RED RAG (cover illustration)

Back Issues

Established 1979
Free! Fortnightly! Fun!

These are the back issues of Red Rag. They'll be posted here every two weeks on or around the anniversary of their original publication. We're currently reissuing 1981; the latest issue is dated November 8 (scan / txt); the next one is due out on November 22nd.

Red Rag, or Reading's only newspaper, was produced fortnightly by and for people in Reading and was delivered, free, to the homes of people who asked for it. It aimed to keep people in touch, with an events diary which spanned the activities of groups as diverse as organic gardeners and anarchists; anti-nuclear activists and civic planners; wild-eyed liberals and woolly communists. It contained news and views and details of things to do in and around Reading which the local press couldn't or wouldn't touch. Reflecting the fact that the Rag was produced by a diverse bunch of people, its 'line' was varied, contradictory, extremist, sometimes funny, often illegible, but always inflammatory; in its first 2½ years of existence it had managed to offend a surprisingly large number of people - well beyond its circulation of under 600.

In this issue (scan / txt): ten years before a House of Lords ruling which dismissed marriage between assailant and victim as a defence against rape, a rather sobering review of violent incidents towards women over the previous fortnight. Meanwhile, the revolution still plays second fiddle to Blakes Seven; a typo which I couldn't bear correcting about Handle's Messiah; and Acorn Bookshop finally get to move out of their broom cupboard.