“Little Milton” turns 50

Little Milton. That’s the nickname given to Gerald Bostock by the village of St Cleve, after he’d been presented with a poetry award when he was about 8. We’re given to understand that the award was revoked after he was heard uttering the word “g—-r” during a live television broadcast. [I’m not going to spoil it for you by telling you what he actually said. DM me on Twitter if you really want to know and can’t be bothered to find out. I’m @jobsworth over there.]

Gerald Bostock. The child prodigy who “wrote” the poem that formed the basis of one of the finest parody-concept-albums ever, Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick.

St Cleve. The village that published the paper that became the cover of the LP. If you look carefully, you may be able to recognise “Little Milton” receiving the award prior to it being revoked.

All that seems a very long time ago, because it was a very long time ago.

Gerald Bostock turned 50 earlier this year. He lied about his age in 1972.

How do I know that? Because the St Cleve Chronicle, Covering Linwell, St Cleve and Little Cruddock, has moved with the times, and is now purely online at stcleve.com.

Gerald has also moved with the times. He now has a Facebook page. A twitter account.

In fact, Gerald and St Cleve have outpaced Jethro Tull, whose web sites jethrotull.com and j-tull. com both appear to be showing the age of the band rather than the web.

But Ian Anderson, synonymous as he is with Jethro Tull, appears to have done all right. There’s a decent YouTube video out. And this metafilter post gives you a good idea of what else is happening. [Thank you @marxculture].

I first heard rumours about a “sequel” maybe eight or nine months ago. Started looking for information about a Jethro Tull tour immediately, and purchased my tickets for the April 27th concert six months ago. Now, with so much more known, I know I’m in for a real treat. The whole of the original Thick As A Brick. And the whole of the sequel.

I found out about the concert via a Ticketmaster alert, and bought the tickets via them. Was told about the way the story was unfolding via a community blog, the link for which was @messaged to me by a friend via Twitter. Wouldn’t have been able to write anything meaningful here except for Wikipedia.

Little Milton is 50. And how his world has changed.