Saturday, 15 February 2025

Half Term Hols & a home movie - Feb 16 & 17 1975

This spread (which you can find in the My 1975 Diary 2025 Calendar, which is still on sale, and getting less and less relevant by the day) sees me preparing to make a movie called Blunderbirds. Something under that title did eventually surface, and somewhere I have the VHS copy of the 8mm film from the time. But my plans of the time, which included space rockets and animation, scripts and costumes, in some sort of Thunderbirds parody, came to little. We ended up doing something that we made up as we went along, with whichever friends were available to play on the day.

Here's the nearest I can find to Blunderbirds, an adventure made the same year called The Blackmailers, starring Jude and her friend Alison from across the road.


My Records For The Day were The Queen of 1964 by Neil Sedaka, and one I have no memory of, My Man and Me by Lynsey DePaul.




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Wednesday, 8 January 2025

Mr Curtis and winning a bar of soap - Jan 9 & 10 1975

This spread (which you can find in the My 1975 Diary 2025 Calendar, which is still on sale, and getting less and less useful by the day) has me drawing a new student teacher, Mr Curtis, who my drawing makes look about forty. I wonder if he ever saw this drawing, and if he would have been flattered. History, ie me, doesn't say. We also learn that Mark Vickery, who went on to be a professional golfer, won a bar of soap in a competition at Scouts.

My Records For The Day were classics by Status Quo and Kevin Johnson, both of which still sound good fifty years later.



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Wednesday, 1 January 2025

"Continued from last year" - Jan 1 & 2 1975

And so we come to that time where My 1970s Diary is giving us a window to half a century ago. I started the diary in the summer of 1974, and those early pages might be fun to look at sometime. But 1975 was the first full year captured by my diary, and the year in which it developed its distinctive style. 

As you can see in the dozen spreads that I've put into My 1975 Diary 2025 Calendar (on sale now), the diary goes on to record my growing love of comics. As we can see here, I'd already started drawing my own. I'm on the 16th issue of my own Planet Of The Apes comic, which I really must dig out and share some day.

Given the chance to watch TV all day, while drawing comics and fillling in this diary at the same time, certainly seems to appeal to me. Read a book child! Oh dear, too late I fear.

My Records For The Day are mostly forgotten items, the like of which you might find in a charity shop but won't hear on the radio these days.






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Monday, 18 November 2024

My 1975 Diary - 2025 Calendar On Sale Now


Anyone who's enjoyed reading excerpts and images from my teenage diary will be delighted to learn that MY 1975 DIARY is available as a 50th Anniversary Calendar for just over a tenner.

12 double page spreads from Kev F's Picture Diary 1975, each from the month in question in 1975, for your wall-hanging pleasure.

See the TV I enjoyed, the comics I read, the music I loved, and how amazingly little went on in the actual life of a 13 year old in Leicestershire in the 1970s.

On sale now, order in time for the Christmas rush: https://www.lulu.com/shop/kev-f-sutherland-and-kev-sutherland/my-1975-diary/paperback/product-q65ey2k.html




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Saturday, 20 January 2024

Snow and faded Banda - Jan 19 & 20 1978

My heavily decorated Picture Diary was on its last legs by this stage, January 1978. I was 16 years old, and working towards my O levels that summer. I was also getting more serious about writing and drawing comics, and it was possible that things might actually start happening in my life. Or not, it certainly doesn't make a riveting read yet. Okay, it snowed. That was quite a big deal.

The illustrations have, appropriately, faded too. They were from Banda, the school magazine which I edited and produced most of. It was run off on a Banda machine, which produced a weedy purple ink, with a smell much stronger than its actual permanence. These images have almost gone, haven't they? I should imagine the next time I look at these pages they'll have evaporated forever.

They're from a strip called The Hawk, co-written by me and Steve Noble when I'd visited him in Bristol over the Christmas and New Year period, and drawn by me through the novel method of pressing hard with a biro so you could make an impression on a carbon/purple copy sheet below. The type had to be hammered through, on a manual typewriter, on the same carbon paper sheet, with no scope for error.

Try and tell the kids today the effort we had to go to to see something in print, and they won't believe you.

My Record For The Day was new at the time, though it's hard to imagine that ever being the case.
 


My Books and where to get them:

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Amazon

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  
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Friday, 19 January 2024

6 Million Dollar Man & er that's it - Jan 19 & 20 1976

My, someone had a whole load of nothing much going on in his life when he was 14 years old. January 1976 and you'd be hard pressed to find a less interesting couple of days of diary. A nifty, if lop sided, attempt at drawing The Six Million Dollar Man by me, and it looks like Fawlty Towers was being given a re-run which would mean me seeing it for the first time.

My Records For The Day were the long-forgotten follow up to Motorbiking by Chris Spedding (who must have been meeting the Sex Pistols for the first time about now), and Sgt Pepper, which I think I had recently bought with my Christmas money.

 




My Books and where to get them:

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Amazon

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  
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Wednesday, 17 January 2024

Me In A Spoon & Under A Shower - Jan 17 & 18 1975


Excitement of excitement, something actually happens in this diary, and I even try and draw it. This is from the early days of what I called my Picture Diary, when I honestly thought I was going to make a comic strip of my life. Sadly this was as eventful as it ever got: me being pushed under a shower fully clad at Scouts, then having to walk home, and me drawing myself in the back of a spoon.

My fascination with what I was watching on TV was clearly worth spending more time over, with episode four of Doctor Who in Robot getting the full treatment, along with cameos from Jennie Hanely, Ed Stewpot Stewart, and Black Beauty. And, for no obvious reason, The Lone Ranger.

My Records For The Day were a couple of classics from Stevie Wonder and the Bay City Rollers.




My Books and where to get them:

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy - Kindle
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 
Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Amazon

Richard The Third - Amazon - Etsy - Barnes & Noble - Waterstones

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy - Webtoons
The Book Of Esther - Lulu  - Amazon - Webtoons
Captain Clevedon - Amazon
Tales Of Nambygate - Amazon  
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