Radical Publishing

628 High Road – A meeting place for local rebels

So much of Tottenham’s radical history centres on this one spot on the High Road..
Most notably this is because it was the home of the Tottenham Community Project (TCP). 

(628 High Road, image taken by Henry Jacobs and printed on the front cover of Tottenham Community Project’s newspaper, NET (North East Tottenham), June 1972. From the collections of Bruce Castle Museum and Archive)

TCP was set up in April 1971, with the aim of advocating for communities in North East Tottenham. The centre at 628 High Road offered accommodation, food, meeting rooms, and advice on topics from housing to legal matters. It initially had 3 permanent project workers: Norma Vince, John Wratten and David Pennock. (A smaller centre also existed at 4 Paignton Road in South Tottenham). TCP identified the ‘work to be done in helping to create opportunities for people to meet, mix, argue, talk, celebrate, or even simply watch; giving identity, confidence and relevance to the neighbourhood.’ 

TCP produced a regular community newspaper called NET (North East Tottenham) from 1972-1977, according to its own aims the paper distributed not just ‘facts and information’, but ‘an ethos of caring, reliability and optimism’.

Over its life TCP was the home of, hosted meetings for, and published material for many local organisations, including but not limited to:

• Unwaged Women’s Group 
• Haringey Against Apartheid 
• Haringey Unemployed Workers Centre (active throughout the 1980s) & Tottenham Claimants Union
• Haringey Miners Support Committee
• Haringey Trades Union Council Support Unit 

(Haringey Miners Support Committee Newsletter, summer 1984. From the collections of Bruce Castle Museum and Archive)

Ed Spring, Buzz Johnson and Karia Press 

For a significant period in the 1980s TCP was run by Ed Spring (1940-2020), known as ‘Comrade Ed’. It was an appropriate epithet for Ed – he was a community activist, Communist, revolutionary, artist, nature-lover, supporter of the Grenada Revolution, human rights activist, loving father and much-loved friend to many. He presided over the printing press at TCP and helped many local campaigns, organisations and businesses publish their material and develop their work. 

Notable amongst these was Karia Press, founded by Buzz Johnson (1951-2014). Johnson ran the press by himself and made invaluable contributions to sharing the stories and struggles of ethnic minority communities, especially those from Africa, the Caribbean, and the African diaspora. Support from Ed and TCP more widely meant that Johnson could pursue this important and pioneering work.

Later in his life, Ed ran Art2View art classes at the nearby Bruce Castle Museum and Archive. Sadly Ed passed away in 2020 and is greatly missed by so many people in the community who he helped – a true comrade. A tree was planted in his memory in Bruce Castle Park. You can read a moving obituary about Ed by the group Grenada Forward Forever.