"Squatting is acupuncture for the death culture. Freedom is not yet quite free but the squatting community can give you a good wholesale price."
Written by the late Tony Allen and the later Heathcote Williams, both godfathers of British fringe theatre, alternative comedy, and countercultural movements. Named after a R. Crumb comic strip, Ruff, Tuff was an early radical publication of the squatting movement. It sourced information from kindly informants, often within the postal service, local council or British Gas, and more ‘legitimate' estate agencies' publications. Squattable property listings such as “correctly abandoned Tory Party Headquarters”, a “battered but well worshipped'' church in N.W.6, a group of homes in Ladbroke Grove belonging to Marsh and Parsons (“you'll have to excuse the mess we've got the property speculators in”) are examples of the sardonic approach that Tony and Heathcote brought to their deeply held political beliefs.
