Interview with Sidney E. Parker – UoE Podcast


/ Monday, April 11th, 2016

The Union of Egoists is proud to present the first episode of our podcast. You will hear a short introduction to Sidney Parker and then an interview conducted with him in August of 1991. The interview was part of a series about the British Libertarian Movement and was filmed by David Botsford. Mr. Botsford was not able to complete the project and Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance was given the master tapes. Mr. Gabb digitised the interviews and uploaded them to YouTube, and he has granted me permission to use the audio for our podcast, and I thank him for that.

His own biographical sketch from Svein Olav Nyberg’s Non Serviam (1992), issue #13 is as follows:

 Sidney E. Parker: “Born 1929, Birmingham, England. Now retired after thirty three years with British Rail. Has worked his way through the Young Communist League (1944-1946), the British Federation of Young Co-operators (1946-1947), and virtually all the different varieties of anarchism (1947-1982), to emerge as his own man, the penny of conscious egoism having finally dropped. Editor and publisher of Minus One/Ego/The Egoist/Ego 1963-1994.”

If you are interested in reading some of Sidney Parker’s writing, we recommend “Enemies of Society: An Anthology of Individualist and Egoist Thought” by Ardent Press. It is usually available from Underworld Amusements (US).

The UoE podcast will be posted sporadically as episodes are produced, and we expect them to consist of both archival and newly recorded material. If you know of any archival Egoist related audio material, or have any other suggestions or comments, please contact us.

The song you hear through the episode and in full at the end is “Depth of my Ego” by Matt McGinn, “one of Scotland’s greatest song writers”. “Depth of My Ego” was “inspired by the ideas of Max Stirner as introduced to Matt by ‘Bobby’ Lynn.” It is also on YouTube.

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