Back Issues

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Established 1979
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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 1985; the latest issue is dated August 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 readership of 4000. 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. An indispensible source of local information? a forum for the self-indulgent and self-important? a continuous experiment in collective, de-centralised organisation? Who knew? But in getting on for years it had never sold a single copy.

In this issue (scan / txt): if you leave your door unlocked when you go on holiday you'll come back to a house full of squatters, but don't you mind all those boarded-up houses in Whitley; two Greenham women go on trial, scapegoated for causing 60 pounds (and 76p) worth of damage a USAF perimeter fence; the Queen Mum is 85; we're averse to live drama; Mark hesitates; and we find out what was in Box 2001.