Banner Books

Banner Books, also known as Banner Books and Crafts, was a Maoist bookshop based at 90 Camden High Street, Camden, north-west London. It operated from 1968 to 1975 under the ownership and management of Indian Maoist Gajavan V Bijur, who had links with Abhimanyu Manchanda’s Britain Vietnam Solidarity Front. Britain Vietnam Solidarity Front (BVSF) The Britain Vietnam Solidarity Front (BVSF) was a Maoist group that existed from June 1966 to 1973, though its activities were in serious decline after the height of the protests in 1968. It was founded in parallel with the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) after Abhimanyu Manchanda staged at walkout at the latter’s founding conference, reconvening to hall nearby to organise under an alternative name and with closer ties to Maoism. Full page: Britain Vietnam Solidarity Front (BVSF)

The bookshop focused on material from China and groups that were Maoist in nature, though it also sold other material from anti-racist and progressive groups such as Peace News. 

It also hosted events, such as a Chinese photography exhibition in December 1972 that Inquiry core participant Diane Langford recalls was attended by the Chinese ambassador. Langford, Manchanda’s partner, was a regular visitor to the bookshop and friend of Bijur’s.

In early 1972, Bijur planned to set up a second bookshop in Brixton and asked HN45 ‘Dave Robertson’ HN45 'Dave Robertson' 'Dave Robertson' is the assumed name of an undercover in the Special Demonstration Squad, active between October 1970 and 6 February 1973. He infiltrated Maoist groups connected with activist Abhimanyu Manchanda, including the Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist League, British Vietnam Solidarity Front and early meetings of the Women's LIberation Front. Robertson was withdrawn after 6 February 1973 when he was recognised as a police officer by a friend of one of the people he was spying on. In the mid-1980s he returned to work for the SDS for three years in a variety of administrative roles. Full page: HN45 'Dave Robertson' , at the time undercover in Maoist circles, to take over running the Camden premises, though Robertson denies that he did. 

Evidence released by the Inquiry, however, shows that Robertson’s managers discussed the benefits of him taking up the position on a temporary basis to gather evidence on the bookshop. Memo on possibility of HN45 Dave Robertson running Banner Books & Crafts left-wing shop, 7 Feb 1972, Metropolitan Police Special Branch, MPS-0730516.View Document  

Banner Books was destroyed in a fire in 1975, most likely started by the far right, which undertook a campaign of arson against left-wing and Black bookshops in the mid-1970s. Bijur, having been injured in the fire, returned to India where he used the insurance money to set up another bookshop in New Delhi.

Sources

High Tide, Reg’s Working Class Party. Reg’s Working Class Party, Marxists Internet Archive, 12 Dec 2012.

Left on the Shelf: Radical Bookshop History Project. Radical Bookshop History Project, Left on the Shelf, 24 Jun 2020.

HN45 'Dave Robertson' witness statement. First Witness Statement of HN45 ‘Dave Robertson’, given in the UCPI, Tranche 1, Phase 2, 30 Aug 2019.View Document

Diane Langford second witness statement. Second Witness Statement of Diane Langford (non state core participant), given in the UCPI, Tranche 1, Phase 3, 21 Apr 2022.View Document