Noisy Valley

“It’s about what ordinary people do, because what we do... is quite extraordinary.”

Protest matters, and never more so than today – and yet our rights around dissent have been eroded in law. Noisy Valley is a beautifully illustrated work of graphic non-fiction exploring the importance of protest, and what it can achieve, through the voices of one vibrant community.

In every neighbourhood there are the activists, the ones who raise their voices. Myfanwy Tristram visited the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, inviting local people to recount their memories of the times they’d refused to take things lying down. Noisy Valley is the result: a graphic retelling of protests both past and present.

The area is best known for the miners’ strikes of the 1980s (and their support from the LGBT movement as documented in the film Pride), but its spirit of righteous dissent continues to rise against injustice. These stories tell how communities and individuals pushed back on a landfill site that poisoned local streams, a waste processing plant that destroyed an area of natural beauty, sexism in the workplace, and the closure of the local hospital. We dip into the historic Aldermaston marches and the Greenham women’s peace camp too.

Noisy Valley is a testament to protestors who – whatever the political climate – have believed in their power to get things changed.