The Banstead Image Library
The Beacon magazine linocuts – May 1955
Following on from those fine 1950s linocuts in picture #544, here are another four. They were made in 1955 by pupils in the top class at Banstead County Junior School, and published in ‘The Beacon’, which was produced annually by the children and their inspirational teacher, Mr Jones.
As Bryan Cook observes in the picture #544 comments, “we made fabulous lino cuts and wrote fun poetry. Mr Jones was an amazing teacher and mentor.”
As I remember, every child in the class was expected to contribute to the magazine. I never reached the giddy heights of lino cutting, but I did write a four-line piece of doggerel and a four-paragraph short story – about which, the least said the better.
Michael Funnell recalls that the school’s manual printing press was an Adana model with a one-piece cast iron handle. That’s probably a Five-Three letterpress model, currently to be found on eBay for £150! We named the press ‘Caxton Corner’ because, quite simply, it was in the corner of the classroom.
But back to these lino cuts – clockwise from top left, they were created by Olive Matthews, Keith Morris, Christopher Bailey and Rosemary Curtis.
• How did the children create their linocuts? There’s a practical guide here. (https://tinyurl.com/s2tnzyz4)
Picture added on 18 April 2021 at 11:51
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I've always been pretty useless at art but for some reason Mr Jones did include some of my lino cuts in The Beacon. Not only the content but the magazine itself was almost entirely produced by the children in Class 1, the type being handset and pages produced on the printer mentioned. The Beacon and its production was featured in a photograph that appeared in the local paper which was then picked up and reproduced in the Manchester Guardian, as it was then. I agree with Peter's quote about Mr Jones' qualities (and not just because he published my lino cuts).
Added by Graham Firth on 25 April 2021
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