Heritage volunteer Tony Harcup introduces the library’s latest research guide and recalls a local newspaper that reported social history as it was being made.
When the documentary Rebellion [Buy tickets for Rebellion | BFI London Film Festival 2026] premiered recently at the London Film Festival, it was thanks in part to the existence of archive copies of a West Yorkshire newspaper from more than 40 years ago. That’s because the film makers drew on Leeds Other Paper’s coverage of the trial in Leeds of a group of Asian youths who came to be known as the Bradford 12.
It is just the latest example of stories from the local alternative newspaper being rediscovered and used to inform a variety of projects on all sorts of subjects. To make this material more accessible to a wider range of people, the Heritage and Research Library has just produced a research guide to using Leeds Other Paper.
Published between 1974 and 1994, Leeds Other Paper – known as LOP – is today an invaluable source for anyone researching West Yorkshire’s social, cultural, political and industrial history for the period. Not just the major news coverage, such as that of the Bradford 12 campaign or the 1984-85 miners’ strike, but also the little snippets, the investigations, features, reviews, listings, letters’ page and even the small ads.
Uses to which this material has been put over recent years include: a book exploring the local music scene [No machos or pop stars : when the Leeds art experiment went punk]; a Civic Trust display at Kirkgate Market about the Leeds Development Corporation [Making Things Happen: Leeds Development Corporation 1988-1995. A Photography Exhibition – Leeds Civic Trust]; a University of Leeds exhibition about women’s activism [Animated Activism: Women Empowered | Galleries | University of Leeds]; a Channel 4 TV series about the Asian experience in the UK [Watch Defiance: Fighting the Far Right | Stream free on Channel 4]; and an art project by students from York St John University [The Other Project: Exhibition – The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog].
LOP also put in an appearance at Voice of the Fans, last year’s major exhibition about football fanzine culture co-produced by Leeds Libraries and the British Library [The Final Whistle: Voice of the Fans is over – The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog]. Not to be forgotten, LOP’s inimitable rugby league correspondent The Man in the Stand is now posting his personal archive of match reports on social media [Louis Kasatkin (@louiskasatkin.bsky.social) — Bluesky].
The Heritage and Research Library has a full set of LOPs, available to be consulted by anyone interested in events in and around Leeds from the 1970s to the 1990s. Because the paper was independent of other media, it often included alternative angles and marginalised voices in its coverage, viewing the world from the bottom up rather than the top down. This makes it a particularly useful resource for local social history.
As LOP is neither digitised nor indexed, the best way of exploring the archive is to begin with a rough idea of the time period you are interested in and have a look through bound issues of the paper from around then. As well as hopefully finding what you are looking for, who knows what else you might come across that you didn’t know about?
To find out more about how to make best use of this local newspaper, pick up a hard copy of the Leeds Other Paper Research Guide in the Heritage and Research Library (on the second floor of Leeds City Library). You can also find it online [Research & Collection Guides – The Secret Library | Leeds Libraries Heritage Blog].
