JULY 2020 WYCLIFFE LUTTERWORTH

Bulletin No. 153

___________________________________________________________________________

See more of pictures from the Photography Group on pages 9 and 10

1

ART APPRECIATION Co-ordinator: Ursula Kanetis

01455 553563

Album Sleeve Art

This month we considered a new type of artwork that emerged in the second half of the 20th Century; album sleeve art. We have all lived through a musical revolution in our lives! The development of artwork on LP sleeves is one aspectthat closely reflects a major social and cultural shift after World War II. It’s closely linked to a remarkable change in technology and the accessibility and affordability of recorded sound and the accompanying artwork is a phenomenon that grew up alongside the rise of popular music. There are many books on this subject, often written by music geeks who know all the minute details about how the cover was created and photographed but say little else. Many seem to treat some covers with near reverence and overuse the word ‘iconic’ but often little is said to analyse it in context or discuss its place in the history of art in the way that earlier expressions in Art, such as Impressionist art, is treated. It seems to be considered a lesser art form than more traditional media such as painting or sculpture, but is it? We asked ourselves the question, ‘Should we take album sleeve art more seriously?’

For many centuries, few people routinely saw coloured images before the 1940s. Perhaps a notable exception to that was the many coloured images in Churches, used to reinforce doctrines and tell the people stories although in Protestant Europe, even that access to colourful images was erased between the 16th and 19th centuries. The opening of municipal public art galleries in Victorian times started to make this more accessible but you had to go inside and look. For many ordinary people in the less privileged layers of society, ‘art’ was a side issue. Colour began to seep into everyday life as synthetic dyes were invented in the 19thC but although the past was never black and white, much of it was much more muted than modern times. In the 19thC that municipal art such as the magnificent decorations in the new city halls in placeslike Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester started to bring vibrant colour into people’s lives but coloured images in everyday life would be rare. By contrast, colour seems to have burst on Britain, America and Europe in the later years ofthe 20thC and perhaps the evolution of album sleeve art traces and reflects those early changes in the perception and enabled a new interpretation of the

2

world around us amongst ordinary people. It was art that could be owned and enjoyed by thousands of people.We asked ourselves, was this the true ’Modern Art’?

Each of us selected a few album covers as our contribution to our online discussions. This led to a lot of nostalgia as some remembered putting the sleeves on the walls of our student rooms and others could recall the first time they bought it and what it meant to them at the time. Choosing just a few was surprisingly difficult but the choices which eventually emerged were very diverse and interesting. There is no space to name them all here but here are a few to give a flavour of the topic, Going for the One, (YES) 1977 with their instantly recognisable font; a study in angles, perspective and nakedness! Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd)1973, famous for the split prism; The Voice of Africa (Miriam Makeba) 1964, featuring an arresting image which invokes Africa instantly; Red Sky (Ralph McTell), a moody image in red and black; Bitches Brew (Miles Davis) featuring part of a larger artwork by Mati Klarwein; The History of Otis Redding with a sketched image of him on the front; A Question of Balance’ (Moody Blues) with various images suggesting a complicated and incomprehensible story; Aladdin Sane (David Bowie) 1974 with David shown introducing his latest weird persona but with closed eyes; Sergeant Pepper (The Beatles) 1967 which is probably the most influential cover ever and The Sound of Music film soundtrack (1965) showing Julie Andrews dancing along with her guitar.

Everyone added information and comments on the artists and designers and also their thoughts on the questions we had posed about this artistic movement. It was suggested that perhaps album sleeve work was simply the heir to the pre war sheet music covers and thus had its roots further back. Some reflected on how much the art reflected the music within or even the singer. Others pointed out it often didn’t! It was a great pity that we could not enjoy this lively and rather intellectual debate in person but everyone had much to say and I think we all enjoyed the trip down memory lane.

There are so many more images to consider … Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, The Velvet Underground’s Banana, by Andy Warhol, the psychedelic madness of Cream’s Disraeli Gears 1967 album, Nirvana’s swimming baby in 1991… Perhaps you would enjoy reminiscing too.

Viv

3

ENGINEERING, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYCo-ordinator: Chris Ridley

01455 209920

Hi there all,

The quiet time continues and despite a relaxation of restrictions it is unlikely that we shall all be meeting up for some months to come, so I hope all of you are keeping occupied and above all, safe.

Hopefully some of you will have been looking at our ESTG News Letter called "The Whittle” which Michael Bates and I started in April and which will now be available on the U3A website including May and June's edition.

July's edition will be sent out around 14th or roughly when we should have had our meeting,

Click on the link on the U3A website and you will find the following available to read in June's edition. ( there should also be April and May available to view as well).

GROUP NEWS - U3A Day and Help required find info on a Plane crash witnessed by myself in 1952.

THOUGHT OF THE MONTH- a report on the Plight of the Aerospace Industry - by Chris Ridley

MEETING REPORTPRODRIVE, BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE An over view of where we should have visited in June.

MEMBERS MISCELLANYRR MERLIN THOUGHTS - report by TONY ALLEN on the great RR WW2 Aero engine.

ARMY AIR MUSEUM - LOCKDOWN LECTURES - links for members to watch great lectures

CORNER NINETEE - Humorous and amusing photos, clips and cartoons for light hearted veiwing in this lockdown.

4

ARTICLES OF THE MONTH

BRUNTINGTHORPE REVIVAL - HOWARD GRANT’s own model Goodwood Revival.

GILBERN, "THE STORY OF A WELSH DRAGON" - GEOFF DEAN's story of the only car to be produced in Wales.

Please watch out for July's edition which I will send directly by email to all ESTG members.

Keep well - keep safeChris Ridley

5

GENTLE CYCLING GROUPCo-ordinator: Sue Creeden

01455 557888

With Covid-19 lockdown easing slightly and allowing 6 people to meet outside provided they kept 2 metres apart, a group of us suggested getting together for our usual June ride. Despite the forecast making an outing a bit doubtful, amazingly 10 enthusiastic riders assembled (socially distanced) at Ullesthorpe Garden Centre last month. Fortunately, no rain clouds could be seen so, after one or two bike adjustments, we split into two groups and set off five minutes apart. We had heard rumour that the village pub (The Denbigh) in Monks Kirby had become a village shop and was offering hot and cold drinks to take out, so headed off in that direction. The roads were quiet as we cycled through Ullesthorpe and, turning left in Claybrooke Parva and we soon reached the A5. Crossing over we took the single-track road, crossed over Coalpit Lane and into the Village. The shop owners were very welcoming and we were able to enjoy a coffee safely in the garden. We re-grouped and continued our circular route back to the A5 and on to Ullesthorpe. A very pleasant morning.

Another ride is planned for Wednesday morning, 15th July. Everyone is welcome to join us, rides are of approximately 12 miles and are leisurely. For details, please email (sueandpeter.creeden@talktalk.net) or phone Sue (number above).

6

HISTORY GROUP

Co-ordinator: Viv Weller

01455 557136

vwellerz@aol.com

I have tried to keep things going despite our loss of freedom recently. Over the last 3 months or so, we’ve done History quizzes, word-searches and crosswords, looked at aerial photos of Lutterworth in 1946, visited online exhibitions at the British Library and other museums and examined 19thC maps of the local area. I hope you have found them interesting. I will keep sending the members random things to think about every now and again until we can get back to normal.

Unfortunately, I have to confirm that I have now abandoned all our trips out this year. Initially, I hoped the September jaunt to the manor house at Donington and the rescheduled trip to Lichfield in October might be possible but I now think not, so I have cancelled. Hopefully, we can look forward to visiting some of these places in 2021. Similarly, there will be no meetings in theRugby Club for some time. It would be very hard to keep social distancing even if the venue becomes available to us and even if we were prepared to risk it. Let’s hope the situation improves soon!

Best wishes, Viv

7

PHOTOGRAPHY GROUP

Co-ordinator: Michael Bates

07899937595

We are adjusting to the “new reality” and held our monthly meeting on Friday 26th June with 19 members attending courtesy of “Zoom” meeting software. Unfortunately the generosity of Zoom Video Communications has now finishedand our meeting prematurely ended after 30 minutes. We were able to re-startquite quickly but it somewhat disrupted the meeting and some members were unable to re-join. It was agreed by all the members attending, that to avoid thisproblem in the future we should become “legal” and the group now have a license which allows us to hold meetings with durations up to twenty four hours! Great joy.

We re-convened our meeting on Tuesday 30th June and enjoyed two hours of fun and verbal mayhem while reviewing pictures of June’s topic “The Printed Word”. The object was to provide pictures that included the printed word, suchas a book, magazine, newspaper or as it turned out food labels. As usual everyone stepped up to the plate, and we had some very inventive pictures. It is not possible to accurately describe the range, so you will have to view them on the U3A website picture gallery to get a flavour of what we were up too. Following our picture review there was a short presentation on Black & White photography. Now, you might think that B&W pictures are outdated, but it has never gone away in the world of photography and for us you could call B&W the new “colour”. It was explained that B&W pictures are actually made up of 255 shades of grey ranging from 0 (Black) to 255 (White). If you are wondering where you might come across these numbers, take a look on your computer programs where you can alter colours, such as backgrounds or text and you willfind them. A value of 125 offers the most neutral grey (often referred to as 50%grey) and is frequently used by photographers to calibrate their camera’s response to the quality of light, known as the “white balance” which can be setfor different situations such as daylight, tungsten or fluorescent lighting. We looked at how texture and form can add drama to a B&W image and for inspiration looked at pictures from famous photographers together with typicalimages from the 1920’s to the 1960’s when magazines such as Picture Post published many images of life in those times generally in B&W. Following on from our discussions regarding B&W photography our topic for July, is “Black & White Pictures”. We had two very brain taxing subjects in April

8

and May and this month we are just asking members to submit some B&W images which can either be new pictures or something from our picture archives, converted from colour to Black & White in photo editing software. This will not be as easy as you think as not every colour picture has the right content to look good in Black & White

Our next scheduled meeting will be on Friday 31st July 2020 starting at 10.00 am. Meanwhile, we will publish another contact sheet showing some of the pictures we viewed at our June meeting. In July we are having an extra meetingon Wednesday 15th July at 10.15am when we will look at some typical photo editing software including some of the free programs that are available on the internet. As with all our meetings this is open to all U3A Members. We are always happy to welcome other U3A members to our meetings. You don’t have to have an interest in photography, as these days, our meetings are as much social as they are about photography. If you would like to join us for a chat or to look at what we are getting up to, just contact me at the following e-mail address and I will drop you an invitation.

wlu3acamera@outlook.com.Michael Bates

9

10

11

1 st WEDNESDAY WALKING GROUP

Co-ordinators: Peter & Irene Moore

01455 552594

peter79moore@gmail.com

Date of Walk :- Wednesday 5th August 2020Co-ordinator:- Peter Moore. Tel:- 01455 552594. Email:- peter79moore@googlemail.comWalk Organisers :- Peter and Irene Moore. Tel:- 01455 552594Driving Distance:- 4.5 miles each way.

Meeting Point and Time : Lutterworth Recreation Ground car park at 9.20am to leave at 9.30am. As this writeup has to be into the Newsletter compiler, 2 months before the walk, please contact me in case the latest covid regulations, that may impact on the walk.

Start Point and Time . The Barn, Pub & Restaurant & Micro Brewary, Coal Pit Lane, Willey. CV23 OSL.Start 10.00am. Order food before walk from Lunch Menu. This is gastro Pub serving quality food, however the Lunch Menu is very good and reasonably priced @ 2 for £15.00p.Directions to start:- At Magna Park A5 island, take 3rd Exit towards Wolvey. The Pub is on the Right Hand side, approx. 1 mile after the Willey turn.

As you turn into the entrance, go straight on & turn right at the facing building (the Brewery) park in the car park ahead.

Walk Description:- Leaving the pub turn right and left onto very quiet road towards Monks Kirby. In Brockhurst turn left into Newnham Paddox. Continue on into Willey via Newnham Fields Farm and join the Lambs in the fields, returning to the pub via Spring Farm and Coal Pit Lane. There is a stretch of quietish road walking. Distance 5.25 miles. Only 2 stiles.

12

Next Walk.

Wednesday 2nd September 2020. From Queen’s Head, Bretford. Walking Brinklow Heath,outskirts of Brandon and return via Brandon stadium. Great selection on *seniors Lunch menu* Quality food at attractive prices. Welcome return for us all. 5.2 miles, no stiles.

Peter Moore

13

4th WEDNESDAY WALKING GROUP

Co-ordinators: Sue & Peter Creeden

01455 557888

email: sue andpeter.creeden@talktalk.net

Hi Everybody,

We hope that you are all well after the lockdown.

After looking at the social distancing rules as they stand at the time of writingwe think that we can start up our walking meetings again in July, albeit withslightly different arrangements.

The challenge is to comply with the restriction that only 6 people can meet.What we propose to do is to ask you to advise in advance (preferably by email,details above) if you would like to do the walk. We will then make up groups of6 with a leader and advise you of the name of your leader for your group, themeeting place and the start time.

As can be seen from the walk details the walk will be from Ullesthorpe. We willall complete the same walk. The meeting places for each group will be differentlocations in the village. The start times for each group will we staggered by 5minutes to keep the groups separated.

The coffee break will be ‘on the hoof’ to avoid the groups bunching.

We do not propose to include a pub lunch in the arrangements and there willnot be any toilet facilities.

Meeting Point and Time:- To be advised

Route and Distance:-. The route will head off down Manor Road through the pig farm and then on towards the A5 taking the railway embankment. We will then head to Peatling Parva and onwards to Peatling Magna. It will then be back to Ullesthorpe via Manor Road. The distance is approximately 5.2 miles, no stiles but a few kissing gates (you may want gloves but we carry hand sanitizer).

Lunch Arrangements:- None

14

ADVANCE NOTICE Wednesday 26 AUGUST 2020

Walk Organisers:- George Robertson 07986 827270

Hi Everybody

Just to let you know that George is planning to lead his annual long walk on thefourth Wednesday, 26 August. It will start from Barnwell Country Park, which is justoutside Oundle. The walk is approximately 9.5 miles, there are a couple of stiles.Having done it with George we can vouch that is a very enjoyable route throughsome very picturesque villages.

More details to follow in next month`s bulletin which will include any socialdistancing provisions that we have to make.

15

Please continue to save your USED STAMPS andTONER CARTRIGES

On behalf of Medical Detection Dogsuntil such time as they can be

passed on to Sue Creedenat a meeting!

Sent in by Viv Weller

Answers in next month's Bulletin

16

LIVE FOR THE MOMENT....... FOR THE MOMENT LIVES IN US

Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better

To paint a picture or write a letter

Bake a cake or plant a seed

Ponder the difference between want and need

Dust if you must, but there's not much time

With rivers to swim and mountains to climb

Music to hear and books to read

Friends to cherish – a life to lead

Dust if you must, but the world's out there

The sun in your eyes, the wind in your hair

A flurry of snow, a shower of rain

This day will not come round again

Dust if you must, but bear in mind

Old age will come and it's not kind

And when you go, as go you must

You yourself will make more dust

Anon

17