Ex-Terrorvision frontman helps mark Barnoldswick school milestone

Ex-Terrorvision frontman Tony Wright, who now runs Oldfield Press and several pop-up art shops in Yorkshire, dropped into Barnoldswick Church School to present the finished products at the end of a six-month project with pupils.

Thanks to organisation by the “Friends of Church School”, Mr Wright was invited into school in September last year to help each child and staff member to design a commemorative poster to celebrate the school’s 130th anniversary.

All had to carefully prepare a wood block by writing their name in reverse and Mr Wright then went away to create the relief pattern by hand-cutting away areas of the block leaving just the characters needed to print on the poster at the original surface level.

In late March, Mr Wright returned to the York Street school with his press and children and teachers had the chance to ink the blocks to create the finished poster.

Emily Ariss, Chairman of the Friends of Church School, said: “He does workshops for schools and posters and it was his pop-up shop in Skipton which I came across.

“They are fantastic. He’s done more than 200 and its a very time consuming process which is why it has taken so long.

“We just thought because were coming to the end of our time where we are and it was a 130 years, it was a nice way to celebrate that.”

Each poster had four colours individually impressed onto paper prior to each name being printed at the school which meant Mr Wright had already put posters through the traditional printer 920 times before he reached Barlick.

Mr Wright, who had a number two hit with “Tequila” in 1998 when he was lead singer of Terrorvision, said: “I’ve always been creative. I got into printing as it is a way of being artistic with words, images and colour.

“Over the years, I’ve accumulated quite a collection of really old presses from the 1950s going back to the late 1800s and I’ve kept them going.

“Each child has now got an original piece of art that their hard work has created and a result that they are responsible for.”