Viva Brighton Issue #52 June 2017

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QueenSpark Books
A radical community publishing house
“I don’t know if you know Queens Park” says John
Riches, of QueenSpark Books, “but it’s got a school
in it which, believe it or not, was going to be a
casino back in the 70s.” I do know Queens Park,
and it’s the last place in Brighton that I’d think to
put a casino. Nor would I think of it as a fermenting
ground for a radical publishing house, but
that’s what it became back in 1972, when a group
of residents, opposed to that casino plan, started
a campaign newspaper called QueenSpark. One of
their number, Albert Paul, a lifetime resident of the
area, offered to write a book about his childhood to
help raise funds. Poverty - Hardship but Happiness, his
vivid account of a working-class childhood in early-
20th-century Brighton, was published in 1974, with
a second volume, Hard Work and No Consideration,
following two years later.
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