Editor-in-Chief James Richards reflects on decades of Redbrick in his first editorial
Hello Redbrick readers! I’m James and it’s my pleasure to be your new Editor-in-Chief!
Let me set the scene. I am writing this letter from the Redbrick office, deep within the basement of the Student Guild. You shouldn’t picture anything special. The room is dark, small and poky. It lacks ‘a sense of space’, to quote Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, as if the ‘walls had become uncomfortable with each other, with so little between them.’ You may even picture the smell. This is a room, says my predecessor Alex Taylor, that ‘vaguely smell[s] of wee’. And while I cannot corroborate his claim (your new EIC has anosmia!), I can only assume that it remains correct.
But when I told you not to picture anything special, I wasn’t being entirely honest. This dingy, stinky foxhole of ours is also home to several hundred previous editions of Redbrick. And these editions tell a greater story. The story of the paper. Of the University, the country, the last 88 years. And each is a special edition.
So I start to look around. Starting at the tops of the piles. ‘Obama Secures Second Term’ is Issue 1418’s ‘Story of the Week’, for instance.
I dig a little deeper. Issue 1275 dissects the ‘meteoric rise’ of ‘new messiah of the Conservative Party’ David Cameron. The man ‘doesn’t seem to fit the bill’ for Conservative leadership, declares our writer. Perhaps we should have listened. Later that issue, another columnist announces that Daniel Craig will play the new James Bond. ‘I myself still want Clive Owen’, he then admits.
I turn. And a young Kenneth Branagh sits on the wall to my right. ‘17th October 1991’ proclaims the letterhead; ‘Redbrick Interviews Hollywood’s New Hero’ boasts the headline.
Then back to the stack. Our 900th issue includes a striking image: the disembodied head of Margaret Thatcher chopping Old Joe into pieces! It does this, of course, with a great hatchet it keeps between its jaws.
Then two issues deeper and ten years earlier, I learn that the paper once cost ‘3d’! The paper cost a thruppence!
And so on and so on, all the way back to 1936. Meaning Redbrick is old, older than The Sun (the tabloid, not the celestial body). And if a first glance at our office reveals the cramp, the darkness, the (presumably) foul smell, then a second, deeper crate-dig reveals the paper’s storied history. Its age, its purpose, its significance. The first renders the second incongruous. How can such an important room appear so unassuming?
So as the University of Birmingham re-opens its doors, Redbrick will once again inform and entertain its student populace. It’s a difficult job; one that I couldn’t perform without the heroic efforts of my committee (whose own introductory letters you will doubtless read in future issues). To my current committee: thank you. And to my previous committee: thank you for showing us the ropes.
But it takes more than ten people in an office to make Redbrick happen. To our Editorial Assistants and our Section Editors, to anyone who writes for our paper, to those, even, who haven’t yet had the chance, I also share my heartfelt thanks. Perhaps another 88 years from now, Redbrick’s Cyborg-in-Chief will take a break from 2112’s important headlines (‘Deepfaked likeness of Daniel Craig to play next James Bond!’, ‘Lord David Cameron announces return to politics!’) and will find itself taking a look through this very office. And maybe it, like you, will stumble upon this very article: a reminder, not only of the people whose names went down in the records, but also of those whose work was never properly acknowledged.
I look forward to doing my best for each and every one of you.
If you enjoyed this editorial, check out some of last year’s letters linked below:
Issue 1534: Letter from the Print & Features Editor
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