A view from the Daily Mail - many on here will dislike the source, but it does put into context how "big" this movement was.
Its always dangerous to assume popular drama accurately reflects history. Watch The Crown and U571...
PETER HITCHENS: The TRUTH about the pathetic 60s facist who the BBC’s new Sunday night drama Ridley Road has turned into an English Hitler in another attempt to twist history and smear Brits as racist dupes
The distortion of the past is getting out of control. The truth is available to only a privileged few with good memories or access to crumbling, forgotten archives. So you can say what you like.
The BBC's new Sunday evening drama Ridley Road is a perfect example of this. At first sight it looks like a harmless paddle in the past, into the lost world of suspender belts and British- made cars.
But it is carefully designed to give viewers the impression that Britain in 1962 was menaced by a major Nazi-style movement, led by a man called Colin Jordan.
It begins with the on-screen claim that 'public support across the country is on the rise' for Jordan's neo-Nazis.
Then the drama makes a deliberate effort to suggest that people living in the Britain of that time, who were distressed by major changes in their lives, were easy prey for Nazi recruiters from this movement.
Such people are portrayed as being rather dim and also as saying that they 'want our country back', in what looks to me like a crude and nasty attempt to make these fascist dupes sound like Leave voters of today.
The BBC 's new Sunday evening drama Ridley Road is a perfect example of this. At first sight it looks like a harmless paddle in the past, into the lost world of suspender belts and British- made cars
As far as the makers of this series are concerned, if you're at all conservative you're really a Nazi.
There is lots of other rubbish in this programme. But the exaggeration of Jordan's importance is ridiculous. He was a pathetic nobody and a national figure of fun, not a potential Fuhrer.
Newspapers of the time called his outfit 'Britain's tiny jackboot-and-swastika Nazi party'. His greatest moment of fame, portrayed but not properly explained in the programme, was a pro-Hitler demonstration in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, July 1, 1962. It attracted almost no support, but thousands of hostile counter-demonstrators.
The Times of July 2, 1962, reported: 'Throughout the meeting the speakers, Mr Dennis Pirie, deputy secretary, Mr John Tyndall, national secretary and Mr Colin Jordan, leader of the movement, were continually shouted down and pelted with pennies, tomatoes and rotten eggs, by an overwhelmingly hostile crowd of some 2,000.
'The few people who did raise their hands in an earnest Nazi salute looked distinctly nervous.'
The Daily Mail of the same date said: 'Police struggled to keep the angry crowd, many of them Jews, away from the speakers. Hundreds of men and women chanted 'Six millions! Six millions!', a reference to the Jews who died under the Nazis.'
It is plain from the reports that Jordan had hardly any supporters then or later. In the end, one of his fellow Nazis was quite badly beaten, before the platform party fled in vans from the angry crowd. Jordan himself got away only because a phalanx of police protected him and blocked the entrance to the Underground while he escaped.
Eventually the High Court ruled that Jordan had broken the Public Order Act of 1936, by using insulting behaviour, which he undoubtedly had. By that time he was already in prison, making TV aerials, after being convicted of a ludicrous attempt to set up a private army. He had also lost his job as a teacher in a secondary modern school.
Later he embarked on a comic-opera marriage with the leather-clad madwoman Francoise Dior, niece of the great fashion designer. Francoise liked to wear a swastika pendant, even though this got her into difficulties with many London taxi drivers. One ripped it from her neck, and refused to 'chauffeur a stinking Nazi'.
The pair held a 'Nordic' wedding at their unimpressive party HQ, not far from where Grenfell Tower now stands. While a crowd outside hurled bottles and eggs at the building, Jordan and his Nazi bride mingled dribbles of their blood in a grotesque ceremony, while listening to a record of the Horst Wessel song. It was not a happy or lasting union.
Not long afterwards Francoise denounced Jordan, saying: 'I thought I was marrying a leader and a hero but found I had married a middle-class nobody.' You can see why. Jordan, a dough-faced nondescript, lived with his mother Bertha in a suburban road in Coventry.
Nazism was not on the rise again in 1962. Jordan was not a major figure. British people, then as now, were sensible, level-headed and humorous. The law found plenty of ways of restraining Jordan and people like him. The whole basis of the BBC drama is rubbish. The blatant effort to link normal patriotic conservatives with bigots and Nazis in the public mind is low and dirty.
They tell these lies because they can and they want to use drama for propaganda. If the BBC will not stop doing this with public money, they do not deserve to survive.
I been watching this, I was 10 when this was taking place snd I can’t remember a single person, incident or organisation, I always thought I had a good memory.
I have to say I've never heard of Colin Jordan & his party (don't even know it's name). I remember Tyndall being high up in the NF.
Tyndell went on to lead the BNP. I wouldn't say this about many, but delighted that he died relatively young as an insignificant footnote in history...
I have to say I've never heard of Colin Jordan & his party (don't even know it's name). I remember Tyndall being high up in the NF.
Tyndell went on to lead the BNP. I wouldn't say this about many, but delighted that he died relatively young as an insignificant footnote in history...
I have to say I've never heard of Colin Jordan & his party (don't even know it's name). I remember Tyndall being high up in the NF.
The British Movement had a resurgence in the early 80s and were quite big around Crayford; I think they claimed about 5000 supporters in SE London/NW Kent. How many of those "supporters" bought into the whole nazi thing is another matter, but they were capable of getting a lot boots on streets. Fortunately, a combination of splits among themselves and effective opposition meant they didn't get anywhere second time round. Their graffiti was everywhere round Erith, Belvedere, Bexleyheath, Crayford when I was growing up, they'd write BOM where the O was a circle with a cross in it (as seen in the still from the programme higher up). I've seen speculation on here that it was where B-Mob got their name (which is not something to be proud of).
A view from the Daily Mail - many on here will dislike the source, but it does put into context how "big" this movement was.
Its always dangerous to assume popular drama accurately reflects history. Watch The Crown and U571...
PETER HITCHENS: The TRUTH about the pathetic 60s facist who the BBC’s new Sunday night drama Ridley Road has turned into an English Hitler in another attempt to twist history and smear Brits as racist dupes
The distortion of the past is getting out of control. The truth is available to only a privileged few with good memories or access to crumbling, forgotten archives. So you can say what you like.
The BBC's new Sunday evening drama Ridley Road is a perfect example of this. At first sight it looks like a harmless paddle in the past, into the lost world of suspender belts and British- made cars.
But it is carefully designed to give viewers the impression that Britain in 1962 was menaced by a major Nazi-style movement, led by a man called Colin Jordan.
It begins with the on-screen claim that 'public support across the country is on the rise' for Jordan's neo-Nazis.
Then the drama makes a deliberate effort to suggest that people living in the Britain of that time, who were distressed by major changes in their lives, were easy prey for Nazi recruiters from this movement.
Such people are portrayed as being rather dim and also as saying that they 'want our country back', in what looks to me like a crude and nasty attempt to make these fascist dupes sound like Leave voters of today.
The BBC 's new Sunday evening drama Ridley Road is a perfect example of this. At first sight it looks like a harmless paddle in the past, into the lost world of suspender belts and British- made cars
As far as the makers of this series are concerned, if you're at all conservative you're really a Nazi.
There is lots of other rubbish in this programme. But the exaggeration of Jordan's importance is ridiculous. He was a pathetic nobody and a national figure of fun, not a potential Fuhrer.
Newspapers of the time called his outfit 'Britain's tiny jackboot-and-swastika Nazi party'. His greatest moment of fame, portrayed but not properly explained in the programme, was a pro-Hitler demonstration in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, July 1, 1962. It attracted almost no support, but thousands of hostile counter-demonstrators.
The Times of July 2, 1962, reported: 'Throughout the meeting the speakers, Mr Dennis Pirie, deputy secretary, Mr John Tyndall, national secretary and Mr Colin Jordan, leader of the movement, were continually shouted down and pelted with pennies, tomatoes and rotten eggs, by an overwhelmingly hostile crowd of some 2,000.
'The few people who did raise their hands in an earnest Nazi salute looked distinctly nervous.'
The Daily Mail of the same date said: 'Police struggled to keep the angry crowd, many of them Jews, away from the speakers. Hundreds of men and women chanted 'Six millions! Six millions!', a reference to the Jews who died under the Nazis.'
It is plain from the reports that Jordan had hardly any supporters then or later. In the end, one of his fellow Nazis was quite badly beaten, before the platform party fled in vans from the angry crowd. Jordan himself got away only because a phalanx of police protected him and blocked the entrance to the Underground while he escaped.
Eventually the High Court ruled that Jordan had broken the Public Order Act of 1936, by using insulting behaviour, which he undoubtedly had. By that time he was already in prison, making TV aerials, after being convicted of a ludicrous attempt to set up a private army. He had also lost his job as a teacher in a secondary modern school.
Later he embarked on a comic-opera marriage with the leather-clad madwoman Francoise Dior, niece of the great fashion designer. Francoise liked to wear a swastika pendant, even though this got her into difficulties with many London taxi drivers. One ripped it from her neck, and refused to 'chauffeur a stinking Nazi'.
The pair held a 'Nordic' wedding at their unimpressive party HQ, not far from where Grenfell Tower now stands. While a crowd outside hurled bottles and eggs at the building, Jordan and his Nazi bride mingled dribbles of their blood in a grotesque ceremony, while listening to a record of the Horst Wessel song. It was not a happy or lasting union.
Not long afterwards Francoise denounced Jordan, saying: 'I thought I was marrying a leader and a hero but found I had married a middle-class nobody.' You can see why. Jordan, a dough-faced nondescript, lived with his mother Bertha in a suburban road in Coventry.
Nazism was not on the rise again in 1962. Jordan was not a major figure. British people, then as now, were sensible, level-headed and humorous. The law found plenty of ways of restraining Jordan and people like him. The whole basis of the BBC drama is rubbish. The blatant effort to link normal patriotic conservatives with bigots and Nazis in the public mind is low and dirty.
They tell these lies because they can and they want to use drama for propaganda. If the BBC will not stop doing this with public money, they do not deserve to survive.
The problem I have with the source is not that it is the Mail. It is that it is Hitchens who took a contrary position to any criticism of the right and had a big chip on his shoulder about the BBC, possibly because they wouldn't give him a job.
A view from the Daily Mail - many on here will dislike the source, but it does put into context how "big" this movement was.
Its always dangerous to assume popular drama accurately reflects history. Watch The Crown and U571...
PETER HITCHENS: The TRUTH about the pathetic 60s facist who the BBC’s new Sunday night drama Ridley Road has turned into an English Hitler in another attempt to twist history and smear Brits as racist dupes
The distortion of the past is getting out of control. The truth is available to only a privileged few with good memories or access to crumbling, forgotten archives. So you can say what you like.
The BBC's new Sunday evening drama Ridley Road is a perfect example of this. At first sight it looks like a harmless paddle in the past, into the lost world of suspender belts and British- made cars.
But it is carefully designed to give viewers the impression that Britain in 1962 was menaced by a major Nazi-style movement, led by a man called Colin Jordan.
It begins with the on-screen claim that 'public support across the country is on the rise' for Jordan's neo-Nazis.
Then the drama makes a deliberate effort to suggest that people living in the Britain of that time, who were distressed by major changes in their lives, were easy prey for Nazi recruiters from this movement.
Such people are portrayed as being rather dim and also as saying that they 'want our country back', in what looks to me like a crude and nasty attempt to make these fascist dupes sound like Leave voters of today.
The BBC 's new Sunday evening drama Ridley Road is a perfect example of this. At first sight it looks like a harmless paddle in the past, into the lost world of suspender belts and British- made cars
As far as the makers of this series are concerned, if you're at all conservative you're really a Nazi.
There is lots of other rubbish in this programme. But the exaggeration of Jordan's importance is ridiculous. He was a pathetic nobody and a national figure of fun, not a potential Fuhrer.
Newspapers of the time called his outfit 'Britain's tiny jackboot-and-swastika Nazi party'. His greatest moment of fame, portrayed but not properly explained in the programme, was a pro-Hitler demonstration in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, July 1, 1962. It attracted almost no support, but thousands of hostile counter-demonstrators.
The Times of July 2, 1962, reported: 'Throughout the meeting the speakers, Mr Dennis Pirie, deputy secretary, Mr John Tyndall, national secretary and Mr Colin Jordan, leader of the movement, were continually shouted down and pelted with pennies, tomatoes and rotten eggs, by an overwhelmingly hostile crowd of some 2,000.
'The few people who did raise their hands in an earnest Nazi salute looked distinctly nervous.'
The Daily Mail of the same date said: 'Police struggled to keep the angry crowd, many of them Jews, away from the speakers. Hundreds of men and women chanted 'Six millions! Six millions!', a reference to the Jews who died under the Nazis.'
It is plain from the reports that Jordan had hardly any supporters then or later. In the end, one of his fellow Nazis was quite badly beaten, before the platform party fled in vans from the angry crowd. Jordan himself got away only because a phalanx of police protected him and blocked the entrance to the Underground while he escaped.
Eventually the High Court ruled that Jordan had broken the Public Order Act of 1936, by using insulting behaviour, which he undoubtedly had. By that time he was already in prison, making TV aerials, after being convicted of a ludicrous attempt to set up a private army. He had also lost his job as a teacher in a secondary modern school.
Later he embarked on a comic-opera marriage with the leather-clad madwoman Francoise Dior, niece of the great fashion designer. Francoise liked to wear a swastika pendant, even though this got her into difficulties with many London taxi drivers. One ripped it from her neck, and refused to 'chauffeur a stinking Nazi'.
The pair held a 'Nordic' wedding at their unimpressive party HQ, not far from where Grenfell Tower now stands. While a crowd outside hurled bottles and eggs at the building, Jordan and his Nazi bride mingled dribbles of their blood in a grotesque ceremony, while listening to a record of the Horst Wessel song. It was not a happy or lasting union.
Not long afterwards Francoise denounced Jordan, saying: 'I thought I was marrying a leader and a hero but found I had married a middle-class nobody.' You can see why. Jordan, a dough-faced nondescript, lived with his mother Bertha in a suburban road in Coventry.
Nazism was not on the rise again in 1962. Jordan was not a major figure. British people, then as now, were sensible, level-headed and humorous. The law found plenty of ways of restraining Jordan and people like him. The whole basis of the BBC drama is rubbish. The blatant effort to link normal patriotic conservatives with bigots and Nazis in the public mind is low and dirty.
They tell these lies because they can and they want to use drama for propaganda. If the BBC will not stop doing this with public money, they do not deserve to survive.
He does realise that it was a fictional dramatisation based on historical events, not a bloody documentary? Also, kind of ironic given the Daily Mails's one time Nazi sympathies.
Also worth researching the 43 Group, a largely Jewish Ex-servicemen's group who fought the far right on the streets immediately AFTER WW2.
"We Fight Fascists" by Daniel Sonabend is a good read.
My dad told the story of when Mosley came to Woolwich in the 1950s.
In most towns the fascist platforms had been broken up before Mosley could even speak which meant "the leader" avoided any violence.
But in Woolwich my dad and others let him start. Mosley thought he was finally going to speak as the anti-fascists waited until he was on stage and then got stuck into Mosley himself and the rest of the scum them when they showed themselves.
Many years ago there was an old boy who drank in my local pub who had travelled out to Spain in the 1930’s to join the International Brigades - he was still buying the Morning Star every day and was committed Communist throughout his life - interesting bloke to chat to, but only for the first hour after the pub opened, as he was an alcoholic, and once he was pissed, you couldn’t get a coherent word out of him
In the early 1990’s he wanted to go out to Spain to attend a reunion of the International Brigades, and there was a small whip round in the pub to help him cover the costs, but he simply drank the money, the silly old sod
There was a bloke in the pub who had served in the British Army in Kenya (fighting the Mau Mau), Aden (fighting the various terrorist organisations) and some other ‘actions’ that I am sure he should never have spoken about due to the Official Secrets Act (!!) - this bloke had seen some serious action, and was very right wing - I used to love watching him and the Communist argue and hurl insults at each other, and then say ‘do you fancy another pint’
Binged watched the whole series (4 episodes) today.
Terrific show, BBC can still produce brilliant programmes.
Acting superb by all involved, frightening that situations like this was/still happening after the World Wars against facism.
"Nazism was not on the rise again in 1962. Jordan was not a major figure. British people, then as now, were sensible, level-headed and humorous. The law found plenty of ways of restraining Jordan and people like him. The whole basis of the BBC drama is rubbish. The blatant effort to link normal patriotic conservatives with bigots and Nazis in the public mind is low and dirty."
Many years ago there was an old boy who drank in my local pub who had travelled out to Spain in the 1930’s to join the International Brigades - he was still buying the Morning Star every day and was committed Communist throughout his life - interesting bloke to chat to, but only for the first hour after the pub opened, as he was an alcoholic, and once he was pissed, you couldn’t get a coherent word out of him
In the early 1990’s he wanted to go out to Spain to attend a reunion of the International Brigades, and there was a small whip round in the pub to help him cover the costs, but he simply drank the money, the silly old sod
There was a bloke in the pub who had served in the British Army in Kenya (fighting the Mau Mau), Aden (fighting the various terrorist organisations) and some other ‘actions’ that I am sure he should never have spoken about due to the Official Secrets Act (!!) - this bloke had seen some serious action, and was very right wing - I used to love watching him and the Communist argue and hurl insults at each other, and then say ‘do you fancy another pint’
Halcyon days !!!
Nice story and I have another. Early eighties I went on holiday for a month to a small village on the costa brava called Puerta de la Silva about 50 miles or so north of Barcelona. One of the very small whitewashed fisherman’s cottages I was told lived “the Englishman”. He had been part of the international brigade and married a Spanish girl and remained. She had passed away but he was always sat outside his front door in the morning when the sun was out. Spoke to him a couple of times but he never really engaged so I thought it best to leave it. Would have loved to have spoken properly with him.
Binged watched the whole series (4 episodes) today.
Terrific show, BBC can still produce brilliant programmes.
Acting superb by all involved, frightening that situations like this was/still happening after the World Wars against facism.
"Nazism was not on the rise again in 1962. Jordan was not a major figure. British people, then as now, were sensible, level-headed and humorous. The law found plenty of ways of restraining Jordan and people like him. The whole basis of the BBC drama is rubbish. The blatant effort to link normal patriotic conservatives with bigots and Nazis in the public mind is low and dirty."
So it wasnt too 'frightening' a situation then ?
For the purposes of the drama, for that’s what it is I’m sure that the size and general awareness of the problem in 1962 has been enlarged and made to look somewhat bigger than it really was. It’s called artistic license. This doesn’t detract from the fact that it did happen and did involve the protagonists portrayed. It’s hugely important that these now historical events are highlighted and awareness raised. I’m always very happy to see dramas like this and documentaries about the Holocaust. Never forget these political views were and are real. There are people with power and with influence right now who would back similar right wing thugs if they could do so. Scratch the surface and fascism is alive and well.
Many years ago there was an old boy who drank in my local pub who had travelled out to Spain in the 1930’s to join the International Brigades - he was still buying the Morning Star every day and was committed Communist throughout his life - interesting bloke to chat to, but only for the first hour after the pub opened, as he was an alcoholic, and once he was pissed, you couldn’t get a coherent word out of him
In the early 1990’s he wanted to go out to Spain to attend a reunion of the International Brigades, and there was a small whip round in the pub to help him cover the costs, but he simply drank the money, the silly old sod
There was a bloke in the pub who had served in the British Army in Kenya (fighting the Mau Mau), Aden (fighting the various terrorist organisations) and some other ‘actions’ that I am sure he should never have spoken about due to the Official Secrets Act (!!) - this bloke had seen some serious action, and was very right wing - I used to love watching him and the Communist argue and hurl insults at each other, and then say ‘do you fancy another pint’
A view from the Daily Mail - many on here will dislike the source, but it does put into context how "big" this movement was.
Its always dangerous to assume popular drama accurately reflects history. Watch The Crown and U571...
PETER HITCHENS: The TRUTH about the pathetic 60s facist who the BBC’s new Sunday night drama Ridley Road has turned into an English Hitler in another attempt to twist history and smear Brits as racist dupes
The distortion of the past is getting out of control. The truth is available to only a privileged few with good memories or access to crumbling, forgotten archives. So you can say what you like.
The BBC's new Sunday evening drama Ridley Road is a perfect example of this. At first sight it looks like a harmless paddle in the past, into the lost world of suspender belts and British- made cars.
But it is carefully designed to give viewers the impression that Britain in 1962 was menaced by a major Nazi-style movement, led by a man called Colin Jordan.
It begins with the on-screen claim that 'public support across the country is on the rise' for Jordan's neo-Nazis.
Then the drama makes a deliberate effort to suggest that people living in the Britain of that time, who were distressed by major changes in their lives, were easy prey for Nazi recruiters from this movement.
Such people are portrayed as being rather dim and also as saying that they 'want our country back', in what looks to me like a crude and nasty attempt to make these fascist dupes sound like Leave voters of today.
The BBC 's new Sunday evening drama Ridley Road is a perfect example of this. At first sight it looks like a harmless paddle in the past, into the lost world of suspender belts and British- made cars
As far as the makers of this series are concerned, if you're at all conservative you're really a Nazi.
There is lots of other rubbish in this programme. But the exaggeration of Jordan's importance is ridiculous. He was a pathetic nobody and a national figure of fun, not a potential Fuhrer.
Newspapers of the time called his outfit 'Britain's tiny jackboot-and-swastika Nazi party'. His greatest moment of fame, portrayed but not properly explained in the programme, was a pro-Hitler demonstration in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, July 1, 1962. It attracted almost no support, but thousands of hostile counter-demonstrators.
The Times of July 2, 1962, reported: 'Throughout the meeting the speakers, Mr Dennis Pirie, deputy secretary, Mr John Tyndall, national secretary and Mr Colin Jordan, leader of the movement, were continually shouted down and pelted with pennies, tomatoes and rotten eggs, by an overwhelmingly hostile crowd of some 2,000.
'The few people who did raise their hands in an earnest Nazi salute looked distinctly nervous.'
The Daily Mail of the same date said: 'Police struggled to keep the angry crowd, many of them Jews, away from the speakers. Hundreds of men and women chanted 'Six millions! Six millions!', a reference to the Jews who died under the Nazis.'
It is plain from the reports that Jordan had hardly any supporters then or later. In the end, one of his fellow Nazis was quite badly beaten, before the platform party fled in vans from the angry crowd. Jordan himself got away only because a phalanx of police protected him and blocked the entrance to the Underground while he escaped.
Eventually the High Court ruled that Jordan had broken the Public Order Act of 1936, by using insulting behaviour, which he undoubtedly had. By that time he was already in prison, making TV aerials, after being convicted of a ludicrous attempt to set up a private army. He had also lost his job as a teacher in a secondary modern school.
Later he embarked on a comic-opera marriage with the leather-clad madwoman Francoise Dior, niece of the great fashion designer. Francoise liked to wear a swastika pendant, even though this got her into difficulties with many London taxi drivers. One ripped it from her neck, and refused to 'chauffeur a stinking Nazi'.
The pair held a 'Nordic' wedding at their unimpressive party HQ, not far from where Grenfell Tower now stands. While a crowd outside hurled bottles and eggs at the building, Jordan and his Nazi bride mingled dribbles of their blood in a grotesque ceremony, while listening to a record of the Horst Wessel song. It was not a happy or lasting union.
Not long afterwards Francoise denounced Jordan, saying: 'I thought I was marrying a leader and a hero but found I had married a middle-class nobody.' You can see why. Jordan, a dough-faced nondescript, lived with his mother Bertha in a suburban road in Coventry.
Nazism was not on the rise again in 1962. Jordan was not a major figure. British people, then as now, were sensible, level-headed and humorous. The law found plenty of ways of restraining Jordan and people like him. The whole basis of the BBC drama is rubbish. The blatant effort to link normal patriotic conservatives with bigots and Nazis in the public mind is low and dirty.
They tell these lies because they can and they want to use drama for propaganda. If the BBC will not stop doing this with public money, they do not deserve to survive.
I don't remember Colin Jordan or is private army. I do remember a lot of the tensions of the time. The Bay of Pigs, The Berlin Wall, The Cuban Missile, Crisis, The U2 incident and later The Frnch student riots plus the protesters outside the White House chanting ,Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids have yo killed today. I too haven't a clue about Colin Jordan and his sad party. I do remember John Tyndall with connections to the fascist NF though.
Great Britain was never going to be a particularly fertile ground for facist movements in the sixties when just a few years before the British public had fought, died and suffered in defeating it in Nazi Germany. There is though always those that were openly anti semites and quietly Nazi sympathisers. I really don’t think it any surprise that British fascism was always doomed to failure and I think that as true today as it was under Moseley or Colin Jordan.
A view from the Daily Mail - many on here will dislike the source, but it does put into context how "big" this movement was.
Its always dangerous to assume popular drama accurately reflects history. Watch The Crown and U571...
PETER HITCHENS: The TRUTH about the pathetic 60s facist who the BBC’s new Sunday night drama Ridley Road has turned into an English Hitler in another attempt to twist history and smear Brits as racist dupes
The distortion of the past is getting out of control. The truth is available to only a privileged few with good memories or access to crumbling, forgotten archives. So you can say what you like.
The BBC's new Sunday evening drama Ridley Road is a perfect example of this. At first sight it looks like a harmless paddle in the past, into the lost world of suspender belts and British- made cars.
But it is carefully designed to give viewers the impression that Britain in 1962 was menaced by a major Nazi-style movement, led by a man called Colin Jordan.
It begins with the on-screen claim that 'public support across the country is on the rise' for Jordan's neo-Nazis.
Then the drama makes a deliberate effort to suggest that people living in the Britain of that time, who were distressed by major changes in their lives, were easy prey for Nazi recruiters from this movement.
Such people are portrayed as being rather dim and also as saying that they 'want our country back', in what looks to me like a crude and nasty attempt to make these fascist dupes sound like Leave voters of today.
The BBC 's new Sunday evening drama Ridley Road is a perfect example of this. At first sight it looks like a harmless paddle in the past, into the lost world of suspender belts and British- made cars
As far as the makers of this series are concerned, if you're at all conservative you're really a Nazi.
There is lots of other rubbish in this programme. But the exaggeration of Jordan's importance is ridiculous. He was a pathetic nobody and a national figure of fun, not a potential Fuhrer.
Newspapers of the time called his outfit 'Britain's tiny jackboot-and-swastika Nazi party'. His greatest moment of fame, portrayed but not properly explained in the programme, was a pro-Hitler demonstration in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, July 1, 1962. It attracted almost no support, but thousands of hostile counter-demonstrators.
The Times of July 2, 1962, reported: 'Throughout the meeting the speakers, Mr Dennis Pirie, deputy secretary, Mr John Tyndall, national secretary and Mr Colin Jordan, leader of the movement, were continually shouted down and pelted with pennies, tomatoes and rotten eggs, by an overwhelmingly hostile crowd of some 2,000.
'The few people who did raise their hands in an earnest Nazi salute looked distinctly nervous.'
The Daily Mail of the same date said: 'Police struggled to keep the angry crowd, many of them Jews, away from the speakers. Hundreds of men and women chanted 'Six millions! Six millions!', a reference to the Jews who died under the Nazis.'
It is plain from the reports that Jordan had hardly any supporters then or later. In the end, one of his fellow Nazis was quite badly beaten, before the platform party fled in vans from the angry crowd. Jordan himself got away only because a phalanx of police protected him and blocked the entrance to the Underground while he escaped.
Eventually the High Court ruled that Jordan had broken the Public Order Act of 1936, by using insulting behaviour, which he undoubtedly had. By that time he was already in prison, making TV aerials, after being convicted of a ludicrous attempt to set up a private army. He had also lost his job as a teacher in a secondary modern school.
Later he embarked on a comic-opera marriage with the leather-clad madwoman Francoise Dior, niece of the great fashion designer. Francoise liked to wear a swastika pendant, even though this got her into difficulties with many London taxi drivers. One ripped it from her neck, and refused to 'chauffeur a stinking Nazi'.
The pair held a 'Nordic' wedding at their unimpressive party HQ, not far from where Grenfell Tower now stands. While a crowd outside hurled bottles and eggs at the building, Jordan and his Nazi bride mingled dribbles of their blood in a grotesque ceremony, while listening to a record of the Horst Wessel song. It was not a happy or lasting union.
Not long afterwards Francoise denounced Jordan, saying: 'I thought I was marrying a leader and a hero but found I had married a middle-class nobody.' You can see why. Jordan, a dough-faced nondescript, lived with his mother Bertha in a suburban road in Coventry.
Nazism was not on the rise again in 1962. Jordan was not a major figure. British people, then as now, were sensible, level-headed and humorous. The law found plenty of ways of restraining Jordan and people like him. The whole basis of the BBC drama is rubbish. The blatant effort to link normal patriotic conservatives with bigots and Nazis in the public mind is low and dirty.
They tell these lies because they can and they want to use drama for propaganda. If the BBC will not stop doing this with public money, they do not deserve to survive.
I don't remember Colin Jordan or is private army. I do remember a lot of the tensions of the time. The Bay of Pigs, The Berlin Wall, The Cuban Missile, Crisis, The U2 incident and later The Frnch student riots plus the protesters outside the White House chanting ,Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids have yo killed today. I too haven't a clue about Colin Jordan and his sad party. I do remember John Tyndall with connections to the fascist NF though.
Not everyone in the UK remembers the 60s for the same things.
For some it was the hippy era, for others mods and rockers or the Eddie Firmani era, the beaching cuts, independence for the colonies, decriminalisation of homosexuality, Michael Caine, legal abortion, Brady and Hindly etc etc
For some people, especially Jewish, Black or Asian people living on or near Ridley Road in Dalston it was a time of overt racism, p*** bashing and facists on the street.
Because some people who were very young and weren't living in the area don't remember this particular aspect of history doesn't mean it didn't happen.
It's not the only history but it is history.
The 62 committee, like the 43 group, are fairly unknown parts of British history but it is history all the same.
I love learning about history, and whilst I was born in 1970, and so no first hand knowledge of the times (although I recall NF marches in the 80’s) I first read about Colin Jordan in the late 80’s - he was a major figure in the British far right - an odious horrible man - but there needs to be context - he was a major figure, but in a very small pool of supporters / those who shared his ideology - you can list many faults of Britain / the British people, but British people refusing to accept or allow the far right like Jordan, Moseley, Tyndall, NF, British Movement to be anything other than a pathetic side show in this country is something to be proud of
Bit of a diversion from Ridley road but on the same subject. I joined a large Norwich engineering factory in the early 1970's and the old boys who had worked there for ever (and their fathers and grandfathers before them) recounted an incident that happened during the war. During air raids, the blokes would take cover in shelters below the shop floor. The Baedeker raids as they were called, wreaked havoc on Norwich killing over 200 people and injuring thousands. After one such raids the men emerged from the underground shelters and became aware of the death and destruction. They searched the factory for a few Nazi sympathizers who were members of Mosleys black-shirts, pushed their heads down the toilet and pissed on them.
First they came for the Socialist. And I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the Trade unionist. and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me. And there was no one left to speak for me.
First they came ..." the poem written by Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) is a powerful statement - the idea that no one should be instinctively not cared about, that everyone is deserving of attention and protection. Originally referencing the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent purging of their chosen targets, it is today still as moving a reminder to not forget the lessons of the past.
I just watched the first episode and am a bit disappointed. It's a bit "Call the midwife" despite the serious subject matter...I'll probably watch the rest but with a fairly large pinch of salt. The far right threat in this country isn't a matter of a cabal of committed militants in my opinion but in a steady drift back to meanspirited and resentful distrust of others which is exploited for power.
Comments
Its always dangerous to assume popular drama accurately reflects history. Watch The Crown and U571...
PETER HITCHENS: The TRUTH about the pathetic 60s facist who the BBC’s new Sunday night drama Ridley Road has turned into an English Hitler in another attempt to twist history and smear Brits as racist dupes
The distortion of the past is getting out of control. The truth is available to only a privileged few with good memories or access to crumbling, forgotten archives. So you can say what you like.
The BBC's new Sunday evening drama Ridley Road is a perfect example of this. At first sight it looks like a harmless paddle in the past, into the lost world of suspender belts and British- made cars.
But it is carefully designed to give viewers the impression that Britain in 1962 was menaced by a major Nazi-style movement, led by a man called Colin Jordan.
It begins with the on-screen claim that 'public support across the country is on the rise' for Jordan's neo-Nazis.
Then the drama makes a deliberate effort to suggest that people living in the Britain of that time, who were distressed by major changes in their lives, were easy prey for Nazi recruiters from this movement.
Such people are portrayed as being rather dim and also as saying that they 'want our country back', in what looks to me like a crude and nasty attempt to make these fascist dupes sound like Leave voters of today.
The BBC 's new Sunday evening drama Ridley Road is a perfect example of this. At first sight it looks like a harmless paddle in the past, into the lost world of suspender belts and British- made cars
As far as the makers of this series are concerned, if you're at all conservative you're really a Nazi.
There is lots of other rubbish in this programme. But the exaggeration of Jordan's importance is ridiculous. He was a pathetic nobody and a national figure of fun, not a potential Fuhrer.
Newspapers of the time called his outfit 'Britain's tiny jackboot-and-swastika Nazi party'. His greatest moment of fame, portrayed but not properly explained in the programme, was a pro-Hitler demonstration in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, July 1, 1962. It attracted almost no support, but thousands of hostile counter-demonstrators.
The Times of July 2, 1962, reported: 'Throughout the meeting the speakers, Mr Dennis Pirie, deputy secretary, Mr John Tyndall, national secretary and Mr Colin Jordan, leader of the movement, were continually shouted down and pelted with pennies, tomatoes and rotten eggs, by an overwhelmingly hostile crowd of some 2,000.
'The few people who did raise their hands in an earnest Nazi salute looked distinctly nervous.'
The Daily Mail of the same date said: 'Police struggled to keep the angry crowd, many of them Jews, away from the speakers. Hundreds of men and women chanted 'Six millions! Six millions!', a reference to the Jews who died under the Nazis.'
It is plain from the reports that Jordan had hardly any supporters then or later. In the end, one of his fellow Nazis was quite badly beaten, before the platform party fled in vans from the angry crowd. Jordan himself got away only because a phalanx of police protected him and blocked the entrance to the Underground while he escaped.
Eventually the High Court ruled that Jordan had broken the Public Order Act of 1936, by using insulting behaviour, which he undoubtedly had. By that time he was already in prison, making TV aerials, after being convicted of a ludicrous attempt to set up a private army. He had also lost his job as a teacher in a secondary modern school.
Later he embarked on a comic-opera marriage with the leather-clad madwoman Francoise Dior, niece of the great fashion designer. Francoise liked to wear a swastika pendant, even though this got her into difficulties with many London taxi drivers. One ripped it from her neck, and refused to 'chauffeur a stinking Nazi'.
The pair held a 'Nordic' wedding at their unimpressive party HQ, not far from where Grenfell Tower now stands. While a crowd outside hurled bottles and eggs at the building, Jordan and his Nazi bride mingled dribbles of their blood in a grotesque ceremony, while listening to a record of the Horst Wessel song. It was not a happy or lasting union.
Not long afterwards Francoise denounced Jordan, saying: 'I thought I was marrying a leader and a hero but found I had married a middle-class nobody.' You can see why. Jordan, a dough-faced nondescript, lived with his mother Bertha in a suburban road in Coventry.
Nazism was not on the rise again in 1962. Jordan was not a major figure. British people, then as now, were sensible, level-headed and humorous. The law found plenty of ways of restraining Jordan and people like him. The whole basis of the BBC drama is rubbish. The blatant effort to link normal patriotic conservatives with bigots and Nazis in the public mind is low and dirty.
They tell these lies because they can and they want to use drama for propaganda. If the BBC will not stop doing this with public money, they do not deserve to survive.
I remember Tyndall being high up in the NF.
I've seen speculation on here that it was where B-Mob got their name (which is not something to be proud of).
Thoroughly enjoyed the whole series & have recommended it to friends.
Also, kind of ironic given the Daily Mails's one time Nazi sympathies.
"We Fight Fascists" by Daniel Sonabend is a good read.
My dad told the story of when Mosley came to Woolwich in the 1950s.
In most towns the fascist platforms had been broken up before Mosley could even speak which meant "the leader" avoided any violence.
But in Woolwich my dad and others let him start. Mosley thought he was finally going to speak as the anti-fascists waited until he was on stage and then got stuck into Mosley himself and the rest of the scum them when they showed themselves.
Never forget, never again.
No Pasaran
Cable St, not Verdun @Addickted
In the early 1990’s he wanted to go out to Spain to attend a reunion of the International Brigades, and there was a small whip round in the pub to help him cover the costs, but he simply drank the money, the silly old sod
There was a bloke in the pub who had served in the British Army in Kenya (fighting the Mau Mau), Aden (fighting the various terrorist organisations) and some other ‘actions’ that I am sure he should never have spoken about due to the Official Secrets Act (!!) - this bloke had seen some serious action, and was very right wing - I used to love watching him and the Communist argue and hurl insults at each other, and then say ‘do you fancy another pint’
Halcyon days !!!
So it wasnt too 'frightening' a situation then ?
For some it was the hippy era, for others mods and rockers or the Eddie Firmani era, the beaching cuts, independence for the colonies, decriminalisation of homosexuality, Michael Caine, legal abortion, Brady and Hindly etc etc
For some people, especially Jewish, Black or Asian people living on or near Ridley Road in Dalston it was a time of overt racism, p*** bashing and facists on the street.
Because some people who were very young and weren't living in the area don't remember this particular aspect of history doesn't mean it didn't happen.
It's not the only history but it is history.
The 62 committee, like the 43 group, are fairly unknown parts of British history but it is history all the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Jordan
I joined a large Norwich engineering factory in the early 1970's and the old boys who had worked there for ever (and their fathers and grandfathers before them) recounted an incident that happened during the war.
During air raids, the blokes would take cover in shelters below the shop floor.
The Baedeker raids as they were called, wreaked havoc on Norwich killing over 200 people and injuring thousands.
After one such raids the men emerged from the underground shelters and became aware of the death and destruction.
They searched the factory for a few Nazi sympathizers who were members of Mosleys black-shirts, pushed their heads down the toilet and pissed on them.
And I did not speak out
because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the Trade unionist.
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me.
And there was no one left
to speak for me.
First they came ..." the poem written by Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) is a powerful statement - the idea that no one should be instinctively not cared about, that everyone is deserving of attention and protection. Originally referencing the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent purging of their chosen targets, it is today still as moving a reminder to not forget the lessons of the past.