THE last time I visited the lovely city of Bristol was for lunch with an old schoolfriend, who turned out to be an arch Tory now working for the arms trade.

It was a spectacularly brief lunch, and I haven’t been back since. But far be it from me to demonise a town, especially one described as vibrant and bustling. The tourist board says there’s an irrepressible creative zeal about the place.

There’s the Harbourside street food market, Bansky murals, and it’s been given the status of Unesco City of Film.

If all that sounds too chichi and bourgeois for words, there’s a better reason for my planned trip: the annual Bristol Radical History Festival.

Up to a thousand of us are heading to a former dockside transit shed, for a weekend celebrating the bravest and the best, activists who have spent lifetimes speaking truth to power.

The M Shed is now a social history centre and the Saturday’s venue. Sunday will be spent at the Cube microplex, which had been a gay avant-garde ’70s art centre, a secret gig venue, and an illegal gambling den.

They proudly announce that they do not serve Coca-Cola or Nescafe, and offer cut-price tickets for asylum-seekers and refugees. I am slightly in love with the place, and I haven’t been there yet.

The festival, run by Bristol Radical History Group (BRHG), on April 26 and 27, is free, and it’s not necessary to book sessions in advance.

BRHG member Rosie Wild says: “The festival keeps growing, and there’s something for everyone, whether it’s Mozambican independence, community activism in high-rise housing, or the fight for social justice.”

Fellow member Roger Ball outlines the four main themes of this year’s festival, the seventh the group has organised.

“We’re covering radical histories of housing, hidden histories of incarceration, countercultures and an Irish history ‘mash-up’ with the excellent East Wall History Group, visiting from Dublin. But it’s not just history talks — there are walks, films showings, exhibitions, a visit to the archives and stalls from more than 30 history groups, publishers and campaigns.

“The housing theme examines the 19th century socialist origins of the ‘garden suburbs’ of Bristol’s peripheral council estates, to the municipal dreams of social housing ‘fit for heroes’ and the post-war responses of high-rise living, tenant activism, self-build housing and the methods used to overcome racial discrimination.”

The first of those topics sees Paul Smith’s talk drawing on his research into the history of Hartcliffe, designed by planners in the 1940s on the garden city model, and built as a housing estate in the 1950s. His book, Hartcliffe Betrayed: the Fading of a Post-War Dream, was published by BRHG last year.

Smith grew up on the estate in the 1960s and represented it on Bristol City Council from 1988 to 1999, then returned as a councillor in 2016, serving as cabinet member on housing until 2020.

The story is a familiar one, of promises made and broken, planned facilities which never materialised, and a reduction in quality of the homes built.

Hartcliffe was six miles from the city centre, and “not on the way to anywhere,” according to the author. He describes it as “Bristol’s largest cul-de-sac — on the edge, out of sight and often out of mind.”

Roger Ball again: “The incarceration theme considers where the modern boundaries of state enforcement of forced labour and imprisonment have been transgressed in Britain.

“We also investigate ground-breaking groups such as Radical Alternatives to Prison formed in the 1970s, and recent extensions of protest laws to imprison non-violent climate activists and gag them in a similar manner to the repression of the suffragettes.”

That’s an issue sure to fuel debate, with a group of Quakers recently hauled off by the Met, and peaceful marchers arrested for supporting Palestine.

Also invited to speak at the festival are Irish comrades from Dublin’s East Wall History Group. Says Ball: “Like us, they live in a port city with a long history of Atlantic links and rebellious working-class history. Our friends from Ireland bring histories of international collaboration in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, solidarity during the UK miners’ strike, the inside story of the scandalous ‘mother and baby homes’ and during a period of the rise of the far right in Ireland, analysis and biographies of veterans in the fight against fascism.”

Padraig Durnin’s presentation will cover the truly amazing story of a three-year strike, after 11 workers at Dunnes’ Stores in Dublin refused to handle South African goods.

Mary Muldowney will talk about a grim chapter in Ireland’s history, the collusion between church and state in the republic’s notorious mother and baby homes, while Silu Pascoe will speak about the connections with Bristol’s Magdalene institution, currently being researched by local historians.

Local author Lin Clark’s subject is a name some of us know well: Bob Hilliard, renowned International Brigader, who died of wounds suffered at the bloody battle of Jarama. He’d been a journalist, Olympic boxer for Ireland and Church of Ireland priest, before becoming a communist and anti-fascist in London. He was also Clark’s grandfather.

Her book, Swift Blaze of Fire: the Life of Robert Hilliard, captures the life and times of a complex man.

Two film screenings are the only events for which people will need to buy tickets. The Watershed will show The London Recruits, the gripping documentary about young British activists secretly working for the ANC in apartheid South Africa. Ken Keable, Bevis Miller and Nick Heath will speak at the showing.

The Cube will screen Wapping: The Workers’ Story, reminding many of us of the vicious policing of picket lines in the 1986 print workers’ strike against Rupert Murdoch. There’ll be an introduction and Q&A session with Sogat (Society of Graphical and Allied Trades) activist Ann Field.

Rosie Wild again: “Putting on a two-day free festival, with speakers from all over the UK and beyond, takes thousands of hours of work. Our group is a completely unfunded, volunteer-run charitable organisation. None of the people who give up their time to make the festival happen get paid a penny, including our speakers. We do it because on the day, it’s so exciting to realise what a massive appetite there is for ‘history from below’.” About 1,000 members of the public turn up to listen to talks, explore the exhibitions, watch films and go on guided walks round the harbourside.

“People really want to hear history that reflects them and their experiences, not just narratives about powerful people doing ‘great’ things. Bristol Radical History Group is committed to uncovering the hidden corners of history and highlighting the role of ordinary people in shaping the world.

“Because, as history has shown time and again, when everyday people come together, the powerful have reason to take notice!”

This promises to be a great event, and as I was clearing my diary for the weekend in Bristol, I thought of a radical historian and personal hero, the inspirational Gwyn ‘Alf’ Williams. I saw him speak several times in Cardiff — he was a true “influencer”.

Then lo and behold, Roger Ball suggests a quote, and yes, it’s from Gwyn Alf: “Any movement which is ignorant of its own history is a prisoner of other people’s history. We can’t possibly win the future unless we keep our hands on our own past.”

The full programme is available here: brh.org.uk/site/event-series/bristol-radical-history-festival-2025.