The extended Commando team were asked to open the exhibition of
Commando art on display at the Gordon Highlanders Museum in
Aberdeen. We've drawn together some of the photographs taken on the
day to give you a flavour of the event.
Hope you enjoy them.
Commando CO
At the entrance to the museum, Ian Kennedy's piper is there to
lead you into the action.
The "Press and Journal" corridor leads you towards the
exhibition's main room along a timeline of Commando covers.
At the end of the corridor in the Hamilton Room, actual size
artwork rubs shoulders with some oversize prints of our covers.
On the left is the very first Commando cover, 51 years old. All
the covers in the Hamilton Room were desert themed to match the
exhibiton items celebrating the Gordons' part in the Battle of El
Alamein.
Fact and fiction mix in the Hamilton Room's display cases.
Commando mastheads and titles in an array of colours sit
alongside foreign langauge versions of the stories while just
along the case sit medals and photographs of real veterans.
Two Commando veterans check out their past battles in the
Hamilton Room's reading area. Gordon Livingstone and Ian Kennedy
are two of the handful of men without whom Commando would not be
what it is today.
After a lively question and answer session, the team got out
their pens to do some signing.
The CO even managed some joined-up writing.
The Museum's Education Officer gets some tips on drawing from
Gordon Livingstone. (We think.)
From the left: Grant Wood, Graphic Designer; Scott Montgomery,
Deputy Editor; Calum Laird, current Editor; Ian Kennedy, Artist;
George Low, former Editor; Gordon Livingstone, Artist.
Curator Jesper Ericsson and the CO chat as Ian Kennedy casts an
expert eye over the timeline of framed covers.
To end, here's THAT dagger, the Fairbairn-Sykes Fighting Knife,
rendered for Commando covers from 1961 onwards.
All photographs courtesy HE Semmens
