BOMB CULTURE AT 50

THE GENERALIST has written at some length already on Jeff Nuttall and his seminal book 'Bomb Culture'.

Jeff was one of he first artists I ever met back in 1969 when he came to Worthing Art college and read from his novel 'Pig'. Back in the 1980s I interviewed him at the Chelsea Arts Club.

Links to Previous Posts:

Celebrating Jeff Nutall

Jeff Nuttall 2: Bomb Culture

ED BARBER TRIBUTE / JEFF NUTTALL / BOMB CULTURE / PEACE SIGNS

Jeff Nutall: Bomb Culture and Beyond

Happily Strange Attractor Press have recently republished 'Bomb Culture' on its 50th anniversary, using the artwork that was used in the original hardback edition published by MacGibbon & Kee in 1968. [See below].

'Bomb Culture' was published in paperback in 1970 by Paladin, a highly rated imprint that published many seminal works including books by Timothy Leary, Richard Neville and John Michell amongst many others.

The new edition is really worth getting hold of. The original text was rather sloppily edited and had no proper references for the multitude of quotes Nutall used in this powerful polemical broadside of a book.

The two updaters/editors are Douglas Field and Jay Jeff Jones who've done a terrific job at correcting and sourcing everything and have provided a valuable introduction about the ins and outs of the book's publishing history. and a glossary full of useful biographical information on numerous underground figures who are not well documented these days.

 Iain Sinclair stylish and inciteful opening foreword entitled Knees Up Among The Ruins wets the palate for the main event. Maria Fusco's sharp short end piece entitled 'Almost But Not Quite Unreadable' finishes things on just the right note

Once again Strange Attractor have produced a high quality edition.

To create 'Bomb Culture' Nuttall mashed together material from his previously published short run mimeographed 'My Own Mag'. He shifts style and subject in fast-paced prose  which dramatically captures the spirit of those days. If you want to get a real feel of the edginess of those times this is one of the great acts of  reportage mixed in with rants that are punchy and poetic, brassy and bold, shouty and politically incorrect. Wake up. They're exploding nuclear bombs in the atmosphere. The anti-nuclear movement in Britain, fronted by CND, was culturally hugely important during those times; at present, that movement seem to have almost completely disappeared.

This book has energy and urgency to spare. We would do well to pay attention to its coverage and analysis of the Underground as it is was then, to provide valuable creative tips for the next wave of outsider, indie, alternative activists that are starting to make their voices heard.

A small Bomb Culture exhibition in the Flat Time House in South London, the former home of artist John Latham, [See: flattimeho.org.uk] ran for a short period at the end of last year. The Generalist Archive was pleased to be able to lend an original CND Aldermaston song book and a set of additional lyrics for display there. My interview with Jeff was also available for visitors to listen to.

ED BARBER TRIBUTE / JEFF NUTTALL / BOMB CULTURE / PEACE SIGNS

Synchronicity rules. This black and white photo by Gordon Lawrie emerged on Facebook last Saturday. There I am stage left, aged 30 with wife and tiny second son (in his first months on earth) at a Peace March in Steyning, Sussex in 1981. Like hundreds of thousands of others in those tense days after Reagan announced he was to site cruise misiles with three-minute reaction times across the European landscape to deter the Russians, we marched to indicate our opposition. Nuclear war seemed possible, even likely.

Later that same Saturday, a mutual friend told me that Ed Barber had died back in January 2017. Ed was a friend and colleague during those 1980s days and we worked together on several assignments.in connection with a series of interviews I was doing for Time Out magazine on 'Bomb Culture Revisited', culminating with an interview with Jeff Nuttall, author of the book 'Bomb Culture' first published in the 1960s. 

Myself, Ed and all his kit, were crammed into the small bedsit that was dubbed 'The Hancock Room' at the Chelsea Arts Club in London. The room was hot, the interview was tough and we sat in the car afterwards in the damp and cold, smoking and snacking, breathing sighs of relief.  See full story in Previous Post: Jeff Nuttall Bomb Culture and Beyond.

Ed was a great guy to be work with, A stone cold no-nonsense professional with a big heart and a lot of chatter. We spent many happy hours slagging off editors and publishers who wouldn't allow us to do what we wanted.

During those years, Ed remained busy documenting the Peace Movement, creating an important archive memory of those scary days, wonderful pics that have been shown and celebrated in at least two major photographic exhibitions, a valuable contribution to the People's History and a tribute to his dogged courage and persistence.

Edward Barber obituary by Sean O'Hagen

The Guardian [23.2.2017]

Photographer best known for his five-year-long project on the British anti-nuclear protest movement of the early 1980s

IN FOND MEMORY OF EDWARD BARBER, PHOTOGRAPHER AND FRIEND. 1949 – 2017

Obituary by Stewart Drew/ https://www.dlwp.com/edward-barber/

Obituary by Peter Kennard in the British Journal of Photography

http://www.bjp-online.com/2017/02/barberobit/

Images of the anti-nuclear protest movement in 1980s Britain

BY: CHRIS WAYWELL

POSTED: FRIDAY MAY 20 2016

https://www.timeout.com/london/art/edward-barber

A foot in Jesus sandal protrudes from under a police van, while an officer looks smirkingly on. A man stands in Hyde Park: on his head is a paper bag printed with instructions on what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. One reads: ‘Kiss your loved ones goodbye.’ A demure woman sits in a folding chair beside a sign which reads ‘Hello, can you stop for a talk?’ She might be canvassing for a politician or manning a WI stall. In fact she’s picketing Greenham Common RAF base, home to Uncle Sam and his cruise missiles.

Edward Barber’s stunning photos from the early 1980s pinpoint a moment in the history of protest in this country. In some ways they look back to the Suffragette era: a lot of those active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and these demonstrations were women (‘Take the toys away from the boys’ says one placard. Mrs Thatcher is an honorary boy, presumably). In others, they look forward to Occupy: ordinary people on the streets expressing their anger. Barber’s shots appeared at the time in newspapers and CND material. Now, in spanking new digital prints, they stand tightly packed, shoulder-to-shoulder like the 30,000 women who formed a nine-mile human chain around Greenham in 1982.

The room is painted the canary yellow of the radiation warning symbol; benches are drilled with holes in the shape of the CND logo. These details continue a theme in the work: a very English kind of pre-internet homespun creativity, full of wit and folk art. In the same vein, Barber has created a collage-y ‘mind map’ to trace nuclear protest from the end of WWII until the US cleared out of East Anglia in the early ’90s. These funny and haunting photos are full of children and teenagers. They stare dumbly and angrily into the lens and into the future. They probably thought it would go one way or the other: apocalypse or Eden. In fact, it’s stayed exactly the same.  

http://edwardbarber.net/