Leo Baxendale

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Lew Stringer
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Re: Leo Baxendale RIP

Post by Lew Stringer »

Phoenix wrote:I wonder if The Guardian will carry an obituary for him tomorrow. They have acknowledged his birthday for many a long year.
It's here now, Derek, written by Steve Bell:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/ ... e-obituary

Phoenix
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Re: Leo Baxendale

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Thanks for the alert, Lew. I do buy The Guardian every day (except Sunday when it isn't published so I have to slum it with The Sunday Mirror as I can't stand The Observer). I hadn't spotted the obituary because I've been out most of the day, mainly at an Antiques Fair at the Macron Stadium in Horwich, that's Bolton Wanderers' Football Ground for the uninitiated and those who don't give a monkeys about football. In fact I still haven't seen it because when I got back I put the TV on for the penultimate session of the snooker final. I'm only here now because the players are taking a break before the evening session and the inevitable victory, in my opinion, for Mark Selby over John Higgins, so that gives me an opportunity to catch up on the forum.

I didn't spend an awful lot but I did buy a batch of twelve issues of The Schoolgirl from 1938/39 for a tenner, an Answers Football Annual for the 1936/37 season for a fiver, and for £8 a pair of framed prints of coloured paintings, one of the sprint finish to the 2000 Guineas, the other of the Cambridgeshire, both of which took place in 1923. Very nice, and well worth the money. And before members ask, yes I am interested in horse racing, specifically the five English Classics, the 2000 Guineas for colts, the 1000 Guineas for fillies, both on a straight mile, the Derby for colts, although I think fillies are allowed to run in it, the Oaks for fillies, both a mile and a half at Epsom, and the St Leger for any colts and fillies that fancy the extra two furlongs.

I decided to drive back via Chorley, where I took some time out with a pint of John Smiths and the sports section of The Guardian before moving on to Bygone Times in Eccleston where I have a lifetime entrance ticket, which won't be a right lot of use to me when I go to Cornwall. Just three books from there to further clutter up the kitchen table, Iona Opie's A Dictionary Of Superstitions, Alan Garner's Book Of British Fairy Tales, and, under the general editorship of Paul du Noyer, the coffee-table volume Encyclopedia Of Singles. That's discs by the way not people without a partner. All reasonably priced and in great nick too.

P.S. There wasn't an obituary for Leo in yesterday's Sunday Post!!

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Re: Leo Baxendale

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Phoenix wrote:I am interested in horse racing, specifically the five English Classics
Just to clarify, I never place a bet on a horse race, which in my view is a mug's game. I simply challenge myself to figure out the winner of those five, by comparing the breeding of the competitors, their current form and that of their jockeys, with a certain amount of help from The Racing Post. I am reasonably successful. However, a cautionary tale. My late younger brother was making a fair amount of money from backing his selections so I asked him if he would put money on them for me too. He agreed so I gave him I think £50 for him to bet as he saw fit. It was a failure in an overall sense, and I believe to this day that the responsibility he felt not to lose my money led him at times to rethink his selections, his original choice winning rather than the replacement that he ended up backing. When the £50 was in the bookmaker's pocket we did not repeat the experiment.

DavidKW
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Re: Leo Baxendale

Post by DavidKW »

Small world, Phoenix!

I was there at the Antiques event at the Macron yesterday (bank holiday) too! Didn't find anything to buy though.

I have often gone to Macron Antiques, and was especially handy as I rented a room to live in not far from the ground (near Beehive pub). I have since recently moved - not as far as Cornwall, just to nearby Leigh (took bus down on Monday), largely due to illness.

I'm also a lifetime member on Buygone Times - reminds me I must go there again soon; last time I was there I walked all way there from Buckshaw (long story as to why) and back via farm roads (didn't buy anything).

I forgot to say - the word "Revolutionary" and "Innovator" I was trying to think of to describe Leo Baxendale, which he was to comic art.

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Re: Leo Baxendale

Post by Lew Stringer »

Phoenix wrote: P.S. There wasn't an obituary for Leo in yesterday's Sunday Post!!
That's not good. :(

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Re: Leo Baxendale

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DavidKW wrote:I was there at the Antiques event at the Macron yesterday (bank holiday) too! Didn't find anything to buy though.
I think it is quite difficult, David, not to find something to buy at such a major Antiques Fair. The one massive room and that extra parallel area which houses the cafe, allow for about 300 dealers' stands. They come from all over the place, in fact I'm surprised that you couldn't find anything on Joy Jones's stall. You can't have missed her. She's a really jovial, friendly woman who comes up from Stafford bringing her broad Brummie accent with her as well as an incredible mass and spread of comics and magazines from way back. She often has quite a lot to tempt me. She wasn't at the previous two events due to having had an operation for something or other, and yesterday, given that my comic requirements are relatively few, I found nothing that I needed. There were just two issues of Bunty but I have them already. In the past I have bought piles of issues of Scorcher, Score, and Valiant from her as well as D.C.T. comics.

As for Bygone Times, the lifetime tickets (Andrew also has one which I keep in my wallet) also authorise you to get into Botany Bay in Chorley free of charge, although you do have to pay for the children. In fact, a few weeks ago when Andrew brought Aurora and Kelsey up for a week at mine, we took them to Botany Bay, specifically to the Puddletown Pirates area. They loved it. Slides, trampolines, a ball park etcetera and lots of running about.
DavidKW wrote:last time I was there I walked all way there from Buckshaw (long story as to why)
Now that is a long walk, David. Wouldn't you have been better just walking to Euxton and getting a bus from there, or was it at night after the buses had stopped running? I'm guessing there's a woman in that story somewhere! :lol:

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philcom55
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Re: Leo Baxendale

Post by philcom55 »

Joy rang to say she'd be at the Stafford Boot Sale a couple of weekends ago, but unfortunately I couldn't make it. :(

DavidKW
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Re: Leo Baxendale

Post by DavidKW »

Funny thing is Phoenix, Joy Jones' stall is the first one I find when I visit the Macron; not bought anything off her as of yet...
I would always buy something at the antiques fair, if not comic related - only I also am on a budget and on limited storage space so can only spend on priority. I'd love to collect lots of old toy cars & football programs but I have limits; when I moved to my flat recently I'd collected so much stuff so some things had to be left (but not my comic collection. No way!).

DavidKW
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Re: Leo Baxendale

Post by DavidKW »

As for Bygone Times - yeah I know about the Botany Bay, have been a couple of times; not much use the free kids thing as I haven't any (never married, always ended up single) and no close family too.

I wish it had been over a girl (in a positive sense) walking from Buckshaw. I did pass through Euxton, but was going to wlak, partly so save money and partly as I needed walk to prove to myself I could do it and as therapy. Reason was I'd started a temp job in Buckshaw and bought a weekly train ticked, only to be told after 2 days not to come into workplace again (was long term; but I'd been stitched up by office politics - long story). Was sick as parrot and stuck with ticket so I decided to make use at end of week. Didn't buy anything at Bygone but did the stimulating walk over farm roads there and back; then took train to Chorley for some well earned real ales with money saved!

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stevezodiac
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Re: Leo Baxendale

Post by stevezodiac »

I bought every issue of the IPC Smash in the early seventies and always went straight to the Swots and the Blots. I remember being disappointed when a fill-in artist such as Terry Bave or Ian Knox drew it. Even though they added all the little dots and movement lines it obviously wasn't Baxendale. Thanks, Leo, for all those wonderful pages.

On the subject of betting I do two lines of six predictions on a football coupon on Saturdays and a few weeks ago I meant to put Liverpool down for an away win but went down a line in error and marked Southampton to win away instead. Also, I thought Exeter v Newport was a dead cert home win but accidentally marked it as an away win for Newport. Imagine my joy when all six results came up and I won £105.00 for my £2 stake.

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Re: Leo Baxendale

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I must go back to Chorley for a nostalgic visit to Astley Park before I trundle off to Hayle. As children my brother and I often went there with bags full of bread to feed the swans.

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stevezodiac
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Re: Leo Baxendale

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Obituary in Saturday's Times which I gave to my mate Steve at the ephemera fair the next day.

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Re: Leo Baxendale

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philcom55 wrote:Joy rang to say she'd be at the Stafford Boot Sale a couple of weekends ago, but unfortunately I couldn't make it. :(
Wow! Personal service, eh? I can't top that. The next Antiques Fair at the Macron is on Sunday 8 September, Phil. It would be good to meet there but I assume that by then I will be settled in a new place in Hayle. I certainly hope so, and we can always PM each other anyway.
DavidKW wrote:then took train to Chorley for some well earned real ales with money saved!
While I was wandering round Chorley last Sunday I walked part way up Chapel Street in the general direction of the railway station. It looked as if it was undergoing some serious refurbishment. I'm surprised it was open.

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dishes
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Re: Leo Baxendale

Post by dishes »

I'm kind of gutted not so much by his death, which comes to us all, but by the lack of mainstream attention. I know he wasn't a household name but I thought that he was was sufficiently a legend among those in the know that the news would get through that this was an important figure in British Art and Culture, not just comics. He wasn't featured on Radio 4's "Last Word" obituary show, for example.

I was going to say it seems to have gone totally unacknowledged by the American comics sites, but I see The Beat did cover the story. The Comics Journal simply linked to the Guardian pieces in their links round-up.

I wonder if his name would be more famous if he'd been allowed to sign his pages.
Is it weird to have no interest in keeping or collecting free gifts?

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Lew Stringer
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Re: Leo Baxendale

Post by Lew Stringer »

dishes wrote: I wonder if his name would be more famous if he'd been allowed to sign his pages.
Leo did sign his pages for Odhams, quite prominently, and his name was on his books and on his Baby Basil strip in The Guardian. Any lack of fame is down to the way the public and media in the UK regard comics (or rather disregard them). As Leo left mainstream comics in the mid-1970s, it's only older readers and journalists who would have seen his Beano/Wham/Smash work so that might account for it too.
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