “… Probably at really antisocial hours (sorry)”. These materials alongside the photographs themselves present a rich sense of the world of creative production, maintaining supporter communications, and mutual aid which surrounded the protest movements.
The final protest in the book is June 1999’s Carnival Against Capitalism. A protest naturally extends the anti-road building and Reclaim the Street’s message to the heart of the capitalist system which drives the demand for fossil fuel extraction and consumption and increased road traffic alike. No protest movement lasts forever, they are naturally changeable things, adapting to challenge the system they object to and seek to challenge and destroy. It is clear to see the lineage of the mid to late 1990s anti-road building protests and Reclaim the Streets in British protest movements in the years to follow. From the anti-Iraq War protests, to Palestine Solidarity Action, the constant steady beat of opposition to fossil fuel use, greenwashing and unnecessary infrastructure projects, as well as the UK Uncut and other anti-austerity and anti-capitalist protests since 2007-8. The essay contributions to Until the Last Oak Falls rightly sees Extinction Rebellion and their tactics as direct descendants of the anti road building protests and Reclaim the Streets alike.
Until the Last Oak Falls is a vital documentary exploration of a key, and ultimately fairly successful moment when sections of the UK population challenged their government, challenged the logic of environmental degradation and the capitalist system as a whole. A brilliant resource for those interested in this historic moment, counterculture and resistance in the 1990s, and people engaged in activism in the 2020s alike.
Until the Last Oak Falls can be purchased here. It’s RRP is £38.00
Featured image is a promotional photograph of the cover of Until the Last Oak Falls. A rights reserved.