9 minute read
In Conversation
Cub Hack Heaven
Atrium brought four former editors of Folio together for a chat: Julian Manyon, former foreign correspondent for ITV, Jon Blair, filmmaker, Thurstan Bannister, who abandoned journalism for financial services, and Jonathan Foreman, journalist and editor.
Julian Manyon: My memories of Folio are coloured by the fact that my schooldays coincided with turbulent times. We felt like a new generation, in the shadow of the Cold War, with the Vietnam War going on, and that had an effect on the way that I looked at these things. There was a spirit of anticipation, and excitement, and that was reflected in the journalism of the time – various publications had changed quite radically. I’m grateful to Folio that I had a way of participating in that, in a small way, and getting into writing.
Jon Blair: Yes, when I arrived in 1967 the school felt incredibly staid and conventional to me. But I was a bit of an outsider – I had fled South Africa the year before because I had been drafted. But yes, things were changing. Many of the pupils were responding to the wider culture and becoming quite radical – there was a questioning of public school tradition that was soon expressed in Lindsay Anderson’s film if….. Even though the CCF had recently ended, there was still plenty to kick against. But the attitudes of the teaching body were still from the previous decade. So, Folio felt like a crucial outlet for creativity.
JM: Around 1966 I worked with the previous editor Richard Zorza to change the format of the magazine, which had previously been very traditional and dull: I was Art Editor, so in charge of the graphic design. I was very much influenced by meeting Richard Neville, the Australian who brought Oz magazine to Britain. That to me was the model of what a modern magazine should look like, with its integration of writing and artwork, and it was also a model of journalistic freedom. Although we weren’t allowed total freedom, I don’t recall feeling that the hand of the school interfered too much.
JM: I can’t agree. I feel we were tolerated to a degree, but the heavy hand would come down if we passed that degree. As I recall, two members of staff acted as censors, at the instruction of the High Master. When one of my articles was censored, I was furious and had a falling-out with the High Master over it. It was printed, but with a lot of white space where sentences had been cut out, which reminded me of the practice in Rhodesia at the time. So, in protest I resigned as editor and the whole thing marked me out as a troublemaker for my remaining time at the school.
Thurstan Bannister: I remember one of the articles that I proposed being quashed. In fact, I proposed it to Mr Hele, the High Master, because it needed the school’s backing. I wanted to do an evaluation of the performance of the different departments in the school, asking which teachers got their pupils the
top O-level and A-level grades. But just to go back to my overall feelings about the magazine, I saw it as a complete revelation, that pupils were given such freedom to write about whatever they wanted, and it was a chance to meet progressive people at the school. There was still a progressive edge to it in the mid 70s – but maybe less of the socially conscious reporting that Jon went in for.
JM: Yes, I was directly imitating George Orwell – for one article I spent a couple of nights at the homeless centre in Hammersmith Broadway, meeting down and outs. It struck me that very few people at St Paul’s were aware of their privilege, including the staff, so it felt like a worthwhile agenda. But I was also interested in culture, especially music, which was hugely important to lots of us at that time. But I already had a sense that journalism was what I wanted to do in life – I didn’t yet know it would be in the form of television, but I already had a sense that journalism was a way in which one could change the world, and it has stayed with me for fifty years or so.
Jonathan Foreman: By my time, the early 1980s, the socially conscious element had faded a bit, I’m afraid. My first impression of the magazine was that it was an excitingly grown-up thing, because of course it was made by the 8th formers. And soon I realised it was a great way to meet Paulinas.
JM: Yes, that was a benefit, especially for a boarder. It was better than hanging round the Commonwealth Institute, trying to meet girls. I made a few good Paulina friends, with whom I stayed in touch. JF: And there weren’t many other opportunities to meet Paulinas, just the orchestra or drama. But in my day drama was very elitist, almost no one got the chance to act. I remember how much more glamorous and cosmopolitan the Paulinas were – the sociological difference between the schools was really striking. So, my early memories, before I was editor, are of being just dazzled by some of the girls. I had a huge crush on a Folio editor called Polly Whitelegge. It was worth going to the editorial meetings just to be in the same room.
TB: I remember production meetings taking place at someone’s home. It was my first experience of working into the early hours – we had to take the final copy to the printers the next day, which was a place in Notting Hill Gate – it was such a relief when it was finally delivered. And I clearly remember the day of publication – around the last day of term. You rushed round school trying to sell it for 10p or whatever it was and trying to make sure you covered the cost of production so that the magazine didn’t collapse under your watch. I also remember going round the local shops trying to sell half-page adverts.
JF: In terms of producing the magazine, there was a boys editor and a girls editor, so there was sometimes a bit of a battle about who was really in charge. In fact, my co-editor was a wonderful person, Michal Friedlander, a professor now, but she got very annoyed in meetings, we drove her mad – and someone did a drawing of us all round the table and she had a thundercloud over her head. I should add that it was another of the Paulinas, Laura Birnhak, who ended up doing most of the hard work of
production – it helped to have one really calm and competent person on the committee.
TB: It’s interesting that gender politics never really seemed problematic back then, it was just a source of gentle humour.
JF: Yes, in terms of content, I don’t recall any tense sexual politics like you might get today, any ideological disputes about what can and can’t be printed. There wasn’t that sort of tension between boys and girls, just a sort of detached, friendly curiosity about each other’s lives.
JM: I don’t recall many people submitting articles and us having to reject them – except for creative writing. That was the main thing that people actually submitted voluntarily.
JF: I found it quite hard to get people to write for it. The idea of getting someone to report from a homeless shelter was pretty inconceivable in my day. I had a sense that people didn’t have much time, due to exam pressure I suppose. And there was no official help, to encourage people to contribute. But I suppose opinion pieces were quicker to write, so we ran lots of those, and lots of jokey pieces, and artwork. But yes, there was a lot of light stuff about fashion and pop music – being trendy was terribly important. Lots of people read it for the gossip column called Grapevine.
JM: Art was also central in my day when we changed to the magazine format. We worked closely with the art department, in designing it, and the art masters helped us with incorporating photography and screen prints. And it felt exciting, because at that time in the wider world magazines that used artwork were culturally powerful, rather like the internet and social media today.
TB: I was certainly influenced by the news magazines of the day, which were available in the reading area just outside the library. I’d read New Society, The New Statesman, and get ideas. I liked feeling that I was railing against the establishment, and the traditional aspects of the school – classics and the rugby, but also enjoying the wonderful atmosphere of freedom, the clever debating, long lunch breaks – it was a sort of contradiction. And in terms of what Jonathan was saying about mixing the serious and the fun, I had a sense that it was the gossip and the jokes that made it marketable, and I had to smuggle in my earnest editorials in the spaces between.
JF: We were very influenced by Private Eye – there was lots of would-be satire in there. We also ran some serious stuff on culture and politics. I’m just flicking through an old copy here, and there’s an attack on the new Barbican Centre by Ben Lewis, who went on to be an art critic. And also, a piece on foxhunting by Samantha Weinberg, who became a journalist. And a piece about Northern Ireland, and another on the Green Party in Germany. So, it wasn’t all jokes about haircuts and pop-music! But art was a big thing – we did a lot of photo-collages, stories with thought-bubbles, mostly about boys meeting girls. And we had the best artists in both schools offering to do covers for us, so there were some really great covers.
JM: I look back on it as a great opportunity to express oneself, but also to feel involved in the momentous issues of the day. And I think it’s an important experience, part of being at a school like St Paul’s, so I hope that current Paulines have the opportunity. Maybe this discussion can prompt a revival.
JF: For one article we got well-known people to write about school magazines. One of the contributors, Alan Coren, said that all magazines are school magazines, and there’s a lot of truth to that. I’ve gone on to edit a couple of magazines, and the basic issues don’t change much.
TB: I got a lot out of the experience. In fact, I think that it’s the things that you do voluntarily, outside of the curriculum, that can matter most in your education, because there’s a social and practical side to it. So, I’d urge today’s Paulines to get involved – in writing, editing, raising money, selling – all aspects of producing a magazine are valuable. And because software for making electronic magazines is now very intuitive and low cost, so a new version of Folio could be created more easily, without the time spent previously on production and fund-raising.
JF: It was a great educational experience, a chance to be creative and find out what interests you. Everything else was about A-levels or getting into Oxbridge, so it really stood out. You were really free to try stuff, it didn’t matter if it wasn’t all that good – it was just your friends judging you. It was really liberating.
