In September 1999, a small group of pupils who had been mostly (and unfairly)
socially outcast since they had joined St. Christopher School, banded together. These are
the kind of people who exist in every school, the kind who are ignorant of
peer pressure and are therefore not only higher achievers academically, but
are also shat on and made into general scapegoats by the majority of their
fellow pupils. This particular group of people unanimously decided that they
were going to stand up for themselves and fight back against the establishment
which had been suppressing them for so long. The Asylum Times was our creation,
a Flagship of defiance, a weapon against the status quo.
The Asylum Times Editorial desk (where we produced a paper version)
is now defunct, because the people involved have left the school. The Asylum Times was not
a new concept. It was inspired by the previous underground newsheet, the Village Idiot. It
was also inspired by the need to rant against the dogmatic and pointless bureaucracy which
made up a worryingly large part of the St. Christophers School administration. That aside,
it provided a way for various deranged persons to get their cynical, twisted and at times
downright ludicrous scribblings published, if only in a small way.
The Jaboda Press has produced 14 issues of the Asylum Times.
However, this website was only conceived after the production of issue 4. Also, I
left St. Chris before issue 14 was produced. Therefore, issues 5 onwards are in colour,
but issues 1, 2, 3, 4 and 14 will be black and white, because the only way I could get
them onto the website was by scanning them in. Enjoy!
Lloyd Evans, January 2004
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