Gerald Bostock
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Gerald Bostock (born circa 1964) is the fictional author of the poem used as the lyrics for the 1972 Jethro Tull album Thick as a Brick. The album cover is designed to look like a small village newspaper, the St. Cleve Chronicle & Linwell Advertiser. The front page story describes how eight-year-old Gerald, nicknamed "Little Milton", received an award for his poem, but the award was revoked after he used the word "g__r" during a television broadcast. The paper also presents "Bostock's" poem in its entirety and notes that Jethro Tull has decided to use the poem as the centerpiece of their new album (also reviewed in the paper).
On the inside cover of the LP (Page 1 of the newspaper) there is an article entitled 'Little Milton in schoolgirl pregnancy row' which talks about a 14 year old girl named Julia Fealey (pictured on the front cover to Gerald's right) who blames her pregnancy on Gerald Bostock. The report continues stating that her doctor claims that the girl "was obviously lying to protect the real father."
Both Gerald Bostock and the poem were purely the inventions of Ian Anderson and the band, the blues musician Little Milton notwithstanding.
The child model who portrayed Gerald Bostock was André C. Le Breton from the Elizabeth Smith Agency; he also appeared in European TV commercials in the early 1970s, and modelled for Freemans clothing catalogues and Russelda knitwear amongst others. Currently he is a music producer and has directed films for bands such as Crass Agenda under the Le Chaos Factory monicker.
