


Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories

Sherlock Holmes

Christabel Pankhurst

Captain Scott's Diary

G. B. Shaw's Pygmalion

Suffragettes protest

Wilfred Owen: WWI poetry

Art in poetry

Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

Nottinghamshire dialect

BBC English

Wanted poster for Hitler

World War II ultimatum letter

Make Do and Mend

Immigration from India

Chinese restaurants

Paul Robeson's Othello

Sylvia Plath

The Beatles in the USA

Man lands on the moon

Women's liberation magazine

J.G. Ballard, Crash

Punk fanzine

The Sex Pistols

J.G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun

Angela Carter, Wise Children
'Sniffin' Glue', the first punk fanzine, was produced by Mark Perry in July 1976 a few days after seeing US punk band The Ramones for the first time at the Roundhouse in London. He took the title from a Ramones song 'Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue'.
Perry's fanzine was the perfect punk form. It reported the moment immediately as it happened, from an insider's point of view. Because Perry used everyday tools that were immediately to hand, 'Sniffin' Glue' fitted with the do-it-yourself ethos which was already an important part of punk culture. A flood of punk zines followed, with identifiable cut and paste graphics, typewritten or felt tip text, misspellings and crossings out. Photocopying also contributed to the punk zine look by limiting graphic experimentation to black and white tones and imagery based on collage, enlargement and reduction. 'Sniffin' Glue' demonstrated that anyone could easily, cheaply and quickly produce a fanzine.