Stuart Christie's rewritten version of "The Christie File" is now complete. "Edward Heath Made Me Angry" covers Christie's return to Britain after his ill-fated mission for the Spanish Anarchist resistance (recounted in "General Franco Made Me A Terrorist"). But though returning, he was not retiring and he threw himself back into libertarian activism - notably restarting the Anarchist Black Cross, writing for "Black Flag" and agitating for anarchism - and trying to hold down a full time job.
We get a grassroots view of the rise of the counterculture, and an insider's story of how political activism turned into class war as the heightened expectations of a new generation of radicals clashed with governments bent on maintaining control by any means. Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath made a lot of people angry!
As well as his own story, Christie recounts the activities of the "Angry Brigade", whose victimless protest bombings made them "Public Enemy Number One" - to the police, press and politicians, if not to the public. Holding down his job became increasingly difficult with the police camped outside his workplace and the media dropping hints about how the blame for all this lay with letting certain Scottish Anarchists come back from Spain... All of which came to a climax when Christie was arrested and explosives "found" in the car he was driving.
A fair part of the book is taken up with the "Stoke Newington Eight" trial of "likely candidates" for membership of the Angry Brigade. One of the longest British criminal trials, it was also one of the most political of political ones, pitting libertarians who had no intention either saying "Fair cop, Guv" or "It was not me, it was the others!" against policemen who couldn't really understand the "disloyalty" of the Angry Brigade.
But as well as this, you get Luddites, Bandits and the Strategy of Tension! Written with thirty-plus years of hindsight - and without the secret police breathing down anyone's neck - this is a much fuller account of the angry years than anyone else has produced so far. Like "My Granny Made Me An Anarchist" and "General Franco Made Me A Terrorist" this is a heavily illustrated limited edition. It's an excellent account of Christie's life, the anarchist movement and one particularly intense period of the constant struggle for a better world.

Edward Heath Made me Angry
The Christie File Part 3, 1967-1975 (The later memoirs of a west of Scotland 'Baby boomer')
by Stuart Christie
308 pages, illustrated, A4. ISBN 1873976232 Regular price £40
Published by Christiebooks www.christiebooks.com
PO Box 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 2UX
Also available from The Kate Sharpley Library www.katesharpleylibrary.net
KSL, BM Hurricane, London, WC1 N 3XX and
KSL, PMB 820, 2425 Channing Way, Berkeley CA 94704, USA
Kate Sharpley Library Bulletin subscribers can get this title at a discount (£25).