Link to Black Lion 1
After our
jubilation at selling off every copy of the first issue it was time to
get to work on No. 2 after the Christmas holiday. However, despite Chris's
plea for more editors, who only had to fulfil three simple
conditions, i.e. to have read Issue 1, to be hard working and to
be fairly intelligent, none had been forthcoming.
A reasonable
amount of new material was drummed up following Chris's
exhortations in the first issue ("....do not be shy, have a go"),
although Chris, Mr. Johnson and another conspirator, Dave Cummins, were
ultimately responsible for half of the contents.
The sixth form
dance, which had for some reason been the target of recent ridicule, figured
prominently among the contributions. An anonymous two-page piece presumed
to have been written by Mr. Johnson entitled "Have you been
Psycho-Seduced?" was a penetrating study of the problems of adolescence
and the exploitation of teenagers by the music industry. By extension, the
psycho-seducers were deemed to have been at work at the dance; walking
along the beach the following day, Mr. Johnson "saw some young boys (i.e.
who had been at the dance) pottering among the flotsam and jetsam at the
water's edge, alive." The dance was also mocked by Chris in his
two-part "Dillon: The Facts".
As no
contributions had been received for the "Opinion" column, a collaborator
of mine and I ventured to ask a few "pertinent questions", namely
who the individuals were who organised the dance on 20th December 1968,
how many tickets were sold and how much money was taken, whether the
organisers had published a balance sheet ("it might be too late, but the
psycho-seducers amongst us must be brought, literally, to book") and
whether they had to pay for the hire of the hall. Signing under the pseudonym
"Vigilante" I submitted that the price of freedom is eternal
vigilance (a recurring Black Lion theme pinched from somewhere or
other) and that the profits from the dance should be used for the benefit of
the school.
All this really
came about though because this girl Marianne that I was mad on who worked in
Rumbelows in West Street didn't want to go to the dance with me and said she
was already going with someone else!
Along with this subjects
such as religion or anti-religion ("The Whole Truth"), the meaning
of progress, "phoney bourgeois capitalism", the futility of war
and for the first time environmentalism (Dave Cummins: "For trees were
not designed to fit into an age where concrete makes the streets")
were covered.
No. 2 hit
the streets around March and, like its predecessor, rapidly sold out.
The editor
problem had not yet however been solved. Chris wrote, again in his by
now typical patronising tone, in the editorial: "We are however
slightly annoyed that NONE of YOU morons has volunteered to become
an ASSISTANT EDITOR and we need TWO." When boys were not being
called morons, they were often referred to as cretins, though we felt this
might be going a bit too far for the editorial page ....
But by the time
planning was to start on no. 3 in early summer, a full Editorial Board
had amazingly been recruited seemingly from nowhere, consisting of Chris, Tim
Burchett, Nick Manley (amusingly mis-spelt "Manly"), William
Mahy and myself, together with the ubiquitous Mr. A.R. Johnson. We hardly
knew anything about Nick and Will apart from the fact that they
were in one of the lower forms, but they proved to be very helpful.
The editorial
included a renewed plea for contributions: "ANYONE may contribute but
they have to be GOOD. If you feel you can do as well, if not better, then HAVE
A GO." It concluded with the remark: "APATHY DAY has been cancelled owing
to lack of interest."
Again we didn't
have too much material to work with, but some of it was of undisputed
high quality, as witnessed by Ian Kenway's exposé of the hopelessness and
futility of war (in fact anti-war poems were very much in evidence in no. 3).
Together with
this was more light-hearted stuff such as an (almost illegible) reply to
Mr. Johnson's piece in no. 2 on adolescence and the sixth form dance,
likening him to one of the psycho-seducers whom he had so roundly
condemned, Mary Nekklis's Problem Corner, and a Black Lion Bumper Competition
on the last page (first prize: one bumper) in which one was supposed to
reply to a nonsensical question and write, in "no less than words":
"I think the Black Lion is dynamic because...". (We actually
received some replies.)
To underline the seriousness
of what we were doing, Chris insisted that the Board held
frequent meetings, which were not always attended by everyone and often
consisted of nothing more than a 20-minute session over a cup
of lukewarm tea about our financial situation, an expert discussion of
the latest contributions and whether or not to include them (we usually did,
due to lack of material). But a major change was on the way .....