Vidal Sassoon: Anti-fascist

Kyt · Apr 14, 2008

Vidal Sassoon: Anti-fascist warrior-hairdresser - Telegraph

Vidal Sassoon, the hairdresser, has recounted his early days as a foot-soldier for an underground anti-fascist group dedicated to wiping out Sir Oswald Mosley's far-Right movement after the Second World War.

Sassoon was a teenage member of the 43 Group, an organisation formed in 1946 by Jewish ex-servicemen who returned from the frontline only to discover that Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists and an admirer of Adolf Hitler, was spreading his message of hatred on the streets of London.

The story is told in a BBC Radio 4 documentary, Archive Hour: A Rage In Dalston, to be broadcast on Saturday, April 19, at 8pm.

Mosley and his wife, Diana, one of the Mitford sisters, were interned during the war and released in 1943. His supporters continued to regard him as a hero and urged him to resume his political activities after the war, holding a series of public meetings in his name at which they spouted anti-Semitic propaganda.

The 43 Group was dedicated to breaking up meetings of these "Mosleyites", through violent means if necessary, and a 17-year-old Sassoon was an enthusiastic street-fighter.

The hairdresser, now 80, grew up in the East End and was a trainee at a London salon when he joined up.

He told the programme how he once turned up to work with a black eye after a night of fighting.

"I'll never forget one morning I walked in and I had a hell of a bruise - it had been a difficult night the night before - and a client said to me, 'Good God, Vidal, what happened to your face?' And I said, 'Oh, nothing, madam, I just fell over a hairpin'."

Sassoon said of his fellow 43 Group members: "I was 17, these were all ex-servicemen at least five or six years older than me, and many of them won medals. I was a private."

Armed with knives and razor blades, the group fought pitched battles with Mosley supporters - many confrontations taking place in Ridley Road, Hackney, east London, which had a large Jewish community.

The group disbanded in 1950.
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43 Group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Antipodean Andy · Apr 14, 2008

Bloody hell.

P-51 · Apr 14, 2008

I never knew Vidal Sassoon was a soldier in WW2. Cool I know a little more

Antipodean Andy · Apr 14, 2008

Seems he was too young for that as was a teenage member of 43 Group from 1946. Could explain why he's a dab hand with scissors! LOL.

morse1001 · Apr 15, 2008

I have been reading a biography of Spike Milligan and it claimed that Spike was a prewar member of the Union of Fascists!

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