Will->> Well, we're SchNews and we do it because we're insane, got nothing better to do. We like writing articles about low pay, even though we don't pay ourselves anything.

Ray->> We have an S-button on our computer for added sarcasm.

Jack->> That's what SchNews means! No, it doesn't really. We could start saying that, couldn't we?

Will->> Well, it's fun trying to destroy the state, isn't it, by having a party instead of going out and doing boring stuff instead?

Jack->> SchNews come out of a group called Justice? formed to fight the Criminal Justice Bill, and squatted a big place called the Courthouse. We were there for about six weeks. During that time, what happened in the Courthouse, it were pretty amazing actually, there was a derelict building and a hundred people spent the weekend getting this building sorted, the roof and the toilets, the whole thing. It was just fucking the most amazing thing I've ever been involved in. And we had cafés there and meetings, mass meetings, a hundred, hundred and fifty people. It was a real buzzing time, this bill really caught the imagination, especially in Brighton, because people thought their party was gonna be stopped. Brighton is a party town. And then it had wider implications. I think we was reckoning on a thousand people a week were coming in this squatted center. And it was all sorts of people were popping in, and having food there and seeing what was going on. And out of that SchNews formed. SchNews started with a SchNews reading, someone decided to do an alternative news reading of all the stuff that was going on around that town, that was happening every day. Then, out of that, the magazine formed. That's how that began.

mk->> Were you all part of that, or came in later?

Amy->> No.

Jack->> No, I started issue three.

Will->> I read about the Courthouse in the Evening Argus. I just went down there, went to the meetings, started giving out SchNews.

Jack->> Can't get rid of him since!

Ray->> Been trying to retire Will off for years!

Jack->> Well, Ray and Amy have come in later.

Ray->> Yeah, we're more recent. I only moved down here a couple of years ago.

mk->> How did you get hooked up with SchNews?

Ray->> Just through reading and having spare time, and a desire to do writing.

Jack->> He come to a training day.

mk->> Were you involved in other forms of activism before?

Ray->> Yeah, a bit of anti-racist stuff when I was younger. Being on the end of it when I was a kid, basically. Then some stuff when I was at college as well, to do with the Criminal Justice Bill, as it was at that time.

mk->> What about you?

Amy->> Similar story. I was travelling for about five years, then came back, got back to England, came down to Brighton, thought, "I've gotta get involved in something." My friend used to write for SchNews for a long time, she brought me down to the office. I've been there ever since.

Jack->> She's never left the office!

 

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• Justice?
  A Brighton-based group founded in April 1994 to oppose the Criminal Justice Bill. After passage of the Criminal Justice Act, Justice? continued to fight against the provisions of the CJA in their multifarious manifestations. In addition to community actions, squats, etc., Justice? publishes the weekly SchNews, which covers every form of "counter" cultural life targeted by the CJA: squatting and land rights, freedom of public assembly, free parties, travellers, festivals, road protests, organized labor and strikes, hunt-sab and animal rights, welfare benefits and welfare cuts, unemployment and homelessness. Increased awareness and mobilization around these wide-ranging issues has led Justice? and SchNews to a more global perspective on how issues in the UK are related to the world economic, political, and ecological situation.
  
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