Mapledurham Watermill Damaged by Vandal

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

https://planetradio.co.uk/planet-rock/news/rock-news/black-sabbath-mapledurham-watermill/?fbclid=IwAR2DK8H3n_clwkUYq5hG0u0wJFD1abhNvF-3QF9MRpMeEWcQvn2BHGQf_g4

Black Sabbath album cover location Mapledurham Watermill damaged by vandals
A group of teenagers have been linked to the vandalism

Mapledurham Watermill, the building that featured on the cover of Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut album 52 years ago, has been vandalised.

Arguably one of the defining images in the history of heavy metal, Mapledurham Watermill in Oxfordshire features as the backdrop on Black Sabbath’s seminal 1970 debut album ‘Black Sabbath’, with an enigmatic woman wearing a black cloak standing in the foreground.

According to the BBC, all of the windows of Mapledurham Watermill were smashed on Sunday evening (14th August) and there was also significant damage to some of the wooden frames.

Five boys and one girl have been linked to the vandalism, all aged between 15 and 16 years old. Police believe that the mill was damaged at around 17:25 BST on Sunday.

Dating back to the 15th Century, the Grade II listed Mapledurham Watermill is located on the banks of the River Thames in Oxfordshire.

It also featured prominently in the 1976 World War II movie 'The Eagle Has Landed', however it’s most famous for being used on the cover of Black Sabbath’s debut record.

For decades there's was an air of mystery around the woman on the sleeve, however in a February 2020 interview with Rolling Stone, photographer Keith McMillan revealed it was a woman called Louisa Livingstone who was around 18/19 at the time of the shoot.

Sourced from a London model agency, McMillan remembered: "She was a fantastic model. She was quite petite, very, very cooperative. I wanted someone petite because it just gave the landscape a bit more grandeur. It made everything else look big."

Livingstone told the magazine: "When I saw the cover, I thought it was quite interesting, but I thought, 'Well, that could be anybody,' so it's not like I got any kind of ego buzz out of it. But, yeah, I thought it was a very nice cover."

Back in 2021, children's TV presenter Mr Tumble filmed a segment of his show outside the legendary mill, causing much mirth in the rock world.

[Zzzptm]

It's always disappointing when kids do things without considering the consequences. A few seconds of fun in exchange for a much longer period of realizing they should have done something else...

[Charger]

It's so sad...but also it begins to be a trend with kids nowadays to destroy everything they can...fruits of the free parenting I guess...back in the day when parents still showed some discipline kids weren't so fucked up...but these are the times.

[Zzzptm]

It's so sad...but also it begins to be a trend with kids nowadays to destroy everything they can...fruits of the free parenting I guess...back in the day when parents still showed some discipline kids weren't so fucked up...but these are the times.

Kids are always kids... lots of parents who "showed discipline" were just better at keeping things quiet or justifying "it was all in good fun" when it wasn't. And I've heard plenty of stories that ended in "we got such a whipping!", indicating the threat of the whipping was insufficient to deter misbehavior on that occasion or on future incidents.

[Typhon]

It's so sad...but also it begins to be a trend with kids nowadays to destroy everything they can...fruits of the free parenting I guess...back in the day when parents still showed some discipline kids weren't so fucked up...but these are the times.

Kids are always kids... lots of parents who "showed discipline" were just better at keeping things quiet or justifying "it was all in good fun" when it wasn't. And I've heard plenty of stories that ended in "we got such a whipping!", indicating the threat of the whipping was insufficient to deter misbehavior on that occasion or on future incidents.

I don't here stories that end with "we got such a whipping, again!"

[Zzzptm]

It's so sad...but also it begins to be a trend with kids nowadays to destroy everything they can...fruits of the free parenting I guess...back in the day when parents still showed some discipline kids weren't so fucked up...but these are the times.

Kids are always kids... lots of parents who "showed discipline" were just better at keeping things quiet or justifying "it was all in good fun" when it wasn't. And I've heard plenty of stories that ended in "we got such a whipping!", indicating the threat of the whipping was insufficient to deter misbehavior on that occasion or on future incidents.

I don't here stories that end with "we got such a whipping, again!"

Most folks don't use that adverb, "again" in their anecdotes. But when there was more than one tale told by a person with "such a whipping" involved, then one may have been totally unaware, but the other was done with knowledge aforethought.

I taught at a school where corporal punishment was administered to students. Paperbacks were very popular at that school, especially when students had new teachers who didn't ask them to empty pockets. That was just one such mitigating tactic for corporal punishment. At other schools I worked at, there were kids who could mentally brace themselves for whatever was coming and then do the deed that got that punishment. That's why I always left my punishments to their imaginations. I let their fear of the unknown work for me. I also like to deflect and often I wrote up a kid, but not with a discipline referral, but with a referral to see a counselor or school psychologist or school conflict resolution specialist. They would get a full head of steam about how what they did was certainly not worthy of a trip to the office. I'd catch them totally off-guard with an "I agree" and tell them where I sent them instead. Without exception, they got help that they needed and were less of a discipline issue from that point forward.

With my own three children, there's an direct relationship to the number of times I spanked them and the number of times they got into trouble at school or a friend's house. The less I spanked, the less likely they were to get into trouble.