Introduction
"A group of people from Newcastle have created a 2008 diary that revels in our region's rebellious history.
This is a not for profit project to share forgotten stories of love and protest. We hope you get a copy and get inspired. Make history in 2008 and feature in future diaries!"
In this way the Wor Diary website announced the project which I present in this piece as a form of D.I.Y. alternative history.
Description
As the publicity for Wor Diary explained, "We have researched local archives and personal collections to get 3 historical dates for every day of the year, based on Tyneside's inspiring history of protest, rebellion, mutual aid and dignity. (Actually we've got lots more but will have to be brutal editors!)” The project was therefore born of an intention to research and remember this local history, and to bring it alive into the present day:
“From Suffragettes burning down railway stations before World War 1, to the Winlaton iron manufacturers arming the crowd in order to prevent another 'Peterloo' taking place on Tyneside, this is the underground history that is rarely acknowledged. Read of the dreams of long-forgotten pioneers, the determination of individuals fighting tyranny in all its forms, and the desperate struggles of the starving, without which we would not have the freedoms we have today."
Newcastle-upon-Tyne is the largest city in the North East of England, and has a strong industrial history and a reasonably well-known 'official' storyline of coalmining, shipbuilding & football. It also has, like most places on the planet, an alternative history - a forgotten and edited-out history of rebels, visionaries, dreamers and fighters. We ourselves, a group of friends who had first met through local protests, direct actions and green/peace/anarchist/solidarity networks, had only a limited knowledge of past struggles. Wor Diary was an attempt to capture some fragments of this underground history – to snatch back some of the histories that were not properly recorded, the futures that could have been but weren't (not yet).
The manner in which we conducted this research, shared it around our social circles, and published it for a wider readership, was characterised by non-professionalism, enthusiasm, voluntary effort and a form of open-ended participation. In this 'action note' I wish to relate the character of this effort at alternative local history, as a form of radical D.I.Y. praxis! In this form, character may be more important than efficiency; the quality of participation is prioritised over quantitative impact: the diary was not a means to an end, but a means that itself sought to be as rewarding, free, sociable & educational as possible. I shall detail four facets of this ethos further: (1) locality, (2) participation, (3) empowering history and (4) D.I.Y. aesthetics.
1. Locality
First of all, a note on regional identity and idiosyncrasy. 'Wor' is a local pronunciation of 'our'. It is just one of the terms that would not be easily understood by an outsider. Similarly, the first page declared that the diary was “produced by marras for marras”, ‘marra’ being an old pit term for ‘mate’, with strong (though fading) local associations of real, life-or-death support that would keep men alive down the region’s coal mines.
These terms, and almost all of the historical events recorded – personalities, locations, struggles – become opaque and meaningless to anyone lacking some regional knowledge. But the whole purpose of the diary was to record specifically local events - individuals who are not relevant to everybody already; locations which make up our intimate knowledge of the world. Forgotten things, and things that are obscure from a distance - but which happened here. And here matters. The place where you stand is important. It is where people have lived and died and dreamed and fought (we can name some of them). It is where me and you continue to live, die, dream, fight (we can give you some tips).
2. Participation
"Each month is drawn by a different person/household/family, with September produced during a participatory event at the Star & Shadow cinema"
The two of us who initiated the project tried from the outset to get as many people involved as possible. A couple sat with us as we trawled through historical documents; a handful contributed dates from their own knowledge or archive; and up to fifty people took an active hand in producing the diary itself.
How many people were involved? This is an interesting calculation, if you include all members of a family (the youngest artist was two, another contributor was heavily pregnant with the child born in between printing and distributing). One guy, the housemate of more fully involved participants, contributed in just one way: delivering a sample diary to the local newspaper offices in town, where an interested journalist then gave us a full page three advert (Newcastle Evening Chronicle 17.12.2007). I do not consider the journalist to be ‘part’ of it, but the guy who delivered the sample diary would be on my list.
Different people designed & drew the pages for different months, & within the constraints of a set diary-view format, they were free to add pictures, their own words & ideas in their own idiom and handwriting. This means that every week brings a surprise, a refreshing change of style. Some of it is illegible; much of the references are obscure; there are spelling mistakes and typos on almost every page and the format can be bewildering - and actually quite hard to use as a diary! But many people loved that quirky, individual, diverse character. For example, the scriber of the July weeks was Italian, but if not all readers could interpret her anti-pope slogans or recall who Carlo Giuliani was, it didn't matter because her words were a decoration on that page, to be dipped into if you wished, or skipped over as a back ground aesthetic when not.
Figure 1. Sample page – 21 by 15 cm (A5)
When I have asked people which weeks were their favourites, they have named completely different weeks, for reasons that I would not have anticipated. Several people do not use the diary as a diary, but have said they keep it on their desk just to read the week’s entries in the morning. I heard of a country doctor who was reading out the historical entries to his patients. In a way, it is gratifying to not know how many people have appreciated or engaged with Wor Diary. We never set out with a fixed plan, and we were always open to new contributions, and new interpretations of how things should be done. I would like to think that more people were involved than I myself know, just as more people bought and used the diary than I ever expected.
3. Local History, & Making History
"We hope the diary will inspire a greater sense of possibility and of the real history of struggles and freedoms that we have inherited. Not history to put on the shelf, but to inform everyday life. Never more will we pass that corner and forget it was where the 'witches' were hanged, or drink in that pub and forget the songs that once were sung against the British Empire and for the victory of the Mahdi army."
Interface journal is due to be launched on 15th January. On this day in history, in the small spot on the earth known as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the following took place:
1814 The Tyne freezes. The first onto the ice is a Dutchman with beef bones tied to his shoes for skates, followed by crowds of locals. It stays frozen for 3 weeks, with stalls constructed and fires lit on top.
1871 Death of John Fife, who gained popularity as a radical opponent of Lord Londonderry’s use of cavalry against peaceful meetings, but in 1838 as Mayor of the new town council he himself called out the troops on Chartist gatherings. Archetypal bastard politician.
1939 Newcastle City Hall, memorial for the north-easterners who fought Fascism in Spain
As amateur historians, we found it was harder to find dates for more recent events (1960s onwards), because there are easily accessed secondary sources for older dates, and the older 'canon' of local radical history is fairly firmly established (the radical MP Joseph Cowen; the leaders of the Chopwell miners; suffragettes such as Emily Wilding Davies). This meant that there was a relative paucity of dates for late-twentieth century issues such as animal rights and gender politics. It was also true that ‘dramatic’ (violent) events prove easy to date and allowed us to quickly decide ‘let’s put that in’, whereas meetings, gatherings, and longer-term campaigns do not suggest themselves in such an obvious way. Although our history would be uneven, incomplete, and even somewhat inaccurate, it was a very illuminating and gratifying process to look through the local history books, newspapers and journal articles to discover our own radical heritage.
In your neighbourhood, in everyone's location, amazing, lovely, tragic or traumatic things have taken place, aspects of struggle and power and of life. Not every country has such a detailed historical record as Newcastle, but everywhere the sentiment is true that, as a page at the start of November puts it:
"Today: Jean did her neighbours shopping
Bob cleaned snow off the pavement
Billy did his ill friend's paper round
Joe got up early to hear the dawn chorus
Baby Isaac giggled at his book
Loads of people ate birthday cake
The papers are full of what 'celebrities' & politicians do or think is important. Our lives are full of joy and enthusiasm not fit for their headlines, but these are what makes our lives GREAT."
This sentiment was taken from a spoof paper produced in Newcastle in 2004 & distributed for free at Metro stations. This kind of ephemeral source would rarely make the historical record. The author of the sentiment participated in Wor Diary but did not know his words were being included.
We made the ‘empowering’ intention of the diary explicit in pages which we added to the front and back, devoted to non-diary information. Again, these were opened up to anybody in our political and social circles who felt there was something useful to be shared. In the end, they contained a unique mix of the diary-esque and the idiosyncratically local:
1. a welcome: "Hopefully it'll help inspire more dates to be remembered by future generations".
2. 2008 & 2009 dates at a glance.
3. a 'femstrual' calendar on which to plot period cycles.
4. two pages about 'their' statues (of war and imperialism) and 'wor' statues;
5. two pages urging a break from the everyday and breaking out of the role of passive consumer" such as forming co-ops, growing your own food & 'skipping' food;
6. a poem commemorating the horrors of the coal industry, 'Close the Coalhouse Door' by Alex Glasgow;
7. and for January 1st a fuller list of all the dates we found for that one day of the year, before editing, to demonstrate how many inspirational or strange things happen each day.
8. a list of places locally where more historical information could be found (libraries rather than books);
9. a personal manifesto by one participant declaring her intention in 2008 to express herself on the advertising-dominated walls of the city;
10. two pages of tips on organising a successful event or campaigning;
11. five pages of local contacts for everything from sexual health to credit unions to anarchist music collectives;
12. a page remembering one local visionary, Thomas Spence;
13. a timetable for the number 12 bus;
14. a list of colliery disasters and a map of the metro;
15. advice on "looking after ourselves & each other",
16. and blank pages for notes.
The back cover of the diary is designed as a face mask to be cut out once the diary is used: "Your face is recorded on CCTV cameras hundreds of times a day ... Why not reclaim your privacy with this lovely, easy-to-use mask?" On the first batch of diaries, elastic bookmarks were provided which would also serve to hold the mask on, and crayons were provided to encourage people to decorate their own diary in their own unique style.
4. D.I.Y. Style
Wor Diary was done in a deliberately amateur and diverse style, and was rushed to printing without any corrections or ‘smoothing out’ of the design. In copying our format from the Californian ‘Slingshot’ diaries, we also consciously chose to eschew mainstream aesthetics, computerisation or neat usability. Instead, Wor Diary partook of a form of ‘zine’ aesthetics, which is not to everyone's taste and is, politically, looked-down upon by more 'serious' revolutionaries or campaigners who want to change the world all together, on a large scale.
Figure 2: Fragment of a family-drawn page.
Zines are personally-produced by enthusiasts who wish to share their hobbies, their opinions, their diaries or their politics with like-minded souls. They are cheap and small-scale, wilfully obscure and non-mainstream. They inspire me for keeping hold of the personal, the authentic and the hand-drawn, and for taking on the imprint of social life – they collect fingerprints and coffee stains in a way that a ‘blog’ never does. Above all, they are about specific experience and not about universalising slogans or glossy mass-manufacture. Wor Diary declared its affiliation to this cultural form, on a hand-scrawled poster at the launch event, written on an unfolded cardboard box:
"Why DIY?
On the very 1st page of Wor Diary there is a mistake, clumsily corrected.
We could've airbrushed it, done the whole thing on computer, even 'paid a professional'.
We didn't, we did it worselves, amateur, hurried, loving, as part of our real lived lives.
Why?
Coz
(1) The World is not made of Plastic.
It IS made of trees, kittens*, coffee spills, texture & smudges.
So this is what wor diary LOOKS like it's made of.
* At least 6 cats have rubbed + walked on the pages, printer & laps of wor diary.
(2) It's NOT OUR JOB!
Jobs = paid, punctual, dull, organised, efficient.
Life = yours, fun, enthusiastic, messy, hungover, unfinished.
Wor diary is a product of our real, lived, joyfull untidy existence."
Process
The diary was launched with a 'pub quiz' in a volunteer-run cinema which currently serves as the most important free, radical space in Newcastle (http://www.starandshadow.org.uk/). This pub quiz further served to spread our stories of alternative history: “Instead of being quizzed on hits from the 1960's you will be asked about riots from the 1860's." Like every part of the diary’s process, it also partook of our politics to some extent: "Entry will probably be free to those who have been put in cells more times than Thomas Spence, or whose very existence has been made 'illegal' by the current violence of law (eg. 'failed asylum seekers', anyone breaking bail conditions, etc... )"
The diary was distributed and sold through friends and relatives, and made publicly available at outlets "chosen for their independent character and/or shared ethos with Wor Diary. Get your Christmas presents there instead of HMV & Waterstones." We also sold the diary at stalls which we set up at 16 local gigs & D.I.Y. events - often only selling one or no diaries, but having a presence and 'being at' the events, in the scene, feeling part of Newcastle.
I disagreed with some people who wanted to use the diary as a fundraiser, and argued that it should be kept at cost-price to reflect the D.I.Y. ethos, and also to ensure that it was bought & used - a form of propaganda as much as it is a product. In the end, the 500 we printed (at an anarchist workers co-op in a different city) were quickly bought up, even before the local paper advertised them. We didn’t realise we had created a successful formula until it was too late to print any more!
Epilogue: 2009
We never designed ‘Wor Diary’ as our political banner or group identity, and we made no efforts to make the project consistent or long-term. Instead, we lazily imagined that the idea could take off and be taken on by other people, so that perhaps every year would see a different diary made in a different UK city, filled with obscure information about that locality, researched and created by residents there. But enough people enjoyed and appreciated the 2008 Wor Diary that, in August, one participant circulated an email saying ‘I want to do Wor Diary again’. A meeting was then organised, and as I write we are in the middle of putting it together for a second time. The other original creator of the idea insisted that neither he nor I should be in charge this year, and so another participant has the responsibility of chasing up contributions, arranging meetings and so on. I have found it challenging to relinquish control, when I know now how to do it better, but it is true to keeping the participation genuinely open.
In many ways 2009 will keep the same format and ethos, and we have tried to improve participation by, this year, getting every single week of the year drawn by a different person. There is also the problem, however, of such an informal and loose project being pulled in different directions by those who find some part of it interesting. The feedback and criticism we got disagreed in the things we should build upon and the things we should drop. A majority wanted a more readable, less cluttered format but, with no editorship, this is not proving such an easily realised improvement! If a contributor provides a page that is just as cluttered as last year, but fits the rough brief they were given, then who are we to white-out parts of their contribution?
The biggest upset for some people was having a meat recipe contributed to the 2008 diary by one participant – who designed the recipe herself, did not mean to cause offence, & provided a vegan alternative. Yet this inclusion ruined the diary for a group of other participants, and they asked us to guarantee that it would not happen again. I refused at first, as I did not feel I had the right to take on an editorial role. Instead, I encouraged them to talk to the offending participants. But in the end we have arranged to have one group meeting before we print the diary, so that anyone with concerns can come along and, if it has to happen, any censorship will at least be done in a group process.
All quotes come from the Wor Diary website in September 2008. www.wordiary.org
Michael Duckett is a zine-maker, eco-anarchist and an enthusiast of our rebellious history. His Phd with the University of Newcastle explored the contemporary forms of anarchist ideology that are expressed within activist dialogue - not the ideology that is found in a book, static and set out in dry perfection - but a part of everyday life, shared and dynamic and gaining its meaning directly from context. He works with children, and volunteers for community projects in Newcastle. oldglen@gmail.com
