This cache is a Letterbox Hybrid geocache. It is one of a series highlighting interesting individuals from a variety of fields who once lived behind the featured letterboxes. Many thanks to tundra70 for allowing me to contribute to this new series.
The final cache is not at the published co-ordinates but you will need to visit them to get some information that will help in taking you to the final location.
John Gilroy, or to give him his full name, John Thomas Young Gilroy (1898 – 1985), was a portrait and landscape painter in oils and watercolours, poster designer and art teacher. Some accounts show him as born in Whitley Bay but, his birth was registered in Newcastle and he was baptised at St Ann’s Church on City Road, Newcastle. He was the son of John William Gilroy (1868 – 1944) who was himself a talented landscape, marine and portrait artist. It was during his childhood that John lived with his parents and siblings in Heaton.
In 1916, Gilroy, junior, enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery serving in France and later, in Palestine, on the staff of Lawrence of Arabia. After the First World War, he took up a scholarship at the Royal College of Art where he later taught. It was while he was at the Royal College of Art that he worked on the first of many Royal portrait commissions: Edward, Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII.
In 1928, he joined Benson’s Advertising Agency who won the Guinness account and for the next thirty-five years Gilroy held the career for which he is most commonly recognised publicly devising advertisements and posters for the brewery company. It was he who devised some of the most memorable images in advertising such as the man with the girder (Guinness for Strength) and the Toucan (Guinness is Good for You).
During the Second World War he produced posters for the Ministry of Information with slogans such as Careless Talk Costs Lives and Dig for Victory.
Despite his considerable work as a commercial artist, he was much in demand as a portrait painter and also painted many landscapes during his holidays in Spain, Portugal and other European countries. He exhibited widely during his life.
John Gilroy died at Guildford in 1985, aged 86, and is buried in Gloucestershire near to where his son and grandchildren lived.
To calculate the final co-ordinates:
Above the front door at the published co-ordinates, you should see, in inverted commas, a wartime slogan. The number of words in the slogan = U
Walk up the street towards the former Victoria Library and turn right at the corner. Walk approximately 35 paces and turn right. About 20 paces down the lane is a telegraph pole with a horizontal string of letters and numbers. Ignoring the letters, note the numbers, DPVWWX. Opposite the telegraph pole is a street light with a vertical string of numbers and a letter. Again, ignore the letter but note the numbers YEVZW.
Checksum for U to Z = 25
The final co-ordinates for the cache are: N54 58.(X+V)(U-Y)V W001 35.(W-X-Z)(W+V)(U+Y)
The cache does contain a small stamp which isn't a trade item. Please leave in the cache.