In late 2022, as part of our Brighton Incoming project, QueenSpark begun interviewing people associated with The Bevy in Moulsecoomb, Brighton & Hove Faith in Action, and Refugee Radio. We wanted to explore why people have arrived, moved around, and stayed in Brighton. Along the way we entered into partnership with Hopeful Solidarities, who had [...]
What are the stories that still need to be told? For over 50 years QueenSpark has been collecting and publishing the stories of the city, told by the people that live(d) here. From Brighton’s fishing history to the vibrant trans community and stories of migrants and refugees, these collective experiences shape the unique and ever-changing [...]
After many years out-of-print, we are now delighted to be able to offer the option to print your own copy of Daring Hearts: Lesbian and Gay Lives in 50s and 60s Brighton. A seminal book, and the definitive guide to queer life in Brighton in the 1950s and 60s. It’s made up of a searing [...]
Brighton Stories: Leisure Time is the second in our series of free events with our friends at Kemptown Bookshop. The events feature selected readings from out-of-print books from our Archive, and on July the 25th, the theme will be 'Leisure Time' where you'll hear tales of childhood games through the ages, pubs and clubs, LGBTQI [...]
We're delighted to announce a new series of events in collaboration with our friends at Kemptown Bookshop. Starting on Thursday the 6th of June with the theme of 'Working Lives', the 'Brighton Stories' series will feature selected readings from out-of-print books from our Archive. On July the 25th, the theme will be 'Leisure Time' - [...]
To mark our 50th Anniversary we have a new book, Telling Stories of Brighton & Hove, on sale now. It includes a selection of amazing excerpts from our archive, alongside new pieces from local people about the people and places that are, and have been, important to them. These stories - of protest, pubs, hardship, [...]
QueenSpark is delighted to launch our new archive website, to mark our 50th Anniversary year. The site features, for the first time, the full text from our very first book - Poverty - Hardship But Happiness - through to every book that we published up until 2010. The archive is a completely unique document of [...]
Since we formed in 1972 as a successful grassroots campaign against a planned casino in Queens Park, we've published over 110 books documenting the 'People's History' of Brighton & Hove. Our archive documents the changing face of the city from the early-20th century to the present day - from the 'Poor Dispensary' and slum housing, [...]
Around 100 people joined QueenSpark on Zoom on the evening of 15th September 2020 for the launch of 'Discover Brighton', a series of new walks created as part of our Archives Alive project. You can now access the nine walks - which include audio, photographs and text covering aspects of the city's history over the [...]
As part of our Archives Alive project, before lockdown Collected Works ran a series of workshops in community centres and libraries across Brighton & Hove. They used our four latest books to inspire reminiscence and new creative work. Here is a video of some of the wonderful outcomes - and an opportunity for you to [...]
'Discover Brighton' is a new website which will enable you to access nine unique history walks via your phone as you wander around the city. Created by volunteers and covering all aspects of the city's history, the material is taken from QueenSpark's four latest books. Take a pleasant stroll along the seafront to hear about [...]
On July 25th 2019, at a launch at Brighton's Toy Museum, QueenSpark announced four new publications from our Archives Alive project. With content from QueenSparks' and other archives selected and edited by teams of volunteers under the guidance of Editor Evlynn Sharp, and in collaboration with designers Emily Macauley and Chris Callard, the books mark [...]
The Book of Brighton, or, Brighton As It Was & As It Is is a witty 1881 guide to Brighton, as seen though Victorian eyes. We are re-publishing this delightful book which offers an insight into Brighton & Hove's many characters, its places of interest, and even postal collection times. Illustrated throughout with engravings, this publication [...]
Backyard/ Back Street Brighton Two of our most popular titles, Backyard Brighton and Backstreet Brighton, are now available for the first time in a single volume. This new edition combines two books which gather together photographs and reminiscences based on material gathered by Brighton Borough Council with the intention of creating a record [...]
In the past five decades we've produced more than a hundred local history books, many of which have now been out of print for decades. So to bring those valuable texts back for a new generation of readers, we're making those books available as PDF downloads on a pay-what-you-like basis, and using some of those [...]
As part of our 45th anniversary celebrations, we're making the texts of our out-of-print history books available as PDF downloads on a pay-what-you-like basis. Most of these books have been unavailable for many years, so the downloads offer a valuable chance to learn more about Brighton and Hove in byegone times. Many of the books [...]
Our archive contains a rich selection of books and pay-what-you-like downloads which uncover a fascinating story of real lives in Brighton during the First World War. From memories of childhood to harrowing stories of the harshness of life for families struggling to make ends meet while loved ones were fighting in the trenches, these first-person accounts [...]
February is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month. QueenSpark Books has produced two groundbreaking books which tell the stories, in their own words, of life in Brighton & Hove for Transgender and lesbian and gay people. Brighton Trans*formed's contributors ranged from 18 to 81 years old with very different life experiences. All of their [...]
QueenSpark Books is delighted to announce the launch of six e-books, digital versions of some of our most popular and out-of-print titles, alongside one of our recent bestsellers: You can buy copies of the books using Amazon Kindle, Google Play, the Apple store, and other Android outlets - just go to your chosen website and search [...]
Photographic Archive Every month we show you images from our online digital archive - the Brighton and Hove Photographic Collection. This photograph shows goalmouth action at Brighton & Hove Albion at the Albion -v- Barnsley game on 5th April 1969. Taken at the Goldstone stadium on the Old Shoreham Road, Hove by photographer Leslie Whitcomb. [...]
The digital version now online.. you can buy copies of the book using: Amazon Kindle Google Play the Apple store Android outlets ..just go to your chosen website and search by title for the book. Or just go to our book page for details.. About The Book - A tribute to the unique history of the [...]
Photo by Sharon Kilgannon, alonglines.com This is Reuben's testimony in Chapter Six (Safety, abuse, fear, violence, mis-gendering, barriers) of the ground-breaking Brighton Trans*formed book. It’s only four years ago a trans woman was murdered in Brighton, but compared to other places it is very safe. Maybe if I was in Russia or Greece or even parts of America, up north in England, [...]
The success of the campaign and popularity of the 'QueenSpark' newspaper inspired others to continue writing about life in Brighton and QueenSpark Books was born. The first book to be published in 1974 was an autobiography. Written by Albert Paul and entitled Poverty - Hardship but Happiness, it details the poverty and difficulties Albert personally [...]
Many of the early books written in the mid to late seventies were based on individual people’s memoirs of life in Brighton. A typical autobiography is A Town Beehive written in 1975 by Daisy Noakes, shown here in "her first hat that fitted". The hat (and coat) cost £1. Daisy started a family trend - she [...]
Published in 1983, Brighton on the Rocks was a more overtly political book than QueenSpark Books' previous publications. Intended as a critique of monetarist policies and the Thatcher government, it was written as a collaborative venture echoing themes in earlier books such as Les Moss's Live and Learn (1979, out of print) that, although largely [...]
The publication of several anthologies during the late eighties and early nineties continued QueenSpark's Books' tradition of collaboration and group authorship. A typical example is Paper on the Wind published in 1984. This had a strong feminist influence and contained both poetry and prose emanating from a women’s writing group (above) run by QueenSpark Books. [...]
In 1988 QueenSpark published Backyard Brighton in association with the Lewis Cohen Urban Studies Centre. It included photographs, like this one of Richmond Hill, and reminiscences gathered by Brighton Borough Council with the intention of creating a record of houses that were scheduled for demolition during the 1930s. Backyard Brighton was a seminal book leading [...]
In 1991 a new generation of books known as Market Books were introduced to the QueenSpark Books collection. Market books were intended to be produced cheaply and sold on market stalls by volunteers. Printed A5 size in monochrome, they differed from the more expensive and glossier publications in the main collection. Some market books were [...]
Alongside the Market books series, QueenSpark Books continued to produce its main collection, including the popular Daring Hearts in 1992. Daring Hearts is based on taped interviews conducted by Brighton Ourstory Project with forty Lesbians and Gay men who spoke openly about their lives in and around Brighton which, in the fifties and sixties was [...]
In the nineties personal memoirs featuring Brighton landmarks continued to be published. Examples include: 'Deckhand, West Pier' (1993) Arthur Thicket's fresh and often humorous account of moving to Brighton in the summer of 1970 to find a town, that behind the bright and lively holiday facade, was full of lonely people. 'Our Small Corner' (1994) [...]
Since the turn of the century, QueenSpark Books' publications featured some of the different communities that have made Brighton & Hove their home. Published in 2005, Missing the Nile examines the customs and culture of the Sudanese community living in the Brighton & Hove area. Written in both English and Arabic, it is accessible to a [...]
The year 2000 was commemorated with the publication of a child’s-eye view of the Millennium, based on diaries and project work undertaken in conjunction with local school children. 'The Children's Millennium Diary Anthology' (2001) is presented much like a scrapbook and offers an insight into the thoughts, crazes, hobbies, habits and humour of the contemporary [...]
With the publication of 'Alt Future' in 2005, QueenSpark took a foray into fiction with a book featuring local people’s creative imaginings of a future Brighton & Hove. 'Alt-Future' includes a vision of text-messaging in 2045, a description of how 'Zero Tolerance' might operate on the city’s streets in the not-too-distant future, through to a [...]
Photo by Sharon Kilgannon, alonglines.com This is Reuben's testimony in Chapter Six (Safety, abuse, fear, violence, mis-gendering, barriers) of the ground-breaking Brighton Trans*formed book. I owe Transformers and Allsorts a huge amount for giving me a place where I could figure out how I wanted to be and how I was going to be and how I was [...]
QueenSpark Books has recently carried out an extensive survey across Brighton & Hove asking members of the local community questions about the organisation’s projects, publications and services as well as background information on participants themselves (e.g. age, gender and location in the City.) In total 146 people were surveyed. Some interviews were face to face [...]
Intergenerational Meet-Up at The Pavilion Gardens Cafe By Sarah Hutchings In June 2015 our young Brighton's Graphic War participants were treated to an intergenerational meet-up at Brighton and Hove's iconic Pavilion Gardens Cafe, courtesy of the Hedgecock Bequest and David Sewell (at Pavilion Gardens Cafe). Social geographer Geoffrey Mead was on hand to provide some fascinating [...]
A Visit to The Keep with the Graphic War team By Sarah Hutchings Isilda Almeida-Harvey and the team at The Keep did a great job of showing our young volunteers round and explaining how material could be accessed at The Keep. Several of the volunteers have expressed a desire to make return trips there to help [...]
By Stella Cardus On 24 September 2014 Queenspark Books unveiled its 104th book at a reception in Brighton's Jubilee Library. The event was hosted by stand-up comedienne Claire Parker who also featured in the re-screening of the video first shown at the Brighton Trans*formed launch on 25 June 2013 in the Founders Room at Brighton [...]
On 8 November 2012 QueenSpark Books celebrated its 40th anniversary with a fundraising event that reached its target towards the printing of BRIGHTON: The Graphic Novel The fundraiser was attended by Brighton & Hove Mayor, Bill Randall and one of our patrons, Professor Dorothy Sheridan MBE who reflected on why QueenSpark Boos has survived so long and why it's important that [...]
QueenSpark Books celebrated its 40th anniversary with a Flashmob event! As part of our 40th anniversary celebrations in 2012, we organised a Flashmob-style photo event at Queens Park (where it all began). This took place on Saturday 16 June and we would like to thank all of those who turned up to display our 100 [...]
The Pavilion Gardens Café, like the Royal Pavilion across the Gardens, is a unique Brighton institution. Throughout the last seventy years, it has offered refreshment, relaxation and a certain kind of charm to tens of thousands of visitors from around the world. On Saturday 30 April 2012 the café became the focus of a QueenSpark [...]
QueenSpark Books held a celebration in the Mayor’s Parlour in Brighton. At the reception hosted by Brighton Mayor, Councillor Anne Meadows (to the right of John Riches), Imogen Lycett Green (to the right of Sarah Hutchings) spoke about her involvement with QueenSpark Books saying "We winkle out hidden histories and weave them together to make books. I have [...]
Martin Payne (former administrator) and Dorothy Sheridan (patron) at the launch of 'Backstage Brighton'. This took place on 5 October 2010 in The Latest MusicBar, 14-17 Manchester Street, Brighton. Interestingly, The Latest is next door to what used to be the Manchester Bus Garage, the location of the Brighton Sheet Metal Works annual outing in [...]
QueenSpark worked with the University of Brighton to interview city elders about their experience of going to the cinema from the 1930s to 1960s. Their oral histories were recorded and are now archived at the University of Brighton which was particularly keen to preserve stories of people visiting the Duke of York cinema in the [...]
In November 2008 a large gathering got together for the launch of the Letter in the Attic Project at Community Base, here in Brighton. This event was the culmination of a year of work by volunteers collecting and archiving letters, diaries of daily life, travel journals and war letters written centuries ago or in the last few [...]
