FLYING FISH

I am a bit vague about dates, but the 1950s stand out in my memory as very creative and imaginative years.

The residues of war were still around, mainly in the form of general shortages and food rationing. And the war itself had taken its toll on me in as much as it encroached on my education and left me with TB in the lung.

So in those 1950 years I had a lot of life to catch up with, not only in the acquisition of knowledge but also with bodily health.

My RAF war service had left me with the then incurable TB which returned when I studied medicine. 

I was now back to starting again at square one. And that square one was based on art. So I was able to incorporate my art into whatever I did.

Art school and theatre design school taught me a certain amount but their basics are also learned with constant practice combined with imagination.

With paintings, I sold landscapes, had one-man exhibitions, exhibited in mixed shows at top London galleries and painted and designed scenery for television and the theatre.

Buying a bombed-out house in London’s Fulham Road and rebuilding it happened to be, unknown at the time, a satisfactory and remunerative life decision.

By 1958 it was time for change. And changes have reinvigorated my life. 

I sold the London house and, with travel and art in mind, bought not only a steamship ticket to Japan but also the remains of a tumbledown cottage in the Berkshire Downs. This small bit of England was to maintain a foothold in my home country. 

On a cold and drizzling day I took a train to Liverpool and a taxi to Birkenhead where the “Achilles” merchantman was about to leave in ballest for warmer climes.

Aboard, on the plus side, was my own cabin that had been extremely well designed. On the minus side were fellow travellers in the form of parents with some very ill-behaved children.

We plied through the Bay of Biscay into a cold Mediterrainian Sea and on to the warmth of the Red Sea at Port Sudan. 

My overall aim was to live and draw throughout the Far East, skipping the Near East that did not lure me - confirmed in the shortest of contacts by sight from the Suez Canal and a short stay in Sudan.

After we took on fuel at Aden, in Yeman, we set sail across the Indian Ocean toward Malaya. 

It was then that I suddenly felt that to go straight to Japan was pointless when an event occured when our ship, now deeply laiden with Sudanese cotton, ploughed into a deep swell, sending not only warm sea spray right over our superstructure but with it masses of small, blue flying fish that looked like clouds of dragonflies, many landing on deck.

There was something about this exotic occasion that made me feel that at the next port of call, Penang in Malaya, I must disembark, and there to start my world tour of drawing and discovery.

So, lowering myself to the pilot boat with my suitcase of clothes and art kit, 

I set out on a great adventure, leading eventually to two exhibitions of paintings, a travel book, and tremendous satisfaction.