RED RAG

Back Issues

  • Get the Rag to your inbox
  • Red Rag
Established 1979
20p! Fortnightly! Fun!
(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 1987; the latest issue is dated January 27th (scan / txt); the next one is due out on February 10th.

Red Rag, or Reading's only newspaper, had a noble tradition of misspelling, mixed metaphors, wrong facts, confused political judgements and a readership in its heyday 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? In its first seven years it never sold a single copy; but now after much soul-searching a price had been put on the Rag's head...

In this issue (scan / txt): while Harbax Singh goes on trial for the murder of Gurdip Kaur, her husband is still walking free; the Women's Centre moves into new accommodation; there are bailiffs at the Blue Gate; World Education Berkshire focus on AIDS; BT are double-charging a "takeover fee" to house movers; Blowzabella are down one tunesmith; and the community engineer will fix your hi-fi, although whether or not he'll do this with talcum powder is a little unclear.