We now need to cast our minds back to 1984. During this period both personal and professional contacts were made between A Distribution (then a co-operative of publishers set up to provide a joint distribution for both books and periodicals), the Anarchist Book Service, set up to provide a wide selection of titles by mail order for those having difficulty obtaining them through their local bookshop, Freedom Bookshop and Housmans Bookshop. It was obvious to the people involved that by pooling our resources we could be far more effective than working on our own.
At this period the major showcase of radical publishing was the Socialist Bookfair. Housmans, Freedom and A distribution had all taken part in this. None of us was particularly impressed either by the structure of the Bookfair or the ambience of it, i.e. as far as we were concerned it was no fun. First not only did we have to pay for the stall, but all the books we sold were invoiced to Bookmarks less a third and there was an entrance charge. The entire stock of books at the fair was in effect on sale or return to Bookmarks. In our joint discussions we discovered that not only were none of us making any money out of the Socialist Bookfair none of us were enjoying the experience and we were attending out of a sense of solidarity with the radical publishing scene.
A few quick calculations on the back of the proverbial cigarette pack, distorted by a couple of pints, quickly convinced us that if we pooled what it was costing us to attend the Socialist Bookfair in time and money we could set up a small bookfair dedicated to Anarchist publications and groups and be no worse off than we had been attending the Socialist Bookfair. Starting off small with few overheads we reckoned we could finance the project by a 10% levy on sales. Small is beautiful. The current Bookfair collective have my sympathy trying to juggle the Bookfair nowadays. Right from the beginning we had a different vision to the Socialist Bookfair.
Obviously we wanted to sell books, that’s what the founding groups were all committed to, but we wanted to use the revenue generated to create a space that would be more than just an Anarchist supermarket...
I seem to recall that the November 84 Bookfair was on at the same time as the Socialist Bookfair , just down the road from the Tunbridge Club, and some over enthusiastic (!!) colleagues spent most of their day leafleting said Bookfair for the Anarchist Bookfair. The food crew (Crass and friends) not only provided cheap and excellent food but also raised over 150 pounds for the miners.
