QueenSpark
By Frances Murray
“Robin was one of the pioneers of QueenSpark in East Brighton, with its successful community campaigns for facilities to meet people’s needs rather than generate privatised profit, its community newspaper, and QueenSpark books of local autobiographical and other writings.”
(Stephen Yeo in ‘A Useable Past’ vol 2, A New Life, 2018)
QueenSpark started in 1972 in an area of East Brighton, then considered a deprived, mostly working class area of about 7000 households. It grew from a local campaign to stop Brighton Council’s proposed development of a Casino in a derelict Regency Spa in the local park. The campaign demanded a Nursery School instead. It was a fight to the finish which took four years of creative opposition.
Eventually successful, the Royal Spa Nursery school is still there to this day. It was this single issue struggle which initiated the four page community newspaper QueenSpark. This came out every two months for many years and was the core of local community organisation and further campaigns – contesting the Brighton Marina high rise proposals (see below), building the Hanover Community Centre (see below), starting QueenSpark Books which began from a local resident Molly Morley’s Sparchives reminiscence section in the paper and grew to be part of a nationwide federated movement of worker writers. ‘QueenSpark lives on and is now on line. At least four generations of activists have carried it on after the initiators left.” (Stephen Yeo in “The Republic of Letters” 2009 ed)
First edition of QueenSpark, 1972
Special QueenSpark proposing an alternative to the Brighton Marina high-rise proposals.
Brighton Marina plans and proposals put forward by the QueenSpark campaign.
Special edition of the paper on controversial education proposals
Self build and construction of Hanover Community Centre
Looking back to what was in the 70’s Brighton a creative and innovative period of local community organising which was about giving voice to those normally without it, the production, distribution and consumption of the books and newspaper were part of these aims: sold door- to- door, in pubs and corner shops by street contacts, never in bookshops, made collaboratively by voluntary teams, never the solitary author, publicised within the area, never nationally, QueenSpark was for Robin and for many of those who were involved, a way of owning, creating and sharing local living, something that is a thread running through his life and his social economy work .
QueenSpark together with the Scotland Road Writers in Liverpool was one of two original groups of the Federation of Worker Writers and Community Publishers (FWWCP) started in 1976 which was about a national movement of alternative community based publishing which was growing in many dynamic directions from this period, together with the influential work of Centerprise in Hackney. Read more here.
We include here copies of some of the early QueenSpark Books which Robin lived with or worked on.
Poverty - Hardship But Happiness: Those were the days 1903- 1917 by Albert Paul was the first QueenSpark book in 1974, funded by a small South East Arts grant, the book was typed, pasted up and produced by a self taught volunteer team, sold 2000 in 3 months, many by Albert Paul himself who would walk around with the books in his pocket asking ‘would you like to read about my life’ it went to reprint and was followed in 1981 by his second volume, QueenSpark book 12
Out of the Blue and Blues by Katherine Browne, QueenSpark Books no. 2, 1975. Katherine Browne was an orator, a Spiritualist and keen contributor to QueenSpark. Born in Belize she taught music both there and in Jamaica in the 1920s. She came to the UK in 1939, found work variously as a billeting officer and nurse before retiring to Brighton. From an early age she wrote poetry and this book is a celebration of her long and spiritual journey - the second QueenSpark book which she dedicated to “Belize and the Caribbean, with arms outstretched across the Atlantic, I’ll hold the hands of many races in many walks of life”.
The Town Beehive: A Young Girl’s Lot Brighton 1910-1934 by Daisy Noakes was QueenSpark Book No 3, 1975. Daisy had this manuscript in her top drawer, written for her grandchildren with never a thought to publication until she saw Albert’s book one day.
Brighton on the Rocks: Monetarism and the Local State, QueenSpark New Series 1, 1983. A departure from autobiography to look at how monetarism was affecting Brighton, how cuts and austerity imposed nationally were understood and felt locally. It took a QueenSpark working group two years to research and was influenced by John Berger and Jean Mohr’s ‘Another Way of Telling’ and ‘A Seventh Man’ where the visual has equal weight to the written. (See Olivier Le Brun’s tribute for more information)
Live and Learn: A Life and Struggle for Progress by Les Moss was QueenSpark Books no 7, 1979. This book was spoken and transcribed, then edited by the author and re-typed.
Hard Work and No Consideration: 51 Years as a Carpenter Joiner 1917-1968, the second book by Albert Paul.