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 September 2nd (scan / txt); the next one is due out on the 16th.

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 was produced by an incredibly fluid collective, some of whom had never met each other. It printed practically everything it got sent ("except poetry and party political broadcasts, provided it isn't racist, sexist, militarist or otherwise supportive of oppression"). 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 five years it had never sold a single copy.

In this issue (scan / txt): DHSS Specialist Claims Control teams descend on Reading: you are not obliged to let them into your home. Food collections for the Gwent miners continue; Stop The City III will (police willing) be a peaceful celebration to stop the finance of death; Acorn gets a date for its court appearance; and the the Reading Anarchist Group celebrates a very special birthday.

Being around for twenty years makes you part of the furniture. Much of the infrastructure of dissent is run by anarchists (or was started by them) and to that extent, in the microcosm of the radical left, Reading (like Nottingham) is an 'anarchist' town. Assorted Lefties will keep up their consoling belief that 'anarchists can't organise anything' which must give them some comfort as they order their posters from the anarchist silk-screen collective, have their videos done by an anarchist video collective or have their leaflets printed by an anarchist printer. And don't forget, gentle reader, that 'Red Rag' itself started five years ago as a news bulletin for Reading Anarchists.