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DIARY 4 May 1969. Race awareness. David Oluwale.

DIARY 4 May 1969. Race awareness. David Oluwale.

David Oluwale 1930 –1969

In Britain, by the end of the nineteenth century, tramps were folk heroes.[1] Tramping from place to place looking for work or a place to sleep, they were a common sight across Britain. Myths would grow up around them, such as how they would chalk codes on gate posts to denote how amenable the occupant might be to a little begging. Some would become local characters.[2]

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DIARY 27 July 1967 Doors of Perception

DIARY 27 July 1967 Doors of Perception

DIARY 27 July 1967 Doors of Perception

Taking a pose in the house I shared with two other students. The wall is covered in magazine cuttings.

In June 1970 I had just finished my second year at Leeds University, supposedly studying the philosophy of Wittgenstein[1]. However, during that year, I had been subjected to weekly incomprehensible lectures on Gottlob Frege, a nineteenth century logician,…

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DIARY 3 October 1968. Leeds

DIARY 3 October 1968. Leeds

My first room in Leeds

I went to Leeds to join the university early in October 1968. Having spent a year as a student in London I did not look or feel like a fresh-from-school ‘fresher’. Nevertheless, as a new student I was expected to live in Bodington Hall, a hall of residence as they called such places. It could have been a monastic life, full of men sharing meals in dining rooms still called…

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DIARY 25 September 1969

DIARY 25 September 1969

Coming of age 1969

In September 1969 I turned 21 years old. I could already legally smoke, drink, marry, have children, or be called up to fight for my country. Or, although extremely unlikely, I could even be killed by my country. I was liable for any crimes I might have committed and, although capital punishment for murder had been suspended, it would not be abolished until December 1969[1].

De…

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DIARY 18 August 1969 Woodstock: the downing of the Age of Aquarius

DIARY 18 August 1969 Woodstock: the downing of the Age of Aquarius

In August 1969, anyone looking at me in the street would have assumed that I was a ‘hippie’. In Leeds, where I had just finished my first year as a philosophy undergraduate, there weren’t many hippies. There was a bloke called Reg who dressed scruffily like me and wore his hair similarly in an unkempt halo. That was all. I was gently patronised by my fellow students for my poor dress sense and…

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DIARY 20 July 1969 If you believed they put a man on the moon 20th July 1969. One of the defining moments of the twentieth century. However, I seem to have missed it.

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DIARY 10 June 1968 Discovering the avant-guard

My latest blog entry. Myself fifty years ago in 1968. The avant-garde. https://wordpress.com/pages/50yearsago.today

Discovering the avant-guard

The impressive buildings of the West End epitomise the fabulous cultural edifice that is London. Galleries, theatres, cinemas and concert halls present masterpieces of art, music, drama and film. Museums heave with the cultural artifacts of other civilisations and of other times.

High art: Renaissance master; National Gallery; Queen Elizabeth Hall; Modern art; Theatre.

[fiftyyearsagotoday]

DIARY 10 June 1968 Discovering the avant-guard

DIARY 10 June 1968 Discovering the avant-guard

Discovering the avant-guard

The impressive buildings of the West End epitomise the fabulous cultural edifice that is London. Galleries, theatres, cinemas and concert halls present masterpieces of art, music, drama and film. Museums heave with the cultural artifacts of other civilisations and of other times.

High art: Renaissance master; National Gallery; Queen Elizabeth Hall; Modern art; Theatre.

[fiftyyearsagotoday]

DIARY 27 May 1968 The times they are a-changin'

Time were changing for me too in 1968. See my blog!

Your old road is Rapidly agin’. Please get out of the new one If you can’t lend your hand For the times they are a-changin’. (1)

It was a watershed year in history. The old road was coming to an end; there was revolution in the air. Political bonfires would be lit in Paris, Prague, Los Angeles and many other places; the sparks fell everywhere. Mutually assured nuclear destruction may have kept…

[fiftyyearsagotoday]

DIARY 27 May 1968 The times they are a-changin'

DIARY 27 May 1968 The times they are a-changin’

Your old road is Rapidly agin’. Please get out of the new one If you can’t lend your hand For the times they are a-changin’. (1)

It was a watershed year in history. The old road was coming to an end; there was revolution in the air. Political bonfires would be lit in Paris, Prague, Los Angeles and many other places; the sparks fell everywhere. Mutually assured nuclear destruction may have kept…

[fiftyyearsagotoday]

DIARY 25 April 1968 Paris in the spring

Fifty years ago I was in Paris.

Paris in the spring

It was not only my first trip abroad but also my first flight; not that I spent much time in the air. I had booked through the National Union of Students’ travel agency which sold me a return ticket for the unlikely sum of about five pounds. It meant a coach trip from Victoria almost to the south coast where the terminal was a wooden hut on a former RAF base. I did not expect…

[fiftyyearsagotoday]

DIARY 25 April 1968 Paris in the spring

DIARY 25 April 1968 Paris in the spring

Paris in the spring

It was not only my first trip abroad but also my first flight; not that I spent much time in the air. I had booked through the National Union of Students’ travel agency which sold me a return ticket for the unlikely sum of about five pounds. It meant a coach trip from Victoria almost to the south coast where the terminal was a wooden hut on a former RAF base. I did not expect…

[fiftyyearsagotoday]

DIARY 4 April 1968 Race awareness

April 1968. Remembering one great man. Regretting another.

Martin Luther King (15 January 1929 to 4 April 1968)[1]

Race awareness

In April 1968 I was back at home in Birmingham for the Easter break; six months previously I had left home to study in London. I was politically naïve although I had attended my first large demonstration and had sold newspapers outside South Kensington tube station. This was International Times, an alternative rather than…

[fiftyyearsagotoday]

DIARY 4 April 1968 Race awareness

DIARY 4 April 1968 Race awareness

Martin Luther King (15 January 1929 to 4 April 1968)[1]

Race awareness

In April 1968 I was back at home in Birmingham for the Easter break; six months previously I had left home to study in London. I was politically naïve although I had attended my first large demonstration and had sold newspapers outside South Kensington tube station. This was International Times, an alternative rather than…

[fiftyyearsagotoday]

DIARY 18 March. Taking to the streets

DIARY 18 March. Taking to the streets

Taking to the streets

At the time I moved to London, my awareness of politics was very low. Unable to vote, I had never been asked to make any political choices. But in this momentous year, 1968, history was on the move.

On Sunday 17 March I took the Piccadilly Line and made my way to Trafalgar Square. I was attending my first demonstration, against the war in Vietnam. I had never been in such a…

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DIARY 12 March 1968 French connection

DIARY 12 March 1968 French connection

French connection

I have no idea where my interest in France came from as a teenager. I was good at French, passing my ‘O’ level with a grade three; not bad for someone whose main subjects were scientific. French was not considered a suitable subject for a boy; including and especially by my fellow pupils. I recall my class destroying a new French assistant within three weeks with a concerted…

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DIARY 30 January 1968. Goodbye, Dad

DIARY 30 January 1968. Goodbye, Dad

Dad died today

I took the phone call in Mrs Haggar’s front room at my digs in Acton. Dad had been ill for years and suffered a heart attack just before Christmas. He was at home and suffered another a few weeks later but he died when he was taken to Selly Oak Hospital by ambulance.

Dad’s death was half-expected but it was still a shock; I cried. I went to Birmingham immediately and he was…