EDITORIAL 

LITTLE MAGS AND THE OIK

I’m more than a bit obsessed with little mags. They can’t touch you for it but history shows it can be dangerous (see the piece on Hébert and his Père Duchene p50). We read, in this issue of Alexis Lykiard’s editorship of Granta back in the sixties. It may have been a little mag when he was in charge but later became a very big little mag with a circulation of 50,000. Jim Burns is another ex-editor who ran his own little mags Move 1964-68 and Palantir 1976-83 from Preston. These are now collectors’ items. I’ve never seen the complete set of Palantir but managed to cop  five issues from Alexis who was a contributor. I’m not a completist (that way madness lies) but have knocked up local websites of these rarities which remain in the decent obscurity of my hard drive.

A more direct involvement was with Voices the Manchester based oik mag which ran from 1972-1984. It was condescendingly belittled by the Arts Council as too oikish to fund and one London book dealer complained of not finding any “recognised” writers in it. This would be before contributors like Jimmy McGovern, John Cooper Clarke and Ken Worpole became “recognised” The complete set are available on line at www.mancvoices.co.uk.

The Penniless Press was another notable mag which ran to 28 issues from 1995 – 2010. I was generously awarded, late on, deputy editorship but Alan Dent, perhaps alarmed by my scabrous oikitude never allowed me anywhere near the contents. The mag folded after a respectably long life and Alan went on to run MQB which is still extant. I continue to run the PP website www. pennilesspress.co.uk and none of the vulgar filth in it can be laid at Alan’s door.

This obsession extends to famous little mags like Cyril Connolly’s Horizon (see https://www.unz.com/print/Horizon) a not quite complete collection and John Lehmann’s Penguin New Writing – like Horizon approx. 1940-1950. The latter has no web presence but my own Reader’s Guide would be invaluable to the little mag nut (see http://www.pennilesspress. co.uk/Penguin %20 NW.htm). And how many of this vital work have you sold Ken? Er…one or two, but it’s only been out five years.

Then there’s my reprints. The Black Dwarf  Vol 13 issues 2,3,4 & 8 and Vol 14 issues 23,24 &25. These squash the unwieldy original 13” x 17” into a handy 6” x 9” and beef up the fonts to a more readable 11pt TNR. I plan something similar for a few New Masses mags which are, I must admit, already well catered for on-line at https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/

The Crazy Oik itself has a quite comprehensive presence at http://www.crazyoik.co.uk/ and is much admired for its… er…its..covers. I expect soon to be approached by Wetherspoons to design beer mats

Ken! Enough already you crazy fuck! As Le Père Duchesne might say. Any more of this and I’ll be summoning an NHS ambulance! 

However, to get back to reality, we note a welcome thematic return to oikitude in our pieces on work. Tom Kelly remembers Tyneside ship builders and gives a Studs Terkelish rendering of their fascinating argot. Jim Burns reviews a book on the plight of the lady oik (much like my mum who worked in such a factory). Tim Deane describes the horrors of the Agricultural College, worse than Eton by the sound of it. Tanner, as usual, charts the mind-numbing tedium of the covid era checkout with many shocking vignettes of stroppy customers who won’t wear a mask. Finally the last part of a four episode narrative on the life of an Irish navvy in England. This originally appeared in Voices 28 (1983?)

How lucky we are to have a govt doing its best to make such strenuous exertions too repellent to consider.

Ken Clay Jan 2023