Journal Covers

JOURNAL COVERS

A history of the Journal through the cover illustrations.

December 2016

An almost Dickensian scene for the Winter issue from Tim Carroll.

August 2016

Thanks to Tim Carroll for this evocative view of Old Town.

April 2016

A familiar view for anyone driving to Swindon station from '100 views of Swindon' by Tim Carroll.

December 2015

The Mechanics Institute as seen by Tim Carroll.

August 2015

Another stunning Tim Carroll painting, this time of Town Gardens.

April 2015

The Journal goes colour and Tim Carroll takes over as cover artist. Taken from his 100 views of Swindon here is Rodbourne Road.

December 2014

In a year when we remembered the start of WW1, this cover honoured one poet 

(C. H. Sorley) while he honoured another (Richard Jefferies) in verse.

September 2014

Things are really looking good as the phoenix rises from the ashes of Apsley House.

January 2014

A more optimistic time for the Museum as new management and the promise of relocation looks for the first time ever close to reality.

December 2013

The whole of this edition was dedicated to Mike Yates brilliant article on Ralph Bates.

September 2013

More trouble at SBC and for the Museum it seems.  All councils at times appear Kafkaesque or Stalinist at times. Here Uncle Joe is in front of the old Town Hall.

April 2013

Judith Thomson wrote a feature on Klimt for this edition. I took 3 leading lights from 20th century Vienna and put them on playing cards. I was reading Robert Musil's 'The Man Without Qualities' at the time.

December 2012

This edition featured an article by Mike Yates on the exhibition of Adani figures he had curated for Post Modern.

January 2012

Inspired by an article in the Journal this homage to Magritte shows a rock from one of his paintings falling on the Magic Roundabout.

April 2012

A view from the old technical college to the soon to be demolished Swindon College.  

December 2011

An old man takes a rest outside the the old Town Hall by a Christmas tree.

August 2011

Barbara Dixon (curator at the time) asked me to come up with an idea for a short museum project and I devised Wiltshire Pop Up Museum. 8 days with a different mini museum each day concentrating on things in and around Wiltshire. Each exhibit was shown in a small display case with an accompanying short film.  They ranged from a collection of lost property from Thamesdown buses, an artists collection of limescale deposits, a visit to the old derelict Swindon College and Ray Popes Photo Museum in the Pewsey Vale.

April 2011

Many people questioned the proposed development at Coate. I was pessimistically saw a new housing estate or block of luxury apartments named after Richard Jefferies in the hope that we'd all shut up about the importance of the area.

December 2010

Another promise of a new Museum and Art Gallery, there have been many over the years. Sadly my prediction was right and the possibility of it happening was always on the outer edge of the universe while the meteorite SBC was travelling in an opposite direction.

August 2010

The black hole within the Journal.

April 2010

Swindon and John Murray tower in flood, I'd just read Richard Jefferies' 'After London' obviously he never mentioned the demise of Swindon Borough Council or Macdonalds.

December 2009

This drawing was from an early photograph of Silbury Hill and the adverts were supposed to represent Christmas past.

August 2009

This cover was something to do with an article in the Journal which I don't remember, but I used a scene from a Daphne Du Maurier novel where the parson draws a picture of his parishioners as gullible sheep.

April 2009

The patient at this time was SM&AG unfortunately the doctor (either central government and/or local authority) was in not too good health either.

December 2008

A rook in 4 different positions on a tree. The bird was much loved and brilliantly described by Richard Jefferies.

August 2008

This is Ancient Athens in the palm of a hand to mark Kirsty's departure to Cheltenham.

January 2008

This was part of a recruitment drive, the vacant photo frames were for new members.

December 2006

The digital world.

May 2006

Not sure what the great discoveries 1 - 192 were.

February 2006

Swindon station as it used to be. A friend of mine who went to school at St Josephs remembers the great excitement he always felt when he heard the PA announcement, 'Welcome to Swindon.' 

December 2005

It wasn't my career as a retained firefighter that inspired this more the sad realisation that given half a chance some would be happy to see historic architecture perish. Not sure but there may have been one of the many Lacarno fires around this time.

August 2005

New shoots on a health-ish looking plant that might well fall over without the stake. This is another cover where I'm not sure about the idea behind it. Truth is everything needs support.

April 2005

Cuts dig deep once again and a Tony Blair like figure seems to be swallowing up Westminster.

December 2004

The Christmas rush seems to be reflected in the amount of time I spent doing this cover.

August 2004

I did this cover in response to an essay by Richard Jefferies where he describes standing in Trafalgar Square watching thousands of birds fly around Nelson's Column. The sculpture was put up only a few yeas before Jefferies birth and probably seemed modern and cosmopolitan to him.

January 2004

Out of tiny specks great journals may grow.

October 2003

Who these people are I do not know they could be regular museum goers or just a selection from the street.

April 2003

If you've used a potters wheel you'll know that this can happen, the drawing idea probably relates to an article in the journal. The idea that life or anything you try and do might get out of control is known to all.

December 2002

Not sure what the theme was here but it seems to be about accessibility by showing a small child being engulfed and bewildered with the many different subject headings which are all linked and would probably be easier to understand if exhibited that way.  He appears to be wearing a Nike T-Shirt.

September 2002

It's a rather ludicrous drawing and I've no idea what I was thinking of here, there seems to be 2 people on a stage making music and drawing to the audience.

April 2002

The first of the new style Journal with bespoke cover. Easy to see what the theme is here, the problem of how funding and finances are best divided. Such a drawing could be on any of the covers in the past now and probably in the future.