Stanley's Cover Girls

Memories of my first day at Punch as library assistant are a series of impressions, like the first day at kindergarten. I was introduced to Stanley Reynolds after lunch, during a visit to the editorial floor. He'd been made Charivari editor in a recent reshuffle, which he didn't seem entirely happy about--but the occasion was all a bit of a blur and the thing I remember most is Stanley swaying around quite a bit as he held forth. At that stage I was still trying to put names to faces generally and was somewhat shy--in fact desperate to scuttle back to the library and hide behind the mammoth typewriter on my desk and try and look as if I knew what I was doing.

A week or so later Stanley came into the library to check me out further. He began by asking what books/writers I liked with that relentless Gatling gun delivery of his. A bit at a loss, staring into the depths of the filing cabinet drawer and half wishing it would swallow me up, I replied, 'Well, I like Shakespeare an awful lot--I guess because he's kind of cosmic'. 'Cosmic?!' Stanley spat out the word as only he could. I never really heard him swear much to be honest. As Punch's literary editor for most of the eighties, Stanley's book review section (indexed under the fusty title of 'criticism') was a cornucopia of engaging delights. He also had charisma in spades and any other card suit you care to mention. I recall a passing handyman (who had been fixing something on the editorial floor which Stanley may have broken) asking me, 'Who is that guy with the American accent, is he famous?' 

Stanley had been hired by Punch editor William Davis in the early seventies and was billed as 'the funniest man in England' or words to that effect. In the library, there were various mug shots of Punch staffers grouped together in frames. Stanley was rather proud of his photo, he thought it made him look like Peter Lawford (half of his face in shadow--very noir). 
He wasn't in the same frame as Miles Kington, who had joined Punch a decade earlier and shone out from his like a Botticelli angel surrounded by provincial bank managers. Years later, I came across a foolscap folder of MK correspondence including a letter from Stanley from the mid seventies--a very rambling letter scrawled in slightly fuzzy magenta felt tip. Miles had commissioned a piece from him, but Stan hadn't yet got round to doing it, his excuse being the domestic chaos at home, something to do with dead leaves blocking drains and all kinds of mishaps, one thing leading another and a sheer delight to read and yes, very funny. I placed it in Stanley's biographical archive file (which was somewhat thin) along with the 'Stop Thief!!!!!' handwritten note he left inside a copy of the Bookseller shortly after his departure as acting editor. 'What happened to Punch? I used to see it every week' was his parting shot. This file is now in the British Library along with the rest of the manuscript archive.

Anyway, to recap a bit--by September 1988, things were unravelling at Punch--the managerial suits had muscled in and there were concerns about circulation, advertising sales and the magazine's appeal to the right demographic. The editor David Taylor was summarily dispatched after a reign similar in length to poor Lady Jane Grey's. Taylor's deputy, Russell Davies didn't hang around for long and went back to the BBC, so it was up to Stanley to step up to the plate. With Cap'n Stan in charge, the covers got a radical makeover and a full page of short cartoon strips was introduced. The latter probably Michael Heath's idea (Heath and Stan very much a double act during this time.)
Below is the cover of Stanley's Almanack, the Punch end of year double issue. Yes, a cover with cleavage. Something of a style departure from the beginning of the year, when the new look Punch (re-launched in a dentist's waiting room) featured cover caricatures of Raisa Gorbachev and later Mrs Thatcher as an NHS mummy covered in bandages. The photo of Koo Stark is by Stanley's photographer pal, Bob Carlos Clarke. 

Stanley's Punch Almanack, Dec 1988. The suits liked the cover, I wonder why?

I'm rather fond of this issue, as nestling inside the back pages is my review of a now obsolete Chinese restaurant in Hove. No byline, but the cost of the meal was reimbursed when you sent in the receipt. Stanley seemed quite hungry for these ad-hoc reviews (no doubt handy page fillers, easy to slot in alongside classified ads) and soon everyone was having a go and I thought well, why not? So I screwed my courage to that sticking place and took my hastily typed review to his bat cave of a room where the only light source seemed to be a desk lamp, like something from a dental surgery, glaring over the keys of his bashed-up typewriter. He turned out to be delighted, like a dog with a juicy bone and my feeble copy was duly fed into his portable to be subbed--plenty to chew over. The title I had given it, 'Peking Order' earned me a growl and one of those looks, but it stayed, along with the mention of the sexy lingerie shop next door, a rather unnecessary detail. I think Stanley was a bit of a title maniac, so I am chuffed he didn't change it.

Below is another Stanley cover from January 1989 (Farewell my Bimbo!?) which makes use of yet another Bob Carlos Clarke glamour pic. Nice use of lipstick colours in the type and the trashy script over a stark black and white image. The naked blonde waif, fragile but feisty, staring out at us from from that louche era of smugly entrenched sexism and bulging filofaxes, almost makes you want to dial social services on her behalf. It is a particular favourite of mine and I love her discreet Mr Punch tattoo. 
On the cover there is also the mention of Thatcher's satanic railways.  Yes, not only was there the hazard of being late for work using public transport in those days, but also the likelihood of risking life and limb. Not sure what the handful of loyal subscribers (mostly retired accountants) thought of the rest of the content and whether they would have found the 'bimbo or slag?' guide as informative as those high court judges being educated about 'Felix the Cat' and 'Russian boots' in George Morrow's 1920's cartoon.

The Bimbo cover: Ms London or Girl About Town gone off the rails.

I attended Stanley's last lunch as editor (Jan 27th, 1989). I think Hunter Davies was there too, but he 'beatled off' early. Things got interesting after the cheese and biscuits--but my lips are sealed--what happens at a Punch lunch stays at the lunch. After Stanley left the Tudor Street office, it really felt like the end. Punch continued for three more years before being axed by United Newspapers in 1992, seven months after the magazine's 150th anniversary.


(Thanks to Andre Gailani of Punch Cartoon Library for the png of the Bimbo cover)