There were a variety of jobs in the pre-digital printing industry, meaning works like the Thanet Press employed large numbers, and needed specialist suppliers so supported small printers, bookbinders, and other trades locally. The key jobs, as a compositor laying out type, proof reading pages, or working with the machines, were highly skilled. A printer's … Continue reading Print Works Part 4: Working In The Print Industry
Print Works Part 3: The Martell Press
Two Thanet schoolboys had already caught the addictive whiff of printer's ink, oil, and paper that you find in any pre-digital printworks, from their father Norman, co-founder of publishers The Graham Cumming Group and owner of printer Westwood Press. Norman Martell printed town maps for councils, and diaries for clubs and societies, selling advertising in … Continue reading Print Works Part 3: The Martell Press
Print Works Part 2: The Thanet Press
In 1887 Frederick J Bobby, who had been running a small store in Bedford, moved to Margate and took over the Smeeds store, on the junction of Margate High Street and Cecil Square. With business booming, over the next few years Bobby's acquired neighbouring premises to expand the business. In 1907, he bought a nearby … Continue reading Print Works Part 2: The Thanet Press
Print Works Part 1: Forgotten Industry on the Isle of Thanet
Each town on the Isle of Thanet is distinct. Ramsgate has its Royal Harbour, and is still an active port for pleasure craft, and the rugged boats that service the offshore windfarms north of Margate. Broadstairs is the quintessential seaside town, a curve of beach at the break in the chalk cliffs, with the town … Continue reading Print Works Part 1: Forgotten Industry on the Isle of Thanet
Paper Trail: 1961 by Dan Thompson
Yuri Gagarin There are more years between us and Yuri Gagarin's first orbit than there were between his launch and the Wright Brothers first flight. A Soviet pilot, Gagarin became the first human to journey into outer space, orbiting the Earth in Vostok 1 in 1961. This is a very simple pencil drawing of him, … Continue reading Paper Trail: 1961 by Dan Thompson
Paper Trail: 1969 by Paul Hazelton
Paper Moon One of my earliest memories was hearing the moon landing on the radio with my brother - I was 7. Around this time I was also making little drawings on small pieces of paper, invariably depicting life under rocks, below the ocean and out in space. I had, from an early age, a … Continue reading Paper Trail: 1969 by Paul Hazelton
Paper Trail: 1940 by Sonia Boué
Convoy My family’s evasion of a Nazi roundup of Spanish republican exiles at Anguoulême on August 20th, 1940, to the Mauthausen camp, is my focus as I build my Paper Trail response. It’s suddenly gone from a tiny sketch (inkjet print on tracing paper which I’ve clipped to the 1940 paper sample) to an ambitious … Continue reading Paper Trail: 1940 by Sonia Boué
