PREFACE
For me the Sixties were the happiest decade in my life!
In the summer of 1960 I had at long last left school forever and started to enjoy the summer holidays ahead. Beyond that halcyon interlude was the wonderful prospect of starting at Beckenham Art School where its pupils and staff were from both sexes (unlike school) and frequently interacted with each other on many different levels.
The entire four year duration at Beckenham, and Ravensbourne College of Art later, was of fully creative freedom, experimentation and a fair amount of adolescent frivolity (the very opposite to school in fact).
Then, in the autumn of 1964, the same atmosphere continued when I worked in an advertising agency as a film poster artist in London's "Swinging Sixties" where everything was very relaxed and enjoyable.
Eventually that experience gave me enough confidence to become a freelance illustrator, specialising in book cover designs. This coincided with "the Summer of Love" in 1967.
In fact, it was in the autumn of that year that Science Fiction novels became my forte, illustrating for the New English Library; which included blockbuster novels like Stranger in a Strange Land as well as the legendary Dune before the year was out! In the following year, happily, this success continued as other publishers like Corgi Books and Panther were eager to employ my talents on their covers as well.
This bountiful bonanza continued through to 1973 when my own personality (in step with the introspective 1970s) began to be more inward looking, finding solace not in parties, clubs and boutiques any more, but more inclined towards museums, religious lectures and occult bookshops.
This transition could best be exemplified in one picture - the photograph that accompanied my first interview as a "Science Fiction & Fantasy Artist" in NEL's groundbreaking magazine Science Fiction Monthly in January 1974.
The entire picture is crammed with an abundance of peculiar items, including religious posters on the wall and a set of shelves populated with an assortment of weird objects - like a tiny alien with his own spaceship, a madonna-like robed figurine, as well as other ecclesiastic paraphernalia.
On the easel in the foreground is a semi-finished painting that combined both the religious with the scientific in a scene of almost apocalyptic intensity.
In fact, the iconography would easily appeal to those who believe that Ufology is a form of religion in itself.
The blending of the two subjects is what was on my mind at that particular moment in time, between 1973 and 1974.
Bruce is currently unwell and is postponing further contributions to this page
