Sound and vision: Hythe's acoustic mirror

On the roughs above Hythe in Kent, on Ministry of Defence land, stands a 30 foot high concrete ear. Borne on a frame of umbrella-shaped iron rods, the disc is angled towards the sky, ready to catch any sounds that come its way. The sound mirror looks out over the flat expanse of Romney Marsh, and miles out to sea (France is just 23 miles away), once assigned the task of monitoring the sky over the English Channel. In 1923, when the mirror was built, it was hoped that in the event of an attack it would pick up the engine noises of enemy aircraft out at sea; an improbable yet innovative early warning defence system. The sounds of the plane would bounce back to the focal point of the mirror, where a waiting operator would be alerted the the presence of planes. Picking up sounds up to 15 minutes before the unaided ear, this bought crucial time for anti-aircraft defences to be activated. This stretch of coast had long been on the frontline of defence against invaders, and the mirror overlooks the remains of the solid, brick-built Napoleonic Martello towers which stud the coastline below; the nearby Royal Military Canal, similarly built to withstand the threat of French attack, is just out of eyeshot.

The mirror worked on a similar concept to the modern TV receiver, except with sound waves instead of radio waves, and was the latest in a series of attempts by the military to harness the potential of sound. Experiments had started during WWI, when the possible dangers of devastating airborne attack was realised, and similar technology included sound ranging to detect enemy guns as well as listening wells. A 1916 account of tests of a sound mirror considered the invention to be a success: “A man 100m distant, reading a newspaper in a low voice was heard perfectly. Airplanes were heard up to distances of 8 kilometers.”1

Precursors to the concrete mirrors were cut directly into the chalk of the Kent hills, and there were experiments with acoustic mirrors at Hythe before the 1923 mirror; an earlier 20 foot cast concrete mirror had been built alongside a building lab, workshop, store and provisions for technical assistance to live on site. An acoustic research station was also built at nearby West Hythe.

When the potential of the sound mirrors was proven – it was claimed that they could capture up to ten times for sound than unaided ears – plans were made for lines of discs to be erected around the coast. A 30 foot high mirror was built at Abbots Cliff near Dover in 1929 and a 200 foot mirror at Denge, near Dungeness, with microphones positioned on the forecourt to capture noise, was completed in 1930 (two, smaller mirrors had also been built at the site beforehand). Building materials were carried along the coast to the latter by the miniature Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway, a passenger train which was itself later put to military use during the second world war.

For one reason or another – the inconveniences of wind and rain, increased noise and the advent of faster planes – the sound mirrors never saw action (like the Martello Towers and Royal Military Canal before them). They were abandoned in the 1930s in favour of radar, and orders were made for them to be destroyed.

These orders were never carried out. Today, the Hythe sound mirror has faded into the Kent hills, camouflaged into the landscape and rendered nearly inaccessible by a thicket of head-high thorns and nettles, overrun with rabbits. The mirror is slowly crumbling into the hillside and now resembles a part-eaten biscuit, with a chunk taken out of the side. The structure might have been abandoned and the technology made obsolescent, but the most striking thing about the site today is its extraordinarily rich sonic landscape. The entire hillside hums as breeze sweeps through the trees and long grass, the thistles creak in the wind and grasshoppers rub their legs together. Birds take turns to fill the air with their coded langauge: from high peep-peeps and chchchs to the woo-woo-wooing of the wood pigeon. Sheep intermittently baa in call and response. This natural background noise is occasionally punctuated by the rumbling of a distant, out of sight plane, the distant bark of a dog or the brief revving of a boy racer and sirens on the coast road below.

1. Quoted in Echoes from the Sky: A Story of Acoustic Defence, Richard N Scarth (Hythe Civic Society, Hythe, 1999), accessed in the Local Studies Unit at Hythe Libary

This recording has been submitted to the Field Recording Archive, a new initiative based in Manchester.

For more information on sound mirrors, including sound mirrors at other locations around the country (particularly on the North East coast) visit the website of Andrew Grantham.

The Shrieking Violet on A Wondrous Space

The Shrieking Violet has been asked to guest-curate a page called A Wondrous Space for a week as part of the Northern Spirit theatre project, which celebrates life in the north.

I am the third in a series of guest bloggers drawn from Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle, and I have chosen to focus on my favourite northern food experiences; namely pie, peas, and more pie. I have contributed recipes for Eccles cakes and blackberry buns, together with a mini-celebration of Eccles the town.

My posts will appear this week, starting on Monday 17 September.

Read each curator's posts at http://northernspirit.org.uk/category/a-wondrous-space.

Find out more about the project on the Guardian blog The Northerner.

The Shrieking Violet issue 19 (and third birthday party!)

The Shrieking Violet is three, and issue 19, a bumper edition, can be read online now! The printed version, printed by marc the printers (b/w with f/c cover) will be launched at a special birthday party at Atelier[zero], Manchester's pop-up canalside Olympic village, at 2pm on Saturday August 11. Come along for rowing boats, a ball pool, a 'library with no books', purple (Angel Meadows blackberries) cake and more! Event invitation.

This edition's cover is by Hannah Bitowski, who lives and works in Liverpool and is based in artist-led gallery the Royal Standard. She works in a variety of media, with a penchant for screen-printing and mask-making. This illustration was inspired by a selection of themes Hannah currently draws from: masks, the abstraction of portraiture, facial geometry and the cosmos – particularly inspired by Johannes Kepler, a 17th century mathematician and astronomer who was infatuated with the idea of God existing in geometry, with all answers of the universe coming from there. Even though his theory of the platonic solid solar system was wrong, Hannah thinks the theory in itself, and his attempt to fit geometry into all things, great and small, is enough to warrant praise. This piece attempts to merge the similarities between ritual and reality, myth with maths.

Here's what you'll find inside:

Manchester-based filmmaker Richard Howe continues his series on mental health in the movies by looking at Jesus' Son, directed by Alison Maclean. Richard is currently editing the film Realitease, which touches on mental health. Watch the teaser at https://vimeo.com/45743438 and tweet Richard about films @rikurichard.

I visited the National Football Museum to find out how it compares to Urbis, and see what it has to offer a non-sports fan.

Anouska Smith, a crafter and maker with a beady eye for sparkly things at www.junkieloversboutique.com, offers a guide to her favourite Manchester tea-places. Spot her somewhere in the Manchester suburbs finishing up those cups of tea or trying to avoid the puddles on the side of the road.

Simon Sheppard has contributed an article about a very eccentric fellow named Pierre Baume. Following a career change, allowing him to indulge his passion for modern history, Simon qualified from Liverpool University as an Archivist in 2008 having previously gaining a BA Hons in History from UCLAN. Simon hails from Bolton, but is currently living in Manchester, where he spends his spare time partaking in his new ‘hobby’, Real Ale.  To accompany Simon's article, Manchester-based illustrator, musician and DJ Dominic Oliver has imagined what Baume might have looked like...

Liverpool-based writer and journalist Kenn Taylor, who has a particular interest in the relationship between culture and the urban environment, considers some of the implications of the privatisation and fragmentation of our railway system.

James Robinson is a photographer and dabbling videographer. He studied philosophy in Manchester and now lives in London, where he plays bass for indie pop-rock band Being There. James is very proud to provide the Shrieking Violet with its first animal feature. The title, Perros y gatos, was inspired by a sticker album he bought on a school trip to Spain.

Joe Austin has written a tribute to three post-war murals in London and Coventry, by Dorothy Annan, Gordon Cullen and William Mitchell, and highlights the often-uncertain future of public artworks like these. Joe is a qualified architect, originally from the Midlands but a naturalised Londoner for the last 22 years or so. Joe's interests are wide (his blog best illustrates his scattergun mind), but generally revolve around writing, design, architecture, art, culture and history.

Liz Buckley has reviewed Stanya Kahn's exhibition It's Cool, I'm Good in the Cornerhouse galleries. Liz is an Art History graduate living in Salford, and will be starting an MA in Gallery Studies in September at Manchester University.

Godfrey is a rough excerpt from a novel by Matthew Duncan Taylor that may or may not be published next year. Matthew is a journalist who currently works for the Winsford and Crewe Guardian newspapers. He plays in the south Manchester-based bands Former Bullies and Great Grand Suns. Some short stories he has written can be found at matthewduncantaylor.blogspot.co.uk.

Sarah Hill is a Manchester-based artist, and the founder and creative director of Video Jam. Sarah has written an introduction to the project. If you are interested in getting involved, contact her at sarahfrhill@gmail.com.

Issue 19 finishes with a recipe for delicious apricot and poppy seed bread from Shrieking Violet favourite Bakerie in the Northern Quarter.

Read it online here:

Open publication - Free publishing - More architecture

Download and print your own copy here. Printed copies can also be picked up from the Working Class Movement Library on the Crescent, Salford, and the Bakerie tasting store (the Hive building), Lever Street, Manchester and Piccadilly Records.

To request a copy in the post (free) or to contribute to future editions email Natalie.Rose.Bradbury@googlemail.com or join the Shrieking Violet Facebook group.

Talk: ‘Woman’s Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?’

I will be doing a talk on the former Co-operative Women’s Guild periodical Woman’s Outlook at the Rochdale Pioneers Museum next year (Thursday March 21), as part of a series of lectures on aspects of co-operative history, and would love to hear from anyone who has memories of reading the magazine between 1919 and 1967.

Working in close proximity to the National Co-operative Archive, I have developed a fascination with Outlook. For nearly five decades it was the voice of the Co-operative Women’s Guild, the campaigning organisation which worked to raise the status of women both in the co-operative movement and in society, and onetime editor Mary Stott later rose to prominence as a longstanding editor of the Guardian women’s page. From its origins in Manchester in 1919, Outlook provided an enticing mixture of articles encompassing both the personal and the political, combining fashion, fiction, features and recipes with advice for working women – not dissimilar to the content of women’s magazines today!

‘Woman’s Outlook: a surprisingly modern magazine?’ will explore some of the key issues addressed in Outlook, from suffrage and peace to maternity benefits, pensions and nursery education, and look at how the magazine encouraged women to get involved in campaigning for a better world – at the same time as helping prepare them to take on more prominent roles in co-operative societies.

Topics covered by Outlook such as female representation in parliament, equal pay and healthy eating remain highly relevant today, and the talk will end by evaluating whether the type of content provided by 21st century women’s lifestyle magazines has really changed much since the days of Outlook.

I would love to hear from any women who were members of the Women’s Guild in this period, especially those who remember reading Outlook or any other co-operative periodicals, as well as anyone who has any interest in the magazine. If you can help, or can put me in touch with anyone who might be able to help, please email Natalie.rose.bradbury@googlemail.com.

House gig: Trust Fund, Two White Cranes and Ratfangs, Saturday July 7

Clock Flavour and the Shrieking Violet present:

TRUST FUND (Bristol)

Melancholic yet anthemic electronica – like a bedroom disco for one.
http://trustfund.bandcamp.com

TWO WHITE CRANES (Bristol)

Dreamy folk-pop: wistful melodies and a battered guitar.
http://twowhitecranes.bandcamp.com

RATFANGS (Manchester)

'Manchester's answer to Ariel Pink'...genre roulette for people with hefty attention spans. http://ratfangs.blogspot.co.uk

Saturday July 7
7.45pm Chapeltown Street
Entry by donation 

For more information visit: http://clockflavour.tumblr.com
http://tinyurl.com/clockflavour

Facebook event: www.facebook.com/events/425386704149803

For directions email housegig@dogzilla.co.uk

Poster by Elizabeth Murray Jones

The Shrieking Violet made a guest appearance on Liam Astley (one half of Clock Flavour)'s great monthly podcast Deadbeat Escapement, which plays one song from each of the past ten decades each episode. I picked my favourite tracks from the 1940s, 1950s, and1980s, and one from this decade, and we talked about the gig among other things. Download it here.

Seven Sites: Experiencing the unexpected

At the start of June, a number of conversations took place between strangers over lunch in Kabana, one of several bustling curry cafes in the back streets of the Northern Quarter. Nothing unusual about that – except that each diner had no knowledge of the person they would be sharing the next half hour with. The 'date' was an actor from Salford's Quarantine Theatre Company, and the conversation topics were chosen from a menu of 'starters', 'mains' and 'desserts' (graded either 'regular' or 'spicy'), at times predictably banal and at times unexpectedly frank. The encounters were both lighthearted and cathartic, like a public confession box for the hopes and fears, ideas and experiences which go unvoiced and unheard on a day to day basis, raising questions about how much we are prepared to reveal to strangers, what we will talk about if we know it will go no further, what constitutes intimacy, what it really means to have a 'local' – and why we don't talk to each other more often.

The lunch dates were the final instalment in a series of events, performances and installations that have taken over seven non-art sites across Manchester and Salford since last August. Edwina Ashton hosted a fantastical tea party in a Salford tower block, and local artist Amber Sanchez took performance to the streets of a Salford estate. Imagined narratives were constructed around hotel guests and recounted by Giles Bailey to a small audience in a darkened hotel room, and a radio programme broadcast a new monument for Salford, which existed only as a composite compiled from Amy Feneck's survey of local residents' ideas.

Seven Sites was a collaboration between curator Laura Mansfield, who is interested in artist-led activity, and artist Swen Steinhauser, who has a background in contemporary devised theatre. Swen explained: “Visual arts in general has a fear of theatre. The two disciplines seem quite divided so we thought we should work on bringing them together.” For Swen, Seven Sites was a chance to be on the other side of art production – working on making it happen for artists, and for both it was a way of trying out durational programming – although, as Laura explains, the project has evolved: “It's become something really different and the rhythm has shifted with each piece. We were interested in doing something that's always shifting but still manages to be a programme.”

The pair chose seven places of everyday public interaction, from the Lowry Outlet Mall to an outdated church cafeteria and the overwrought but shabby grandeur of the Britannia Hotel – a task that was harder than first thought, due to bureaucratic hurdles raised by insurance, security and noise. Seven artists (or groups) were invited to each produce a response to a site, primarily those who had not worked in Manchester before and who “weren't so easy to pinpoint and could work in more than one place”.

By presenting art and performance in places where neither are typically encountered, Seven Sites aimed to subvert the genre expectations of both audiences – at the same time as incorporating the preexisting users of these places, and those who were merely passing through. Laura explained: “I felt frustrated with being part of a certain community, and all the announcements of cuts presented an opportunity to do something outside of fixed spaces. The minute you fix something to a place you always get an expectation of a fixed audience. If you shift spaces you get a diverse audience. Two audiences meet with the general public in a place that's not their own.” Swen added: “ If you frame something it really alters your experience of something that's already there. Certain institutions are associated with a certain aesthetic. A gallery is such a safe environment. We wanted to take audiences away from a safe environment and bring people in to see work they wouldn't normally have seen.” Each instalment existed both on its own and as part of a series. Swen explained: “A single site is dependent on whoever comes and it is difficult to get a big audience outside of a tested institution. A series is less dependent on one occurrence of a big crowd. There was very little continuity of audience. Some people came to one or two but still got a sense of it as a series.”

Seven Sites required the audience to take a leap of faith, with each event advertised only with the barest of information – date, time, artist and location, its exact form remaining a secret until it took place. Laura admits: “Some of the audience thought it was some kind of city tour!” It was also a chance for artists to try something outside their usual practice, and for the curators to step back and be surprised, with the shape of the final work left up to the artist. Laura said: “Your expectations of who that artist could be were changed.” Speaking of Antonia Low, who transformed a serving hatch in a church into an idealised but unattainable white cube space, Laura said: “Antonia really put a spin on her own practice and did the opposite of what she usually does.” One of the most daring of the interventions took place during a regular pub comedy night where, unbeknown to the crowd, Seven Sites presented the comedy debut of Sian Robinson Davies – as Laura says, “She didn't have to worry about anyone coming!” Sian didn't want to be seen as an artist but as another comedian – and her awkward yet funny performance was well-received by regulars who didn't realise they were involved in an art performance. Sian now plans to do another comedy performance, in London.

Seven Sites was a reminder of the fantastical that can be found in the banal, the possibilities in the conversations that usually go unsaid, the potential for places to be transformed with a bit of imagination, and what you might find if you step outside your local and give new things a go.

Photos taken from the Seven Sites tumblr.


Laura Mansfield has curated the exhibition Triptych, which will run from 13-16 July at Three Piccadilly Place.

Tune into architecture: LoneLady's The Utilitarian Poetic/Manchester's Modernist Heroines walking tour to be repeated

As Love Architecture festival celebrates buildings great and good, one installation is reminding us of an equally important part of the built environment which tends to attract less excitement – the infrastructure all around us, that gets us from A to B.

The Utilitarian Poetic makes a new song by Warp Records' LoneLady, resident in one of the nearby housing blocks that is surrounded physically and aurally by the the hum of the car, available to anyone who plugs their headphones into a temporary socket cemented into a slip road where the Mancunian Way curves down towards the ground. The work inhabits a barren, leftover landscape – battered flowers and trees grow out of an undulating floor of rocks, discarded sweet wrappers and broken glass – where one isn't inclined to stop. It's demarcated only by a lavender graffiti tag, one among several impermanent scrawls. The song, 'Good Morning, Midnight', loops metallic percussion, distant echoes and fade-outs over bassy undertones, constantly on the move; even its rhythmic bleeping could be there to guide you across the next road. The hiss of the traffic continues in the background, audible over the headphones, as cars charge past, cyclists puff and pedestrians scurry home.

As I stand, a lone listener plugged into a wall for five minutes, no-one stops to ask me what I'm doing, or comes to have to go. They're all plugged into thoughts and sounds of their own. But it made me think: if our roads are part of the physical, utilitarian infrastructure, then music and dancing are part of a cultural infrastructure that's no less necessary; an unofficial, after hours route to escape where dreams are dreamed, connections are made, friendships are forged and networks come and go.

A pamphlet on The Utilitarian Poetic, including a location map, can be purchased for £1 from Manchester Modernist Society's pop-up shop in the Royal Exchange until Sunday June 24, 1pm-8.30pm. The installation runs for the same period (or as long as the life of the battery!).

In other news, the Manchester's Modernist Heroines walking tour, an outcome of a joint project between the Shrieking Violet, Manchester Modernist Society and the Loiterers Resistance Movement, will be repeated on Thursday June 21 as part of the Love Architecture festival.

Help Save Library Walk!

Neither building nor public square, park nor plaza, a small public passageway left by a gap between two buildings has become one of the most contested spaces in Manchester after the council announced plans to turn it into a gated, semi-private space. The designs, which were announced last month, would see a well-loved and much-used footpath, Library Walk (which is currently closed as neighbouring buildings undergo refurbishment), blocked by a glazed box by Beetham Tower architect Ian Simpson, which would be closed at night via gates at one end.

Library Walk, a curved walkway nestled in between EV Harris's Grade II* listed Central Library (1934) and the Town Hall extension (1938), has long provided a convenient link between the municipal heart of the city – Albert Square and the Town Hall – and the busy public interchanges of St Peter's Square and Oxford Street. In an area dominated by continual tram traffic, busy roads with one-way streets, bus lanes and taxis serving the large hotels that face onto nearby streets, the lone pedestrian can feel outnumbered and overwhelmed. Library Walk is a rare place that prioritises the pedestrian, providing a calm, convenient walkway that cuts through the jumble and avoids having to go round the bulk of Central Library or the Town Hall. It is the quickest, simplest route from A to B.

While part of Library Walk's appeal is practical, it also has a value which is indefinable, arising not just from its beauty and elegance but its atmosphere. Unlike in many buildings and urban landscapes, here you can lose yourself in your surroundings and be enveloped in the communion between two buildings reaching for the sky. We can all appreciate how Central Library looks from a distance, but it is equally impressive close-up: by following the contour of its curves we experience the architecture too. It's possible, for a moment, to be overtaken by the place and forget where you're going or why, but feel part of a shared heritage and cityscape that exists on a grand scale. Library Walk is a place that is unlike any other in Manchester.

The argument against altering Library Walk is also symbolic. If Library Walk is gated, we lose not just one footpath, but a significant right; the right to control where we are allowed to go in the city. Public safety arguments in the planning proposal cite a rape which took place in Library Walk, and the tendency of people to urinate in the passageway. Ian Simpson, quoted in Building Design, called Library Walk a 'dangerous place', saying: “It needs to be a managed space.”

While any rape is horrific, it is unrealistic to design out all risk from the city. It is impossible to try to police every public space – but it should be possible to provide education, with the aim of creating a culture in which respect is the norm, and facilities such as public toilets. Making artificially sanitised spaces, and designating some places safe and others unsafe, hides the wider issues around where and why acts such as rape take place. Furthermore, when some people take the attitude that women should not be surprised they attract unwanted attention if they walk alone at night, the public safety argument helps perpetuate notions about what is 'sensible' behaviour for women, stipulating where and when they 'should' and 'should not' walk.

The plans for Library Walk are unnecessary – not least at a time when services such as libraries are facing spending cuts. Ultimately, there is no need to seek to 'fill' Library Walk, or give it a function other than as a thoroughfare. The current absence of a structure on Library Walk does not mean it is lacking in purpose, or a place with unfulfilled potential.

The Heritage Statement on Library Walk says: “As a potential tourist destination, Library Walk is not a pleasant public space for visitors to the Civic heart of one of the largest cities in the UK.” I beg to differ. In its own, unassuming way, Library Walk already captures the public imagination, as is evidenced by it being one of the most photographed views in Manchester. As prominent photographer Aidan O'Rourke, who has snapped most of Manchester's buildings, puts it: “It's perfect as it is.”

For practical suggestions on how to register your objection to the plans, visit http://manchestermodernists.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/do-you-object-to-the-proposals-for-a-glazed-link-between-manchester-town-hall-extension-and-central-library.

To find out more about how to involved in a campaign against the proposals, join the Save Library Walk! Facebook group.

Three zines and two films from the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention

Thanks to everyone who came another packed and inspiring Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention and browsed and bought fanzines, talked to self-publishers about their work, watched the film, came to the talks and asked questions, studied Melanie Maddison's poster exhibition, made pages for the giant Victoria Baths fanzine and helped sell out Deerly Beloved Bakery's stall of vegan delights!

Visitors and self-publishers of all ages came from all over the country, showing the diversity of the publications encompassed by the term: from an artist's book responding to oranges to poetry and avant garde objects, from a new, alternative guide to Manchester to a zine inspired by growing up in crap towns. One zine named after a cat called Elvis got on the train all by itself at Newcastle and was picked up at the other end in Manchester!

Watch Wild Bees Productions' short film, made throughout the Fanzine Convention, which sums up the day beautifully:

A number of new zines were made on the day, including a giant, collaborative Victoria Baths fanzine compiled by visitors who took part in lino cutting/relief printing, button book binding and collaging workshops in the former superintendent's flat.

Visitors dived into the history of the building and were inspired by its beautiful decorative tiles and stained glass windows, as well as their own feelings about swimming, to each produce a page for the finished zine, which was stitched together at the end of the day.

 

Photocopied images and memories from the Victoria Baths archive were available to cut and paste. Swimmers associated with the building, such as members of the South Manchester swimming club and channel swimmer Sunny Lowry, who trained at the baths, feature highly, along with old-fashioned signs!


View the Victoria Baths fanzine below as a PDF:

Open publication - Free publishing - More archive

Ten year old Louis D. Rogers from South Yorkshire wrote 5 Futuristic Machines, a zine about 'a future space war, but written in the past tense as a history book'. The zine was duplicated using Footprint Workers' Co-operative's risograph machine which had made the journey over from Leeds for the day. The risograph looked like it would be defeated by the stairs, but made it up to the balcony with the help of four strong Future Everything volunteers! Merrick from Footprint demonstrated how the risograph works:

Read 5 Futuristic Machines online:

Open publication - Free publishing - More fanzines

Meanwhile, feminist duo Vapid Kitten invited visitors to help make a special edition of the zine at their stall around the balcony area, in a workshop entitled Vapid in a Day!

Contributors on the day were joined by international contributors, who sent their work in via email. View the finished PDF at:

Open publication - Free publishing - More kitten

Elsewhere at the Convention, visitors found out more about self-publishers and their motivations with a screening of Salford Zine Library's 2011 film Self-Publishers of the World Take Over in the former committee room.

Orla Foster and Peter Martin, formerly of Rotherham Zine Library, talked about their new publications inspired by found material and their Closed Caption project.

PhD researcher and writer David Wilkinson brought back memories for Mancunians of a certain age with his talk on post-punk countercultural publication City Fun. He described how publications like City Fun and record labels like New Hormones were "very much the more politicised yet actually more lighthearted underdog to Factory Records in post-punk Manchester".

David started his talk by playing New Hormones band Ludus's brilliantly catchy pop song Breaking the Rules, which he feels epitomises the spirit of City Fun as being
"political yet whimsical, and outsider yet collectivist...the perfect song to accompany a talk about co-operation and an irreverent, amusing, politicised post-punk fanzine run by two gay women". Linder Sterling from Ludus was managed by City Fun's Liz Naylor and Cath Carroll (as Crone Management) and also designed some covers for City Fun.

Later, Cazz Blase, music reviews editor of Shrieking Violet favourite The F-Word, talked about the significance of zines to the punk and riot grrrl movements.

Visitors flocked to Melanie Maddison's poster exhibition around the balcony of the female pool, comprising 80 posters of inspirational European women taken from the zine Shape & Situate, including some of the makers of the posters!

Technology enthusiasts and zine-makers Chris Watson and Logan Holmes from Sheffield's Shift Space collective piloted the use of an augmented reality app which allowed people to explore the local area and point their smartphones at the building to receive visual and audio content, for example visitors could view how the baths looked in the past, in the exact spot where they were standing, just by holding their phone at eye level.

More photos from the day:

Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention souvenir programme fanzine and timings

The Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention souvenir programme will be available on the day, printed by Footprint Workers Co-operative. It starts with an introduction to what fanzines are by Manchester-based graphic designer Jenn Trethewey and contains information on talks, stallholders and workshops, as well as interviews with people involved in the day and an insight from Footprint on why they are a co-operative, what it means and what they do. Find out about Friends of Victoria Baths' swimming trips to other historic pools around the country, and how to get involved. Finally, Norwich's Deerly Beloved Bakery, which will be catering the day, has contributed a recipe for vegan triple layer chocolate brownie cake!

Read it online here:

Open publication - Free publishing - More fanzines

Download and print a copy here.

The Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention will take place on the first floor of Victoria Baths on Saturday 19 May from 10am-5pm. Map, designed by artist Daniel Fogarty (click for larger image):

Timings for the day:

10.30am Guided tour of the building
11am 'Workshop: Alice in apps land: explore your smart phone and your environment', meet in the superintendent's flat (upstairs)
12pm Guided tour of the building
12.30pm Film screening: Self-Publishers of the World Take Over by Salford Zine Library, followed by Q and A, committee room (upstairs)
1.30pm, Talk: Rotherham Zine Library/Closed Caption (title tbc), committee room (upstairs)
2.30pm Talk: David Wilkinson, Pam Ponders Paul Morley's Cat: The Wired and Wonderful World of City Fun, committee room (upstairs)
3.30pm Talk: Cazz Blase, Making a noise: an express ride through the world of punk and riot grrrl fanzines and the UK feminist underground, 1977-2012, committee room (upstairs)

For a map and how to get to Victoria Baths by public transport and car, visit: www.victoriabaths.org.uk/visit/find-us

A free bus will run between Future Everything venues the Museum of Science and Industry, MediaCityUK and Victoria Baths on Saturday.

Timetable (click for larger image):

Q and A: Cazz Blase

Cazz Blase, a veteran of the zine scene who started her first zine, Aggamengmong Moggie, in 1993, is doing a talk entitled 'Making a noise: An express ride through the world of punk and riot grrrl fanzines and the UK feminist underground, 1977-2012' at the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention on May 19. After Aggamengmong Moggie, which ran until 1999, Cazz wrote the zines Real Girls (2001) and Harlot's Progress (2002-2006). Cazz is now one of two music review editors at The F-Word website, for which she has written extensively about both women and the UK punk scene and the UK riot grrrl scene, and was a contributing author to the book Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now! (Black Dog Publishing, 2007). At the Fanzine Convention, Cazz will be launching her most recent zine, Too Late for Cake, a collaboration with David Wilkinson (who is also speaking at the Fanzine Convention), which is themed around Stockport, Cazz and David's home town.

SV: You started your first zine, Aggamengmong Moggie, when you were just 14. What type of thing did you write about and was anyone else involved? How did you go about creating, reproducing and distributing your zine? 

CB: I wrote about music in the main I would say, particularly Riot Grrrl and indie bands, but I also used to do a lot of lists as well. I don't know how popular it was but one of the longer running lists was 'School Late Book Excuses', because at my high school you had to sign a book called the School Late Book whenever you were late for school, and you had to put name, class, reason for lateness. This led to all sorts of fanciful nom de plumes and whimsical excuses, some of which I published. I did some ranty pieces as well, and some sort of earnest investigative reporting, such as a three way investigation into the disappearance of vinyl as a musical format. That involved sending letters to record companies, surveying school friends, and going into record shops after school to get the shop perspective.

It was mainly me. A couple of years in my sister did some writing for me, particularly when she went away to university, and writers from some fanzines that I wrote for wrote for me.

I initially produced the covers by hand with a stencil, and the rest of the fanzine was typed and printed off on my mum's word processor. Later the covers were photocopied, and later still, the whole thing was photocopied. I had my own photocopier for a bit as well, which helped. Well, it was my mum and dad's, but I basically commandeered it.

I was very lucky so far as distributers were concerned because there were a lot of them, and they all seemed pretty broad minded in terms of what they would take and sell. I used Piao! for the first few years, but their catalogues couldn't keep up with the speed at which I was producing zines, and then they started to become more of a promoter and label than a distro, so I switched to Little Green Man in Manchester, who sold tapes but wanted to sell the fanzine, and they were really good – they had a subscription deal set up with it, and they were in a band (Godsister Helen) so they sold the zine at their gigs. That probably influenced content a bit as well, it meant I focused a lot more on Manchester and the Manchester scene at the time.

SV: Why did you start making fanzines and what was it about the medium that attracted you? Did it give you an outlet you might not otherwise have been able to find at that age? 

CB: I started making fanzines because of the John Peel show, I think, and the Voodoo Queens. I wanted to write about them, and there was other music I wanted to write about as well. I hadn't actually read many fanzines at this point, I'd only really read the Shakespears Sister fanzine, Harmonally Yours, which was good for band news but incredibly sycophantic in tone, and it only came out every four months, which I felt wasn't enough. As a result of that, I decided I didn't want to focus on one band only, that two months was about right, and that I wasn't going to be sycophantic.

My early style was probably NME meets the Wizzkids Handbook, with more swearing. Another influence was a magazine called Zine which was sort of somewhere between a fanzine and a magazine, and it was written entirely by its readers. They did zine reviews, so I found out a lot about zines through them. I think I'd seen at least one of the riot grrrl zines that Slampt put out by then as well.

I found the medium rather intimidating, I was a technological luddite so I sort of had to drag myself through it and teach myself how to type and use a word processor, then later photocopiers.

It did give me an outlet I might not have otherwise have had, definitely. It was fanzines or writing stroppy letters to the local paper, local MP and NME basically otherwise. There wasn't much scope for teenagers to make themselves heard in the nineties.

SV: Were you inspired by any other fanzines and were you aware of other women making zines at the time? 

CB: I was very fortunate to start making fanzines in mid-1993, when there were tons of Riot Grrrl zines around. That definitely helped. It was normal to be a girl doing a fanzine then, but a lot of them were more personal than I felt mine were. A.M has been written of since as being very personal, but I didn't feel it was at the time – possibly later on, but it was basically started as a music fanzine. I admired the bravery of Erica, who wrote Scars and Bruises, which was about depression and angst I think. One fanzine I would have loved to have read, but never got hold of, was Rampaging Teenage Pervert by a girl called Kate in London. I read an interview with her in a zine about zines once, and she sounded cool. That was a very funny queercore zine by the sound of it.

The Slampt zines, which were put together by Rachel Holborow and Pete Dale, were always good – they tended to include all sorts of people from the north east scene and beyond, and Ablaze! 10 had a massive impact on me for a long time, that was the one with all the riot grrrl stuff in, including the girl power manifesto, and Bobbins! and Grrls World did as well. Ablaze! was Karren Ablaze!'s zine, and Bobbins! and Grrls World were written by six formers in Stockport and Manchester. Grrl's World was their 'We've just been to see Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear on tour!' fastzine, and Bobbins! was a very droll indie zine, which never took itself even remotely seriously but which did have interviews with bands and stuff as well. The band Golden Starlet (later International Strike Force) also did a comic zine, which was cool. There were some cool girls in Cambridge who did a fanzine called Smitten (I think) as well, and that was really good.

What was a big influence was a teenage novel by Roger Burt called The Melanie Pluckrose Effect, which is about a group of schoolgirls stirring up a minor planning revolution in a midlands market town. I would have liked to have achieved something as major as that with A.M, but it wasn't to be.

SV: Aggamengmong Moggie ran for six years, which is a long time to sustain such a self-initiated project. Why was it successful, and what part did it play in your life? 

CB: I think it was successful because it was produced between 1993 and 1999, which was a great time for fanzine making. Also, it was mainly done during the years I was at high school when I didn't have much of an outlet elsewhere for what I was saying in the fanzine. Once I got to six form college, it was actually harder to be as productive because the work was more personally interesting at college than it was at school so I was more engaged with it. I basically failed most of my GCSEs, so I was able to use the energy I should have spent on passing them on the fanzine. Not that I would have passed them though, because I didn't feel engaged with most of the subjects on the national curriculum, I just used the time differently basically.

It actually played a bigger part in my life than I realised at the time, I didn't really think in the long term at the time but it is still remembered, and it did start me on the path towards wanting to be a writer and a journalist. I didn't really analyse it at the time though, I just did it.

SV: What did you get out of making a zine? Did you feel you were part of a wider network of people making zines at that time? 

CB: Not really, not until I hooked up with Little Green Man in about 1995 or so. Before then most of my friends who did zines or were involved with the underground scene in other ways were in London, Newcastle or Leeds. I did meet more Manchester/Greater Manchester zine writers, but not until 1996.

There were a few of us around then: Emmeline who did Soul Junk, Daniel who did I'm 5, Carl who did Fancy Biscuits, Nicola who did Meow!... I found during this period though that having friends locally was actually detrimental to producing fanzines, as far as I'm concerned, in that I basically just work better in solitude. Also, having feedback more constantly made me self conscious, and probably a bit arrogant and arsey I'm ashamed to say as well! I was quite pleased when that period was over.

SV: At the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention, you're going to be giving an overview of zines in the punk and Riot Grrrl movements. What was their significance to the feminist underground? 

CB: These zines ran parallel to Spare Rib, Women's Report, and more mainstream feminism throughout the eighties and nineties in the Guardian's Women's pages. A magazine like Shocking Pink was set up in reaction to Jackie initially, which was the leading mainstream girls mag of the day, and it later found itself reacting to Spare Rib because it was felt by the second collective that Spare Rib didn't represent younger feminists. In terms of punk, Spare Rib had a terrible time adjusting to punk, and you can see the debates around it played out if you read back issues of Spare Rib from the late seventies, so a fanzine like Jolt, that was a punk feminist zine, helped bridge the gap between the two camps.

From a Riot Grrrl zine point of view, my take on it is that those fanzines helped to introduce a new generation to feminism, and that they were perhaps more accessible and more welcoming than the idea that you had to read a long list of really very academic books about feminism before you were allowed to call yourself a feminist. Also, the riot grrrl zines were discussing issues that were relevant to young women – such as being sexually harassed in school – that feminism wasn't discussing at the time.


SV: Do you have any favourite zines, either for their content or style? 

CB: Anything Slampt put out was basically excellent, and there was a Manchester zine by a guy called Dean Talent, called When I Grow Up I Want To Be Bobbee Gillespie that was really good as well, in that sort of beat generation romantic wanderings kind of way. Slampt were very new-style punk, very nineties punk. Messy but sincere. I also used to really love reading the Chemikal Underground newsletter in the late nineties, because they came out very sporadically but were always really funny and tended to be more entertaining in a musical sense than a years worth of NME would have been at the time.

SV: If you were a fourteen-year-old girl now, do you think you would still start a zine, or would you start a blog/online journal instead? 

CB: I would be doing a blog or a live journal, because it's cheaper basically. Having said that, I think I'm relieved in a way that the technology wasn't around at the time because there are things I wrote in my zines that I wouldn't want to go up online. You can make mistakes with far less risk in a paper fanzine, simply because less people read them and also you could destroy the evidence much more easily at the time if you really fucked up.

SV: Why do you think people are still interested in making – and reading – zines? 

CB: I think there is a romanticism attached to paper zines that is similar to attitudes to vinyl. To an extent, they have been fetishised, it has become about the format at least as much as the content. Fortunately there are some really good print zines out there, so it hasn't become completely about the format. I like Things Happen, and Shrieking Violet, because they are about their surroundings, and I find that really interesting. I did a bit of that in Aggamengmong Moggie, but aside from in When I Grow Up I Want To Be Bobbee Gillespie, I didn't see much of that when I was doing A.M. I think the reason that's more common now is because cities like Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield have been gentrified and people are really quite discomforted by their surroundings and want to eulogise the nice bits of their cities that are left. That makes for some really good semi political writing. It could be that print lends itself more to that kind of writing because it too is in danger of becoming obsolete.

Also, with fanzines, you can say things you can't say online. Things that might invite legal action for instance, or that are too personal to go up online but you still want to put out, anonymously or not.

SV: Finally, you've made a new zine for the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention in collaboration with David Wilkinson, who's also speaking at the Fanzine Convention, which is all about Stockport where you both grew up. It's a very traditional cut and paste kind of zine. How did you decide on that subject and style for your zine? 

CB: It was my idea to do a print zine for the fanzine convention, partly because I hadn't done one for a long time but thought it would be fun to do. Partly because fanzine conventions are the best places to sell fanzines, but also because I do a blog called Too Late For Cake, which is about socio-political and cultural goings on in Manchester and Greater Manchester, including Stockport. Some of the content for the zine has been published on the blog, but a lot of it hasn't, and it was written in a different way because it was being written for print.

The Stockport subject matter seemed obvious because it was a crucial thing we had in common, and we both knew we had a lot to say, much of which hasn't really been said before, or not in that format. I think David has been more scathing than I have. I decided to write about nice bits of Stockport in the main, because they tend to be the more ignored bits, but also because I knew David wanted to write about gentrification and redevelopment in Hopes Carr. He grew up around there so it's a subject very personal to his heart. I never really got to grips with writing about Hazel Grove, which is where I grew up, so that'll need to be left for another day. Most of my bits and pieces are about central Stockport.

Stockport is rumoured to be the biggest town in Britain, and Hazel Grove is rumoured to be the biggest village in Europe, so there's a lot to write about. The politics and political history are interesting as well, and some of it's in there – for example Stockport Workhouse – or alluded to, for example that the council was a hung council for many years.

As to the format, we could have made it look more professional just by doing a layout using Word 2007, but David hasn't been involved with zines that much and wanted to go for the traditional cut'n'paste approach because it's what he knows. This suited me because it's a style I settled on for quite a while when doing the later editions of Aggamengmong Moggie and Real Girls.

http://toolateforcake.wordpress.com

Cazz Blase will be speaking in the Committee Room (upstairs in the former superintendent's flat at Victoria Baths) at 3.30pm during the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention on Saturday May 19.

Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention – stallholders

Twigs and Apples (Preston)

Twigs and Apples is a North West UK-based zine collective, started in 2009. It operates as an open collective and, as such, has a wide range of content, including art, writing, poetry, illustration, film and music reviews, sports writing, vegan recipes, photography, DIY and craft, philosophy and the odd rant. Twigs and Apples is fuelled by biscuits, tea and bicycle rides into the night. http://twigsandapples.tumblr.com

Footprint Workers Co-operative (Leeds) 

Footprint is small printers based in Leeds. It print booklets, zines, leaflets, stickers, newsletters, fliers, books, CD wallets and that sort of gubbins. It wishes to be straightforward, friendly, responsible and responsive, rather than “aiming to deliver comprehensive multi-platform printing solutions to clients in the voluntary and vocationally-challenged sectors”. Footprint does this as ethically as it can, printing on proper recycled papers, powered by a genuine green electricity tariff and using the least environmentally damaging processes it can find. Footprint also gives a percentage of the money it makes to worthy projects. Footprint is a workers co-operative, which means the business is owned by the workers. As they have no bosses they run it as they want, doing interesting jobs for interesting people.
www.footprinters.co.uk

Melanie Maddison/Shape & Situate zine (Leeds) 

Shape & Situate is a zine of posters made by artists and DIY creative folk from within Europe, each poster highlighting the (often hidden) history and lives of radical inspirational women and collectives from Europe, as a way of connecting us with the past and the present through a dynamic cultural (re-)articulation of these women’s lives. The zine aims to activate feminist cultural memory, to inspire in the present and to visually bring women’s social and political history to life and into view.
http://remember-who-u-are.blogspot.com 

zimZalla (Sale)

zimZalla is a publishing project intermittently releasing avant objects. Previous releases include a miniature book with accompanying magnifying glass, unique micro texts in medicinal vials and a board game to generate multiple chance readings of a poem text.
http://zimzalla.co.uk

Josh Payne and Karl Child (Southport/Preston) 

Josh Payne’s zines and books are made to encourage exploration and observation. One zine is called Journeys to mark the journey he went through to come up with a concept; the concept ended up being the actual journey he embarked on. The next publication is an expansion on the first journey and ended becoming a book. This is to encourage people to go out, be observant and explore the world around them to make their own work and is in a note book format consisting of subtle journeys that Josh has been through. The books are called Notes.

http://joshua-payne.tumblr.com
www.karlchild.co.uk

Bound (Manchester) 

Bound Collective is five designers from Manchester who are inspired by design, photography, music, culture and, most importantly, the environment around them, and have created a publication to celebrate this! Bound is not your typical city guide. You won’t find department stores, over-subscribed club nights or chain restaurants as Bound will focus on what makes Manchester unique. Bound wants to present the city’s residents and visitors with an alternative view, focusing on the vibrant locations and independent businesses that are often overlooked.
http://boundcollective.tumblr.com 

Lynne Shaw (Stoke-on-Trent) 

Lynne Shaw specialises in Artist Books produced using traditional book binding methods, printing and digital imagery. Her books encompass a wide range of themes, including the chronicling of her past, urban degeneration and football. Light hearted projects include breathing new life into images from old books and using vintage Bunty and Judy annuals.
Artist Books: Conceive, make, share and adore... http://fineartartist.tumblr.com 

Black Dogs (Leeds) 

Black Dogs is an art collective formed in 2003 in Leeds. Its output has included formal exhibitions, relational and participatory installations, public events and interventions, publications, video, audio works and records and collaborative learning projects. The membership of the group is notionally fluid and can vary on a project-to-project basis, although in practice the group has a fairly consistent core of ten members currently living and working between Leeds, London, Bradford and Milton Keynes.
www.black-dogs.org 

Sugar Paper (Manchester) 

Sugar Paper is a bi-annual craft zine featuring 20 things to make and do, from knitting to recipes, old school crafts to fun things to do with your gang, all peppered with whatever they’re obsessing over at the time!
http://sugarpapergang.blogspot.com 

Crow Versus Crow (Halifax) 

Crow Versus Crow is an interdisciplinary project based in Halifax, West Yorkshire, presenting, to date, limited physical editions, a community radio show and podcast and live music events exploring the intersection between contemporary DIY and non-mainstream music and visual art culture.
http://crowversuscrow.blogspot.co.uk

FAKE Magazine (Leeds) 

FAKE is a quarterly independent fashion and visual arts magazine. It gives its readers access to the very latest emerging creative talent, featuring insightful photography, innovative fashion, beautiful illustration, funny and thought-provoking articles, independent venues and businesses, fresh talent, creative projects and much more. Everything within the pages of FAKE is exclusively commissioned for each issue. FAKE isn’t what fake is.
http://thatfakemagazine.com 
http://thatfakemagazineblog.tumblr.com

Karoline Rerrie – Collaborative zines (Birmingham) 

Karoline Rerrie is an illustrator who creates images by hand using drawing, painting, silk screen printing and Japanese Gocco printing. She produces a range of printed multiples including zines and artists’ books. She also co-ordinates the publication of limited edition postcard books, zines and colouring books featuring her artwork and that of other women illustrators.
http://menageriebook.blogspot.co.uk 
http://newmagicbook.blogspot.co.uk

Paul Loudon and David Carden (Manchester) 

Acclaimed freelance illustrator Paul Loudon presents an exciting and unique introspective of his upcoming girl-centric graphic novel Bust-Up. The fanzine includes character profiles, snippets of the action, tips, techniques and curves in all the right places.

Musician and doodler David Carden presents two books inspired by Manchester Art Gallery. Adventures In British Painting is a musical tour of the gallery’s 18th and 19th century collections complete with banjo and ukulele fueled sing-songs. Pea Soup Of The Dead is a musical zombie comic book inspired by the paintings of LS Lowry and Adolphe Valette with a War Of The Worlds-esque soundtrack to boot. David will also be showcasing other projects which he may or may not get round to actually doing. He is after all a very lazy illustrator.
www.paulloudon.com

Nude magazine (Nationwide) 

Nude magazine is an arts and culture publication, which has always been a zine at heart in that the editors, publishers and contributors always without exception wrote about issues and events which were very close to them and which they felt a personal passion for. The publishers, Suzy and Ian, are very happy to watch the resurgence of printed fanzines and hope it’s here to stay.
www.nudemagazine.co.uk

Jo Wilkinson (Leeds) 

Jo Wilkinson is a Leeds-based illustrator. She makes zines with ideas born from a variety of sources including tissue paper on tangerines, observational drawing in sketchbooks and imaginary stuff found only in her fluffy head. She loves to use collage, found ephemera, letter stamps, drypoint and pop up mechanisms in her work. Even a 1970s typewriter makes a recurring appearance!

Jo makes prints using techniques like drypoint, relief, mono and intaglio processes. She also uses Chine-colle. She is currently working on a new series entitled ‘Noah’s Boats’. http://jowilkinson.co.uk

Silent V (Norwich) 

Silent V is an absurdist science fiction saga set in a constantly shifting, illogical universe. Its fifth issue has just been completed, and will be launched at this year’s Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention.
http://gulagcomics.livejournal.com 
www.webcomicsnation.com/bakesale

Young Explorer (Manchester) 

Young Explorer is a brand new zine about stuff and things by Elizabeth Murray Jones and Steve Carlton. The first ever issue has a ‘Home and Away’ theme and includes bits about being brought up in a rubbish town, day trips, a home appliance-related comic and a couple of bits of enthusiastic waffle about music and that.
http://youngexplorerzine.blogspot.co.uk

Vapid Kitten (Manchester)

Feminist duo Vapid Kitten will be constructing issue 8 of their fanzine (published both in print and for Kindle) throughout the day at the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention. Themed 'Collaboration', it aims to include a big mishmash of experiences, words, drawings, collage and poems.

Vapid Kitten will provide some arty equipment and suggestions to get you started and would like to get as many people involved as possible. At the end of the day everyone involved will get a free digital copy of the zine.
www.vapidmedia.co.uk 

Shift Space (Sheffield)

Shift Space fuses art, education and new technology to explore ways of immersing people in the environment around them. Through the application of art and the power of digital technology, Shift Space brings people together regardless of age, background or ability to form connections with each other and their local landscape engaging in the spaces they occupy, real or virtual, in new and imaginative ways. Shift Space’s zines are examinations of the world through art, digital and print.
www.shift-space.co.uk

Manifesto (Glasgow)

Manifesto is an occasional free artists' zine. Founded in 2008, Manifesto is resolutely DIY and non-digital. It has an open submissions policy and loves hand drawn/painted images, handwritten texts, Polaroid photos, printmaking, collage or pretty much anything you can fit into a photocopier. Manifesto also makes screenprints in a shed.
www.manifestoshop.co.uk

UHC, MMDC & Textbook Studio (Manchester)

Working in Hotspur House, Ultimate Holding Company, Manchester Municipal Design Corporation and Textbook Studio work on socially engaged art projects, graphic design and education, often together.

Expect a cross section of their hand finished 'zines, booklets, posters, prints and artist's books, both self initiated and products of other collaborations.

http://uhc.org.uk

www.mmdc.org.uk

www.textbookstudio.co.uk

@UHCstudio

@M_M_D_C

@TextbookStudio

Corridor8 (Manchester) 

Corridor8 is an annual international journal of contemporary visual arts and writing based in the North of England.
www.corridor8.co.uk

Salford Zine Library (Manchester) 

Salford Zine Library was formed in January 2010 and aims to showcase and share creative work in the self-published form. The archive is open to all to contribute. You can visit the Library at Nexus Art Cafe, Manchester. http://salfordzinelibrary.blogspot.com

Other Way Up Press (Manchester)

Other Way Up Press is a bookarts/fanzine publisher with work in numerous national collections. It will be presenting a selection of its output to date and will be accompanied on the stall by other artists including Cyprus-based artist Natalie Yiaxi and photographer Cherry Styles.
http://otherwayuppress.wordpress.com

Pomona Books (Keighley) 

Pomona is an independent publishing company with a roster including Simon Armitage, Barry Hines, Hunter Davies, Ray Gosling, Ian McMillan, Boff Whalley and many more. It was formed by writer Mark Hodkinson whose acclaimed novel The Last Mad Surge Of Youth focuses on the post punk scene of the early 1980s.
www.pomonauk.com

Closed Caption (Sheffield)

Closed Caption aims to make subversive content through appropriation. This new group, which now replaces Rotherham Zine Library, will make zines that twist found content to create new meaning and revel in the absurdity of social norms.

Closed Caption intend to use the zine library as a resource and are looking at how they can add their collection to existing events and places to create interesting new ways to read zines. They also hope to develop the collection by trading zines with others around the world. http://aclosedcaption.wordpress.com

Deerly Beloved Bakery (Norwich)

Deerly Beloved Bakery is proud to be celebrating its first birthday at the Victoria Baths Fanzine Convention, returning with good food that is cruelty free including vegan cakes, whoopie pies, brownies and savoury pies and pizza slices. Deerly Beloved Bakery specialises in vegan cakes, pastries, biscuits, cupcakes, muffins, breads, salads, starters, mains and desserts. It does not use any animal products. All cakes and bakes are made by hand in small batches using real bourbon vanilla, unrefined non-bone char sugars and margarines free from hydrogenated fats. No artificial preservatives or flavourings are used.
www.deerlybelovedbakery.blogspot.co.uk