The White Girl

June-Alison and Jennifer Gibbons, “The”—supposedly!—“Silent Twins”, were discharged from Broadmoor Hospital on March 9 1993, and were taken to Caswell Clinic. That same evening, on the way to that Clinic, Jennifer was taken to G+D. June-Alison remained at Caswell Clinic until March 18,1994, when she was discharged to a ‘half-way house’. On 16 September 1994, she started to draw a series of portraits of her Belovèd Jennifer—22 of them—and added a profoundly moving and beautiful poem, proem, or message to Jennifer at the bottom of the portrait. She also drew 2 other pieces in the same sketchbook. She completed it between January and February 1995. For reasons that June-Alison explains in her introduction, she called the sketchbook The White Girl. Whilst staying with us in Hastings to attend the Jack In The Green festival in May 2023, June-Alison very generously made a gift to David Tibet and Ania Goszczyńska of the original sketchbook of The White Girl. Cashen’s Gap are OverMoon to publish our most beautiful book yet—The White Girl by June-Alison Gibbons. The book is risograph printed with soy-based inks by Unit 33 studios. As with all Risograph prints, every copy is unique, with its own idiosyncrasies and character. Each copy is individually signed by June-Alison, and also comes with a bookplate signed and numbered by her, and a facsimile of a poem by June-Alison about Jennifer. The book is bound in black vintage cloth, with black endpapers, a spot-varnished title on the front endpaper, with front-board, back-board, and spine blocked in white, and with head- and tail-bands. It has a full-colour jacket, with a photograph of June-Alison and Jennifer together taken whilst they were at Broadmoor. Each copy is accompanied by a one-sided white 7" lathe record by C93 and June-Alison, with their song “A Black Girl’s Blues For The White Girl”, cut by The Bricoleur at Bladud Flies!, and housed in a brown paper sleeve reproducing 2 drawings by June-Alison of the C93 line-up for this record: June-Alison, David Tibet, and Andrew Liles. Each record is stamped by David with an indelible black-inked rubber-stamp which reproduces a drawing of June-Alison and Jennifer by June-Alison. 111 copies of this book and record have been made, of which 93 copies are for sale.