RED RAG (Mayday leaflet)

Back Issues

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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 1982; the latest issue is dated April 4th (scan / txt); the next one is due out on the 18th.

Red Rag, or Reading's only newspaper, had a noble tradition of misspelling, mixed metaphors, wrong facts, confused political judgements and a dedicated readership by now of over 750. It aimed to publicise and encourage a wide spectrum of subversion and culture in Reading; it kept 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. And it was free.

In this issue (scan / txt): the Rag takes a number of sceptical looks at the Social Democratic Party and a critical one at local women's organisations, explains the Falklands crisis clearly and concisely, analyses everything from the latest crime detection statistics to the government's criticism of the Manpower Services Commission (did it really have liberal tendencies?), directs you to the best emporia in Reading for purchasing meat and fish, and carelessly appears to burned out both its Events and Going Out co-ordinators in the same week.