Back Issues

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• Red Rag

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 May 16th (scan / txt); the next one is due out on the 30th.

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): with casualties in the South Atlantic escalating, local firm Sperry are less proud than before of their supply of arms to both sides. We reveal that the current British governor of the Falklands was ambassador to Egypt during the Suez Crisis. On the home front: the first independent Trade Union action against nuclear weapons since the early 60s comes to Greenham; there are rumours of a third Thames bridge (if only they can figure out what to bulldoze to make way for it); the International Crusade points a finger at our reporter; having the police pull you along the pavement by your ears is now an arrestable offence; and we explain a thing or two about the local anti-nuclear movement and some of the people involved.