ARTWORKS

It’s true that your best teachers stay with you forever. I had always loved drawing, and my art teacher at Cotham Grammar in Bristol, Mr Jerry Hicks, found me at just the right moment to encourage me to look more closely, attempt new techniques, and grow my confidence. He was so good, he could keep the entire class at it, even those who had no interest or no talent. He was strict but fair, interested and interesting. Did judo, so you didn’t want to muck him about. A professional painter himself, he would set us tasks, like drawing a goat’s skull, while he got on with his latest commission in the corner. Once, he was hired to provide the severed head of John the Baptist for some production of Salome. (He flattered me by assuming I knew who Salome was.) I can see it now, all orange and red and bald, lying sideways on his desk while he fiddled with its papier mâché innards. He always managed to nab the biggest classrooms in the place for his studio. We sat on little elongated stools called donkeys with a T-bar at one end to rest your wooden easel on. I always had to go round horse-trading for the flat, ungouged ones that hadn’t been got at by bored, uncultured philistines wielding dividers and penknives because I always needed as smooth a surface as I could get to lean on. The air was dusty with powder paint, and dry, as all the paper about the place had absorbed every last bit of moisture. And when you went in there over lunchtime to finish your latest picture, it was like going into church. Even pagans like me have our passions.