Foible & Folly: unearthing

Foible & Folly

A spiteful donkey, rogue sailor, and pinched pigeons: designer Lauren Fry delves into Isle of Wight newspaper archives to unearth fantastic tales of bygone Sandown

George Reid, seamen on board HMS Minotaur. Accused of assaulting PC Pauling who attempted to remove him from The King’s Head Hotel for being drunk at the request of the boots and the landlord. Sentenced to 4 months hard labour in Portsmouth. The Isle of Wight County Press, 10th January 1885 John Lowe. Accused, alongside George Cobbett, of stealing two pigeons and a rabbit, the property of James Evans, landlord of the King’s Head Inn, Sandown. Sentenced to 3 weeks hard labour. Isle of Wight Mercury, 20th March 1858

Foible & Folly, funded by Arts Council England, playfully introduces us to characters whose misdeeds caused quite a stir. Designer Lauren Fry purposely chose to celebrate their stories as part of Sandown’s zany past, creating three striking articulated dolls which are on display in the window of Boojum&Snark.

Designer and Arts educator Lauren Fry was given the herculean task of trawling through the Victorian Isle of Wight newspaper archive to tease out stories and fragments of Sandown history that combine to illustrate the very personality of a place. The resultant exhibition, Foible & Folly, features three large articulated paper dolls that will be displayed in the window of Boojum&Snark over the year.

Lauren Fry says: “When I started looking through the British

Newspaper Archives online my only predetermined idea was that

I wasn’t interested in celebrity visitors or Royals gracing the town with their presence. I wanted to find stories about people that were the fabric of Sandown and understand a little about their daily experience. Each story that made the cut contained something I couldn’t get out of my mind: the anthropomorphic form of a sailor from HMS Minotaur; a donkey attributed with the human trait of being spiteful; and where did the man who stole two pigeons and a rabbit actually hide them?

“Foible & Folly is a celebration of men (and beasts) that were part of Sandown’s story, and although 30 years apart, one building, The

“The colour palette developed slowly: starting with Cobalt blue inspired by delft pottery which was a homeware trend of the era,” says Lauren Fry.

Kings Head, which was the location of their mishaps and misdemeanours.” Lauren utilised online sources and preprepared activity packs to gain some great community input, including words of wisdom inspired by the often wacky ‘Things Thoughtful’ quotes published in the Isle of Wight Times, as well as working with young people to make thaumatropes, popular Victorian optical toys used to animate the scenes. Collaborating with local poet King Stammers, they managed to get people contributing comical haikus about the Sandown stories. Julie Jones-Evans, Co-Founder of picobrewery, taproom and micro-museum Boojum&Snark, says: “Foible & Folly has given us the opportunity to peep back in time. It has got the community exploring their own creativity and has encouraged us to see Sandown through new eyes. Lauren has breathed life into perhaps forgotten stories and people. It’s very clever how the reflections of buildings - when you photograph the characters - place them back once again on the High Street!”

Boojum&Snark is an innovative regeneration project based at 105 High Street, Sandown. Foible & Folly will be on display there throughout the year. boojumandsnark.co.uk

Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk