RED RAG HOME MADE-CHOC FULL OF GOODNESS EVENTS 13-30 SEPTEMBER Departments: Events: Mike 83275 Culture: John 57598 Distribution: Clive 61257 Letters: Red Rag, 31B Milman Road Reading RG2 0AZ Next Deadline, Thursday 10 Set. Offers of help accepted. A new broom this week to sweep out the crypto-Labour strain which has infected this column of late. We spare nobody our snide comments PICTURE OF A PAGE Property is theft, apparently. But when ‘leading Reading councillor’ Tony Page came home to find a burglar in his house, his reaction was to grab the man and call the police. Councillor Page, who has recently been hired as political advisor to shadow environment secretary Gerald Kaufman is con- gratulated by Red Rag for ‘having a go’. If there were a few more people conscious of the responsi- bilities of citizens there would be a good deal less of the mugging, rioting and idleness so character- istic of the working class of late. Don’t snigger; it could happen to you. THE OLD, OLD, STORY Which political party says:’we shall seek to eliminate poverty’ and comments on society: ‘It is surely not impossible to devise some different kind of system which eliminates all this nonsense’ Answer in the letters column of the Chronic, half of which is devoted to the SDP explaining that they have no policies but that, if they did, cleaner and chairman alike would supportthem. ONE STEP FORWARD… It looks as though there will be a centre for the unemployed people in Reading, in East Street, under the (more or less) control of the unemployed themselves, trade unions and voluntary bodies (Red Rag is a voluntary body, can we control it too?). The County Council has donated £60,000 to it, and it will do counselling, contact and co- ordination for the unemployed. We too have heard the criticisms which claim, from one side, that the centre is the brainchild of the viscious, shadowy figures who are members of the Communist Party, who aim to use the centre as a pawn in their sinister plans for world domination. On the other hand, there are those who say that it is a lick-spittle reformist accommo- dation with the forces of reaction which will sap the class-conscious- ness and revolutionary spirit of the class. Since both these factions appear to be present on the Rag editorial soviet, I shall say no more. …TWO STEPS BACK There is apparently radioactive waste which is too dangerous to be dumped at sea or at the Winscale plant in Cumbria. Conscious of this, the Atomic Energy Authority has decided it should be buried at Harwell. The annual report of the AEA, which revealed this, also says that such is the rate of progress that we can now build fast breeder reactors for only 20 per cent more than the cost of gas cooled reactors (£1,200,000, 000.each, roughly). I understand there was dancing in the streets of Katesgrove on receipt of this news. Read Rag page 3 Going Out Guide Details of events to John57598 MONDAY 14 S PTEMBER HEXAGON Home & Beauty by Somerset Maughan, Oxford Playhouse Company, £2.50 up. Til 19th SOUTH HILL PARK Ordinary People, an ordinary film that won lots of Oscars. 7.30 TUESDAY 15 SPETEMBER SOUTH HILL PARK A day inthe death of Joe EGG, Maidenhead Drama Guild, Until 19th. THURSDAY 17 SEPTEMBER CAP & GOWN Wilture Reunion £1 TARGET Dangerous Age THE BERKSHIRE ROOM (next to Top Rank) Jazz Funk Explosion £1.50 HEXAGON The Entertainers, inc Scott Joplin rags, Lunchtime, free THE HORN folk every Thursday FRDAY 18 SEPTEMBER SOUTH HILL PARK. 11pm, Sweeney, the poor man’s Starsky & Hutch, Regan & Carter ‘accidentally get involved in a gigantic top level conspiracy against the British Government.’ Don’t expect a happy ending. And tomorrow. CARIBBEAN CLUB Rock steady with the Coolerators & Suicidal Misfits £1.50 SONNING COMMON YOUTH CLUB Reades Lane Sonning Common, Ex People , 70p TARGET High Risk SATURDAY 19 SEPTEMBER CENTRAL CLUB Reggae allniter, with The Twinkle Brothers, I & I and Urban Warrior, £3.50 adv, £4 door HEXAGON lunchtime folk, Paul Downs & Phil Beer. Free HENLEY TOWN HALL Clayson & the Argonauts TARGET Mirror SUNDAY 20 September TARGET Xena Xerox HEXAGON Music Mosaic (classical) CHERRIES WINE BAR live music MONDAY 21 SEPTEMBER SOUTH HILL PARK Seven Samurai, 1st of mini-Jap film season. Dir Akira Kurasawa. Best film ever made, original of limper XX Magnificent Seven HEXAGON Philharmonia Orch, £3 up TUESDAY 22 SEPTEMBER SOUTH HILL PARK? Kaganmusha, Kuasawa’s latest, 16th century Jap dynastic struggles. Til Saturday. WEDNESDAY 23 SEPTEMBER HEXAGON Coast to Coast, rock, £3 up THURSDAY 24 SEPTEMBER CAP & GOWN Martin Carthy? TARGET The Press HEXAGON lunchtime. Angela Lear plays piano (Chopin) free. Evening, Preservation Jazz Band of New Orleans. £2.50up FRIDAY 25 SEPTEMBER CARIBBEAN CLUB El Seven, support, £1.50 HEXAGON Zurich Chamber Orch £2.50up TARGET The Rascals SOUTH HILL PARK (til 26th) ‘Rashomon’ ‘one of the most original and fasci- nating films I have ever seen’ enthused a D Telegraph hack, but don’t let that put you off. 11pm SATURDAY 26 SEPTEMBER HEXAGON lunchtime, Amity, trad & original folk, free. Evg ‘Festival mood in music’ inc 1812 overture, and tomorrow. TARGET Marillon SUNDAY 27 SEPTEMBER TARGET Z/2 CHERRIES – live music of some kind THERE IS NOW a weekday lunchtime creche at South Hill Park, costs 50p, to enquire/book, Bracknell 27272 Absolutely beautiful and fantastic T-shirts with the message ‘Alan Reeve for Prime Home Secretary’ are now available. White cotton Tshirts with slogan in M and L sizes. Send money (payable to J Turner) to ‘T-Shirts’, 276 Liverpool Road, Reading. Be the envy of all your friends! Hurr, hurry, offer must end when they’re all sold. £2.50, yes just £2.50! Extraordinary bargain made possible by our huge buying power. Autonomy Centre, 01 Warehouse, Metropolitan Wharf, Wapping Wall, London E1, 4 mins Wapping tube, Friday 18 Sept Opening night, with Tony Allen from Alternative Cabaret & JJ & the flyers, live music. Members & friends only. Sat 18th, film ‘stand up and be counted’, documentary from Conscientous Objectors in WW1 to Gen Strike. £1.50, 7.30 Friday 25th, debate on feminism, 7.30 Xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo ALAN REEVE RED RAG PAGE 4 The following is a very slightly altered version of a letter to The Times concerning Alan Reeve. It has not as we go to press been published by that august (sorry, September) journal. As a friend of Alan Reeve of ten years standing I was in regular contact with hime in the months between the hearing of the Mental Health Review Tribunal and the Home Office decision being made public and I feel that the procedure is seriously inadequate to ensure justice both for the individual and for the public. Several points have emerged: firstly the question of Dr Udwin’s competence. It has been suggested that the Home Office distrust Dr Udwin’s judgement because he was responsible for releasing Graham Young who later killed again. It would be foolish to believe that psychiatry is an exact science, psychiatrists I am sure would be the first to say that our knowledge of the human mind is as yet partial. Having accepted this, it would then be unjust to hold Dr Udwin, one of the most experienced and respected practitioners in the country, responsible for psychiatry’s shortcomings. Any human being is subject to error and since we may not consult any divine agency then we must accept something short of perfection. However it does not serve justice or public confidence for there to be doubts about a man with such serious responsibilities. The Home Office should reaffirm their confidence in Dr Udwin or remove him. If he is unfit to recommend release then he is equally unfit to recommend detention. Secondly, the role of the Aarvold Committee in Alan’s case has been most suspicious. They have intervened in a secretive and inefficient manner. The membership of the Committee appears to be a secret, their recommendations are secret and their methods perfunctory. Alan only saw one representative, this man had confused him with a sex offender, the result of muddled notes, a fact which came to light only after half an hour’s questioning on Alan’s sexual responses. Thirdly, the Mental Health Review Tribunal in which members of the public, both professionals and lay people, ssit questioned all Alan’s friends and relatives about his political views. In some cases this was the only line of questioning. Although the Aarvold Committee met him in Oct/Nov 1980, a few weeks after the Tribunal sat, Alan had to wait 8 months for a decision. This arrived only after two weeks of continuous pressure on the Home Office, in the form of telegrams and phone calls. The strain on Alan during these 8 months was enormous. He had always viewed it as his last chance, since the medical reports from both doctors and nurses could not have been more favourable. His lawyers had also obtained a report from an independent psychiatrist which was submitted to the Tribunal. When at last the letter came, it came by some stroke of cowardice, to me first. The Home Office had assured me on Monday 2 August that the decision had been made and of course Mr Reeve had to know first. On Saturday 7 August I received the letter refusing Alan’s discharge. I took it to him immediately; apparantely no one in Broadmoor knew. He was not told officially until the following Wednesday. It seems that the Home Office is treating Alan’s case as a special one; he was the first patient to receive a personal letter from the Home Office assuring him of their sorrow at having to recommend his continued detention. Dr Carson of Park Lane Special Hospital (where Alan was to be transferred) Xpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpxpx RED RAG PAGE 5 Visited him in the week before the escape and told him that he could continue his research towards a PhD. This would have meant using the inmates as subjects – the study was in group behaviour – and would have given him almost doctor status. He could start a newspaper and run an advice centre for inmates. Although these were indeed powerful inducements, they were no substitute foe a fully human and free life such as we outside try to lead. Eighteen years of Alan’s life had already been spent behind bars – for what good reason should he accept that the remainder of his years should be similarly restricted? Section 60/65 patients are subject to instant recall at the whim of the Home Secretary for the rest of their lives. Given that it retains the ship hand, whay was the Home Office afraid of releasing Alan? Was it his political views? But we don’t imprison people for their politics in this country , do we? Was it internal wrangling over responsibility? Or was it the sheer indifference to human suffering that makes it possible for officialdom to sit on a decision for eight months of longer? I believe that it is incumbent on the Home Office to tell us why they want to return Alan to custody. Otherwise let them accept that living in the world out of trouble for some set period is a proof of his fitness for release, as it was in the days before the 1959 Mental Health Act. Finally, I would like to comment on security. It is facile to suggest that security is dependent only on the number of lockes, the height of the walls a nd the vigilance of custodians. Two equally important factors are the heavy use of tranquillising drugs and the hysteria whipped up by the police and gutter press which so effectively isolates the inmates from human contact should they live prison. This xxxxxxxx xxxdxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx isolation is desperately difficult to penetrate even after formal release is granted. It was very painful indded for Alan(s friends to hear him described as ‘cold-blooded killer’ and ‘maniac’ and this in spite of Broadmoor protestxs. How effective secutity is may be judged by how long it is since the last successful escape. Some say a hundred years. The difference between Alan’s escape and all others (that I am aware of) is that when he came over the wall the world he faced was not entirely hostile: Pat Ford, it seems, was xxxxx There to help him. The rarity of another person being willing to make this sacrifice is the greatest guarantee of security and the biggest barrier to rehabilitation. The committee responsible for drafting the Mental Health Amendment Act should learn the lesson of this escape. It is fortunate xxxx for Alan that, through his own strength of character help from friends and persistence with his studies, he is now in an unusually favourable position to live successfully outside and fight for public recognition of his case. How many more men and women in Special Hospitals unable to attract attention to the injustice of their own imprisonment, or lost in the toils of bureaucracy? It is all too easy for any one of us, falling victim to the increasing stress of life in the eighties, to seek refuge in a mental hospital only to be deprived of all rights. Treated against our will with dangerous drugs, electric shock treatment, lithium therapy, brain surgery, or whatever happens to be the latest fashion. all this legalized by the word of two pshchiatrists and enforced by the fear of never getting out again. Thisstrategy for dealing with Oxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo RED RAG PAGE 6 the casualties of the consumer society has now lost credence. Let us make sure that the amended Mental Health Act is a more humane and responsive law that the one we have lived with for 22 years. Yours faithfully, Richard and Jenny Turner The Great British Public buys newspapers occasionally for news but more often for titivation – human stories are what sell papers. For a local paper, a local twist doubles the mileage they can get out a national paper. Don’t blame the NUJ too much, they are not responsible for editorial policy, and its members have to eat. But… Ond day, peobably, Pat Ford will be in need of somewhere to live, and a job (or Social Security while job hunting). That is hard enough for anybody these days, but after a week of being headline news, and with personal tributes like ‘Trotskyite’ sprinkled liberally over the front pages, she is going to find it very difficult indeed. And where did the media get their personal details about Pat from? Friends, neighbours and, possibly, colleagues! Would you have refused to talk to a reporter if you’d been aske? Honestly, now? What has been printed has been printed and it is too late now to retract, but please, if you have any contact with the media, THINK before you speak. And if you don’t want to be quoted, say so (or don’t say it in the first place, and avoid the risk of the reporter hunting around for someone else to reveal that particular titbit).Neither reporters nor the media are all bad, and they can be used to obtain free publicity, but it doesn’t follow that all publicity is good publicity. Let us all make sure that we have no part in ruining anyone else’s life and future just for the sake of a few seconds’ notoriety and the transient stimulation of the GBP. End of Lecture. Yours, CC Borgars. The local papers have been full of reports about leisure this past week – the Council Leisure Committee has tabled a 10 year plan. But leisure for whom? Will new technology really give us more leisure time, as the Post concludes? Are hours of work going to be xxx reduced, more jobs shared, holidays increased? Of course not – we’ll just have more unemployed. Are the new facilities and plans for them? Reading is under-provided with good sporting facilities like swimming pools but the tiny ‘Youth Room’ in the proposed South Reading Leisure Centre looks like the token gesture that it is. It’s located at the entrance to prevent the youths from ‘penetrating’ into the rest of the Centre – so said an official who didn’t know I was listening. Unfortunately this plan is not yet available for public perusal. We know not whether it includes unglamourous facilities such as wading pools and safe creative playground equipment or whether it concentrates on the spectacular and decorative. Those of us who live near Palmer Park know what a detrimental impact the improved track facilities have had on the everyday loacl life of the park. Cars a few feet from the impoverished playground and a road right through the heart of the park (which used to be a ‘car-free’ route to school for many children). Will these new facilities for the old, the young or women with young children, all looking for sociable ways of spending daytime hours? Why not ask your local councillor and f ind out. – Beatrice Webb, planning correspondent. BUSINESS NEWS: We now have £41 in the bank, The cost of this issue (£2 for labels and stencils,£6.80 for paper) were met from editorial pockets. We need £1000 to buy a press, and £100 by November to finance our annual ‘review of the year’. Cheques to ‘Red Rag’, at 80A Elmhurst Road Reading. Reading 477073 27 Carlton Road Caversham Heights READING RG4 7NT September 1981 MAY DAY 82 Preparations for May Day 82 are already under way! Following the success of last year’s afternoon event we would like to run a similar thing again. Its success depends on support from groups and organisations, not only in taking a stall on the day, but by sending a representative to organising committee meetings. In this way your ideas can be incorporated at an early stage. We also need suggestions for and help with fund- raising activities before the day. Last year we had two jumble sales and a draw. Is this the most effective way? What should we do this year? Either Please send a representative to the next meeting on Thursday 8 October at 181 Shinfield Road at 8pm Or Send a note to May Day Festival Committee, c/o 181 Shinfield Road saying how you intend to be involved next May Day (or phone 861841). C C Borgars