The First Festival of Light rally, 1971

Mary Whitehouse speaking to a huge crowd at the first Festival of Light rally in Trafalgar Square, central London in September 1971. The Nationwide Festival of Light was a short-lived grassroots movement formed by British Christians concerned about the development of the permissive society in the UK at the end of the 1960s.
Its leading lights included the clean-up TV campaigner Mary Whitehouse, the journalist and author Malcolm Muggeridge and a number of leading clergymen. The British pop star Cliff Richard was a leading supporter. The movement was opposed to what they saw as the growing trends in the mass media for the explicit depiction of sexual and violent themes. Its culmination was a pair of mass rallies in Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park, London in September 1971

Campaigner Christians Nationwide Permissive Trafalgar Whitehouse

Features In These Collections

> Contributors > AMB