Drawings exhibition featured in Chronicle

July’s exhibition at St Matthew’s is providing a nostalgic ramble down memory lane for many visitors. The late Harry Wright’s drawings for the cover of the Weeke Review became a distinctive mark of the parish, and many readers used to look forward to ‘the next cover’, not quite knowing what it would be.

Five-year-old Cleo Griffin never knew her great-grandfather, but she joined his three daughters and other members of the family at the launch of the exhibition on 1 July. Her favourite drawings from the exhibition were an Easter garden scene and one of Harry’s trademark montages, featuring both St Matthew’s and St Paul’s churches and four flower images.

Harry originally moved to Winchester to take up the post of Head of English at the new Henry Beaufort School. He and Pam had three daughters, Sue, Jane and Claire, who attended Western and Westgate schools. They remember the drawings and parish magazine covers being a collaborative family and parish activity.

Jane, who travelled from Belgium for the exhibition opening, explained, ‘In those days we used to have to print the magazines on a Gestetner machine using a “skin” to create multiple copies. We’ve each got lots of Dad’s drawings in our homes – mostly architectural pictures and landscapes. He always took his sketchbook on holiday and was still drawing until the time he was finally admitted to hospital.’

No one knows exactly how many magazine covers Harry created. But Maggie Brecknell, his Parish Visitor for several years, recalls a ‘wonderful, multi-talented man’.