READING’S ONLY NEWSPAPER RED RAG RED RAG IS A FORTNIGHTLY NEWS A ND EVENTS DIGEST AVAILABLE FREE ON REQUEST TO 31B MILMAN ROAD. WE WILL PUBLISH YOUR MANIFESTOS? DETAILS OF YOUR GROUP, SMALL WANT AND FOR SALE ADS,DETAILS OR UPCOMING EVENTS ETC. WRITE TO ABOVE ADDRESS OR PHONE 861841 OR 83275 RED RAG 8 MARCH 1981 VOLUME 3 NUMBER 4 THE PLAIN PERSON’S GUIDE TO EVENTS IN READING A digest of Reading’s events over the last couple of weeks will probably amount to indigestion for all you reds out there! So, for those of you wise enough to steer clear of the large doses of apoplexy dished out by the Post and Chronic – here it is… THE KING AND DI The town’s newspapers have mana- ged to squeeze some items of interest between the hundreds of column-inches devoted to the wedding plans of a couple called Charles and Di, whoever they might be. I’ve never heard of them but it seems that some people in Reading have. RATES OF INTEREST Reading rates are rising by 33.6 per cent – there was talk of 60%+ - and this will mean an extra £45 per year for the average householder. A liblab pact pre- vented an increase in bus fares. County rates will rise by 8.7% EDWARDS CANED The row over the free cruise for councillor Hughes, education director Peter Edwards & co is still raging. Letters from irate PTA members and parents are flooding the letter-columns. For those of you in the dark it seems that the county councillor and his pals had a free cruise on the Med while kids paid £270 each. MILKING THE KIDS The wonderful county council are intending to charge 40p a pint for school milk. To their great surprise the council are criticised by parents who only pay 20p in the shops. The official response was that if the kids didn’t pay it the ratepayers would have to. Ugh! Staying with svhools – the county is going to close Wakefield Lodge School for the mentally handicapped. Postcards reminding the council that it is the Year of the Disables to Shire Hall, please. PROSPECTS OF PARADISE? Some of you will (hopefully)have noticed a building in Prospect Park called the Mansion House. The council wanted to flog it to a company who would turn it into – yes, you’ve guessed it – offices. It is empty but some locals residents want it used to provide leisure facilities for us. Anyway, it hasn’t been sold yet so there may be some hope… DRAWING THE LINE It seems that the Boundary Commission is coming to our rescue. A ‘team’ is going to hold an enquiry later this year into the local constituency boundaries. XNo doubt they are hell- bent on gerrymandering (sorry) our dynamic duo out of office. DOWN IN BLACK AND WHITE Talking of the terrible twosome, they ran into some trouble at a meeting held at the town hall to discuss the govt’s Nationality Bill. Durant and Vaughan were both in attendance giving their support o this institutional racism, but local minority groups have expressed disgust and a will to fight their plans. Those readers who read quality papers may have noticed the legal contortions that have been proposed in committee so that this Bill will do what it is supposed to do – keep out non-whites while allowing kith & kin to come freely – without actually referring to black and white. IT TAKES COURAGE… … TO FIGHT THE BREWERIES. Courage has unveiled plans to redevelop their town centre site. The council has refused on the grounds that too much PAGE TWO space is being to commerce (really). Courage is appealing xx to the Environment department, which can overrule the council if it feels that the development would make a lot of money…sorry, if it feels that the development is in the public interest. A public enquiry is being held in the old town hall starting March 31. You know what to do. UNEMPLOYMENT Unemployment has been a big feature. The Co-op printers to close (100 jobs) and Wilkinson Sword (100 jobs) and now, it seems, Burberry’s who made bogey’s trenchcoat, losing 200 jobs. The Trades Council is making the Mayday march (2 May) an umemp- loyment protest. SOCIAL DEMOCWAT Woy Jenkins come to the University to tell us how wonderful the EEC is and that we should fight for it. Who was it said that the only thing Woy ever fought for was a table in a restaurant? BANC PROFITS SOAR And, finally, some nice news. Thank you, Thompson Twins, for the Anti Nuclear Campaign benefit gig at the University. They raised £170 for the anti-nuke campaign. They gave a lot of people a lot of fun, too. However, my ears hurt. What was that? Who said I’m getting old? REDRAG EVENTS DIARY POLITICAL ECONOMY 9 MARCH The Communist Party has an educational meeting/discussion on Political Economy at 8pm at 39 Ashmore Road, Whitley WOMEN AND NUKES MONDAY 9 MARCH The women’s group of the Berkshire Anti-Nuclear Campaign has a meeting at 107 Waverley Road. 8pm. LOW LEVEL RADIATION WEDNESDAY 11 MARCH Dr Rosalie Burtell will speak about the Tri-State project, a study pf low-level radiation from a base of 13M people. Her findings were unpopular with the nuclear industry and the project was discontinued. It starts at 8pm, at the Students Union on the Whiteknights campus, and is organised by Berkshire Anti- Nuclear Campaign. LOW-LEVEL POLLUTION WEDNESDAY 11 MARCH Professsor Derek Bryce-Smith is talking about the risks of lead pollution, at 8pm in the Cap and Gown public house. He knows. Organised by the Friends of the Earth. O TO BE IN ENGLAND THURSDAY 12 MARCH If you are the kind of person who reads Red Rag, chances are that if you lived in Germany you wouldn’t be allowed to work as a teacher, civil servant, postal worker or train driver. Berufsverbot, the system is called, and there’s a public meeting on the subject at the AUEW Hall, Oxford Road, 8pm. Organised by the Communist Party. MAYDAY FRIDAY 13 MARCH The Mayday organising committee meets to continue theplanning for this year’s clebrations. Group delegates and individuals welcome. It’s at 8pm at 181 Shinfield Road. WOMEN’S THEATRE GROUP XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX THURSDAY 12 MARCH Women’s Theatre Group will be meeting in the bar of the Students Union at Bulmershe College at 8pm. This is just starting out, so presumably welcomes interested women. RED RAG PAGE THREE MISSING IN NAMIBIA SATURDAY 14 MARCH The National Union of Students is organising a demonstration outside the Southern Electricity showrooms in the town. It is against illegal mining in Namibia. Time of demo not known – contact Students Union. JUMBLE SALE SATURDAY 14 MARCH St Bartholemews Church Hall, London Road, 1.30pm. In aid of Berkshire Anti-Nuclear Campaign. If you have an jumble CONTACT Bob Allen, Reading 863803 WOMEN’SOCIAL TUESDAY 17 MARCH Reading Women’s Liberation Group soacial, at 26 New Road in the evening. Bring your own food & wine. JUMBLE SALE AUEW hall, Oxford Road, 6.30pm. Organised by the Communist Party. If you have jumble to spare CONTACT Jane Carter, 861305 MAN-MADE LANGUAGE FRIDAY 27 MARCH A socialist feminist discussion group will meet tonight to talk about ‘man made language’. Fore venue CONTACT Bridget, 472297 WOMEN IN CHRISTIANITY TUESDAY 31 MARCH Reading womens Liberation Group will meet and talk about the portrayal of women by Christianity. 26 New Road, 8pm. MESSAGES XXX Women’s Centre at St Mary’s Centre (behind the church, off the Butts) is now open as follows: 10-3.30 tuesdays 10-12.30 fridays XXX Bike for sale – cheap 20 inch wheel(sic); probably needs some attention. £25 Bridget 472297 XXX Red rag started this issue with £5 in the bank & received £2 from CB. We spent £5.10 on paper, £1.20 in stencils, £1.50 (i think on labels), and are now left with £5. Work it out if you dare. XXX MAYDAY You have probably found with your Red rag this issue a book or books of Draw tickets. Please make every effort to sell the tickets and return the counterfoils with money as soon as possible to Christine Borgars, 27 Carlton Road, Caversham Heights. There is a very ambitious programme planned for mayday this year and we need to raise a great deal of money. We want more of everything, more money, more people, more events. Fund raising has gone well so far, but has really only just begun. A large amount of publicity is plan- ned, so large numbers of people would be useful to spread it around. Commitments so far include a Theatre Event by the Women’s Group, an eve- ning entertainment followed by break fast at the student union, a band, and some food. More promises are needed. The main theme for the march and rally will be Unemployment, and the usual moderately exiting array of speakers will be obtained. If you can help at all with anything please contact Sue or Mark on 861841 preferably by March 13th when the ne next May Day Festival Planning Cttee Meeting will be held. Red Rag Side four PLATFORM The impression that remains after an afternoon reading our local newspapers is not so much the reactionary tome, nor the sensationalism which is more noticeable than it, but the sheer lack of information about local events. The Evening post gets most of its news from the Press Association in London, and most of its feature material from some central Thompson Organisation source which I like to imagine as a large underground room kept constantly warm and damp, where the only information filtering in to the writers busily scribbling tips on the latest fashions and guides to growing gardenias comes from Radio Four, which in turn gets its information from reading Thompson Organisation feature articles,,, The Reading Chronicle is a sadder case still. Not so long ago the Chronicle was the very acme of English-language local journalism relying first and foremost on printing the names and pic- tures of everyone in the district as often as possible ~(on the sound principle that if your name/picture is the paper you will buy it). It was boring, and pompous, but it printed everything that happened in excruciating detail. Things have changed. The Chronicle appears now to be staffed by a group of journalists markedly more ignorant and venal than the norm in a fairly sordid profession. The most important thing that happened in Reading last week, according to the Chronicle’s current number is that a local woman ‘felt a bit tearful’ after watching a television programme which dealt with the death of malformed children. The woman had lost a child herself some 10 months ago. The fact that both the town and county rates were fixed last week, and that these will affect everyone living in the town, justifies two stories on page two. The first on town rates is, by space standards, judged half as important as the woman who – nearly – cried. The county council story roughly equates, in the amount of space devoted to it, to a splash given a 25-year-old mother of three with a total income of under £30 a week who took a three-piece suite from an unoccupied caravan. Neither of the stories gives the basic facts – what is the total budget of the council? How is it divided up? How do the totals compare with last year? What, in detail, will be cut? We are not told. Mark Gonnella tells us that ‘Berkshires’s multi million pound budget was rubber stamped by councillors this week’ in the first sentence, but in the second says there was in fact a ’marathon ten hour debate’. Chose one. Why ‘multi’ million rather than (say) ‘150’ million? Because Mr Gonnella does not know and can’t be bothered to find out? Red Rag is now a group of reasonable size, with enough people to handle the production and distribution of a newsletter this size to double its current readership. In people terms all we lack in order to provide a better news service than the local rags is a couple of people willing to attend and report on local council doings – and possibly to attend local crown court proceedings. Any volunteers? 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