Raymond Sheppard and Woman's Day

Woman's Day 7 June 1958 pp28-29

Firstly I apologise for the quality of the scans provided here. This is a rare item, so photos from bound volumes will have to do till I buy a copy of the magazine!

Christine Sheppard has a cutting pulled from a magazine with no name except the title of the very famous story: "The Snow Goose" by Paul Gallico. I noticed that there was a "motif" stating "A Woman's Day Cameo Book" on the page and set to searching. I then found a cover on eBay which showed that "Woman's Day" was, as suspected the title of the magazine and the cover here shows the idea of the "Cameo Book"

Woman's Day 10 May 1958 showing "Cameo Book"

Yesterday I searched in the British Library through the first volumes and found exactly where the following images were published!  

Woman's Day started publication on 22 March 1958 (and according to the British Library ran till 2 September 1961 = 173 issues). It's size was comparable to other glossies at the time - think Picture Post or Everybodys),  and has some beautiful illustrations by artists like Koolman, Uptton, Edwin Phillips, John Batchelor, Jack M. Faulks, Jack Matthew, and Leslie Caswell. But in a market that was flooded with women's magazines, the horizon was dark, not only with print strikes but amalgamations and takeovers so it's not surprising it merged with Woman's Own. 

But let's look at Raymond Sheppard's illustrations in the magazine - some of his last.

Woman's Day 30 May 1958

The previous week's magazine to the appearance of "The Snow Goose" trailed the coming event along with the usual content- knitting, fashion, cooking etc.  The idea of the "Cameo Book" was quite flexible, covering film adaptations ("The Song of Bernadette" with stills from the film) but some might have stills plus an illustration commissioned for the event. Others covered were "South Pacific" - yes, the musical, and "An Episode of Sparrows" which is the story adapted as "Innocent Sinners" starring Flora Robson and David Kossoff

Curiously Sheppard's signature appears on the first page of the story (and he is credited) but there are none on the others, including the unusually coloured double page shown at the start of this article.

Woman's Day 7 June 1958 p.25

Woman's Day 7 June 1958 p.27

Woman's Day 7 June 1958 p.30

On the novella's Wikipedia page, we are told: 

The Snow Goose: A Story of Dunkirk is a novella by the American author Paul Gallico. It was first published in 1940 as a short story in The Saturday Evening Post, after which he expanded it to create a short novella which was published on 7 April 1941. 

The Internet Archive has an illustrated (not by Sheppard) copy, if you want to read the book and Sir Laurence Olivier tells the story on YouTube - where other versions can be found to listen to. If you want to know more about the book Martin Benson's page on "The Snow Goose" is interesting

I have mentioned another Gallico story that Sheppard illustrated in one of my first blog articles on Sheppard

As an aside, yesterday after spending the day at the British Library I met some friends. At 7pm the pub rang a very loud ship's bell and announced the very sad news that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has died. One minute of silence followed in the middle of a usually very noisy pub on Euston Road- very strange but very moving. A day that will be remembered for a long time.