John Edward Cooper’s Notes
Drawings
Evidently, my Dad told me when I was little that he had sailed through the Red Sea. The picture seems to have started off as just being "At the Sea", with a sandcastle and a breakwater, but the location became the "Red Sea". The sun shines very brightly in that part of the world. The ship in the centre appears to be in danger from a whale with a devious grin. Has the ship to the right been sunk by a U-boat? I was disappointed, on finding this picture again after some years, that it does not depict any flying fish. Drawing by Chris Woodhead, which he appended to a letter, “perhaps 27 Oct. 1967”:  Jones, ca. 1968. I drew this in the Sixth Form Common Room at Fleetwood Grammar School, and until the 2000’s it was the only image of Jones that I possessed. The tracing of a wallpaper-pattern, used as background, dates from perhaps 1978 or 1979.  Patrick Byrne, B.Sc. (Wales)—known as “Rabbi”, perhaps from Rabbie Burns, Scotland’s favourite son (though Byrne himself was Welsh), and also known as “Sadist”, for obvious reasons—was my Chemistry teacher at Fleetwood Grammar School, 1967–1968. Knowing that I used to do caricatures of people and other sketches, his colleague John Cooper asked me to do a drawing for some demonstration or exhibition for parents. Byrne was aware of this, but hadn’t counted on my doing one of him! What’s more, I was doing it during his class, and he got quite exasperated at my repeated lack of concentration on his teaching.  Here is my drawing of John Cooper, done around the same time as the above one:  Roy Earnshaw was my Physics teacher at Fleetwood Grammar School, 1967–1968. He was referred to as “Mu-note” or “Mu-nowt” /ˌmjuːˈnəʊt/ especially by me and Diddy Rotheram, David Rotheram’s younger brother, because of his pronunciation of the Magnetic Constant µ₀, “Mu-nought” /ˌmjuːˈnɔːt/.  Brian “Gut” Edge, from Coppul near Chorley, was a fellow Electrical Engineering undergraduate (or student) apprentice with me, 1968–1970, at English Electric (Traction) Limited, Preston, and the University of Salford. He had started at English Electric as a technician apprentice, but had been upgraded to student.  There’s a delightful little sketch at the top right of this page of rough notes from 1969:   Some of the items in these two montages probably date from the mid-1970s, though some may be a bit later. I did the actual mounting of them, perhaps in 1990.   A charming little drawing from the late 1970s or early 1980s:  Impression of Jones, attacking with Albert. There are earlier, failed and crossed out, sketches of Jones visible on Albert. (Albert: See David Jones and First day of term of Fleetwood Grammar School: Jones meets Gooding.)  Impression of “Dads”, intended for, and finally used in John Edward Cooper’s Notes in, the story The Apple Incident:  Jobcentre colleagues, ca. 1983: Ian “Brock” Brocklebank (see also 1983: Photos of the Grimsby Jobcentres):  Alan Coates (thought by some to resemble Julio Iglesias) (see also 1983: Photos of the Grimsby Jobcentres):  Roger “Full Hips” Phillips:  People from Bethel Evangelistic Centre, who used to attend the prayer meeting at someone’s home, early 1990s (Top row: Mrs. Robinson, Naomi Lidgard, Mark Wooffindin, Richard Harris, Jim) (Bottom row: Pam Jackson, Joy Robinson née Lidgard, David Drury, Jean Drury):  |
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