Picture of Econasign stencil kit borrowed from here, where you can buy!
I referred, in my late February 1976 piece, to my first publishing experience, a chedar paper which we called Shalom. My diary for the next few weeks goes on about it a lot. Example, the first week or so of March:
Monday 1 March 1976 – all ok. TV Ask The Family, worked on Shalom.
Tuesday 2 February 1976 – rugby, good. Got Shalom going. Played bridge.
Wednesday 3 February 1976 – CCF, hard. TV film [Ride, Vaquero!], Man About The House, Dave Allen.
Thursday, 4 March 1976 – drama, good. TV World At War, When The Boat Comes In.
Friday, 5 March 1976 – music, good. TV Sale Of the Century, Liver Birds, Steptoe & Son, Open All Hours.
Saturday, 6 March 1976 – all ok, rugby. v good TV Doctor Who, New Faces, Hawaii 5-0 film [Murder Eyes Only], Upstairs Downstairs
Sunday, 7 March 1976, Shalom great. TV, Now Who Do You Do? There’s A Girl In My Soup
Monday, 8 March 1976. All OK. Got stencil. TV, Ask The Family.
That Econosign stencil kit (see headline picture) had a profound effect on my projects from then on in. Of course we used it for the Shalom paper. I used it for all of my school projects to make covers and the like. And we used it for the animated film projects that were to come hot on the heels of the “newspaper” project.
On reflection, this gift was a hand-me-down from dad, who, in turn, might well have inherited it as a hand-me-down from the family business when he started his business. Or perhaps dad actually bought it. He was the commercial artist of the family after all.
Anyway, I loved it and struggled to part with it years later when it became obvious that its purpose for me and my family was done.
Lovely to have it brought back to mind by the simple statement in my diary, “got stencil”.
Tuesday, 9 March 1976 – rugby good. TV Warship, Pro-celebrity Golf, Rock Follies.