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
PART ONE: A PLACE OF RESISTANCE
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator