Due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter, we strongly advise teacher viewing before watching with your pupils. Careful preparation should be undertaken to prepare pupils before playing them this potentially traumatic and triggering story. The film includes descriptions of the New Cross house fire from witnesses and survivors, as well as archive footage of the aftermath of the fire and the unrest that followed.
SHANEQUA PARIS:This is south-east London, New Cross to be exact, and here on this street in 1981, a teenage house party ended with a fire that led to the deaths of 14 young people.
REPORTER (ARCHIVE):Just before six o'clock this morning, the singing and dancing gave way to panic as flames shot through the upper floors and screaming teenagers began to leap from the windows.
SHANEQUA PARIS:I'm Shanequa Paris and I've come here to find out about the New Cross fire. It was a tragedy that resonated with black people all over Britain at the time and shaped the events of 1981. And though it has been forgotten by many, there are people who still vividly remember what happened 40 years ago. Some of them survived the fire and others were relatives of victims who died, but there were also many people who campaigned for justice in the weeks, months and years that followed. This is their story.
Black people have lived in and around New Cross in South London for generations, and following the migration of thousands of people from the Caribbean in the decades after the Second World War, many more black people who came to England settled here. However, some white people in Britain believed in white supremacy.
SPEAKER (ARCHIVE):We believe that the only solution to the rising tide of race trouble in this country, is for a complete stop to all further coloured immigration and for total repatriation of the coloured immigrants and their descendants.
RICHARD:I knew there were a lot of kids at school saying, you know, "go back home, get back on your banana boat and go back where you come from," and things like that. As I got of age I started to hear about National Front and knew what they were all about.
SHANEQUA PARIS:The National Front were a far-right fascist organisation. In August 1977, they planned a big demonstration through south-east London. They wanted to upset the local community and stir up racial tensions. But on the day, locals were determined not to let them pass through their neighbourhood. It would become known as The Battle of Lewisham. On the route of the National Front march was the home of the Ruddock's, a black family. Amza Ruddock lived there with three of her children, Robert, Dawn and Yvonne. Her eldest child, Paul, lived with his wife Sandra nearby. Five years after the Battle of Lewisham, in 1981, the house would be the venue for a celebration, Yvonne's 16th birthday party.
SANDRA RUDDOCK:My sister-in-law, Yvonne, she had the nicest personality you could ever dream of. Paul promised that he would supervise the party and he would be there.
DENISE GOODING:I remember her standing in the kitchen and she said to my mum, "Could Denise come to the party? Could Denise and Andrew come to the party?"
ENA GOODING:They were talking about the party. They were talking about it all the time.
WAYNE HAYNES:My sound system played at the party, so we knew about the party from the time that they started to put it together. We were school kids and we fudged this thing together.
SHANEQUA PARIS:On Saturday 17th January, 1981, Yvonne and her family and friends got ready for the party, setting up the house and the sound system and making all the food.
WAYNE HAYNES:The party was great, it was a good party. You had generations coming in at different times. So you had the younger ones who were there from the beginning and then you had the older ones who were coming in for Angela's side of the party, and they were coming in at like 12 o'clock. So loads of people were there.
SHANEQUA PARIS:While the party continued upstairs, in the front room, on the ground floor below, a fire had started, but the flames spread so quickly that no-one upstairs knew what was happening until it was too late.
GEORGE RUDDOCK:We're in the party and Paul came in, and Paul came in and he shouted, "Fire!" And I looked at him properly, you could see the soot on his hair, you could see stuff on his hair, and that was the last time I saw him.
WAYNE HAYNES:And all hell broke loose.
DENISE GOODING:It all happened so quickly. And I looked at Andrew, it just seemed like seconds before it was just thick black smoke. You can't see anything, you can't breathe and you can't feel it, it's just the thickest smoke.
GEORGE RUDDOCK:I remember when I put my head out the window, I was getting burnt, and in the confusion I was thinking, "why am I getting burnt?" And I'll never forget, the floor felt spongy to me, it felt spongy. Of course it is, it's on fire underneath you.
DENISE GOODING:I'm only 11 and I remember thinking that, you know, I haven't even lived my life, do you know what I mean, I've not even lived my life and now this is it, do you know what I mean?
SHANEQUA PARIS:Denise Gooding and her brother David survived the fire, but Andrew, their other brother, died. Wayne Haynes, who was suffering from serious broken bones and burns on a third of his body, spent the next six months recovering in hospital. And Paul and Yvonne Ruddock, who hosted the party, were among the 13 who died.
GEORGE RUDDOCK:I was very angry. I was just thinking about racial things that were going on.
MICHAEL LA ROSE:There were two types of racism you were afraid of: one were these organised assault types and the second was the police. Relations with the police were not good and we couldn't trust the police to do a proper investigation.
DENISE GOODING:The police came shortly after I come out of hospital. It just seemed like they already had their version of what they're saying happened. I suddenly felt like I was the guilty person.
LEILA HASSAN HOWE:Denise was 11-years-old. We were really taken aback that they would take children into custody. Although it wasn't called custody, when you're asked to go to the police station and be interviewed by police, you know for a young, in a young person's mind, it is like being taken into custody. So we were really shocked at the extent to which the police were prepared to go.
SHANEQUA PARIS:Furious about the police investigation into the fire, a demonstration was organised which was called, The Black People's Day of Action.
On a grey and rainy morning, a few hundred people gathered right here in Fordham Park and they began their march to Hyde Park in the middle of London, and at that point they didn't know how many more people would join them.
GUS JOHN:The march was historic in the sense that for the first time that anybody could remember, there were over 20,000 people marching through the streets of London on an ordinary working day. So nobody could fail to see us, I mean that was the point.
SHANEQUA PARIS:A key slogan of The Black People's Day of Action - 13 dead and nothing said - reflected the anger at the lack of attention the tragedy had received from the government. Black British lives did not seem to matter. Meanwhile in Brixton, another part of South London, young black people who knew all about the New Cross fire, felt that their lives and their suffering at the hands of the police was also being ignored.
ALEX WHEATLE:There was one particular day I was stopped three times. I was asked to empty my pockets for no reason. They said that I was acting suspiciously.
SHELDON THOMAS:What people are failing to understand is the brutality that comes with that. People think it's, "oh, you know, I just want to check your pockets." It wasn't like that. When they stopped you, it was a punch first.
SHANEQUA PARIS:On the 6th April, four weeks after The Black People's Day of Action, around a hundred police officers filled the streets of Brixton over four days and made almost 1,000 stops. The heavy-handed and aggressive policing in Brixton, damaged an already tense relationship, and by the 10th April, in 1981, people had had enough.
REPORTER (ARCHIVE):Violence has broken out in Brixton in South London when about a hundred black youths surrounded policemen questioning a youth who'd been stabbed in the back. Community leaders have complained of tension between Brixton's black community and the police for several years now.
CHRIS ICHA:People are smashing shop windows so you join in; you pick up a brick and you smash some shop windows.
ALEX WHEATLE:There was like a cinema playing in my mind of all the indignities that I had experienced with the police.
SHANEQUA PARIS:That summer, the unrest seen in Brixton was repeated across the country. It spread to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and other neighbourhoods in London too, with all the major cities of the UK in flames, the causes of the uprisings were clear.
MALE (ARCHIVE):It's been building up for years, like Brixton and all that, but Brixton is all blacks but last night it was blacks and whites.
REPORTER (ARCHIVE):Why? Why did it happen?
MALE (ARCHIVE):Because of police brutality, police harassment, oppression, racism on the police behalf.
MALE (ARCHIVE):We just want respect and treated like human beings, that's what we are.
SHANEQUA PARIS:A government enquiry was launched into the riots which stated that there was no doubt racial disadvantage was a fact of British life, and that the police needed to recognise this. But it took almost 20 more years, until 1997, for another report to state that institutional racism existed in Britain's police force. Because of institutional racism, black people are also more likely to receive aggressive treatment from police, just like the teenage survivors of the New Cross fire.
In the end, 14 people died and their names are here on this memorial, so that they're never forgotten.
Video summary
This short film for secondary schools looks at the New Cross house fire of 1981, and the protests, unrest and accusations of indifference that followed and defined race relations for a generation.
Shanequa Paris tells the story of how, in the early hours of 18 January 1981, in a house in south London, a birthday party ended in a fire. Thirteen young black British people died and the fire and its aftermath would ignite an uprising by the black British community.
This film tells the stories of the young people who were at the party and the events that led up to it, before looking at the protests and unrest that followed.
This film uses extracts from the BBC One three-part documentary, 'Uprising', which is still available to watch via the BBC iPlayer.
Due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter, we strongly advise teacher viewing before watching with your pupils. Careful preparation should be undertaken to prepare pupils before playing them this potentially traumatic and triggering story. The film includes descriptions of the New Cross house fire from witnesses and survivors, as well as archive footage of the aftermath of the fire and the unrest that followed.
You can also download these teaching guidelines, which were created for another BBC Teach series but contain relevant information for using videos in the classroom.
Teacher Notes
Before watching the film:
Prior to this lesson you may wish to introduce your students to some of the events mentioned in this short film to provide context. For example:
- The arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948.
- The Notting Hill riots in 1958 and murder of Kelso Cochrane in 1959.
- The Mangrove Nine case 1970-1971 (you could use this BBC Teach Small Axe film to provide further context.)
- The Bristol St Paul’s riot in 1980.
You may also wish to elicit from students what they already know about the relationship between the police and the black community. Your students may provide more contemporary or American examples (e.g. the murder of George Floyd).
This short film focuses on the events of 1981. You may wish to introduce students to those events ahead of the film (e.g. the New Cross house fire, the black people’s day of action and the Brixton Uprising), or use the film to introduce them.
During watching the film:
You may wish to pause this short film at certain points to check for understanding. Alternatively, you could wait until the end and pose questions such as:
- What was happening in South East London in the 1970s?
- What was the reaction to the National Front activity?
- How did the New Cross house fire affect the black community?
- How did the police treat the black community in Brixton? What were their attitudes towards them?
- What does this short film suggest were the causes of the Brixton Uprising?
- Why do many people think it’s important that the events of 1981 are remembered?
Following on:
You could ask your students to summarise the key points of the film. The events of 1981 could then act as a case study/example to illustrate experiences of West Indian migration to post-war Britain during a KS4 lesson. It should be noted that by the 1980s, many young black people had been born in Britain rather than migrating from the Caribbean.
This BBC Teach Small Axe film looks at the Brixton Uprising from Alex Wheatle's perspective, and is a useful follow-on film.
Another potential avenue is to introduce students to primary source material related to the Brixton Uprising. The Black Cultural Archives holds a range of source material, a small amount of which is online. After the uprising, Lord Scarman was appointed by the then Home Secretary to hold an enquiry. While the Scarman Report is quite hard to get hold of online, it was debated in Parliament and parts of the transcript could be given to students to discuss. From here you could then look at the consequences of the uprising in the 1980s or continue the timeline up to the MacPherson Inquiry in 1998. These BBC Teach films about the murder of Stephen Lawrence will provide more context to the MacPherson Inquiry.
Students may be interested to learn that the 1981 events in Brixton are most commonly referred to as the Brixton riots, however many people refer to them as the Brixton uprising. You could ask students to consider what the different names suggest and why different groups might use them.
This short film is suitable for use with KS3 and KS4 students. However, it raises issues of racism, unfair police treatment and resistance and therefore might be more suitable for older KS3 students.
It could be used as part of citizenship or PSHE when looking at the historical context to 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests that occurred across Britain, or about the history of protest in Britain.
It could fit as part of a KS3 history curriculum when looking at ‘social, cultural and technological change in post-war British society.’ For example, it could be integrated into an inquiry or scheme of work looking at migration to Britain or black British history. It could also be used when looking the history of the police or protest.
At KS4, the film could be used to illustrate the experiences and treatment of migrants to Britain after World War Two as part of the AQA ‘Empire, Migration and the People’ or ‘Power and the People’ course, the OCR ‘Migrants to Britain’ course or the forthcoming Edexcel Migration course.
Useful follow-on content:
Subnormal - A British Scandal. video
This short film for secondary schools examines how black children in the 1960s and 1970s were disproportionately sent to schools for the so-called ‘educationally subnormal’.
Black Power - A British Story of Resistance. video
This short film for secondary schools looks at the Black Power movement in the 1960s in the UK, surveying both the individuals and the cultural forces that defined the era.
Alex Wheatle and the Brixton Uprising. video
In his own words, this is the story of Alex Wheatle MBE, who grew up in a children's home and later became an award-winning writer of books for children and young adults.
