Swindon Create Studios Celebrates. So earlier this week I had the pleasure/honour/delight and all such adjectives, to attend a brilliant bash to celebrate CREATE Studios move to a fabulous new home in the equally fabulous carriage works – in the GWR railway village. They began life, I think, in an attic room in the town hall. Then to space in the Wyvern Theatre. And now to the carriage works.
Swindon Create Studios Celebrates – create studios logo
Billed as a launch, that’s a wee bit misleading as CREATE studios have been around for forty years or thereabouts. But more of the backstory in a bit. First – who and what are CREATE studios?
From their website:
We’re a team of passionate filmmakers, digital creators, and storytellers. We’re dedicated to producing impactful productions through film, photography, and animation.
As a Community Interest Company, we pride ourselves in making a positive impact on the communities we live in. We reinvest our profits into creating opportunities for the next generation of diverse talent in the digital industry. Through our groundbreaking mentoring programme, we empower young people to find their voice, independence, and confidence to break into the digital world.
David Yates – seen in the photos here – is well known for, amongst other things, involvement with some of the Harry Potter films. Back in the 1980s David lived in Swindon for a while and worked as a freelancer for CREATE. They helped him to make his first serious film. Staying with Harry Potter, the train that does duty as the Hogwarts’ Express is a product of the Swindon Works. It started life as The Hall-class locomotive GWR 5972, known as Olton Hall, built in April 1937.
Circularity
So we have a cool bit of circularity here. The man that made the Harry Potter films (some of them), that featured a train made in Swindon, was, we can argue, made in Swindon himself. Well – in a manner of speaking -and up to a point of course. All of which proves, yet again (it happens a lot – stuff pointing to/connecting with Swindon) that #SwindonIsTheCentreOfTheUniverse
Me – in the middle. To the left Clegg Bamber and Bobbie Brandybuck. Then on my other side, Matt Holland and Cllr Mariana Strinkovsky
Once upon a time there was an arts scene in Swindon. Well – point of fact there still is – as the main topic of the post demonstrates. But anyway …
… It thrilled me no end to hear David Yates’ wife (name escapes me -fantastic outfit) mention Terry Court – erstwhile arts officer for the then Thamesdown Borough Council- arguably the granddad of it all.
Terry Court is something of an unsung arts hero. I did give him some mention in my book about Ken White.TC made Swindon the envy of the Greater London Council such was the level of arts engagement he achieved in Swindon. Ken Livingston tried to poach him but he wouldn’t go. I get the impression, from sooooo many people, that Swindon was the most amazing place to be back then – 70s/80s. – because of the arts activities. But it does continue folks! CREATE are the living proof of that. And Artsite. Swindon Paintfest too. And the Redcliffe Collective. Etc, etc, etc. And oh so much more. Just bloody look for it!!
I reckon at this point, the simplest and likely the most effective way to demonstrate the vibe in Swindon back then – and what led to the beginnings of CREATE – is to share some comments on a Facebook post of mine.
Vox pop – or something
Martin Parry:
In 1979, the powerhouse that was Terry Court raised a BFI grant for a years funding of a ‘filmmaker in residence’. – and I applied for the post. I had just come from work with the National Film Board of Canada, where my last film had won an international award – so I guess that helped me secure it.
It wasn’t my job to start up Media Arts (later named Create). My role was to make films and involve local filmmakers; but I conceived the idea of a public media centre as an asset for Swindon and took it to Terry, who supported me. I then put together a partnership with Swindon Viewpoint (who equipped the centre), and lobbied the Council and Southern Arts for startup support. The Council agreed to provide accommodation in the near-derelict Town Hall.
Media Arts / Create was well underway by 1981 and absolutely humming by the mid 80s. I became its director and no longer had much time for my own films. We earnt our own way from commissions and used excess income to support aspiring filmmakers. We had a long ladder providing access for the very disadvantaged right up to fairly developed aspirants like David Yates. (I remember approving the grant for David’s first film with us).
BBC 1 came and made a film about us in 1987. The producer said they had researched across the country and considered we were the most successful and exciting film workshop in Britain.
Terry Court and Tony Huzzy did indeed create a brilliant arts scene in Swindon before I moved here in the 80s but from which I still benefitted. Tony was my friend and I met him at a creative writing group. His autobiography about living with type 1 diabetes and the rest of his life was very interesting. He wrote as he thought. He was the leader of Swindon Council-serving rather than ruling the people, and a true socialist bringing art to everyone with the very memorable Terry Court with whom I had a couple of conversations when he was retired at the coast.
Christine Hardisty:
I often remember Tony from the writing group … and that he (and presumably Terry Court) were instrumental in Swindon having a poet in residence in 1987(?) – one Carol Ann Duffy… and it was wonderful when she returned to the Lit Festival and they met again. Happy days.
Barrie Thompson:
I used to be Community Centres Officer for Swindon Borough Council and worked closely with Terry Court and Tony Hazel ensuring the arts and music figured prominently in all Swindon Borough Council buildings. In particular if they had physical facilities such as stages built in. In fact that was one of the criteria I ensured was featured in as many community buildings in village halls as possible. That way any touring artists could go down to the smallest communities.
Visit to Wiltshire Town Honours a Twinning Friendship of Almost Seventy Years
GERMAN STUDENTS VISIT MALMESBURY. STUDENTS from Niebüll in Germany are enjoying a trip to their twin town of Malmesbury. The visit marks the towns celebrating almost seventy years of friendship.
A civic reception
On 7th June, a civic reception at the town hall, led by Mayor Cllr Gavin Grant, welcomed twelve Year 9 and Year 10 students from Niebüll.
German students visit malmesbury – Gavin Grant with students from Niebull
Cllr Grant said: The basis of the connection between our two towns is the importance of our young people to the future of our communities, countries, continent and planet.
They walk in the footsteps of hundreds of young people from both our towns. They’ve built the important friendship that we celebrate today and have honoured for almost sevent years.’
On the visit
Thirteen students from Friedrich-Paulsen-Schule are currently on the exchange visit. It’s organised by Malmesbury School and supported by the Malmesbury & District Twinning Association. During their stay, the students will be taking part in lessons and will be visiting Bath and Bristol as well as Malmesbury itself. Students from Malmesbury School will be visiting Niebull themselves later this month.
Headteacher Brett Jouny said:
‘At Malmesbury School we value our foreign exchanges and partnerships. We know that one of the best parts of learning a new language is visiting the country and being part of the culture. Exchanges allow our students to do this. They’re popular events, and we’re delighted to have them up-and-running again for the first time since the pandemic.
‘We strive to prepare our students to be global citizens and part of this is learning a modern foreign language. Languages remain a popular subject at the school.’
Well-established links
Niebüll has been linkedwith Malmesbury since 1954. In that year, the first youth exchange happened. Over the years, hundreds of people from each town have visited each other. The towns underwent a formal twinning in 1976. Niebüll is a town with a population of around 10,000. It lies close to the Danish border in Nord Friesland, Schleswig-Holstien.
In the town, residents speak German and Danish with an economy based on the small business sector. Like, Malmesbury, it has a strong artistic culture and is home to the Richard Haizmann Museum of Modern Art, the Natural History Museum and the Frisian Museum.
Malmesbury Town Council works in partnership with Malmesbury School and the Malmesbury & District Twinning Association to ensure the mainentance of strong links with its two twin towns. Niebull in Germany and Gien, in the Loire region of France. This three way relationship is unusual in town twinning.
Malmesbury also has a strong connection to two ‘friendship’ towns. Malmesbury which is the principal town in Svartland, West Cape Province, South Africa. And Bad Hersfeld, Hersfeld-Rotenburg District, Hesse in Germany.
Topical or what? With the current weather conditions a blog by Dr Hugo De La Peña MD, PhD, FRCP on summer sun safety couldn’t be more apt. Hugo is a renowned cancer specialist, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Cancer Research UK ambassador. He took part in a recent Cancer Research TV campaign to help raise much-needed funds for clinical trials. He’s helped raise hundreds of thousands of pounds by taking part in the London Marathon 2023 and Race for Life events across the UK. Dr Hugo is an NHS consultant and an educational and motivational speaker on cancer, its prevention, treatment and cure.
Dr Hugo de la Pena talks about summer sun safety
Not a lesson on avoiding the sun
Let me start first by stressing that the benefits from sunlight are MONUMENTAL so this is not a lesson on avoiding the sun. Feeling the warm sunshine on your face will give you a few seconds of instant inner peace. The benefits of our sun on our mental health are priceless and countless.
If you’re on your own, the sun will make you appreciate the nature around you even more. And, for a lot of people, the sunny days will make you want to socialise with family and friends – especially getting together for outdoor activities. As always, I don’t tell people what to do, my advice is for people to take it or leave it. It’s based on scientific data, but also on life experience. I had successful treatment for an early skin cancer caused by sun exposure.
A British thing
I don’t deny it’s a very British thing to do, for boys and men to get their shirts off as soon as the sun shines. And for some women to sunbathe in their bikinis in the park. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, but remember that it’s the chronic unprotected sun exposure that causes skin damage and cancer. It’s almost impossible to get skin cancer without sun exposure. I myself had a small and early skin cancer in my arm called squamous cell carcinoma. These cancers are slow growing and, in my case, I got successful treatment with a chemotherapy cream. Other cancers of the skin though, melanomas, are far more serious, aggressive and lethal if diagnosed late.
Here are some tips to help you enjoy the sunshine in a healthy way.
Don’t be a sitting duck
Be aware of the sun when you’re not meaning or wanting to get exposed, for example whilst driving. If you have a long commute or a long drive when going on holiday, your right arm (if you are the driver) and face can get exposed to the sun for hours without realising. Skin cancers in the right forearm and face are very common.
If you go to a music festival, the horse races, a football game, Wimbledon, the F1 race, beer gardens, etc, you could be sitting or standing at the same location and can get exposed to the sun for hours without realising.
Ergo, it’s always a good idea to carry sun block as routine – whether you need o or not. Then, if you find yourself in a situation where you can’t leave or move and the sun is beating down, you can put on sun block on the spot. In fact, why not put it on any way?
If you scratch my back, I will scratch yours
When out with friends at beer gardens, the beach, the pool and BBQs, you’ll have lots of fun. But once you have a few drinks, you will stay out in the sun for longer and will become inadvertently more careless. Thus, it’s a good idea to have someone in the group to remind people every two hours to put on sun cream again. As we have someone who’s a named driver – have someone who is a named ‘sun cream’ nagger!
More swimming, more sun cream
When swimming outdoors, even if your sun cream is waterproof, it will last less time than usual. When you swim you also get double sun exposure. The first hit from direct sun on to you, but also a second hit on reflection from the water with extra sun bouncing back to you, known as the mirror effect. So, when in the water, reapply sun cream every hour, instead of every two hours. Ask someone with you to remind you and support each other in re-applying sun block on a regular basis.
Children First
As with any emergency, children (and teenagers) always come first when it comes to summer sun safety. Pay attention to their behaviour in the sun. Artificial tanning ‘sunbeds’ are forbidden in the under 18s in the UK thanks to a proven link between them and skin cancer. But try to discourage older children from using them.
When basking in the sun to get a tan, encourage them to put on sun block often and to sit in a shady spot or under a large shady umbrella. Roasting their skin in the sun is dangerous because roasting is exactly what will happen with the risk of blistering.
Toddlers need to wear sun suits when swimming or at the beach that most of their body because they are particularly vulnerable to the sun.
Cancer does not discriminate over skin colour but …
Yet when it comes to skin cancer, there is no doubt that the fairer your skin is, the more at risk you are. So, if you’re as white as a friendly ghost or have lots of lovely cute little freckles, take extra care, because you are most at risk. In the sunshine ensure sun block, shade and a hat are your best friends for your own summer sun safety.
Further – did you know that melanin production – the thing that gives you your tan – has a cut-off point?
Don’t stay outside for longer than your skin can create melanin. Melanin is the pigment responsible for tanning. Everyone has a melanin cut-off point, which is usually 2 to 3 hours. After this amount of time, your skin will not get darker in a certain day. If you tan past that point, you’ll be putting your skin in harm’s way. Find out more here.
Artist shares Turner’s love of the sea in Teatime Talk at Malmesbury’s Athelstan Museum
Athelstan Museum Turner Teatime Talk. A series of fascinating teatime talks continues at the Athelstan Museum in Malmesbury on Wednesday June 21. This time with an insight into Turner and the Sea.
The renowned Romantic artist Joseph Mallord William Turner became known as ‘the painter of the light’ and ‘the father of modern art’. His watercolour of Malmesbury Abbey hangs in the Athelstan Museum thanks to funding from the National Lottery.
In this latest talk, History of Art, teacher Fiona James looks at how he used paint, light and colour to express the mystery and moods of the sea.
Fiona said: ‘The sea always beckoned Turner and I share his lifelong affinity. Days after being born in London, the family whisked me away to live on the coast in Cornwall. Thus I love being close to the sea in all its seasons.’
Fiona James who will be giving the Athelstan Museum Turner Teatime Talk
Turner’s seascapes
Through Turner’s paintings of seascapes he pushed boundaries by reflecting the time he lived in and depicting the issues of the day. He shows some of the conflicts of the era, the growth of tourism and the plight of fishermen.
Fiona is keen to reassure people who may be considering coming to the event, that the talk is informal and not overly intellectual.
She said: ‘You don’t need to be an artist or to know a lot about art. It’s accessible for everyone and I want people to feel at ease, to raise questions and to think about what the paintings evoke for them.’
Fiona trained in fine art then history of art as a mature student. She then went on to work at the ICA (Institute of Comtemporary Arts) and at The Wellcome Institute in their picture collection. She then went into teaching and taught art and history of art at Clifton College, Bristol. Later she became head of History of Art at Cheltenham Ladies’ College for fifteen years. Today she teaches history of art to adults in Crudwell and Nailsworth. She often gives talks in her specialist areas of interest including British artists, the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Italian Renaissance.
Fiona’s tea time talk will take place in the Julia and Hans Rausing Building close to the museum. Tea will be served from 2.30 pm with the talk due to start at 3 pm. Tickets are £6.50 (including tea) and are available online and in the museum shop.
The Mayor’s parlour & mace – two Swindon gems if ever there were. And at last, after three decades in Swindon, I got to properly see this fabulous room – and the mace. Big thanks to the outgoing Labour mayor, Abdul Amin for making it happen for me.
When I wrote Swindon in 50 Buildings I included the civic offices and the image below of the mayor’s parlour from the 1930s. I did take some photos – see bottom of the post – but they really don’t do it justice. You’d need to be David Bailey to manage that TBF.
The Mayor’s parlour & mace – 1930s image of the mayor’s parlour courtesy of Swindon local studies
The Mayor’s Mace
The Swindon Mayor’s Mace
So, aside from the Art Deco, living, breathing, Hercule Poirot set wonderment that is the mayor’s parlour, what I want to focus on in this post is the mayor’s mace. Because this isn’t any old mace – but we’ll come to that later. First of all a look at the mace in general.
The Ceremonial Significance of the Mace
In essence, the highly decorated ceremonial mace is an evolvement of a bludgeon – for it once served as a weapon of war.
With the introduction of armour, fighting men began binding their wooden clubs with iron. Then later the club began being made entirely of iron and steel.
This website about the Llantrisant Macetells us that the mace found itself adopted as the weapon of the Sergeants at Arms appointed first by Philip II of France (1180-1223) to guard the king from suspected assassins. It’s believed that Richard I (Lionheart) of England appointed a similar bodyguard
During mediaeval times, the royal Serjeants-at-Arms were distinguished by their power of arrest without a warrant. To an increasing extent, their maces – originally ordinary weapons of war, similar to a club – became their emblems of authority. They became stamped with the royal arms. And in an age in which few men could read or write, the Serjeants effected their arrests by showing their maces and not by producing any form of written warrant.
At length it became the custom to inscribe royal arms on the top and to decorate the handle end. As time went on the mace became less a weapon and more a symbol as it became covered with precious metal. It’s now a weapon of war no longer but a symbol of authority as its incorporated coronet expanded into a full-sized crown. And the whole item swelled to much larger proportions.
Today, many government bodies, such as the House of Commons, universities, local authorities and other institutions have ceremonial Maces. They’re often paraded in academic, parliamentary or civic rituals and processions.
A footnote
There’s a somewhat curious footnote about the mace, as this historical development of the mace points out. ‘The most curious and interesting point to note about the evolution of the mace is that it was also a revolution. The hitting end has become the innocuous base and the handle knob has become the head. Ergo we now carry the ceremonial mace upside down.
The mace should precede the mayor when entering and leaving the council chamber. It should always repose in front of the mayor when the council sits. When the mayor is seated, the mace rests horizontally before him with the crown to his right hand. In church, the crown should point towards the altar.
The Swindon mace
Measuring four feet in length, well proportioned and covered in silver gilt, Swindon’s mace is the most valuable piece of Swindon’s insignia. It takes the customary form, with an open arched crown surmounted by an orb and cross. There’s a replica of the royal arms on the first cap beneath the arches. The four arched compartments contain respectively:
The royal initials E VIIIR crowned
The Thamesdown coat of arms (1974)
The coat of arms for the former borough of Swindon (1936)
The coat of arms for the borough of Swindon (1997)
Below the mace head it bears four oak leaf and acorn brackets. The staff is divided into three sections, by two ornamental spheres. It terminates in a decorated foot knob.
The foot knob has six compartments, one of which contains the inscription: ‘1936, Presented by WE Morse Esq …Mayor of Swindon, 1914-1916. Hallmarked London 1935.’
A most particular mace
But … as interesting as all the above surely is, our Swindon mace is of a particular interest. And that’s because it bears the royal cipher of Edward VIII – who of course was never crowned because he abdicated in 1936.As far as we know, as far as it’s been possible to verify, there are only five other maces in the country bearing Edward VIII’s cypher. And I think that’s rather cool.
There’s a story that the Queen Mother, on visiting our town, asked to have the mace back and the mayor at the time refused to hand it over. Now, I’m unsure of the veracity of this tale but if it’s true … I admire the man’s nerve!
Now for the promised dreadful photos! But they give a sense of just how wonderful this room is. And it’s stuffed with wonderful things.
Angela Atkinson in the mayor’s parlour in Swindon civic officesSwindon’s Coat of Arms The Mayor’s Parlour & Mace – the fireplaceTable inside the mayor’s parlour
