READINGS ONLY NEWSPAPER Red Rag ESTABLISHED NINETEEN SEVENNTY NINE Red Rag is a fortnightly news, events, and analysis digest avail- ble free on request. We will pub- lish your forthcoming events, views etc. Send articles to 31B Milman Road, or phone 83275 or 861841. If you want the Rag deli- vered and you live in Reading call 465402, (if you live outside Reading Call Lesley, 68972). VOL 3 NUMBER 6 APRIL 5 1981 Events diary ANTI-NUCLEAR CAMPAIGN TUESDAY 7 APRIL General Meeting of Berkshire anti Nuclear Campaign at the AUEW Hall 121 Oxford Road at 8pm. If you want to see the theatre group as well, turn up at 7pm. WORLD DISARMAMENT PETITION TUESDAY 7 APRIL People will be petitioning in Tilehurst this evening for the World Disarmament Campaign, from about 5pm. If you want to help & discover the meeting point, CONTACT Reading 27247 WHERE HAS LABOUR GONE? WEDNESDAY 8 APRIL ‘Has the Labour Party moved to the left?’, speaker Ian Birchall, at 8pm at the Red Lion ph, South- ampton Street. Organised by the Socialist Workers’ Party. PENSIONED? WEDNESDAY 8 APRIL We understand that there is an ‘Old People’s National Rally’ at the Old Town Hall today, but we have No more detailed information. FOLK FOR PEACE FRIDAY 10 APRIL Berkshire Anti-Nuclear Campaign have a folk evening at the Cap & Gown ph, opposite Reading Tech, starting at 8pm. Admission £1. APRIL MARCH SATURDAY 11 APRIL The Royal Ordnance Factory in Burghfield is where they put H bombs together. BANC has organised a march to the factory. Meet in the Forbury Gardens at 1.30. Transport will be available to bring you back from Burghfield. MAY DAY THURSDAY 9 APRIL This entry id out of date order. Meeting of the Mayday organising body – all welcome – at 8pm at 39 Ashmore Road, Whitley MAN MADE LANGUAGE TUESDAY 14 APRIL Reading Women’s Liberation Group meets to talk about ,man made language’ at 8pm, 26 New Road. DEADLINE FRIDAY 17 APRIL A day off work! While Christians celebrate, we will be typing. Get details of forthcoming events etc to Red Rag by today for the next issue. FESTIVAL AGAINST THE X MISSILES MONDAY 20 APRIL Festival against the missiles at Greenham Common which is where they think they are going to put them. Wrong. Help to push home the point and have a pleasant afternoon with music from Pirhanas, Mistakes, Between Pictures, strolling players of all kinds. Transport provided/over from Reading Station (bus station) at 1pm by BANC. Festival from 2pm to 5pm. SOCIALISM AND PORNOGRAPHY WEDNESDAY 22 APRIL ‘Socialism and pornography’ is the discussion at 8pm at the Red Lion ph, Southampton Street at 8pm Organised by the Socialist Workers Party. BBEYOND THE FRAGMENTS WEDNESDAY 22 APRIL The Socialist Feminist discussion group meets at 8pm at 33 Oxford Street, Caversham, to talk about ‘Beyond the Fragments’. News Digest CRUISING COUNCILLOR – SUNK? Debonair and downright devious, councillor Hughes really had his sails trimmed in the last two weeks. First upset for Gerald was a rap on the knuckles from Berkshire Chief Executive Bob Gash. In a report, ‘Berkshire Educational Cruise 1981, report of the chief executive’ the moustachioed Hughes (he also looks very shifty and his eyes are too close together) was criticised for ‘errors of judgement’ in not in- forming the Education Committee of his his wife’s, and education director Peter Edwards’ free cruise. You’ve heard the cruise story before so won’t bore you with details. Anyway, Hughes has resigned as Berkshire County Council Education Committee chairman as a result of the fuss. But if that wasn’t enough, the poor man ran into problems when some of his fellow Tories threatened to oppose his readoption as a candidate in the coming elections. He’d brought the game into disrepute, you see, and and they wanted him sent off… the red card… but being wets they let the rotter off and readopted him. Hopefully, though, his misdeeds will frighten the electors. LEAD STORY An official report (sounds so true doesn’t it?)says that petrol exhaust fumes in Reading are giving our kids large doses of lead which can damage their health. Focussing on one area, Elgar Road, the report has prompted angry responses from residents, councillors and even… Tony Durant, MP. Mr Durant has suggested that he may press for parliamentary action to reduce lead content in petrol. Reading’s chief environmental health officer Geoffrey Holmes, and RU professor of chemistry Derek Bryce- Smith say that lead can cause cancer, heart disease, still-births and mental problems. This issue is getting a lot of press coverage, and is being linked with a currently- abandoned scheme to build a relief road from Berkeley Avenue to Rose Kiln Lane. Margaret Singh, councillor and teacher at Katesgrove School, says pollution seems to affect the children. They are apparentlyinattentive, intolerant and bad-tempered (odd, I always thought it was due to the atomisation of individuals in cap- italist society and the separation of knowledge from action in the socialisation process… still, you live and learn). Anyway, the issue may get the road scheme moving again. TRAFALGAR BID FOR VICTORY The enquiry into development plans for the Courage site in town began this week. The Borough has rejected a plan submitted because it provides for too many offices and not enough homes. The developers, Trafalgar House, want to build 350,000 sq ft of offices and 170 new homes on the 14-acre site. Most of the present buildings will be bulldozes, plan includes planting 1000 trees & building towpath and pedestrian walk ways (whatever they are). The Maltings – a large old building which they can’t knock down cos its listed, may be turned into an arts centre. The developers say that the scheme will create 4000 building jobs & about 1150 office jobs on completion in 1985. A council planning officer told the enquiry that the plan would result in a ‘lifeless commercial area’. CARING SHARING Following the news that their jobs are to go, unions representing the workers at the Co-op print works have come up with a rescue plan. NGA and SOGAT have presented the plan to the Co-op managers, who seem reluctant to consider it, which naturally has upset the unions. If the Co-op won’t co- operate who will? The plan suggests that £1/4M, money for redundancies, be used to buy smaller premises. It also suggests a new wage struc- ture including cuts of up to £30 a week and voluntary redundancies. Will the caring sharing Co-op Listen? BRIEFLY… • The Royal Berks Hospital may get a new ear, nose & throat extension. • The Emporium is in trouble again because Audley Properties Ltd, the owners, are seeking a high court ruling which will allow them to remove the traders. • The Trades Council is discussing plans to create day working centres in the town to help & educate those of us on the dole. Apparently a ‘key centre’ along these lines already exists in Wilson Road, open 10am – 1pm daily. • A hostel for young homeless blacks Has opened in Southampton Street. Named Walter Rodney House after the Guyanese historian killed by a car bomb. • Alder Valley bus fares look set to rise 20%, and Reading Transport fares may go up 2p soon. When will they learn? • David Mason, former Lab candidate for Reading North, has joined the SDP. He said he won’t stand for them in Reading out of respect for his old Lab Party supporters. Will anyone stand for them? • Reading’s proposed new Super Station, from BR and the Pru, will include ‘air-conditioned piazzas’ along with offices, shops, parking and the usual miserable stuff. • A brief but hearty welcome to the Katesgrove Clarion, launched last week. Well done, all concerned. Let a thousand flowers bloom… Messages WE WILL TRY TO PRINT YOUR MESSAGES UNCUT BUT SPACE MAY FORCE US TO, AND WE DON’T PRINT STUFF WE DON’T LIKE, SO THERE. ANY WOMEN who are interested in starting a discussion group about bisexuality ring Toni, Bracknell 55867 or Mary, Reading 482820 CHILD’S BED for sale, £5 or over (proceeds donated to Anti-Nuclear Campaign). Reading 65364, 4-7pm APOLOGIES to the Socialist Feminist group for not putting Capital Letters on their name and for missing out half their entry in last issue. Apologies to all for particularly illegible last issue. Red Rag started this issue with £11 in the bank. We received £2 from PP, spent £18.70 on ink & stencils, £5 on paper, now have £13 in the bank. The discrepancy is made up each issue by the few people who produce Red Rag. Send cheques payable to ‘Red Rag’ to 31B Milman Road now. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Platform: Adult literacy & numeracy; Legalise Cannabis Campaign I WOULD LIKE to draw your attention to the fact that Berks County Council is intending to charge students in the Literacy and Numeracy Schemes (now unfortunately labelled Basic education) the sum of £4 a term. Literacy and numeracy classes are, at present, small, informal, flexible, reared to students’ interests and as unschool-like as possible, because all concerned are aware that many students are there because the school system failed them. The decision to charge students will drastically change the nature of the service and so must be opposed for the following reasons: 1 Students are to be charged only if they are not A unemployed, B disabled or C too poor, ie students already socially /over from page three… stigmatised are now to be further humiliated by enquiries into how poor they are. Are teachers to demand evidence of registration as a disabled person or unemployment cards to waive payment? So much for the friendly informal nature of classes. 2 Students have never been asked to enrol on anonymity grounds, so how is the fee to be collected? Teachers have been assured they will not be expected to collect fees. The Adult Literacy committee points out that enrollment would turn away many prospective students ‘who would see it as drawing attention to their difficulties and registering them with authority’ (from student committee petition against the charges). 3 This is only the thin end of the wedge. To save administration, students will be asked to pay all £12 at the beginning of the year which will be prohibitively expensive. £4 this year becomes £8 next year etc. 4 Each class is staffed by one paid teacher and sufficient volunteers to provide almost one to one working pairs. Volunteers are outraged that students are to be charged when they five their services free. 5 The service completely changes status from providing a service to selling a product – ie education – to people who have generally found that there’s very little in it for them. Are they going to pay £12 to find out? Reading adult education scheme is one of the most progressive in the country. There is a genuinely student run club in the old Town Hall, which produces a magazine in which students publish their work, and has sewing, carpentry and health groups as well as discussion evenings on ‘interview technique’, ‘your rights at work’ etc. The Scheme is drawing many new people who, having never seen literacy and numeracy as a problem before, now find it is a problem in a diminishing job market. - Judy Scott ONCE UPON A TIME… there was a brave young idealist (me) who wanted to set up a Legalise Cannabis Campaign branch in Reading. I put up notices in Acorn and Red Rag and as a result contacted about 15 people. They were all keen to get things going, so we arranged a meeting to ‘launch’ the branch (in early December).Everyone who had contacted me knew about the meeting, so did the 25 or so LCCx members in the area. But only six showed up on the night – not really enough people to do anything much (and in the 3 months that followed nothing much got done). So there’s going to be another attempt to get the ball rolling. If you want to help in any way with the campaign’s efforts to free the weed, we’d love to see you at our (last attempt) launching meeting. To find out exactly when (it’s in the next week) and where, or for more details of the campaign and issues involved, contact us at: BOX 23 ACORN BOOK- SHOP, MERCHANTS PLACE, READING. We’ll be using this meeting to put together plans for the next few months: money raising, public discussion meetings, the Reading Festival, a benefit gig… and there’ll be someone from the London office to speak about the national campaign. But aren’t there more important issues around at the moment, like unem- ployment, the Immigration Act…? Yes: legalising a harmless recreational drug will never be a top priority. But because of this, if everyone acts only in terms of ‘priority’ then a lot of things (such as legalising cannabis) will never get done, ie we might as well work on the Cannabis issue now as at any other rime. If you have any interest at all in seeing the cannabis laws bite the du st we want to hear from you, however x little time you can give, Dope will be legalised eventually, but whether it takes 5 years of 50 depends on people like us going out and changing people’s attitudes to it. -Nick, Reading LCC. Red Rag p&p by Mark, Sue, Sam, Mike, Lesley, Alison, Laura, Dave, Jon, Derek & Pete. Offers of help to 31B Milman Road or any number on masthead.