I got completely hooked because I had no conception that anything like this existed in the world. I’d sort of read lots of books and been involved with political things where I’d grown up. But suddenly there were these people who were really just doing amazing things, and they seem to have huge ambition, a huge belief that their ideas would work. And they were really ordinary working class people. That was the thing that absolutely smashed me in the face. Because most of the anarchists I’d ever come across had been educated university students. Suddenly I was meeting people who’d come at it from a completely different angle, and being from Bradford, trying to make Bradford better in terms of their lived experience, and being in control of what happened to them and doing it themselves. So it was epic. Matt Hannan So I came in and thinking, Oh, it’s just gonna be some music and some stuff. And then there was, like, people making food and, like, making biscuits and stuff. I thought “that’s really cool”. Ellie Weston I remember, like, coming back to Bradford about ‘97 time, sharing a house with Greek friends of mine, and they were like, all going out just like, fine, rocked up to the venue, and it happened to be the 1 in 12 Club, and I think it was a Flip Kitty night, and it absolutely blew my mind. Because, you know, loads of people were out in the courtyard, you know, all Bradford heads that we were all hanging out with at the time, loads of people out … there were different music going on on each floor, so they took over the whole building. And, you know - we all know, like, what the stairwells like. It’s a bit, it’s a bit of a squeeze - but, yeah, it was an amazing introduction to the 1 in 12 Club. Dipak Mistry I put on a few kind of, like rave kind of nights ... It used to start at midnight on Saturday and go round to about three o’clock on the Sunday afternoon ... We had a party on the little travellers site, the Claremont road travellers site ... that night had a real life changing effect on me. Anton Shaw If you value independence, if you value creative culture in any way, I think you have to go to a space where people are given the freedom, or they’ve carved out the freedom for themselves, to express themselves in this way culturally and they’ve managed to eke out a space in today’s society where they can organise and make really beautiful amazing things happen. I think you should go and check it out because it’s a really inspiring thing to see. Ian Lynch
We plumped for Bradford. So, yeah, the 1 in 12 was a big reason why we moved there, really the main reason, I’d say. I just thought it was brilliant. And it was sort of, you know, run by the people who used it, and it was autonomous. Sarah MacHenry
PART THREE: A PLACE OF CREATIVITY
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