Between 2017 and 2018 Jo Bell and I ran a monthly craftivist group we called Macctivist, meeting at The Print Mill on Treacle Market Sunday to print, stitch, knit messages for a better world — and create a community at the same time. One of our regulars called us ‘Play School for anarchists’. We had the best time making bunting, beermats, screenprinted bags and t-shirts, doing visible mending and of course painting placards.
One of our last events was a Macclesfield Judy (see Crimplene Heritage Museum) walk on 26 May 2018. We spray painted a ‘Judy’ (designed by Lili Holland-Fricke) onto the pavements at sites of radicalism or protest in Macc history then took a group of folk around the sites and told stories of the Blanketeers, the Potato Riot, the Methodists, the witches.
