GHOST TOWN
“Released on 20 June 1981 against a backdrop of rising unemployment” – Jon Kelly
“it expressed the mood of the early days of Thatcher’s Britain for many.” – Jon Kelly
“By mid-1981, the UK was already tense following April’s riots in Brixton” – Jon Kelly
“It sums up how it felt to be young at the time,” – Les Back, professor of sociology at Goldsmiths
THE GUARDIAN
“Despairing of rising unemployment and frustrated by the most unpopular government of the post-war era” – Alexis Petridis
“the worst mainland rioting of the century broke out in Britain’s cities and towns.” – Alexis Petridis
“Clearly the Specials and a whole generation had been hugely inspired by what had happened with punk, culturally, socially and politically,” – Alexis Petridis
- racial otherness (72-73)
“post-war wave of immigration…produced a series of anxieties”
- post-colonial melancholia (72-73)
- the story of UK race relations post W.W. 2 (72-73)
“In the two decades following the Second World War… intensified fears that immigrant communities might swamp white Britain”
- Legacy of the Empire (77-79)
- The Search for Albion (77-79)