Vole magazine, 1977-80

A good friend of ours (Richard L.) has donated a near-complete set of Vole magazine. This was a monthly that ran from 1977 to 1981, and ours goes from the first edition to the end of 1980.

A lengthy editorial in its first issue explains what Vole was about: it was ‘environmentalist’ and ‘conservationist’, offering alternatives to the mantras of consumption and growth. Its approach was to be irreverent, to not take itself too seriously, and the result was an editorial-rich snapshot of green thinking and the promotion of ideas and expressions which (for the most part) are now mainstream. It claimed from the outset that it was politically neutral, but members of the then newish Ecology Party (later to become the Greens) would surely have been reading it with great interest.

Vole was founded by the journalist Richard Boston, with Terry Jones from Monty Python putting up funding. At 60 pence, it competed against the more earnest Ecologist magazine (1970 to 2009 in print form). In late 1980 Vole disappeared for a few months to reappear in newspaper format, by which time the covers were in cheaper paper and the end was nigh.

Why ‘Vole’? I’m still not entirely sure. It opens, tongue in cheek, by saying it is the first magazine which ‘aims to speak for voles everywhere’. Its later editor Richard North writes elsewhere that it was going to be called the Questing Vole – this was a phrase used by the fictional character William Boot in Evelyn Waugh’s 1938 book Scoop.

With so much editorial there aren’t many ads! And apart from the cover, it was entirely in black and white. Even so, the first edition carries ads for other environmental publications (including the Ecologist), Friends of the Earth, cheese, vegetarian restaurants, beer and whisky – the back cover is for Guinness. Subsequent back covers were for Punch magazine, Schweppes ‘Russchian’, more cheese, and Friends of the Earth. Idly flicking through, there’s a lovely ad for British Rail, and to my surprise, one for Barclays Bank, keen to shout about their donations to environmental groups.

Its tenure was brief, and before today I had never heard of Vole, but this was an important magazine which helped promote and normalise radical ideas. Come and visit us if you’d like to see Vole.