ABSTRACT
Astudious schoolboy in the south of England, proud to be Head Librarian for his school, works long into the night on the designs for a new alternative school magazine. The magazine is to challenge the orthodoxy espoused by The New Wordsworthian, the official school magazine. Influenced by the burgeoning alternative press of the 1960s, the schoolboy and his friends aim to create in Veritas, named for the school motto Veritas in Caritate (Truth through Charity), a channel for protest and free speech. The young editors design the pages on paper and then trace them onto wax stencils before printing the magazine on an ancient ink duplicator, a lengthy and messy process. The first issues are taken to be approved by the Head Teacher, and much discussion follows. Eventually a compromise is reached: all that might be libellous or offensive is removed, and a rather sanitised Veritas – ‘half-truth’ perhaps would be a better title – hits the tuck-shop sales counter. Only 200 copies are sold in this grammar school which has more than 600 students. Within a few weeks, it is forgotten. Within a year, almost no copies exist.
