Pawley's Peepholes - discovered

Pawley's Peepholes
© BBC Publications

For at least 8 years I have been searching for a copy of what I thought was the "BBC MUSIC: PAWLEY'S PEEPHOLE BBC Publications for Schools & Colleges 1970". After my friend Penny told me Pawley's Peepholes was a short story by Wyndham I read the short story - she even lent the book to me. I blogged about it right at the start of this blog but received no feedback. Time marched on (for the irony - see this short story!) and I followed all sorts of booksellers' websites, hoping to find a copy - if it even existed! No joy!

Until one day recently I asked an eBayer if he had a copy and he replied:

Hi Norman I've found it on the web, I definitely haven't got it. No-one seems to have a copy except The National Arts Education Archive, they may let you photocopy it, not sure but have a try, Scott,

What a strange answer I thought, as I watch all sorts of places for anything to do with Bellamy, but wondered how he had found it and I hadn't and secondly who on earth were the NAEA??

Off I went and found them very quickly, and sent a note with trembling fingers on my keyboard and received, very quickly, a reply back:

Hello Norman
Yes, this is the booklet. If you would like me to photocopy it I will do so. It is a 28 page booklet Then you could make a donation to the Archive in lieu of copying and postage.
I look forward to hearing from you.

At this point you can imagine my sheer panic and joy. I was so close but I'd been this close before to other Bellamy pieces and not managed to get closure to the transaction.

But shortly after I received in the post 28 pages of photocopies (from which I have done scans). Being a good boy I asked how I should credit both Scott and the National Arts Education Archive (NAEA) - long may Google index this wonderful institution! - and I was told it would much appreciated if I said it came courtesy of
The Paul Mann Music Education collection, the National Arts Education Archive @YSP, Bretton Hall, Wakefield. The catalogue entry there reads:

Title	Music session one; Pawley's peepholes
Author	Lord, David
Institution	BBC Radio
Date Created	N.D.
Notes	Musical drama in three sequences based on a story by John Wyndham. Produced by Jenyth Worsley
Archive Number	BHPMBK00117

Well, I can fill in the date. It's definitely 1970 - it's actually on the cover, but I knew he received the commission in late 1969 from BBC Publications.

This is a  booklet used by schools in the days the BBC broadcast radio programmes (or 'wireless' as my teacher called it back then!) where we would all join in with copies of the book for the whole class. But this is actually a performance piece which was broadcast on Radio 4 from 28 April to 23 June. The music shows the parts for chorus, recorders, bongos, cymbal & tambourine, all other percussion and the piano! A collaborative education this!

Details

• CODE:#P79 - 28 pages "Musical drama in three sequences based on a story by John Wyndham"
• Music by David Lord
• Libretto: Eric Allen
• Illustrations:Frank Bellamy
• Producer: Jenyth Worsley
• All images © BBC Publications

The story:
The signs on the vehicles used by the time tourists in the original read:

• Pawley's Peepholes on the Past
•   — Greatest invention of the age
• History Without Tears
•   — for £1 See How Great Great Grandma Lived
• Ye Quainte Olde 20th Century Expresse
• See Living History in Comfort
•   — Quaint Dresses, Old Customs
• Educational! Learn Primitive Folkways
•   — Living conditions
•  Visit Romantic 20th Century
•   — Safety Guaranteed
•  Know Your History
•   — Get Culture — £1 Trip
•  Big Money Prize if you Identify Own Grandad/Ma

© Estate of John Wyndham

Anyway, to the art itself. There are 8 drawings (and we know about one unpublished - see Alan Davis' website where there's an image of the rocket-like travel device) and
the cover is classic Bellamy showing the launch station for the time machine. It is so reminiscent of the Atlantic Tunnel from Thunderbirds. One would think he was influenced by Mike Noble who loved drawing 'hardware', but of course Bellamy was in the Royal Artillery (more on this in another post) so was confident in drawing machinery too.

© BBC Publications

The people appear to have strange hair until you read the first-person story which says:

I don't know whether her hair would be her own, art and science together can do so much for a girl, but the way she was wearing it, it was like a great golden chrysanthemum a good foot and a half across, and with a red flower set in it a little left of centre. It looked sort of top-heavy. 

 I am so pleased to have pinned down one more commission by Bellamy

p.6

pp11-12

p.13

p.14

p.17

p.21

p.23

Thanks once more to Scott and the wonderful National Arts Education Archive for their help in tracking this down.

***UPDATE JULY 2023  ****

Pawley's Peepholes Summer 1967 Illustrations by Bill Burnard

Thanks to Nigel Parsons for writing and sharing the above earlier alternative version of "Pawley's Peepholes"!

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Orb of Trimandias

F55 from The Orb of Trimandias

UPDATE: Sold for £151.66 (April 2011) with 12 bids

To quote Tweedacedmy, the seller:

Another great example of Frank Bellamy's work on Garth, showing his love of historical settings. Our hero is transported back to the the intrigue of the Venitian court under the infamous Borgia regime. Along the way he will meet Leonardo Da Vinci and his muse and lover the beautiful goddess Astra. Here some unwise slave traders try to capture our hero and his comrade.

Those two giants Abdul! What a price they would fetch on the Algiers slave-mart!'

This is a task for Kemal!

(Exit Kemal).

A wonderful action packed example with great swashbuckle factor.

This is strip number F55 from March 1972.

The scan above is mine - check out the original on eBay

Garth and the Wreckers

© Daily Mirror

 Have you been following the Angels of Hell Gap that ran from Monday 21 February 2011 to Tuesday 12 April 2011? Well, get ready for the next story (in a different running order from the original printing.......

The story of the Wreckers ran originally in the Daily Mirror from 26 October 1973 to 18 February 1974 (G255-H41). If you are very quick and get the Daily Mirror today you get the start of the new coloured reprint in the paper - coloured by our good friend Martin Baines. Martin kindly shared the picture in this post and I mentioned to him - not wanting to appear too sycophantic - that I was actually thrilled to go to a newspaper shop every Monday to Saturday (not Sunday) to pick up my latest fix of Garth by Jim Edgar and Frank Bellamy (and Martin, of course!). It's been a very long time since I had a regular subscription to any paper or comic for that matter, and I'm enjoying the buzz of following this strip (and of course Andy Capp, and my personal favourite, The Perishers

Many thanks to Martin and the Mirror for the beautiful coloured  picture, I've selected one panel from the original black and white story below for your pleasure. And just in case you missed Steve, and Lew's articles click the links!

© Daily Mirror

Frank Bellamy and Lilliput

I was browsing my collection of Bellamy magazines and realised I have never shared anything about Lilliput magazine. I recently supplied some information to Paul Liss, a fine art dealer, (see the catalogue of Raymond Sheppard's work) and thought it worth showing some of Sheppard's contemporary, Bellamy's work from that very popular magazine. One day I might emulate the late great historian Alan Bullock and do a parallel lives of the two of them.

Stefan Lorant created Lilliput in July 1937. “The Pocket Magazine for Everyone” certainly was pocket-sized (it grew in size later in 1954, presumably as all rationing ended in England and consumerism really took off)  One of the lovely things about sitting page turning in the British Library is that you really get a flavour for a period. I am in love with the 1950s. The plethora of illustrations in these magazines is amazing. Line work with wash, cartoons, caricatures and so on. All the names are there too: Eric Fraser's bold lines; Robin Jacques delicate pointillism , Neville Dear adventurous illustrations and so on. The most famous was Ronald Searle, whose St. Trinians cartoons appeared from October 1941 until he (unsuccessfully) killed off the characters in 1951. July 1960 was the last issue of Lilliput which - like many children's comics of my youth, contained so called 'good news' - the merger with Men Only (more of which in a later article).

 Bellamy's work in Lilliput,  began in 1954 at the time he had a regular strip in Mickey Mouse Weekly, 'Monty Carstairs' and also he was doing regular illustrations for Boy's Own Paper. The following year he was illustrating for Everybody's (another prestigious magazine that Sheppard also illustrated for) and Outspan, the South African equivalent of Everybody's. All this from a self-taught artist from Kettering, Northamptonshire

Gerald Durrell (January 7, 1925 – January 30, 1995) was first published a year before this article appeared in Lilliput - 'Overloaded ark' appeared in 1953 and of course his Bafut Beagles (his "party of native specimen hunters" from Cameroon) were equally famous at the time . It would be fantastic to know how Bellamy was chosen to illustrate this story called "Que-Fong-Goo" - the native name for the skink illustrated. Illustrators were very important to Durrell's work (see Wikipedia)  he was no mean artist himself - but Bellamy obviously didn't make enough of an impression on Durrell for him to request him at a later date. But that's all supposition on my part! 

The six illustrations accompanying this article are all by Bellamy and show his love of all things native. Remember references for these things had to be worked at - no Internet back then - and photos of Bellamy at home show his collection of Africana

Bellamy's stippling (that mass of dot s that provide perspective in the illustration above) and line work here are very mature. I'm sure he knew this was a prestigious commission and as we can see he went on to do six more commissions for Lilliput. I suspect by the end of 1956 his regular work in Swift (and then Eagle later in 1957) plus these odd commissions were enough work to keep his small family comfortable

 All illustrations are copyright of their owner, which I'm guessing is IPC (who acquired much of Odhams, who acquired Hulton. Please contact me (feedbackATfrankbellamyDOTcom) if anyone can enlighten me

Original Art: Garth on eBay - Spanish Lady

UPDATE: Sold for £135 (March 2011) with 10 bids

K77 of the Spanish Lady story

This time we have an auction on eBay for K77 in the The Spanish Lady strip. This isn't one of my favourite periods of Bellamy on Garth, but still worth looking at as it's drawn in the last year of his life and of course is an original. On the endlessly interesting ComicArtFans site, Steven Taylor has a picture of K79 (2 strips later than this one for auction). The original story ran from 17 March 1976 - 7 August 1976 (K65-K160)

Original Art on Comic Book Auctions: Thunderbirds

UPDATE: Winning bid incl. 10% Buyer's Premium: £2,420

Comic Book Auctions Ltd has launched it Spring 2011 catalogue with bidding closing on Tuesday 15 March 2011 at 8 PM UK Time.

The piece that will be of particular interest to Bellamy fans is Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) from TV Century 21 No 166 - Lot number 178.

Thunderbirds original artwork (1968) by Frank Bellamy for TV Century 21 No. 166
Unaware that Brains is still alive and held captive by The Hood, Jeff Tracy stands helpless as a successful attack is launched on Tracy Island International Rescue HQ where Thunderbirds 2 and 3 are destroyed. Now Thunderbirds 4 must counter-attack …
Pelikan inks on board. With loose laser copied ‘Thunderbirds’ header for attachment if desired. 18 x 14 ins £1,500-2,000

This story is one of my most fondly remembered. Imagine my shock as a kid seeing Brains dead - and what's more it went on for 8 episodes and therefore the suspense was great especially having to wait a week between episodes (TV21 162 - 169 (24 February 1968 - 13 April 1968 - or 2068 as it futuristically said on the comic!) I wondered how the Hood managed to do sky lettering in that smoke, but hey, it was the future - the 21st century!

This original art looks especially 'new' with the colours very bright. But more interestingly I wonder why someone (presumably at TV21) has crossed out Bellamy's neat writing saying this is episode 5 and putting instead p.10. It would have been page 10 and weekly epsiode number 5 as he had written on it.

Below are the two pages of the episode for your reading pleasure (notice how the original and this scan compare) and many thanks to 'Wayne' for reminding me the auction was now on!

Garth reappears in the Daily Mirror

UPDATE: The Angels of Hell's Gap reprinted in colour!

© Daily Mirror

Above is the scan I did of the newly reprinted first episode of "The Angels of Hell's Gap" from the Daily Mirror dated today - Monday 21 February 2011. It's been coloured by Martin Baines - which of course was impossible back in 1975, as we only got coloured newsprint in 1986 in the UK. The original story ran from 15 January 1975 to 2 May (Episodes J12-J101).

Also notice the classic reprints of The Perishers by Collins and Dodd. When cutting and collecting the daily Garths from the Daily Mirror in the 70s, I regularly read the Perishers and it's interesting to see how it hasn't dated

Well done Daily Mirror - we're now looking forward to you announcing a complete reprint of Bellamy's Garth strips in hardback - Norman dreaming again!

---

© Daily Mirror

There's an announcement on the Daily Mirror's website that they are publishing Garth again. He will re-appear in the Monday 21st February 2011 edition apparently. Former Mirror cartoon editor Ken Layson says:

Garth was the brainchild of cartoonist Steve Dowling, who based him loosely on Superman. But the hero really shot to prominence under the ground-breaking artwork of the late Frank Bellamy, who had sketched Dan Dare before turning to Garth in the early 70s.

Ken says: “When Bellamy took over, the character of Garth took off. His artwork was dynamic with strong shadows and beautifully sculpted figures.”

Frank, who died in 1976, also put the strip into the comic strip. Ken explains: “There was quite a bit of nudity in the 70s Garth. Frank’s wife was the model for most of those half-naked ladies.”

In 2008 they produced new adventures of Garth for the first time since 1997 (Martin Asbury was both writer and artist in 1997 having taken over from Bellamy)  - read more about that on John Freeman's site


However they go on to say: Now the hero’s old adventures are set to enthral both nostalgic fans and a new generation of readers. Start queueing at your local newsagents as this reads like reprints to me!

Link: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/02/18/comic-hero-garth-returns-to-the-daily-mirror-115875-22930756/