Cheshire Life Covers Story Nine Decades, Nine Covers

The following commentaries are adapted from a feature written by English Language lecturer Dr Matt Davies for the 90th anniversary (May 2024) edition of Cheshire Life – one front cover per decade. Scroll through the covers below to see Cheshire Life through the ages.

April 1935 – The charm of Old Cheshire. From its launch in May 1934 until February 1936, the Cheshire Life cover was printed in this sepia monotone and labelled ‘The official journal of the Cheshire Publicity and Industrial Development Council’, costing sixpence. Charming images of rural landscapes with sheep, horses, hunting dogs and quaint buildings predominate in these early issues. This April 1935 cover is striking, as much as anything, because of the mystique of the image of a woman carrying a metal bucket underneath a crooked leafy tree, foregrounded against what looks like a whitewashed building. The caption – ‘The Charm of Old Cheshire’ -gives nothing away about its whereabouts. It could be mistaken for a Mediterranean setting, with no clues as to where this was taken in the Contents page. If anyone can confirm the whereabouts of this setting, we’d be delighted to hear from you!
October 1946 – Kelsall country path scene. Spot colour was introduced in March 1936 and continued to frame beautiful and often atmospheric monochrome photographs until the early 1950s. This October 1946 cover, entitled ‘Autumn’s carpet near Kelsall, Cheshire’, captures a woman and child alone on a leaf-bedecked country path, framed by trees growing out of the side of a steep incline. It has the aura of a European art movie! By this stage the cover price had tripled from threepence to ninepence and the magazine was marketed as ‘Cheshire Life, And its Border Counties’ (later revised to ‘Border Counties Magazine’).
November 1957 – Manley Morris Dancers. The Manley Morris Dancers were formed in 1934, the year which also gave birth to Cheshire Life. Now with a full colour front page, and with a revised elaborate script-style font for its masthead, this photograph epitomises Cheshire traditions and customs. Gawsworth Old Rectory, south of Macclesfield, with its distinctive black-and-white ‘Tudor style’ design is the scene for the Morris dancers performing a traditional Cheshire form of the dance. The caption on the inside cover explains how this is “a version that has been peculiar to Manley – a village near Northwich – since medieval times”. Earlier in the year they were chosen to represent England at a folk-dancing festival in Norway and in 1953 they had won the international folk-dancing championship at Llangollen’s International Eisteddfod. The cover price has now doubled since 1946 to one shilling and sixpence (eighteen pence).
November 1964 – Sandbach market scene. This lovely photograph of Sandbach marketplace captures the archaic and the modern in one beautiful shot. Market traders still using a horse and cart to transport their wares are foregrounded against the characteristic black-and-white buildings. The white estate car behind the white horse signifies the rapid pace of technological development by the mid-1960s. The girl patting the horse and the two men chatting adds extra life to the photo. The caption on the inside cover describes the marketplace as “one of the most ‘mediaeval’ small towns in the county, despite its dangerously close proximity to Crewe [!]. Its greatest archaeological fame lies in its Saxon crosses which are thought to be at least 1300 years old”. After being restored and re-erected in 1816 they remain “symbols of Saxon piety and scholarly patience”. Note how the masthead is now a blocky modern sloping font which is superimposed over the image, and the price has gone up to 2/6.
December 1978 - Xmas scene at Great Budworth. ‘Christmas at Great Budworth’ is one of many commissioned works which have graced Cheshire Life covers. This classic Xmas card style scene shows Cheshire folk of all ages enjoying the snow in the vicinity of St Mary and All Saints Church, some of which dates back to the 14th century. It was painted by celebrated Polish-born watercolourist Albin Trowski who died in 2012, aged 93. According to his son Michael, despite a traumatic period in the army during the war, Albin “remained a man of great optimism who loved people and life and his work was often infused with affectionate humour”, as this cover demonstrates. He regularly provided illustrations for county magazine Yorkshire Life. Note another shift in masthead style and the change to decimal currency. The inflation crisis of the mid-70s meant that the cost of Cheshire Life was now 50p, or ten shillings, a four-fold increase since the mid-60s.
September 1989 – Frodsham market. Frodsham market is the cover feature for September 1989, depicting a fruit and veg salesman juggling oranges, one of only a few ‘action’ shots on Cheshire Life front pages. The name of the photographer is not provided but given that this was still in the pre-photoshop era it would have taken great skill to capture those oranges in mid-flight with no blur. The masthead has taken on a more traditional style in bold ‘serifed’ capital letters and now costs a three-figure sum – 100 pence! A barcode in the bottom right signals significant technological developments.
June 2007 – Nantwich canal. A classic Cheshire barge summer scene on Nantwich canal at the Hurleston junction, a series of locks stretching out towards what is presumably Peak District hills in the far distance. An idyllic setting with people holidaying on barges and relaxing at the edge of the canal. By now it is standard magazine practice to superimpose teasers of what’s on the inside pages. And it couldn’t get any more Cheshire than ‘Romantic Chester’, ‘Lymm’s Sooty connection’, ‘Cheshire Show preview’, ‘Why you should move to Congleton’, ‘Dodleston treasure hunters, ‘Sandbach transport festival’, ‘Bramhall, Frodsham, Macclesfield, Wynbunbury’. Tradition and modernity contrast at the bottom of the page where ‘Centenary polo at Little Budworth’ sits alongside ‘Bowdon Hip Hop champ’! The Cheshire Life web address under the masthead indicates we are in a new millennium, as does the cover price of £3.20.
November 2016 – ‘Blaze of glory’ stag. A stunning photograph of the silhouette of a stag engulfed with the orange glow of autumn. The ‘Blaze of Glory’ headline is promoting a guide written by Cheshire Wildlife Trust’s Katie Piercy advising readers to take a stroll in the woods to marvel at “trees bursting forth in new colours”. The masthead has shifted away from its condensed capitals to shorter lower case, more rounded letters. The price has increased by a pound to £4.20 since 2007 but at 332 pages, worth every penny.
Aug 2020 – Lovell Telescope. Jodrell Bank’s Lovell Telescope is featured on several Cheshire Life covers over the decades. This one perfectly encapsulates the synchronicity between nature and science, land and sky, past and future. The spirit of the photo harks back to the infancy of Cheshire Life when editorials sought to promote industrial growth without compromising the agricultural economy that is fuelled by rural Cheshire. In keeping with this, the ‘Your County Needs You’ heading promotes a campaign to support local business during the Covid pandemic. When it seemed that the worst of the pandemic was over, current editor Joanne Goodwin urged readers to “keep life local” because “those independent businesses that have once again proven to be the backbone of our communities face an uphill struggle”.
May 2024 – 90th anniversary cover. Cheshire Life commissioned illustrator Stephen Millership to create the commemorative 90th anniversary cover for the May 2024 issue. Editor Joanne Goodwin says: “The image mixes the past and the present, while looking towards the future, with a 21st-century couple and an imaginary Cheshire scene that shows some of the county's landmarks including Little Moreton Hall, the Sandbach Crosses, White Nancy, Chester Cathedral, the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank, Quarry Bank Mill and the Cage at Lyme Park. It's one of my favourite front pages and seems to sum up the best of what we do at Cheshire Life, and of the county.”