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Occasional posts on subjects including field recording, London history and literature, other websites worth looking at, articles in the press, and news of sound-related events.

10 May 2020

Chant

THE FIRST political demonstration I saw and heard was in London in the late 1960s. I was about three years old at the time.

It was a sunny day and I was out with my mum and dad in central London. They were small-c conservative and not very interested in politics so we would have been there for some other reason. From the pavement in a wide street, perhaps Piccadilly, we could see a crowd of people who were all walking in the same direction along the road, on the tarmac. This was surprising. You weren’t supposed to go on the road.

The people on the road were chanting “Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh!” I began to try to chant it as well. Later when we got home I chanted it again, making my mum and dad laugh.