Graffiti in Stocksbridge

Image: © Terry Robinson Taken: 9 Mar 2008

This graffiti ... Kick Tories Out ... has been on view for at least 20 years! Image Image Update in May 2021 I have been contacted by Nog Clark, who lives locally to Stocksbridge, and remembers the ‘story’ behind the Graffiti. He has kindly forwarded the details shown below. Thanks Nog ... some more local history recorded for all. In May 1979 the Tories won the General Election which saw Margaret Thatcher elected Prime Minister. It was the fourth General Election in the 1970s and no-one thought that the Tories would last as long as they did or predict the economic and social damage that would follow for places like Stocksbridge. At the time there was a small SWP Branch in Stocksbridge. I was, “between jobs” working as an organiser for the Party. Having a post meeting pint in the Coach and Horses. I was approached by two members who pointed at the old Cinema gable and said they had a plan to paint a slogan up there. I thought they were mad given the height of the building. But did say if they got up there the slogan needed to be simple and to the point. Hence, Kick Tories Out. Two days later I get a phone call. “We did it!” How? One of the two had noticed that at the rear of the building was a covered fire escape from the Projection Room. Climbing up this they were then able to follow the gable to the top of the roof which they then followed to the opposite gable. At which point they had a spliff to calm their nerves then one of them held the others legs while he hung over the side and painted the slogan. (They’d worked out how to paint the letters upside down). How they didn’t fall and kill themselves I don’t know. This isn’t the end of the story though. While some people had a good idea that I had a hand in this, and who was daft enough to do it no-one was going to say anything. However, flushed with success, the lads decided to have another go. Where else could they try? What about the gasometer I said? I think I was joking! This led to the lads being arrested and charges, which really was my fault. Even the sort of plods we had in Stocksbridge at the time could work out that there was something suspicious about two paint speckled lads with a step ladder and tin of paint at one o’clock in the morning. In those days you ended up in Ecclesfield Police Station till the morning and then after being charged you had to get home. In one case without your trousers which had been withheld for analysis of the paint. They were fined for criminal damage and also ordered to pay for removal of the slogan. This never happened and there it stood for about 35 years until the gable was damaged in a gale (I did suggest to the Town Council it should be repainted). Not quite the end of the story. In November management were preparing for the coming strike by sacking a leading Union activist in the melting shop which came out on strike. Immediately slogans were painted at all three gates of the steelworks. Immediately our two lads are pulled in for questioning, “having form” for such activity. However there was no evidence to link them this time and it all got lost in the three months national strike that was the beginning of the Tory assault on Trade Unionism.

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