Ten years of the RaHN blog and a Merry Mayday to all our readers

It' a bit over ten years since the first item on this blog was posted, a meeting notice like many of the early ones: (Posted Sunday, March 29, 2009) The Ideas and Life of Thomas Spence. As titles of meetings and blogposts indicate, the group was and is concerned not only with local history, although ties in north-east London remain strong, but with all types of radical history. The Radical History Network of North-East London (RaHN) had been going for about 3 years already when the blog was started, and continued to hold regular meetings for a further three, then, after the death of founder member and organiser-in-chief Alan Woodward, rather less regular ones.

Nowadays the 'network' function is key, with the blog adding to the exchange of information and spread of ideas among more-or-less likeminded people that goes on via our mailing list (email us to sign up.) At the same time, many members are active in their various situations, communities and campaigns, and  may be encountered, armed with quantities of fascinating free printed matter, on the RaHN stall at events like the annual Haringey Local History Fare.

An overview of  the group's first ten ywars was posted in February 2016:  Part 1 and Part 2. 
At that time, with well over 100,000 page-view "hits" chalked up by early 2016, the top five most popular blogposts, after the multi-item 'Spain and the World' set (Preface 15/6/11), appeared to be: 
The London Workers Group [1977-1985] (29-10-09)
McDonald's and McLibel [1985-2005] (13-9-09)
Great Enoch (Luddites, Machine Breaking...) (28-5-11)
FINSBURY PARK - a history of community empowerment (10-7-13)
ALAN WOODWARD 1939-2012 (21-10-12)the 

At present (end of April 2019) we have some different contenders, but this is looking at 'All time'  page rather than each post's recorded page-views** as such (they don't seem to match) so the comparison is not direct (and as pointed out before, more recent posts* have obviously not had so much time to build up their total):
* For example, if Christopher Draper's 'Walsall Anarchists' and related posts were considered as a set, they would surely be up there with the best - and the latest got to 500+ in a fortnight.

Women in the Spanish Revolution by Liz Willis Aug 14, 2010, 4 comments	1652
Suffragette Conspiracy Trial, 1912. May 15, 2016, 4 comments	1204
Autumn 2016 Listings Update Oct 4, 2016	1063
Spirit of Combination Acts lives onn in the Strand.... Jun 6, 2016	993
Looking Back at the Grunwick Strike 1976-1978 Nov 6, 2016, 1 comment	982

While noting that the statistics may be skewed by attempts at hacking or phishing, random tweets or who knows what, it seems safe enough to say that the all-time total of pageviews has gone up satisfactorily (given as getting on for 230,000) and a respectable monthly average for this kind of thing (currently about 1600 overall) is being maintained.**Update: After trawling 18 pages of listed posts for actual pageviews over 1,000 counted, the following emerge as the Top 12 (short title/keyword) - not counting a weird surge that gave us extra thousands, mostly from Russia, around the end of 2016 (i.e.shortly after the US Presidential election -who knows what was going on there?)

Women in Sp.Rev.  2330

Great Enoch          2207

Spain & World (6)  1986

London Workers G. 1712

FINSBURY PARK  1535

McDonald's & McL 1381

ALAN WOODWARD 1303 

MEETING Span. Rev. 1123

Spain & World (7)       1108

Spies for Peace/RSGs  1104

INVERGORDON Review  1091

and Remembering the Real WW1  960 

Pageviews last month

1,636

Pageviews all time history

229,127

Followers

10

Our 'audience' is of course international. Top ten source countries of viewers, above caveat applies: 

Entry	Pageviews
United States	78909
United Kingdom	38556
Russia	37400
Germany	12856
France	9812
Ukraine	6641
Italy	4437
China	2235
Netherlands	1126
Poland	1106

Click link on right of blog page to see the current leaflet

As ever, the blog editor would be happy to receive contributions on relevant topics - broadly libertarian socialist perspective on historical events and characters, social movements, current activism -  and in whatever format - articles, reviews, listings, reportage - as well as comments on any of the 440 previous posts. We have nearly 200 comments already, the majority admittedly by the blogger but often with input from correspondents via radicalhistorynetwork@gmail.com.

In celebration of 10 years of RaHN (1)

The inaugural meeting of the Radical History Network of NE London (RaHN) was held on 15 February 2006, as previously noted on this blog, where you can find a brief account of the group's early years as well as material relating to the life and work of one of its founders and convenors, the late Alan Woodward.

In addition, a ground-breaking "online pamphlet" on Spain and the World with various contributions looking at many aspects of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War, 1936-39, was added to the blog in 2011. The several posts included under this heading have been and continue to be among the most frequently viewed here.

The sequence starts with Spain and the World... (Preface) 15/6/11

and includes:-

Spain and the World: Aspects of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War (1) The View from the East End. Joe Jacobs, Out of the Ghetto, Spain and the World  6/15/11

Spain and the World : Aspects of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War (3) Health Service Spain 1936-39, Medicine in War, Socialised Medicine, Spain, Spain and the World, Spanish Anarchism, Spanish Civil War, Spanish Revolution  15/6/11

Spain and the World: Aspects of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War (on Workers' Control) (4) Anarcho-Syndicalism, CNT, Collectives,Collectivization, Spain, Spain and the World, Spanish Civil War, Spanish Revolution, Workers' control 16/6/11

To mark the 10th birthday occasion, here is a selection of highlights from the blog, which has not been going for quite as long as the group but is now well established as a go-to site for radical history, with well over 100,000 page-view "hits" chalked up by early 2016.

The following show up as the most frequently viewed so far, with dates (UK-style) when posted, and in some cases tags to indicate their scope.

RaHN blog greatest (number of) hits

Spain and the World as above, and Women in the Spanish Revolution (Solidarity pamphlet, 2010 edition) 14/8/10

The London Workers Group [1977-1985] - a relic of an exciting past, or an inspiring example for the future? Anarcho-Syndicalism, Labour Movement, London Workers Group 29/10/09

McDonald'sand McLibel - the successful humiliation of a multinational [1985-2005] - by the McLibel Support Campaign. Campaigning, Food Politics, MacDonalds, McLibel, Multinational 13/9/09

GreatEnoch - a weapon of choice. Great Enoch, King Ludd, Luddites, Machine Breaking, Poplar revolt, Popular Uprisings 28/5/11

FINSBURYPARK - a history of community empowerment. Community activism, Finsbury Park, parks 10/07/2013

ALANWOODWARD 1939-2012 Alan Woodward, Alan woodward a tribute, alan woodward haringey, alan woodward haringey workers, alan woodward tottenham, Local campaigners, radical history network, Tottenham local history 10/21/12

Further to comment and reply on Spies for Peace [Image of a vintage pamphlet] 04/06/2013

London Remembering the Real World War 1 group [Meeting report and outline of aims] 05/01/2014

MEETING : The Spanish Revolution 1936-39 (Report of 75th Anniversary event, addressed by Brian Bamford) 18/6/11

Book review - Poplar: Lessons of a Historical Struggle. Labour Movement, Labour Party, Poplar councillors, Poplar revolt, Trade Union Movement 18/11/09

INVERGORDON MUTINY - Review. Book review, Invergordon Mutiny, Joe Jacobs, Royal Navy Mutinies 30/8/11

Tottenham 100 years ago; R M Fox's autobiography. Autobiography, Pre First World War, R M Fox, Richard Michael Fox,Smokey Crusade, Tottenham local history 23/9/10

                                                             

History From Below network (International) Conference. Bristol, Conference, First World War, international, radical history 06/10/2014

UK Anti-Poll Tax Movement 1988-1991. Campaigning, Poll Tax 21/10/09.

n.b. More recent posts have not had time to build up views to the same extent.

If you would like to see what RaHN has had to say (or pass on) about some other subjects, try the Search button on the right to locate relevant posts.

UPDATE:

A fuller list (5 pages) of non-ephemeral posts with links to this blog has now been compiled.

Also available in plain text compatible mode.