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 (usually) two weeks on or around the anniversary of their original publication. We're currently reissuing 1985; the latest issue is dated January 6th (scan / txt); the next one is due out on the 20th.

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 was produced by an incredibly fluid collective, some of whom had never met each other. 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. And in five years it had never sold a single copy.

In this issue (scan / txt): the Evening Post leads an unprincipled attack against local "bedsit barons" for attracting the unemployed and homeless with advertisements which they themselves are quite willing to print; food van deliveries continue to take hot meals to the women camped at Greenham Common; the Anarchist Group forges ahead with plans for a free festival to celebrate its 20th anniversary; the Ant Hill Mob play at the Paradise Club, all proceeds going to the Gwent food fund for the families of the pits in South Wales, adopted by the Reading Miners Support Group committee; and the Reading contingent at the action in London marking the fifth anniversary of the NATO decision to site cruise missiles in Europe is an affinity group of one person (about the ideal size for quick consensus decision making).