Complete online archive of Xtra! - an anarchist/autonomist newspaper published in North London from 1979 until 1982.
Xtra's "Structureless Tyrants" included Simon Read (who infamously infiltrated the National Front's HQ Excalibur House in Shoreditch and became a key witness in the inquiry set up to investigate it). Martin Wright (who would later be involved with Class War) was also a contributor.
In 1981 a teenage Chemistry student in Nottingham was sentenced to three years imprisonment for distributing 200 photocopies of issue 8's cover story ("Burn Babylon Burn" on the Brixton riots) - see Black Flag vol 6 #11 p8.
Comments
Xtra was my favourite read,
Xtra was my favourite read, back in the day!
It's a bit subcultural which
It's a bit subcultural which doesn't ever age that well, but the uncompromising snide attitude is pretty refreshing still I reckon.
The stuff in the pilot issue and issue 8 about a member of Xtra! infiltrating the NF HQ and then getting nicked for trying to poison fash hardman Derrick Day is like something out of a TV thriller!
I only started reading it
I only started reading it about issue 4 but was well impressed... "uncompromisingly snide"... that would have been a good slogan :D The Derrick Day stuff was dead good.
Ah, I think that's the same
Ah, I think that's the same NF infiltrator who was profiled/interviewed here: https://invereskstreet.blogspot.com/2012/01/simon-says-by-ian-walker.html
Yup same one.
Yup same one.
A glimpse of the missing…
A glimpse of the missing issue 10 from an ebay auction.
Damn shame we missed it!
Damn shame we missed it!
£150 seems a bit steep…
£150 seems a bit steep though, especially as the auction includes a t-shirt and a bunch of material that is already on Libcom...
Yeah definitely, if we had…
Yeah definitely, if we had seen it we would have sent a message and asked to buy that just by itself
Ah right - good to know if I…
Ah right - good to know if I spot anything similar in future...
Fozzie wrote: Ah right -…
Great, thanks. Even if something is quite expensive potentially we could try to crowdfund it. Back in the day we did that with a bunch of solidarity materials
Now a complete archive for…
Now a complete archive for all you ageing armchair terrorists out there... (and younger ones I guess).
wahey!
wahey!
Derrick Day was built like a…
Derrick Day was built like a brick shithouse, and lived in Hoxton, then still a working class area. His son was also an active fascist. DD had been with the Mosleyites. DD defected from the National Front to the British Movement. As Martin Lux/Wright said about DD “Times were much harder then and a lot of the NF were very hard, violent people. You just have to look at the head of the Hoxton NF back then, Derrick Day, a fuckin gorilla with a face covered with razor cuts.” His son died quite soon of leukaemia and DD died in 1995 during a protest against the import of live animals ! I remember going through Hoxton on a largish anti-fascist demonstration, which was quite hair-raising with the Days and their cronies harassing the demo.