Digging through the archives: 200 issues of LeftLion

Online - July 2004: The Xylophone Man… 
For many who follow LeftLion, this was the place it all started. Over about fifteen years from the late 80s, our city centre became known for a distinctly ‘Notts’ busker. Frank Robinson, who many knew as the Xylophone Man, was seen most days on Lister Gate whacking colourful metal plates with an endearing enthusiasm, cementing his reputation as a local legend. In the early days of LeftLion (when some of our current office team were just born) co-founder Jared Wilson chatted to Frank. The interview, which featured online before LeftLion was in print, became the only one he gave before his passing in 2004, which sparked mourning across the city. His legacy definitely lives on in our city’s odd, rebellious charm.

Issue #17 - June 2007: The smoking ban… 
It’s coming up to twenty years since smoking in pubs was made illegal, but pull a stool up to the fire children, we were there, puffing away like proper old school journalists, to cover this cultural terminus. Ian Kingsbury’s article gave us a salmagundi of smoking, from a bit about Notts own Player’s factory, to questioning if live music would suffer due to smokers nipping out for fag breaks. Now the air has cleared, from the ashes of those cloudy rooms came an abundance of beer gardens, where we can now once again share our second hand smoke with other members of the public.

Issue #28 - April 2009: Selectadisc
It’s hard to explain how important Selectadisc was to Nottingham in the era of streaming. This was a time when physical formats were the only way to listen to music and the only way to find out about it was either the music press or Selecta’s sometimes aloof, sometimes maniacal counter staff. It was a record store (with fanzines and videos too), but it was also a meeting place, a community, a taste arbiter and quite a lot more. Bands like Tindersticks and Bent worked behind the counter and musicians like Joe Strummer, Noel Gallagher and Frank Sidebottom all put in appearances. When 43 years of history went under we all felt bereaved. Former employee Steve McLay wrote us an excellent tribute. 

Issue #31 - November 2009: Hello Nottingham Contemporary…
It’s hard to imagine the Weekday Cross intersection without the Nottingham Contemporary art gallery, but we were there at the end of 2009 to cover its opening, and chat to then-director Alex Farquhason, who nowadays directs the Tate Britain. Alex felt positive about how the gallery would culturally contribute to the city, and backed his words up by getting none other than David Hockney (who died this year) for the gallery’s opening exhibition. Whether or not you’re into modern art, it’s hard to deny that the Contemporary has become a loved, quirky wildcard of our city centre, and certainly a great point of interest for tourists. 

Issue #34 - April 2010: Farewell Alan Sillitoe…
In the summer of 2008 our Literature Editor James Walker met up with legendary writer Alan Sillitoe for a cuppa and a chat at Broadway. It was fifty years since his breakthrough novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning had been published, so we decided to devote a whole issue to this seminal work. At the time we didn’t realise this was the last interview he would ever give. It’s an honour to have had that privilege and to know that he read our magazine…

Issue #44 - December 2011: The Rock City Photoshoot
In the early days at LeftLion we’d pondered how Nottingham had gone so long without any music artists troubling the charts. But around 2010 everything changed and it felt like there were a dozen artists about to break. So we did a ‘Notts music scene’ cover where we crammed a couple of hundred local musicians and scenesters into Rock City for a class photo. Sleaford Mods, Liam Bailey, Petebox, Late of the Pier, Dog is Dead, Royal Gala, Harleighblu, First Blood and many more are on there. The afterparty was quite good fun too!

Issue #55 - October 2013: Master of the Workshop…
Games Workshop, and its Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000 brand sci-fi-fantasy miniatures have always been a cultural pillar of our city, and nowadays the company is basically Nottingham’s cultural Burj Khalifa, drawing constant international attention. Back in 2013, we decided to cover their unstoppable rise, through a page dedicated to everything LeftLion readers should know about them, plus a two page interview with John Blanche: their seminal art director, who also did the cover of that issue. This was a bit of a coup, as Games Workshop higher ups don’t do many press interviews. 

Issue #57 - March 2014: Back to ‘83…
For people looking at Nottingham from the outside, lots of words might come to mind. But ‘breakdancing?’ Less often. This was a problem that Claude Knight and Luke Scott decided to rectify in the 2000s, as Claude was there when, would you believe it, Nottingham became the UK’s unofficial breakdancing capital in the mid 80s. They made a documentary, titled NG83: When We Were B Boys, and released it in 2016. During production, then-editor Ali Emm heard from Claude about that strange time when a bunch of NYC B Boys performed in Old Market Square, which inspired hundreds of young people in Notts to dance like they did. In July this year, Assistant Editor Caradoc Gayer had another chat with Claude and Luke for the film’s tenth anniversary.

Issue #70 - August 2015: Meeting the twin…
Back in 2015 we reported on Nottingham’s own twin city, Karlsruhe in Germany, which was turning 300. A bit like discovering your dad had some secret kid before you were born, in our delving we discovered it was built by Margrave Karl Wilhelm of Baden as a place to escape his wife and get it on with his mistresses. It’s sorted itself out since then luckily, and was described by a resident as open and friendly with lots of culture. So if you’re ever wondering why the tram bridge over the station is called that, that’s why.

Issue #94 - October 2017: Lord of Milan…
For a long time, AC Milan founder Herbert Kilpin was pretty unknown in Notts – that is until a charity lawyer by the name of Robert Nieri stumbled across his story in 2007. After penning a book, The Lord of Milan, which was published in 2016, LeftLion founder Jared Wilson started concocting plans for a documentary film, which took the team to Italy and was released with a special showing at Broadway Cinema in 2017. The film even won a couple of awards at a very swanky do in Milan and also ended up on Chinese TV. Today there’s a commemorative plaque outside of his birthplace on Mansfield Road, the Kilpin pub, and fans from Italy still travel to Notts to check out their club founders’ roots.

Issue #115 - July 2019: The Home Children programme
This was less of a light-hearted read than LeftLion has become known for, but an important one, and a great one. Accomplished local journo, our mate Benedict Cooper, interviewed Margaret Humphreys CBE, a Nottingham social worker. Since 1987 Margaret had worked to rectify The Home Children scandal, which saw British children forcibly relocated from the UK to former British colonies, to essentially ensure those places were kept from being too ‘non-white’. Between 2010 and 2019 over 1,000 families had been reunited due to Margaret’s work. 

Issue #124 - April 2020: LeftLion goes online… 
The COVID pandemic – that strangest of times, which we’re all still probably getting to grips with, put a strain on lots of essential services, changed lives, and sadly took many. Through all of it, we kept going, and produced our very first online only issue designed to keep readers comforted in times of uncertainty. It contained lots of advice on dealing with the unfolding situation, and insights into how Notts was responding to it, from the state of its music scene and venues, to positive news that was happening in the meantime. We also held an open call, LeftLion covers competition, with the best entry set to feature on the front of our May issue. The winner was an uplifting interpretation of how we were all pushing on, in our own little worlds, through lockdown, created by Soul Buggin’s Beane.  

Issue #157 - February 2023: Windrush Gardeners
Lots of us love going to St Ann’s Allotments, and enjoying the tranquil green spaces it has in abundance, but some of the individuals who transformed it into an important community hub aren’t as widely known about as they could be. Local archivist, photographer and writer Colin Haynes decided he’d rectify that by photographing members of the Windrush Generation, who came to Nottingham and, on retirement, devoted lots of time to cultivating the space. Writer Rosey Thomas Palmer delved into their history back in 2023, and this year Colin published the photos in a book Caribbean Pioneer Gardeners which you can find in Five Leaves Bookshop.

Issue #163 - September 2023: LeftLion turns twenty…
The last big birthday we had was just over three years ago, when our humble mag had lived two whole decades on this planet. To celebrate, we had a look at some of our fellow Nottingham institutions who were reaching some very impressive age milestones, including but not limited to the Nottingham Ghost Walk, the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, the Television Workshop, the New Art Exchange, and Five Leaves Bookshop, plus a great chat with legendary Notts tastemaker Dean Jackson.

Issue #171 - May 2024: Brian and The Pie…
Our May 2024 ‘zines’ issue, was a real good’un. It had all kinds of bits and pieces celebrating what’s arguably the most democratic art form, and how it has been influential in Nottingham culture, from a history on Nottingham music zines, to a chat with anarchism and activism archive The Sparrow’s Nest. Two articles we were particularly proud of, however, were two interviews with Julie Pritchard and Jim Cooke, who founded the essential Nottingham Forest and Notts County FC fanzines. Accompanying these interviews, we digitally preserved the entire back catalogue of these publications and made a documentary about these two football zine communities. Julie sadly passed this year, so these are poignant articles to look back at. 

Issue #179 - January 2025: The Garage nightclub…
Occasionally for journalists something golden that must be shared lands on your desk. This was the case when we were gifted a shoebox of old photos taken back in the 80s at The Garage nightclub. A time capsule of hair, make-up and music – the images and accompanying article painted an era of Nottingham now long gone, but still cherished by many, and led us to think about the impermanence of clubs, venues and scenes that we love.

Bits of this, bits of that…
The first decade of LeftLion saw some much loved regular LeftLion features conceived by various members of the team. There was Roger Mean’s scathing Rocky Horrorscopes, which usually ended with a confusing yet hilarious insult. There was the absurdist Six Degrees of Strelley(ation), which proved that Strelley is actually the centre of the universe. And then there was the great Lesser Spotted – a lockdown inspired snippet which got us delving into local community Facebook pages to find the weirdest requests and posts Notts folk had been sharing. We’re still wondering if that horse manure ever found a good home, and if the budgie was ever rescued from the tree near the Trumpet Pub.