大象传媒

I discovered some posters in the Folkestone Heritage Room that were drawn by pupils (aged about 13) from a local school in May 1941.

The posters are pencil drawn and hand painted in bold black, blue and red paint. They are signed by each of the artists.The posters feature slogans and caricatures encouraging the people of Folkestone to support the war effort through investment in National Savings schemes. The standard of the artwork is high and the posters have stood the test of time well. The Kentish Express featured several of the designs in their Memories column and they stood out, striking as an Ad campaign from 2003.

I wondered why the boys were drawing these posters at this particular point in the war. I consulted the Folkestone Herald for May 1941. May 3- 10 1941 turned out to be "Folkestone War Weapons Week"

Folkestone and district promised to provide the cost of five bombers through a programme of special events and national savings initiatives. In the event,拢230,0000, almost double the target sum was raised.

Checking through our collection of memorabilia I came across an original programme for War Weapons Week. On the back of the leaflet was an advert for a special exhibition at Maltby's Showrooms, Sandgate Road. The exhibition seems to have focussed on war souvenirs including a including a Messerschmitt 109 shot down during the Battle of Britain. I found a picture of this exhibition in the Folkestone Herald for May 10th 1941: Onlookers clustered around the trophy plane. When I read the article below I discovered that there were other attractions on display.

"In the same room as the Me(sserschmitt) 109 there was a display of posters drawn by boys of Morehall Boys' School...Originality and skill were shown in these designs and the Mayor and mayoress were so impressed that they decided to award prizes to what were considered the three best drawings.
The Mayoress... chose that drawn by David Conlin as the most outstanding...
A judge had been drawn in the top left hand corner and the five words "Sentance Hitler with National Savings" followed. Master Conlin is being sent a 15s(chilling) Savings Certificate.
Prizes of 5S(chilling) in Savings stamps were also awarded to P Spanswick ("Save and Have") and R.E.F. Gilden ("B Wise and Save")
Other drawings were displayed by Jack Muir, F. Worlman, Arthur Mount, R. West, R.G. Guider and
L. Cogger."
EXTRACT TAKEN FROM "THE FOLKESTONE HERALD" 10/05/41

I looked at these prizewinning posters again and matched the signatures with the names in the article. Then I noticed a further detail that I had overlooked. The boys had also written down where they had drawn their artwork, and it wasn't a district of Folkestone that I was familiar with. Cymyoy?!

Earlier editions of the Folkestone Herald provided the key to this mystery.

Folkestone Herald Saturday June 8th, 1940

"WALES WELCOMES OUR CHILDREN
...3,063 school children were evacuated to various parts of South Wales..."

Folkestone Herald Saturday July 6th, 1940

MORE GOOD NEWS FROM WALES

MOREHALL SENIOR BOYS SCHOOL

"We arrived late on the Sunday evening and as our school was the last to be billeted it became a matter of urgency to get the boys housed for the night. Our groups were therefore somewhat split and we were scattered through seven villages...
They are: Llanvapley; Llandewi Rhydderch; Llantilio Parthol (known as Mardy); Llanvihangel Crucorny (Pandy); Cwmyoy... In these villages our boys meet for full time instruction, and have succeeded in retaining their entity as a school. Each group is under the control of a master and helper, except the large senior group at Cwmyoy which is under two masters.... Parents will be proud to learn that the boys have won golden opinions here by their good conduct and courteous demeanour; most of them have won a niche for themselves in the kind hearts of their foster parents. The parents may well be proud, for one hears the comment expressed frequently: "These boys must have come from good homes."

W.E. Meager [Headmaster]

EXTRACTS FROM THE FOLKESTONE HERALD 1940

For relics in a drawer these posters were spinning quite a story, and it wasn't finished yet. One of the artists, had a surname that rang a bell with me: Gilden. I rang a colleague of mine, Maureen Criddle, a local history expert with the maiden name Gilden. The artist of the aforementioned "B Wise and Save" and another poster with a convincing cartoon Hitler "Save And Rid Us of This"
was Richard (R.E.F.) Gilden. He was very surprised to hear that his posters still existed, let alone as library exhibits! He kindly rang me to offer his recollections of events.

It was interesting hear the experiences that were not hinted at in the reassuring article from his headmaster: The unnerving experience of being billeted. His parents had ordered Richard to hang on to his little brother at all cost. There was an attempt to separate them but Richard refused. Both boys were billeted with the same farming family. Richard also laughed at the idea of the "full time instruction" that he had supposedly received while at Cymyoy. To all intents and purposes there was no schooling. After all, Richard was an older pupil and could help with haymaking and potato picking. Dig For Victory! He did remember drawing the posters very clearly. On a visit to Folkestone earlier this month, he was able to admire his artwork from over 60 years ago.

In return for my work he has donated us a photo of all his classmates at Cymyoy. It completes the picture for us.

The saga of the posters makes a WWII learning session in itself. I have been able to use them to introduce the topic of the experience of Folkestone children in WWII to Folkestone School children of 2003.

At one of these sessions, at Cheriton library, on June the 9th this year, a class from St Martin's Primary school discovered the story of the posters. A special guest helped them do this, Phyllis Couchman, sister of Richard who was evacuated on that same train in June 1940.

We are very lucky to have found all this material about some forgotten artefacts from WWII but we would like to push this luck even further. Can anyone help us with more information about the other artists: David Conlin, P Spanswick, Jack Muir, F. Worlman, Arthur Mount, R. West, R.G. Guider and L. Cogger? With your help we could produce a whole gallery of memories.

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