RED RAG

Back Issues

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Established 1979
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(cover illustration)

These are the back issues of Red Rag. They'll be posted here every (usually) two weeks on or around the anniversary of their original publication. We're currently reissuing 1984; the latest issue is dated April 29th (scan / txt); the next one is due out on May 13th.

Red Rag, or Reading's only newspaper, had a noble tradition of misspelling, mixed metaphors, wrong facts, confused political judgements and a readership of 4000. It printed pretty well everything it got sent ("unless the Collective judged it racist, sexist, right wing, supportive of oppressive religions, or boring"). It aimed to provide a decent alternative coverage of local news and issues from a radical non-aligned position; to promote subversive and creative initiatives; to provide a forum for unorthodox views; to allow some sort of co-existence between a huge variety of interests. And in four and a half years it had never sold a single copy.

In this issue (scan / txt): Red Rag interviews members of the newly opened UB Cycles bike repair co-operative; after a long absence we celebrate the return of Diogenes; women in the Tory Party are to be seen but not heard (not one of the Tory women on Reading Council has spoken at a Council meeting this year); and anyone in the Reading area who finds themselves unable to cope without a fix will have trouble getting treatment from a local doctor: the Drug Squad has circulated a list of 'junkies' to surgeries and told them to phone immediately any of these people appear in their waiting rooms.