Old School Magazines
You can read some of the old magazines on this site set up by the school.
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Copies can be found by clicking on “School”, then scrolling almost to the bottom of the menu and click on “History of the CCHSG and archive”. It will bring up a list of old magazines available on the site.
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Browsing through the old School Magazines of 60 and 70 years ago is a fascinating diversion from more pressing tasks but I was taken by several entries - all approved, of course, by the Magazine Committee. Entries from students in the Magazines were called “Literary Efforts”. Below are two of them.
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A Schoolgirl's Dilemma (from the 1963-64 Magazine)
Linda Cousins (Lower VI 2. Plantagenet) (with apologies to William Shakespeare
To work or not to work – that is the question;
Whether ‘tis nobler before the class to suffer
The threats and anger of outraged staff,
Or to take heart amidst a sea of homework
And by our labours silence them? To work, to sleep –
Again; and by a sleep to say we end
The faults and many pangs of guilt
Schoolgirls are heir to. ‘Tis an occurrence
Much to be desired. To work, succeed,
To pass exams with ease.
Yes, there’s the rub;
For of the many hours of wasted time,
When we have failed every examination,
We needs must think. This is the aspect
Which makes calamity of our schooldays;
For those who do their homework every night,
Hand in their work on time, are never late,
And never feel the pangs of hidden guilt,
Deride the lazy and the conscience stricken,
Can much amusement from us sinners take;
While we ourselves could their position gain
Through sheer hard work.
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On Working for a Publisher (from the 1952-53 Magazine)
Joan Clibbon
Joan Clibbon was head girl in 1948-49 and was awarded a major scholarship to read English at St Mary’s College, Durham University. Her younger sister, Mary, also went to Durham to study French and Ann, the youngest, became a teacher. The company Joan worked for is now an imprint of the publishing company Pan Macmillan. Not knowing what an imprint was I googled it - straight from Wikipedia: “An imprint of a publisher is a trade name under which it publishes a work. A single publishing company may have multiple imprints, often using the different names as brands to market works to various demographic consumer segments”.
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My Romantic Illusions about publishing were shattered a year or two ago when the university Appointments officer observed gloomily, “It’s strange, but all English graduates, without exception, seem to want to Get Into Publishing,” and tried to guide me into the more secure professions like teaching and the Civil Service. But even after no less a personage than Michael Swann, the critic, and novelist, had impressed upon me that publishing was only a business like any other and not a vaguely literary occupation it still seemed that to publish books – and different books all the time - would be more interesting than marketing a very popular commodity like Bovril or Persil.
So having equipped myself with the minimum of shorthand-typing I obtained through the Publishers’ Association a post as secretary to a director of a small but well established firm (Sidgwick and Jackson). Although there was the chance of a post in one of the really big firms, with a much higher salary, I am glad I did not take it as one gets a far clearer idea of the general set-up by beginning work in a small firm.
In publishing by far the largest department is accounts and distribution (not as some imagine reading manuscripts all day long), so I was fortunate to break in on the productions and publicity side. Each book is our responsibility from the time the firm decides to publish and we get the author’s manuscript. The format has to be decided months in advance and one learns much by merely typing all the varied correspondence with the printers. The director I work for is quite a well-known typographer, and one needs a thorough training, preferably with a printer to be able to do anything on the actual production side, so as far as the technicalities go I am at present an interested observer only.
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But on the publicity side there are more opportunities for the inexperienced. Someone has to write the blurb for the jackets, for the showcards and for printed or duplicated leaflets which are sent out to the trade. My first attempt at writing blurb was a little chastening. The book was a novel which had already been published in America. We had some copies of the American edition, and the jacket blurb read like something out of Home Notes (left). “Can it be as awful as all that?” I wondered aloud.
“Hell, it’s a good book; if you can improve on that go ahead”, said the director. I began to read the book with great ideas of showing off a literary style and writing some really subtle praise. But I
discovered that what was really needed was good salesmanship! Me miserum, the book was hard going, a little drama of domestic life (American too – one had a vision of the chromium kitchen and the kids in jeans), well-written of its kind and sure of a good sale. But how difficult to enthuse over it without being hypocritical. So I concentrated on giving a reasonable summary of the plot and praising the author’s characterisation – the first I think is important with a novel; a mere collection of superlatives, whether the publisher’s or culled from the best reviews, has often put me off buying a book entirely. Although my blurb will appear on the inside cover next month, I still wish it was the review I had had to write! But perhaps that will come one day.
With a non-fiction and technical book author-publisher, co-operation can be very valuable. One author of a recent travel book wrote all his own blurb and an article for The Bookseller (right -1949) too. Even if one is not in the editorial department and so has not the romantic hope of discovering the work of some new genius among a mass of mediocre manuscripts, one has at least the pleasure of meeting the author in the flesh in the publicity department. They are the most amiable of creatures in general; they will make long trunk calls in the middle of the day to enquire about the progress of their precious offspring, and offer suggestions for reviews, and say that we should send many, oh so
many, complimentary copies out! One pernicious habit they have is to wander in, engage some unsuspecting person in general conversation about the new books, and having extracted an opinion from you, remark in an elaborately offhand tone, “Oh, yes, I’m the author of that little thing”.
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Tact is indeed rather essential, especially in dealing with the charming young men who “call about advertising” in obscure magazines and journals. Space merchants we christened them, space being an operative word in this firm, which is doing a great deal of the new “literary” science fiction and really scientific books on interplanetary travel. One embittered author (we suppose) of a space opera, whose magnum opus we had rejected, took to sticking offensive labels over our window during the dead of night!
My job takes me all over town (London) and brings me into contact with all kinds of interesting people, even when I am only acting as a kind of odd-job-boy. One afternoon I had to rush round all the more important Fleet Street dailies with late review copies, and was alternately impressed and disillusioned by their facades. “Printing House Square” always sounded so austere and right for The Times but it appeared to be only a curious jumble of nineteenth century buildings. However, the interior was suitably imposing, as I discovered when I took my book to four wrong entrances before finding the right department. Other small “jobs” included going to the huge central offices of W H Smith to collect a subscription order, meeting the editor of The Bookseller, the most important of the trade magazines, about an article by one of our authors, and hunting for suitable photographs to accompany an article for our book club magazine at the Royal Astronomical Society’s headquarters at Burlington House. The book club is a new venture and we run the editorial side –answering member’s queries and criticisms of books is one of the more interesting aspects of my job.
Advertising has to be very carefully planned, as most publishers cannot afford to spend vast sums and advertising in the newspapers, particularly the more literary papers like The Observer and The Sunday Times is extremely expensive, though rewarding. The trade journals of course are very important and much cheaper to advertise in and one has also to look out for interesting points which can appear in the editorial part. One of the cheapest and most profitable ways of advertising now is on book jackets. Quantities of advance jackets are sent out to travellers and agents with the paper bound proof copies of the book, and certainly an attractive jacket can help to sell a book. I have decorated the walls of my own rather drab office with a great variety of jackets and they are extremely liveable with!
Booksellers, in London at least, seem to become more aware of the potentialities of window display. Instead of the usual jumble of titles in a window, one does frequently see very effective displays of a single book, a best-seller like The Silver Chalice or The Sea Around Us. We had a model space-ship built for window displays of one of our books on interplanetary travel. Compton Mackenzie had the brilliant idea of persuading his publisher, Martin Secker, to advertise his first novel in underground lifts (left). Four were carefully chosen – Leicester Square, Piccadilly, Earls Court and Hampstead, and this was immensely successful. “We can’t get away from your name” said his friends, and thought he must have a philanthropic publisher. But I suppose that panels in the few remaining lifts cost considerably more than the 10/- each at the time of “The Passionate Elopement” (1910), though book advertisement might make a welcome contrast to the brassieres and Hollywood musicals one has to gaze at in one’s progress up the escalators.
I never thought to write so much about publicity and advertising, which is only a very small part of the work of a publishing firm. But a pleasant enough part to have broken into,
much less sordid than one could imagine and sometimes rewarding when one reads the occasional book review which is apt, critical and yet quotable.
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