Joshua Mowll
As a child
A vicar’s son, Joshua grew up in several vicarages until he was sent to boarding school aged eight. He says, “It was a draughty, gothic pile atop a remote hill on the Welsh borders, where we had porridge for breakfast every day. It was more like 1878 than 1978.” Joshua used to love art lessons, particularly drawing huge aircraft and military campaigns. He also loved sailing from an early age. “I remember going with my Great-aunt Becca one August when I was about eight, and being amazed that this frail, elderly woman could harness the power of the wind and tide with such effortless skill... That was one of the very few times I met her.”
As an adult
After going to art school, Joshua began to work in newspapers and has been a graphic artist for the Mail on Sunday since 1994. During that time, he has illustrated and drawn everything from maps, diagrams, space flights, medical procedures and aircraft crashes to Charlie Dimmock garden features, ancient pyramid theories, stealth bombers, invasions, SAS assaults and laser-guided weaponry... Josh’s other interests include sailing and tinkering about with old Landrovers.
As an artist
Joshua didn’t think about writing until after he’d worked in newspapers for some years. “I’d always imagined writers as being exceptional, godlike intellectuals, until I actually met a few and read some of their unedited copy!” When Joshua inherited the Honourable Guild of Specialists archive from his great aunt, he knew that the material had to be published. He says, “the complexity and number of the documents has taken some time to arrange into a publishable form. It’s almost like trying to reassemble an odd assortment of mechanical parts into a working engine, (but without any kind of manual!)”
Things you didn't know about Joshua Mowll
- Joshua’s famous ancestors include William Harvey, the first scientist to demonstrate the circulation of blood in 1628, and Anne Boleyn, the unfortunate wife of King Henry VIII!
- Joshua’s great-great-uncle, Howard Mowll, was Bishop of Western China. In 1925 he was kidnapped by Chinese bandits, who smashed their way into his bedroom with a steel pike shouting ‘Kill! Kill!’.
- Joshua loves to sail with his eccentric half-uncle Crispin, aboard his ageing boat Gibber, although every year, less and less of the vessel’s vital parts and fittings work.
- To help recreate the lost world of the 1920s for Operation Red Jericho, Joshua started working and writing in the stunning Reading Room of the British Museum (seat S9).
- His earliest most exciting moment was watching the Imperial Star Destroyer fly overhead in the opening scene of Star Wars in 1977.
- His favourite gadget is his deadly accurate Silva compass, which he’s used to climb mountains and walk moors.
- He hated games and said his greatest achievement at boarding school was dodging sports.
- His boarding school had a variety of extraordinary punishments – one such was stone-picking: filling a bucket with stones from the playing fields! (Character-building stuff!)
- He’s not at all convinced by the scientific theory about how thunder and lightning are generated.
- He likes breaking Landrover gearboxes.