Home of Metal presents At The 1 in 12 Club, a story of liberty, equality and solidarity rooted in Bradford’s radical heart. The 1 in 12 Club is more than a building, it is a living community committed to collective action and social change. This publication paints a portrait of the Club through reflections from those involved across four decades. Their stories reveal a place of joy, solidarity, resistance, transformation and family; a community that adapts and evolves with the needs of its members. Accompanied by a podcast series - www.homeofmetal.com Commissioned by Bradford 25 UK City of Culture This project was made possible with funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Presents
The 1 in 12 Club was set up in 1981 by the Claimants Union to provide affordable entertainment for unemployed people in Bradford, with a focus on gigs and live music. In 1984, through a grant from the local council, it purchased a former mill building on Albion Street and turned it into the premises for the club – with a gig room, member’s bar, and eventually a café and a library over three floors. The 1 in 12 Club is a social centre owned and run by its membership, operating on anarchist principles of self-management, co-operation and mutual aid. Over the years it has hosted countless gigs and become a mainstay of the UK and International punk scene. But the 1 in 12 Club is much more than a venue. Alongside the raucous punk gigs there was not only a host of diverse music events (from raves to folk, jazz and avant-garde experimentalism), but a Peasants (food growing) collective, games and sports teams, theatre groups, political organising, and of course a safe-space for meeting like-minded people that may otherwise not have a place in the city. Crucially, The 1 in 12 Club is more than a building – it is a group of people who work together to promote political ideals and social change. This publication (and accompanying podcasts) offer a portrait of the 1 in 12 Club through excerpts of oral histories gathered from people who have been involved in the club over the last four decades. They reveal it to be not only a fun, warm and welcoming social space, but a place of solidarity, resistance, collective work, transgression, transformation, learning, family and community that has changed, adapted and continues to evolve to meet the needs and desires of its members. Moreover, the 1 in 12 has had transformative, life-changing effects at the individual, local and international level – demonstrating that, through Doing-It-Together, another world is possible!
of opportunities to become enmeshed in the fabric of a working-class city with born-and-bred Bradfordians who were characteristically independent strong-minded ‘doers’. Bradford has a long legacy in fostering grassroots cultural forms that blur art, politics and the social. There’s a history of workers movements, including The Chartist Risings and the formation of the Independent Labour Party in the 19th Century. Industry’s need for trade and cheap labour have seen Bradford first in welcoming new communities from Ireland, the Indian subcontinent, and Eastern Europe. These migrants set up their own community centres, pubs and clubs offering endless opportunities for cross- cultural exchange and collaboration. Deindustrialisation and economic decline in the 1970s and 80s decimated the city. But the lack of infrastructure and resources has prompted a collective and collaborative Do-It-Yourself (or rather Do-It-Together) approach, whilst cheap and plentiful space in which to experiment abounds. In Bradford the ‘alternative’ strategies of self-organisation and mutual aid have been the most practical and pragmatic way to get by.
Against this backdrop we find the birth of street theatre and public happenings; The Welfare State International and IOU performance art groups; claimant’s unions and ‘Dole-Q-Discos’ that led to the formation of 1 in 12 Club; the Anti-Racist Alliance and sit down protests against the National Front; Bradford Women’s Action Group; the Gay Liberation Front; the Asian Youth Movement; the Black Future dystopian science fiction film co-produced with unemployed West Indian youths; Topic the UK’s longest running folk club; peace activism and poetry; warehouse parties that became the huge scale people-led Bradford festivals and melas of the 80s and 90s; The Fourth Idea and Black Agenda Bookshops; the boom of the UK hardcore punk and the Asian Underground music scenes. Then there’s the Polish hip hop nights; qawwali music gatherings; arts collectives and queer nights; voluntary run refugee and asylum seeker support groups; spontaneous vigils in support of migrants; Bradford Community Broadcasting 106.6FM; empty shops and market stalls used for socially engaged arts and avant-garde performance; scratch orchestras and commoners choirs; disabled
When I started playing in bands in the early-mid 00s we would do the occasional gig at the 1 in 12. It was of course both a privilege and a rite of passage to play but, at a time when the membership had grown a bit older and audiences were sparse, could feel like community service – something you had to do every so often to keep your punk credentials up to date. In 2008, however, we arrived at a very different 1 in 12 than I’d experienced before. There were swarms of young people, inside the venue and out. And on the bill, instead of a another five noisy-guitar bands, the headline act was a satirical boy band called Pro-Life. It was a joyous, youthful, friendly and utterly bizarre night. Where had this new energy sprung from? It transpired that the young people responsible for putting the night together were literally the next
generation of radical activists: the offspring of the counter cultural community that had grown in Bradford over the past forty years. Many of the key players had come to study at the University on progressive courses including Peace Studies, International Development and Womens Studies. Others like Dusty Rhodes, who went on to set up the radical theatre group General Will, were doing unrelated courses but were caught up in the fray due to the presence of the University’s ‘Fellows’ in theatre, art and ideas including playwright David Edgar. Some studied at the Art College where lecturers including Albert Hunt, Jeff Nuttall, Robert Galeta, Sue Gill and John Fox, and Al Marx got students involved in politicised public art projects like the recreation of the Russian Revolution on the Streets of Bradford in 1967. There were a multitude
arts charities; spoken word in beer shops; under the counter Korean food available only on Thursdays; free curry in Indian bars on Wednesdays; club nights and raves in former mills; sound systems in pub gardens. The list goes on. Much of this activity has industry. It is what American artist, activist and writer, Gregory Sholette has termed creative or cultural ‘Dark Matter’ – the ‘hidden mass’ of informal and everyday creativity that makes up the bulk of artistic activity in post-industrial societies yet remains invisible or unrecognised by the mainstream. It is fleeting, operated ‘beneath the radar’ of the culture often presented without fanfare to an audience of participants rather than spectators, and generally undocumented; with only memories and a few cardboard boxes and rolls of posters in an attic or garage from those that took part paying testament to multiple magical and transformative moments. This project, then, is a long-needed opportunity to map out, archive and dig deeper into the 1 in 12 club - and by extension Bradford’s - radical histories. It could help us
get to grips with why the city has been such a longstanding hotbed of self-organised, DIY, grassroots and socially engaged cultural activity. Is there something in the water? Is it Buckfast? Or could it be that Bradford, as a fractured post-industrial city that has been failed time and again by capitalism, has been the perfect breeding ground for Sholette’s ‘cultural dark matter’. In the cracks created by uneven neoliberal development, alternative culture has been free to grow wild; always adapting, changing shape and finding new forms. Although cash-poor, Bradford is rich in the resources of spare-time, cheap space and a collective will to be-the- change-we-want-to-see-in- the-world: vital conditions for a place like the 1 in 12. Viewed through this lens Bradford is not the left-behind ‘poor cousin’ to successfully regenerated Northern cities like Leeds and Manchester, but instead a city of the self-organised future; a lab for a fairer and more sustainable postcapitalist world. This poses difficult questions about the consequences of
especially within the frame of UK City of Culture that demands high visibility, polished presentation and ‘scaling up’ of ambition. Can we resist the urge to intervene and over-cultivate and instead appreciate the club (and Bradford) on its own terms and in its own vernacular? Can we celebrate it without cleaning it up beyond recognition? Can we expand the membership without displacing the people that made the place what it is? After all, despite decades of being ‘knee deep in shit’ the 1 in 12 still stands, providing a vital space for the marginalised and disenfranchised to experiment with new forms of art, music, culture, politics and community activism, and thereby preserving and progressing a tradition of doing-it-our- selves against all odds. The 1 in 12 Club proves that mutual aid, self-management and co-operation create resilience and Bradford is the home of Doing-It-Together. Long may it continue!
‘shining a light’ on underground activity,
The name the 1 in 12 Club … they said that it was from Margaret Thatcher who famously said something about 1 in 12 claimants are defrauding the state. So it was like taking that back and saying, “we are these 1 in 12”. Laura These were people who lived on Buttershaw and Holmewood, Thorpe Edge. Oh, they were, from the city ... when they started the club in 1981, Bradford was being absolutely smashed to bits by the beginning of deindustrialization from Margaret Thatcher… suddenly overnight, there was mass unemployment. So the economy of Bradford just nosedived, and for unemployed young people it was weird, because, on the one hand, they had no money, so it wasn’t very easy to do things, but on the hand, because there was no jobs … the whole welfare state kind of said “Right well, do what you want for a few years. Because there’s no jobs, so there’s no pressure.” Matt Hannan We started really through Claimant’s Union ... I put on a benefit gig, first gig I ever put on, at the university with New Model Army, Requiem, Chronic, Living Dead, Jools, Little Brother, and Violation (the drummer went on to be in Southern Death Cult, Aki). So through that and the experience of putting on benefit gigs, while being in Claimants Union, we decided that there was all these bands we knew with nowhere to play, so we thought we’d start a club, regularly put these bands on. And so we started in April 1981 at Metropole and put the first gig on there basically and that’s how it started basically through the Claimants Union and then we decided to call ourselves 1 in 12 Club. Gary Cavanagh Well it worked alongside the Claimants Union to begin with, so it was supporting people on the dole who had no money and who had the dole cut for no reason. So it was solidarity with people and helping them reclaim their domain and stuff like that. Bri Doom We had this member statement which said we’re open to everyone, regardless of your gender, regardless of your sexuality, regardless of your age. And back then, that was actually quite important to be so upfront about that. Cameron Skinner
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I were a single parent, I’d kind of felt a bit irrelevant. You know, once you have a baby, sometimes you feel irrelevant. And so I was in a really kind of odd head state, because I felt like nobody would be interested in a single parent who were political … and what the club gave me was a way back in as a political woman with a child. It gave me a way back into politics. Because, first of all, they accept that I’ve got a kid. I wasn’t expected to get a babysitter to look after my son so I could come down and help build the club. It was like “No, bring him down. He’s a member.” Emma Marshall I just got on with everybody from the 1 in 12 Club. I never saw them as a danger or kind of judgmental in their politics or anything like this. There was like a kind of element of free thought that was, you know, that was in the in the air. I saw people who were passioned and very anti racist. Aki Nawaz If you didn’t have money you’d always figure something out. You go down anyway, and you’d have one drink, and you’d just have a chat, and if it was giro day, you know, you’d have a few more drinks. It never felt we were all broke, and we were all living week to week, and it never felt shameful, you know, miserable because of it. Jane Graham I was also vegetarian. Had been for many years, and so that was great to find a cafe that was just vegetarian and vegan, and of course, had that anti-establishment kind of framework behind it. Derek Simmonds The 1 in 12 club has predominantly always been a safe space for me as a transgender person, and my coming out in my early twenties. I didn’t really know a lot of other queer people, or realise that they were queer at the time. And it was certainly a good testing ground on how to experience life as a trans person, and to set my boundaries, and to be able to talk with people. It was a good place for that, and I guess also, as a traveller as well, and just having travelling solidarity. Erik Rattus One of the things that really pissed me off about GAS (Glasgow Autonomous Space) was that they announced that they were setting up a support group for working class people that were being bullied by middle class people … would that have happened in the 1 in 12? Absolutely not! “Oh you’re being bullied, we’ll set up a support group for you?” It’s like you deal with the behaviour. It’s just so middle class and patronising. If that
was racism or that was homophobia, would you set up a support group for the “victims”? I just don’t think that I would get that at the 1 in 12. Deek Good During the 80s when the miners’ strike was happening, we did loads of benefits and even though most of us were on the dole, we understood what the miners were going through … That sort of reciprocation, you know … I’m proud of that because it just shows another community recognizes that another community supports them in their time of need and I think that sort of ethos should be passed on to kids; resistance culture and activism. Gary Cavanagh
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Right from the early days, it was political. You know, there was always people from the 1 in 12 Club organising for whatever it was, animal rights, hunt sabs, CND and Anti-Fascist action, anti-apartheid, you name it. There was always something going on. Dave Gropper When you have marginalized communities that don’t feel safe in the mainstream, they need a place to be able to gather, they need a place to be able to express their ideas, where they know they are not going to be persecuted for their ideas and their beliefs. Steve Von Till We chased the skinheads out of gigs. We had zero tolerance for it. Gordon Mackintosh We had problems with Nazis in Bradford … And I think the one time was when we were severely getting threatened and they were actually coming on one night to attack the building. And I think, you know, quite a lot of members came out to defend the building, you know, and that created a lot of solidarity. Nick Royles I remember we were getting a lot of phone calls at that time saying that people were gonna kill us. And, you know, it was very shocking … I didn’t fit the sort of profile, and so I wasn’t as identifiable as some other people that were coming and going from the club. And so when you started getting phone calls saying, like, we’re gonna kill you, we’re gonna smack you, we’re gonna burn the place down … it was really tense and quite intense, you know, like, it was just not a pleasant time at all in the club’s history. Heather Allan I think it was the National Front had called for a demo in Bradford and a lot of people organised from the 1 in 12 and we all turned up en masse because the NF had just asked for people to turn up in the square in Bradford and demonstrate. And so we counter demonstrated and there were just, there were a few lone Nazis that turned up, but other than that, you know, just the swell of people that came out, from the Asian community as well, a lot came out. And to be honest, you know, that was a great, great feeling. Nick Royles
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(I remember the weekend of the Bradford Riots) … and we went down to the 1 in 12, and we didn’t open any other floor other than the cafe for I remember it being ridiculously warm, but it was the only floor we could have windows open on, because any lower everyone was kind of bit panicking that summat could get thrown through them ... I do remember feeling like Bradford was on a knife edge that day ... there was three, four-month period of shootings that happened and stuff, and they were all round the club and Manningham and stuff. And there is these weird bits that happened, but Bradford has a tendency to always bounce back from it. Sean Barrett We knew that the EDL would come in to Bradford, and some activists were like trying to support other local people or take action, or whatever it is they were planning to do. And one of my mates, a couple of them, they were in the bit of the city centre where they’d knocked down a shopping centre ... and then the right wing EDL supporters were there, and then there was, like, some conflict around Forster Square train station. So it’s all in that area, kind of kicking off. And my two mates ended up in the Cathedral with the, I don’t know what it’s called, the leader of a Cathedral. That person, religious leader, like, welcomed them in and, like, locked the doors. It’s like, “You must stay here until you’re safe.” And then they rang me, and they were like, whispering into the phone, “we’re hiding in Bradford Cathedral.” ”I’m sorry. I must have misheard you, because it sounded like you said you’re hiding in Bradford Cathedral from the fascists!” Fanny Accordian
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Dialectics is fine, but it doesn’t answer the real life question of, who’s going to clean the bloody toilets. Jon Gregson So our nomadic existence ended up at Metropole again. During that time period we’d applied for a grant to buy a building under this scheme, the redevelopment government scheme, and we put in a bid and got accepted. And so we bought this building on Albion Street and it took us two years of redeveloping and renovating it and putting new floors in with RSG girders and then re-laying floors, getting a bar built … And unlike some of the other groups who got money when we did, we didn’t want continually funding because we knew that would bring strings and, you know, things that would slow us down. Gary Cavanagh We chose to get the money and be self-financing, we had the option to get some money and then be financed by the Council, which, of course, would have gone within two years, would have been shut down. So that was the big, big decision. Building it was, it was great fun. It took a long time. There was a real spirit, real camaraderie, people from all over coming, and it was great. You know, we used to get a pound a day … and then we’d go and buy a sandwich and a pint at lunchtime with it you know, it was life affirming. Dave Gropper So either that time or the next time I went to visit I went and helped kind of hammer bits of plasterboard into the walls and into the ceilings and stuff. And that’s how I first got to witness what the 1 in 12 club was really. Bri Doom There were other days during that renovation project where we were, you know, sanding the floors, stripping the beams and ceiling and all that kind of stuff that were just, you know, kind of really, really excellent work days. Ellie Clements And the building got finished, and that seemed to be, I remember that being a bit of an anti-climax, I don’t know, because it was so long, it took us so long to get there, and it was a right drag. Russ Snell It was pretty grotty, but it was our grotty, and we loved it for it. Jane Graham
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I think some of my favourite times have been spent there just cleaning and tidying, because, it’s nice to just spend time in the club when there’s not really anyone else there as well. Just like, whack a load of music on. Give everyone like, some marigolds or something. Everyone just cracks on. Kaya Cullerton I’ve got lots of memories of weeding, but lots of memories of really good conversations that we had while we were digging. And I think that that shared experience of growing and cooking together and eating together is so important. I think that’s formed so many of my friendships today as well. Cathy (Peasant Collective) You know, it’s just a nice feeling that when you’ve, when you physically been involved in something, and especially like building something, building something physical, and you can, you can just go to, go to a show there or go to an event there, and walk past the bit that you painted. Tony Shephard
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We didn’t realise how many bills you have to pay … and once money is involved, you know, the meetings used to be quite vitriolic sometimes because decisions had to be made that not everyone had liked … We’re trying to work with consensus. And, you know, not tread on people’s toes. It’s hard. It’s really hard. There used to be awful arguments sometimes at meetings, because not everybody agreed with all sorts of things … I’m sure all the compromises we made weren’t right, but you can never regret what you’ve done. You’ve got to learn from it and not do it again. And that’s anarchism, though, isn’t it? Dave Gropper But obviously there was no money at that time. There was absolutely no money. So, what the deal was, was that you got the equivalent of your dole to work X amount of hours, I think it was 30 something hours, but there was no money to pay you. And then you got your housing benefit, and you didn’t get hassled off the dole. That was the whole point. You were signed off, but you were... because you were working, but you actually only earned the equivalent of your dole, but there was no money to pay you. So basically, you know what we had to do was drink it. Heather Allan This is one thing that’s always pissed me off about the club. They never pay people properly ... you should be paying a bar steward properly and paying someone to run the place properly. Who’s accountable? Because people in the 90s and the 2000s were running up bar tabs. They weren’t paid in money. They were paid in beer, and so you basically had alcoholics working a bar running up big bar tabs and then having to be you know what? I mean, it’s not very good, is it? Russ Snell I would quite like them to run like, you know, a regular thing, and that’s what they said. They always used to do that in the past. But because all of the resources limitations and stuff, it is not happening, which is understandable … I would quite like to do it. But because I need to make some living I cannot just do it there voluntarily, and also they cannot pay. So it is not really happening. Penny Moe
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We opened a building and our only source of income was selling beer over the bar to people that didn’t have any money (laughs). So as a business model, it was fairly flawed from day one. Chris (Peasant Collective)
It always had to be run as a badly run business. The moment you ever attempted to run it as a well-run business, it failed its own membership, and members rebelled. So it always had to be just run by the seat of its own pants, which is disheartening and yet, it’s something you kind of have to accept. Yeah, so only the bricks and mortar allowed the club to be run as a badly run business, therefore, to be successful. Richard Cubesville I suppose the club could be a really difficult place at times, with splits and factions. And it being quite, what’s that word, male dominated at times. You know, as women really having to be strong to actually get respect. And people like Jane Shag, WitchKnot, Sarah Bag, Leah Hall... lots of women really did have to push for equality. Lucy Llewellen A lot of classic challenges I’ve seen in every left wing or whatever group since, to be honest, like struggling with energy and capacity for people to run it, struggling with interpersonal conflicts, struggling with fundraising and fixing things and maintaining things, struggling with different understandings of what a space is for… and the people who were getting totally burnt out and like, this kind of expectation that the same people will always, like, provide for you. Joel White I suppose I always think of the club as a safe place to do some DIY stuff, you know, like in that it’s welcome. You’re okay to kind of mess up. Fanny Accordian
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I guess no place is truly a safe space. I guess braver space is probably a better term … It’s not always been like the most comfortable of evenings, for whatever reason, whether that’s been a hard conversation, or whether you’ve had to ask somebody to leave because the values went against the club’s, but yeah, I think it tries and the collective tries. But you can’t always 100% guarantee that. Erik Rattus I mean, tolerance is a huge thing, because there were times when you really, really disagreed with people, I mean, genuinely disagreed with people and you just have to thrash it out. Well, there’s very little opportunity to do that nowadays ... You had to keep going. You had to just, you had to listen to everyone’s side, and you had to accept that there was a very different viewpoint and I think that certainly put me in good stead … I think it’s just a really simple message of working together, working with people. It makes a difference, because you find a common ground, and you work your way through it. Heather Allan It’s not all like agreement. Meetings weren’t everybody with the same idea and agreeing about stuff. Sorry, but you know, like discussions around what bar stewards are getting paid, whether they should be paid, whether we should be taking any money out of the cafe for any of our time, stuff like that … And I do remember people being told, “Right, that’s not appropriate. You’re not welcome here”, or “You’re not allowed here for a little while. You think that through”, you know? Julia I was a big fan, an advocate of when the Rave Collective started … they would have sound systems on all three floors, and it would just be a whole bunch of people who had never been to the 1 in 12 club before, and you could see them going around, just kind of being curious about what this place was. I kind of thought that was a good thing. But of all the kind of non punk things that was brought to the club, that was the one that was most controversial, and kind of caused the most discussion in Sunday meetings, because there was kind of those worries about drugs and worries that that would kind of have an impact on the license and the club could lose its license. Richard Claxton
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So yeah, it’d be quite a lively debate, quite a lively meeting Sunday. And it was absolutely essential. Gordon Mackintosh And then suddenly this completely different scene arrives that has the same sort of political spirit behind it. And so a collective forms that wants to use every floor of the club all night, and it’s like it was really threatening for a lot of people. And it was really challenging. Matt Hannan We had to battle a bit with the club, I’ll be honest. You know, they weren’t, they weren’t right, keen on this idea of these damn ravers coming into their club. And I did battle. I went into meetings and I argued and I battled, and I kind of went, “No, why not this?” But as I said at the time, I’d been a 1 in 12 member all my life, you know, since it started and I was a member putting forward an idea and that needed to be respected, and the amount of people we exposed to our politics through that shows that it needed to be done and it were great. Emma Marshall But yeah, those small groups working together, having the voice being listened to, but also having to listen to others. That leads to healthy debate. And I think that also keeps people very much grounded in their own values as well. So that debate was very important, and that it came from different sides. Gordon Mackintosh Somewhere like the 1 in 12 should be like, I envisaged it to be, where it’s all inclusive, brings in things, but has the critical debates. You know, engages with people in uncomfortable debates … So it becomes a bit more kind of therapy, kind of using psychiatry, or what’s going on? Why are these people thinking like this? So there’s a whole wealth of debates to be had, and continuing them debates, and developing them debates, and as I’ve learned more, I actually know that I’ve become more confused. Fine. I accept the confusion. Aki Nawaz
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What an amazing thing to find a space like that where that kind of dialogue can happen and it doesn’t end in complete, like, chaos and beef and everyone falling out. Joel White The club encouraged people to be politicised. We tried to politicise people without browbeating them or being like a 57 Variety’s, a Trotskyist type, browbeating them with papers and sort of political dogma. We encourage people to think for themselves and read and study and get involved in campaigns and be an activist by having a social conscience about society and the people around them. Gary Cavanagh It’s about allowing people to think that something’s possible. So it’s allowing people to think that you can put on a gig. It’s allowing people to think that you can organise a talk. You can have a library. You can set up a collective allotment where you can all grow food together. It doesn’t have to be a single, isolating experience, just doing something on your own. You can do something with other people. You don’t have to know all the skills in the first place. You can learn from people by cooking together in a cafe with somebody. Ellie Clements It was kind of just really empowering, you know, instead of like, expecting someone else to do it, yeah, this is punk. We can do it. We can put on a gig. We can do the PA. We can promote it. We can make the posters. It was really kind of powerful, you know. Bri Doom You walk into the 1 in 12 and you just see the graffiti and the stickers and the posters and the literature on the top floor, and you just get this sense of like, oh, I’m part of something much bigger going on here ... you can make it happen. You can make the gig in your way, bring your mates to watch you. And I felt just kind of like, wow, okay. People really give me the chance here and all this chat about youth empowerment or whatever, no one talked like that at the 1 in 12, but it actually happened. Joel White I never ever felt at any point that, you know, it was like some sort of indoctrination or that or you had to subscribe to every single part of sort of anarchist thought to be going to the club. Andy Bryant
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Activism could be just being conscious of anarchism, discussing it with your friends, being in these social circles, but also doing stuff to kind of promote it in circles who wouldn’t be exposed to it. Ellie Weston I went to Barcelona, and, you know, there was 50 of us staying in a hostel, and it was just great because, you know, we went and looked around the CNT building, you know, the Spanish Union together … So we went to like a Barcelona commune, and we ate food with the Spanish anarchists there … I think what the 1 in 12 did, because it always seemed intrinsically anarchist, it introduced an awful lot of people to anarchist politics for good and for ill. Alice Nutter The club represents anarchy in action. It’s self-management, mutual aid, all the other slogans, the unity… don’t neglect it as a political choice, is my advice, and I certainly don’t myself, and I consider myself an anarchist and will do to my grave. So yeah, anarchy or death. Rob Kito I would say it shapes how you see the world, because once you are exposed to that perspective on world events, world politics, there’s no real going back, I don’t think. I don’t think you can ever unsee that kind of stuff. I’m sure to a large part, that’s what informs how I would see the world operating today. Ian Lynch I think places like the 1 in 12 and DIY spaces that have that autonomy … It’s people who are putting something together that they feel is missing, or they’re not represented creatively or politically or something like that. So I think that is why they’re so important and why people pull them together. It’s that collective mindset and working towards things where you might have a little bit of expertise, you might have no expertise, but you can push it to a point where it actually becomes something. Michael McKeegan I was thinking about how, what would make the club irrelevant, and I suppose like if the state stopped existing, and if capitalism stopped existing, and if oppression stopped existing, then maybe we’d just be like, ah, we’ll just disband ... Because when society has oppressive elements to it, or it’s fundamentally based on an oppressive system like capitalism, then there will always be people who think it could be improved
a little bit or reformed a bit more substantially, or really overhauled or completely just removed, like, let’s just ignore that. Let’s just try and operate outside of that … even in some Utopia that I think is Utopia, there’s going to be a new idea of why that Utopia actually is not as good as it seems. So there’s always an edge, and I guess that’s where the 1 in 12 is. It’s on the edge. Fanny Accordia n
PART ONE: A PLACE OF RESISTANCE
I’ve got a mantra in my fanzine: create your own culture … so I think the club can inspire people in that way. That it’s within your own culture to become involved in these cooperative spaces. Yep, do it yourself. Create your own culture. Richard Cubesville We almost lived hardcore 24/7 when we were doing stuff at the club. We didn’t hardly have any time to do anything else, you know, and, we did do some things, but then once we stopped, you know, pulled back a bit, we were then able to go out and do forms of direct action, get involved in protests and ecological direct action and things like that. So, it acted as a catalyst for us as well. And it sort of like focused us, because we actually moved out of Bradford, but we took our ideals elsewhere and sort of like carried on doing the same things. So Bradford, you know, it was special, and the 1 in 12. Nick Royles I’ve always worked in types of work that has been about either supporting or helping people in different ways over the years since at least the mid 90s. So in that respect, I guess it has shaped me a lot. Andy Bryant I’m not too sure what I would have been doing if I hadn’t gotten involved with the 1 in 12 Club. Bri Doom I was introduced to 1 in 12 club, ended up playing football and cricket with that as well. And really that ecosystem of interdisciplinary human studies, Peace Studies, fair trade, cafe and 1 in 12 club really just opened door after door after door of volunteering in the community, and that’s something that I’ve done now for over 20 years. Carl White But my main friendship group is from there. For me, it still means that the majority of the people within the club have similar goals, similar aims, similar things that we want to do around social justice, about improving access to things in in city for everybody and inclusiveness. Lucy Llewellen Now I teach ESOL in Kirklees college, for anyone who doesn’t know, ESOL is English for Speakers of Other Languages. So in other words, I teach immigrants … in terms of the club I think I am still that person. I carry that ethos. I think it was in me before I found the club, and the club, you know, allowed that to flourish. Noel Batstone
PART ONE: A PLACE OF RESISTANCE
The years that I was involved with the club also informed other things that I’ve done in my life. I’ve been involved in housing co-ops, working co-ops, and there’s nothing that I like doing better than doing something with other people. If it involves food and these guys, so much the better. Chris (Peasant Collective) I suppose it’s not a Sunday meeting that we hold, but I listen to everyone who’s in my kitchen. I was always brought up to listen to everyone, and that that comes from the 1 in 12. It was listen to everyone. There might be a reason behind whatever’s happening or whatever. And you know, that was something that I take from there. Sean Barrett It impacted my entire life. It made me feel more confident in the things that I believed could work, you know, and then seeing them either working at the club, or through things the club has done, or the people who I know now from the club, and have seen things they’ve done with their life or whatever. Tommy It’s like a microcosm, and I think quite consciously, it’s a microcosm of the society that everybody would like to see. Tony Shephard So the club for me is an experiment in direct democracy … I think it’s massively important that there is some model. There’s an alternative that’s demonstrated somewhere that shows it doesn’t have to be like that, that shows that ultimately you make life better by doing it yourself. You don’t look to be rescued … And so my experience with 1 in 12 Club is that worked … So somebody has to be there to say, “No, you can make life better by coming together. We’re stronger together. If you unleash creativity, lots of good things, you can get fun back in your life, you can get a sense of meaning back in your life.” And for me, the club does that. Matt Hannan
PART ONE: A PLACE OF RESISTANCE
I remember being a woman, you know, kind of in my 20s. What I really liked about, you know, on a Friday night or a Saturday night, the members bar was a place that you could go and have a drink and not feel that you were going to have any bother. Anika Easy It was just like right, what pubs can we get into? And it was kind of a very safe space for young people that dress differently because we were all sort of wearing punk clobber, and in those days there were a lot of tribes … but yeah, 1 in 12 Club. I don’t remember any kind of trouble between any tribes of that kind of thing. So yeah, it was a good place to hang out. Jonathan Lorrimer It was a mix, all sorts of different people, punks, old hippies, people, musos, all sorts of people, and the atmosphere were great because there were never any bother, very rarely any trouble, only if a few drunk pissheads started, but that were very rare. Gary Cavanagh It’s interesting, you know, we can count the number of fights. I think there was more fighting at the women only events than there was in the general thing. Dave Gropper It’s just a Bradford institution at the end of the day, like it’s somewhere where relationships are built between people. It’s been a consistent safe space, I feel, for my entire life. So if you’re ever in trouble, you know someone’s at the 1 in 12, and somebody’s always got your back. Kaya Cullerton That’s what the club was doing back in the 90s. It was a warm space like, actually, come down here, you have the heating on, you know, we’re on the dole couldn’t afford heating so, yeah, that created that sort of space well before we thought about it in the larger community. Gordon Mackintosh
PART TWO: A PLACE OF COMMUNITY
I moved to Bradford from my hometown, the Midlands, when I was 18, and I came to Bradford to go to university. I remember it feeling really dark going in through the front door and getting to another door, where you had to press a buzzer ... I did feel a bit unsure, but I also felt like I wanted to be with these people. So now I think I’ve found my people, and that felt really good. Fanny Accordian There was a level of diversity and inclusivity that you felt here, that it felt like a really safe space where you didn’t have to generally justify, or you weren’t on guard because you were overhearing racist comments from the table over the road. Steve Tandy I was really active politically down in Brighton and so the club, to me, reflected the values that I developed, and it felt like a safe space for me … it was somewhere I could go without worrying about it - like-minded people - and I didn’t have to constantly be telling people to stop being racist, sexist, etc. ... it was a wonderful environment for me to be with like-minded people and feel accepted and welcome. Emma Marshall I always look back at them times, and I know that people who were around me, irrespective of colour, creed, religion or whatever, when it came down to violence against me as a black person or an Asian person or whatever, they stood in the front line. They stood in the front line to protect me and everything like that. So, you know, I really value that time. Aki Nawaz it has fond memories… a place that agitated, a place that spoke for a lot of people that otherwise didn’t have a voice. They were disenfranchised or disheartened or just something else. Derek Simmonds
PART TWO: A PLACE OF COMMUNITY
So it was the people who kind of had somehow been attracted to it for other reasons, kind of outsider people who were very political, yeah? So it was always an interesting mix of people … those were reasons that attracted me to the club. Richard Claxton It was like a community. And I think that’s really important. It was at that time and it still is today: to feel like you’ve got a community with people that you can talk about things with in a safe space and not be judged. Harry Hamer So it was a welcoming space. You know? It was like people didn’t just go, “Oh, you’re not punk enough.” It was like, “We’re not quite sure what the fuck you are. But come on, come and do a gig.” Emma Adams And the other thing about organisations like the 1 in 12 club, they’re not afraid of welcoming in people who are feeling on the fringes or maybe don’t fit in in other spaces. You know, they’re incredibly tolerant safe spaces. Jenny Harris When I was, like, growing up at school, I felt like a bit of an outcast. I didn’t really feel like I fit in that many places. And when I got involved in politics and started listening to punk, and then when I found, like, this community of people and this space, I really just felt included for the first time ever. And I think that’s a really beautiful thing about the club, is that people, you know, anyone comes here and they’re made to feel welcome. It’s really important. Laura What I liked about the cafe was this idea that it was, you know, it’s food. And food is massively important as a way of reaching out. And I think the thing for me, you know, a kid who grew up in the late 70s or early 80s, a lot of those kind of punk and radical things always appealed to me, but there was always a kind of barrier. And I think this is what I like about the potential of the club … actually there’s, you know, the soft underbelly of the cafe and the library, and that these things are for everyone … I really wanted to be able to bring in people who wouldn’t come into that space naturally. Anika Easy
PART TWO: A PLACE OF COMMUNITY
I think playing a show and performing in a DIY space and going into that performance with the knowledge that this is a space run by your peers in the scene ... feeling like just the freedom to be able to express yourself like in a DIY space, it just changes the whole vibe … Seeing people letting their freak flag fly, there’s just something really wonderful about that. Ian Lynch It enticed me in by being quite a safe place … I’m from a traveller background. And I guess as traveller kid you kind of are already a little bit outside of general societal norms, already segregated a little bit. I think it was quite normal for people my age within traveling communities to get into alternative kinds of music and leftist politics. So it was probably through a cousin who was like, “Oh, yeah, there’s this punk gig at the 1 in 12 Club Bradford.” I think we were on a site in Bradford at the time. So yeah, a bunch of us all went down and went to the gig. And yeah, I guess I kind of fell in love there. Erik Rattus I felt the 1 in 12 club, you’ve got to remember this is the 80s so there was still a lot of homophobia around and I just got a sense when I walked through the doors that that wasn’t an issue I didn’t have to feel unsafe. Deek Good Also at that time, it was LGB friendly, LGBT friendly. And that was really important for me, and has been for, for many years. And it’s nice to have places that are warm, empathetic and a part of the struggle in a place like Bradford, where it’s always been quite a tough place anyhow. Derek Simmonds I think my identity was very strong and the 1 in 12 Club gave me a place where I could live out my identity in whatever way. Noel Batstone I felt like it was a place where I belonged, and I wasn’t judged. And yeah. I did feel like I could be myself there. And I’m coming to this idea that I probably have autism. I’ve not actually had a diagnosis yet. And obviously back then, you know, if you weren’t like the guy in Rainman then no one was going to think you had autism. Certainly not if you were a girl. But I think it was a place where I could be very neurodivergent before that was a thing, and no one was going to go “Oh, my God, you’re a weirdo”, which is basically what I was told for however many years at school, the weirdo, and it was, it was just nice. Jane Graham
I’ve always been into it the more visceral level, because I’ve got ADHD … and it was just, it was a fucking refuge, and it was like, it’s like a secret society ... The neurodiverse female friends of mine diagnosed with fucking high functioning autism … we all, we’ve all kind of clotted together subliminally, we’ve been drawn together. Yeah, and it’s a safe space almost to act out, just do what you fucking want to do without being interfered with. Russ Snell I think about, like, relatively recently, rocking up to 1 in 12 … and a young lady behind the bar … it was a pupil that Dom and I worked with at primary school a long time ago … She’s on the autism spectrum, and she’s found a safe space to volunteer at the 1 in 12. And, you know, it really touched my heart because I was just like, well, she’s found a tribe. Because, you know, I think working in education at the time, you know, I often thought, you know, how were some of these young people gonna get on moving forward. And, yeah, I love the fact that she found a tribe at 1 in 12. Dipak Mistry I would hope that there are people at the moment that come in feeling maybe a little bit overwhelmed, like I did, I was not sure I belonged. There was the language thing, but it’s a very close, tight knit group of people. And when you arrive and everyone knows each other and everyone is really close and everyone has got that common language and common history and you’re like, ”I don’t know what I’m doing here.” But if you pass over that moment and embrace the place and open yourself to the people the same way that they will open themselves to you, then it’s just full of potential. Jeremie Cauchois I think being in an alternative space automatically creates a sense of community and camaraderie … even if people are in that space because they just support the space and they’re not necessarily into that style of music or what have you, it contributes to everybody knowing that they’re just creating a safe space for culture that doesn’t belong to the mainstream to exist … So I really felt a kinship with spaces like the 1 in 12 because of that chance for people to gather who didn’t belong. Steve Von Till
PART TWO: A PLACE OF COMMUNITY
When people like started putting on things that they loved, that’s when the 1 in 12 started to work. Anton Shaw I’m very fond of the club. I think it always has been a great space. It’s been a great space for people to come together to explore what it is that they want to be doing, and actually have the chance to put that in the into action. If you’ve got an idea and wanting to give it a go, you could always find a few people who would just go “Yeah, go on, then let’s give it a go.” Lucy Llewellen And there’s also an imagination there and a way of supporting and nurturing like-minded projects and individuals. Everyone is working together, pulling everyone up. And I suppose that’s the essence of DIY. Michael McKeegan There was that sort of sense of community. There was the sense of everyone who works here, everyone who has something to do with this place, really does love this place, and it means a lot to everyone … underneath all the chaos and two drunk weirdos, there’s a sense of community. Ellie Weston You know, you could still, at that point, just about afford to live on the dole, and sometimes you might even get an extra tenner a week if you said you were doing something creative. And there was a whole community of people who were squatting, who were sort of doing different creative things, who were just sort of out of the mainstream, DIY, and we were part of that as well, because we were just sort of really determined to make it in music, and we’d sort of dropped out of getting jobs really, because we just really wanted to focus on being musicians, and so being part of a wider community of people who were also in that world was really, really important. Jenny Harris If you want to do things, you can actually do it yourself, and it’s really useful to have a space where you can have like-minded people who feel the same way as you. And that is what I would say to people … try and get a space together, no matter how small it is, where you can meet up and talk and plan and have a bit of safety as well. Cameron Skinner
PART TWO: A PLACE OF COMMUNITY
We are a members’ club, so everybody who pays their membership owns the building and there’s no leaders, there’s no ownership, everybody owns it, so it’s collectively run basically. Gary Cavanagh Look everybody who is a member has an equal part to say and hopefully, the opportunity to contribute to the club and to have an equal voice in how it’s run and what we do. Now that don’t always work in practice, because some people do more stuff than others, whether that’s by convenience, by choice, or situation or skills or whatever. But the key thing is, nobody has a bigger voice than anybody else. Jon Gregson It’s about camaraderie … just being around those people and organising with those people, and having fun with those people, and having some tears with those people as well. Rob Kito What the 1 in 12 is, was the thing that (Thatcher) was trying to get rid of, you know, through the miner’s strike. You know, you can’t have too solid communities because that flies in the face of everybody being a rugged individualist, you know, and the 1 in 12 was that kind of place. Tony Shephard It was like a real family. You had pockets over there that got on, pockets over here that got on, and people that didn’t like those ones over there, but we were all under the shared goal of the club. Paula Stone There’s like a family tree of bands from the club, because it was Willi Beckett and members of other bands that played the club regularly, like John from Requiem, Chris from Loud went on to New Model Army. And yeah, it was just … once you’re in that kind of scene. It’s a bit like the mafia. It’s hard to get out, because you’re continually like sharing band members. Jonathan Lorrimer
PART TWO: A PLACE OF COMMUNITY
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