Background
Christie, Stuart was born on July 10, 1946 in Glasgow, Scotland. Son of Albert and Olive (Ring) Christie.
(“Stuart Christie's granny might well disagree, given the ...)
“Stuart Christie's granny might well disagree, given the chance, but her qualities of honesty and self-respect in a hard life were part of his development from flash Glaswegian teenager — the haircut at 15 is terrific — to the 18-year old who sets off to Spain at the end of the book as part of a plan to assassinate the Spanish dictator Franco. In the meanwhile we get a vivid picture of 1950s and early 1960s Glasgow, its cinemas, coffee bars and dance halls as well as the politics of the city, a politics informed by a whole tradition of Scottish radicalism. Not just Glasgow, because Stuart was all over Scotland living with different parts of his family, and in these chapters of the book there is a lyrical tone to the writing amplified by a sense of history of each different place. When we reach the 1960s we get a flavour of that explosion of working class creativity and talent that marked the time, as well as the real fear of nuclear war and the bold tactics used against nuclear weapons bases. It is through this period of cultural shake-up that Stuart clambers through the obstructive wreckage of labour and Bolshevik politics, and finds a still extant politics of libertarian communism that better fitted the mood of those times. Now, in 2002,it is Stuart who finds himself quoted in an Earth First pamphlet as the new generation of activists for Global Justice by-pass the dead hand of Trotskyist parties and renew the libertarian tradition.” John Barker “What exactly Stuart Christie's Granny is being made responsible for is rather a lot. Given that the opening scene of this riveting autobiography is a bitterly funny account of his trial for attempting to murder General Franco, it seems that the poor lady is being saddled with more responsibility than is fair. Moreover, her quick-draw way with a bar of carbolic soap when confronted with obscenity does not mark her out as much of a subversive. On the other hand, as I know only too well from my own experience, Grannies, like Stuart’s, can provide an ethical framework that leads to serious questioning of conventional politics. As this marvelously readable and often moving book reveals, the real responsibility lies in part with the post-1945 break-up of a social system based on deference — although it would be interesting to know why it did not have the same effect on Alex Ferguson. Forged in the spirit of community in poor working-class Glasgow, profoundly influenced by Chic Murray and Dennis the Menace, local religious conflict, the father who went out for a packet of fags and did not come back for twenty years, Christie’s road to a Francoist courtroom in Madrid had many by-ways. Perhaps the profoundest influence of all was the rebellious William Brown although this book has more of Billy Connolly than of Richmal Crompton. A compelling read.” Professor Paul Preston, LSE
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007MOIGE4/?tag=2022091-20
(On the last day of July 1964 Stuart Christie, a newly-tur...)
On the last day of July 1964 Stuart Christie, a newly-turned 18-year-old Glaswegian anarchist, left London for Paris and Madrid on a mission whose objective was to kill the last of the Axis dictators — General Francisco Franco. This was to be the last of at least 30 attempts on the fascist leader’s life. This second volume of ‘The Christie File’ takes us through the prison years which followed Stuart’s summary drumhead court-martial in Madrid where he faced possible execution by garrote-vil, just six weeks after his 18th birthday. Of course, as Stuart Christie has already indicated elsewhere, he was no more a terrorist in 1964 than Chamberlain, the British prime minister, would have been in 1938 had he chosen to end Hitler's life at Munich with a thrust from his famous umbrella. Unfortunately for Stuart and his comrades of the anarchist Defensa Interior, their attempt on the life of the dictator of Spain, the last surviving Axis power, lacked sufficient security and ended when Stuart, having celebrated his eighteenth birthday only the previous month, became, one August day in central Madrid, the victim of an ambush by the Gestapo-trained Brigado PolÍtico Social and shortly thereafter the recipient of a sentence of twenty years in a foreign prison system infamous for its pitiless harshness. Fortunately, the powers of observation of both the personal and the political — not to mention the intimate and often irrational connection between the two — which enabled Stuart to give us Part 1 of his memoirs, the compelling My Granny Made Me An Anarchist, seem if anything to have become sharper in prison. For while he had escaped the death penalty, he still faced the almost unimaginably terrifying prospect for someone then his age of seeing in every New Year until 1984 behind the kind of bars not usually associated with Hogmanay. Thus when he arrived back in Britain three years later, pardoned thanks to the combined diplomatic embarrassment of the Franco regime and the actions on the outside of redoubtable helpers — including not least his mother — he brought with him the makings of this second part of his life story, including its account of and reflections on his arrest, interrogation, trial and imprisonment, the relentless workings of the fascist punishment machine and the diverse mentalities and politics of its operators and victims. His honest and disturbing account includes, inevitably, the often bizarre and sometimes hilarious events that allowed him to keep his sense of humour and hence his ultimately indomitable good cheer, behind even those grim, unscalable walls. Mark Hendy (secretary of the Christie-Carballo Defence Committee, 1964) The great thing about Stuart Christie’s memoirs is their singularity. I’ve read nothing quite like them. Their rich mixture of personal, political and social history sheds invaluable light on many important but neglected corners of British (and European) life in the twentieth century. Also, their wit and generous ambition makes these books a treat to read. Ian Jack, editor, Granta I was reading Stuart Christie’s autobiography which was good as he tells you all about the cock-ups and doesn’t try to make himself a hero — because the thing with Franco was a bit of a flop at the end. But I had to stop reading it because it was beginning to dominate the way I felt about everything around me — like reading Orwell. Aye, Stuart was very windswept and interesting but he’s made it hard for the rest of us to get through Customs without being searched! Billy Connolly, Gullible’s Travels
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007MEMGP4/?tag=2022091-20
(Stuart Christie was released from a Spanish prison in Sep...)
Stuart Christie was released from a Spanish prison in September 1967, having served over three years of a 20-year sentence for his part in an anarchist plot to assassinate General Franco, the last of the Axis dictators. He came back to a world of social and industrial turbulence, growing anger at America’s war in Vietnam, dissatisfaction with parliamentary government and political parties, and fermenting ideas about justice, direct democracy and extra-parliamentary organisation. It was a time when revolutionary change seemed both morally imperative and achievable. This third volume of Christie’s memoirs provides the historical and political context for the international anti-Franco resistance of the anarchist ‘First of May Group’, from 1967 to the dictator’s death in 1975. It is a first-hand account — by someone accused but acquitted — of the campaign of anti-state and anti-capitalist bombings by diverse groups of libertarian militants who came together as the ‘Angry Brigade’ to challenge the aggressively anti-working class policies of the Tory government of Edward Heath. The coming to power of Edward Heath’s government in 1971 redefined the limits of protest. Opponents of government were ignored or criminalised, hard won employment rights and social reforms were rolled back, and so was democracy itself. To challenge government became life threatening, as radicals across Europe and America were to discover (Benno Ohensorg, Thomas Weissbecker, Georg von Rauch, Rudi Dutschke, Giuseppe Pinelli, the six anti-Vietnam war protestors at Kent and Jackson State universities). The emergence of the Angry Brigade was one of the more dramatic responses of the time to Tory reaction, the legitimisation of greed and creeping Napoleonic government. The Angry Brigade’s audacious actions were not part of a strategy of regime-change, they were intended to emphasise and reflect the extent and depth of working-class opposition to Heath’s regime, and the callous values it was imposing on the people of Britain. They were signals that lines were being drawn, and that at least one small section of society was angry about what was being done in the world, in their name, and was prepared to do something about it. Edward Heath Made Me Angry provides an overview of a unique period in modern British history — the ‘angry decade’ from 1966 to 1975. A time when it became apparent to many that politics was an equivocal and amoral game whose only winners were those with little — if any — integrity, no recognisable moral compass or sense of principle; glib talkers with light fingers and cold hearts whose sole aim was the acquisition and retention of power. It is an account of the events which shaped Christie’s understanding of the world, and a reminder of a revolutionary and idealistic yesteryear that offers a treasure-trove of potentially useful experience and insights to recurring generations of new youth seeking a better world, or at least ameliorating the present one.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007MJJZAS/?tag=2022091-20
( Back in print and featuring a new foreword by the autho...)
Back in print and featuring a new foreword by the authors, this polemic approaches the subject of anarchism in relation to class struggle. It presents an argument against class-based society and hierarchy and advocates for a free and equal society based on individual dignity and merit. Drawing from the authors’ experiences as activists and documenting the activities of other 20th-century anarchistsincluding clandestine activities and social change by any meansthis fundamental text asserts that government is the true enemy of the people and that only through the dissolution of government can the people put an end to exploitation and war, leading to a fully free society.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1604861053/?tag=2022091-20
(The Christie File: Part 3, 1967-1975. This third volume o...)
The Christie File: Part 3, 1967-1975. This third volume of Christie's memoirs provides the historical and political context for the international anti-Franco resistance of the Anarchist 'First of May Group', from 1967 to the dictator's death in 1975. It is also a first hand account - by someone accused but aquitted - of the campaign of anti-state and anti-capitalist bombings by diverse groups of libertarian militants who came together as the 'Angry Brigade' to challenge the aggressively anti-working class policies of the Tory government of Edward Heath.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1873976232/?tag=2022091-20
Christie, Stuart was born on July 10, 1946 in Glasgow, Scotland. Son of Albert and Olive (Ring) Christie.
Bachelor, London University, 1986.
Public, Arguments and Facts International Ltd., 1989-1992; public, Arguments and Facts Media Ltd., Hastings, United Kingdom, since 1992.
(“Stuart Christie's granny might well disagree, given the ...)
(On the last day of July 1964 Stuart Christie, a newly-tur...)
(Stuart Christie was released from a Spanish prison in Sep...)
( Back in print and featuring a new foreword by the autho...)
(The Christie File: Part 3, 1967-1975. This third volume o...)
(Memoir, Political Studies)
Married Brenda Ann Earl, June 5, 1978. 1 child, Branwen.