2014/15
•	Multi-cultural/multi-ethnic/multi-faith world
•	Satire deadly (charlie hebdo/muckspreading) – they should have known better/shown more 
respect
•	Fanatics – boko haram latest massacre, Pakistan school massacre 132/9
•	Gay marriage
•	Women expect to work - Women with kids and careers are become normal. 
•	Apparently conservative manifesto will include curbing the right to strike in public sector.  
(GCHQ)
•	SNP lost the referendum but narrowly and with an unprecedented turnout
The magic of Red Rag was that it was a valuable and interconnecting thread for people with my 
spheres of activity just as much as for those reflected in the extracts for reading.    And it was 
reliably there.
My Eighties were dominated by:
•	Civil Service trade union lay officer  branch/area/district level; section/group/computer-workers 
advisory exec member. Including, liaison/joint activity on pay and pensions with other civil 
service unions locally and all the usual day to day stuff of representing members (and dong my 
paid job).
•	Pay campaigns, 
•	Sexual harassment at work enquiry, 
•	ban on TU membership at GCHQ, 
•	Reading Trades Council supporting and hearing of many campaigns
•	May Day  organising with a small group of about 4 or 5 who changed every year. Morning march 
round town, afternoon stalls in the town hall, evening dinner or gig or both in town hall or RCU
•	Miners strike – local support committee – fund raising, newsletter
•	Berks Campaign for Economic and Social Advance 1980-81, local offshoot of national anti-Maggie 
TUC initiative.  One of many.
•	Reading Centre for the Unemployed  steering group proposed by  tony Durantj,  fronting as 
responsible org, Joan Ruddock, 2nd or third co ordinator martin salter.   Rights advice, courses, 
drop in, cheap snacks, multipurpose basic hall
•	Reading Campaign Against Benefit Cuts  inspired by a National Campaign of which my union was 
a leading light 1984-87.   Leaflets, workshops, meetings, xmas card
•	Red Rag and Acorn Bookshop were part of the interlinked support and publicity fabric for most 
of those. In turn I enjoyed Veggie Dining, distributed Red Rag, and was slobbered over in Acorn.
•	 ERRICA/CIU clubs
•	Women’s Centre set up in Shire Hall basement - 
•	WEA Industrial Branch and workshops – district plan;  women and work, health care and social 
services
•	Greenham and Peace camps
Belief that collective activity was worthwhile and would work.  And in equal opportunities and rights for 
women.  We achieved solid movement in some opinions in the UK but neither universal nor 
international