After 15 or 20 years the raised veg beds are beginning to come apart at the corners and rot through in places.
I like the L-shaped beds as they are but wheeling a barrow down the garden is a bit of an obstacle courses, especially steering past the greenhouse.
So our plan is to widen the central path – and perhaps the side paths to give better access to the beds. It’s a big job but we’re getting Earnshaw’s the local timber and fencing centre in to give us a quote for the doing the work.
Planting veg and covering it with netting or cloches to keep the pigeons off should then be a whole lot easier.
And then I can turn my attention to the rampant chicory that has, as always, taken over my patch of what should be a wild flower meadow.
My right thumb is doing well – I’d sprained it with a marathon session of snipping back the ivy and hawthorn – but I’m still keen to practice drawing with my non-dominant left hand. These chitted Maris Bard first early seed potatoes are ideal subjects for my wobbly pen.
More memories of Batley School of Art in the late 1960s. My thanks to the graphically gifted alumni who commented on my last post.
Peter Ludlam, Graphics Tutor, Batley, 1964
We were lucky to have experts in ceramics, textiles, graphic design, printmaking and painting and decorating at Batley but there was only one tutor who had worked – as I hoped to – as a freelance illustrator.
Peter Ludlam had started as a graphics tutor a few years before I started at Batley. My thanks to his daughter Danae for the photograph. He was part of the post war generation who were called up for National Service. Danae tells me:
You were called up to National Service at 18 but could defer it for 2 years if in full time education. My father went to Leeds School of Art and then did his 2 year National Service.
A former student John Oldfield recalls when Peter started as a tutor at Batley:
I started at Batley in September 1963 Peter started one year later and was a fantastic breath of fresh air. Generous with his advice and highly motivating. He had a small studio under his house which he let me use and even let me borrow his brand new Vauxhall Cresta to attend an interview! Great guy, many fond memories and much gratitude.
Nick Dormand started at Batley a decade later in 1973:
I loved the rigour of the foundation course and the way it was designed to introduce me to as many disciplines as possible in the year. I remember Peter Ludlum with fondness .. he suggested that I should study graphics but I wanted the freedom of a fine art course which I followed at Exeter . Looking back I don’t think I would have survived the free wheeling Fine Art course without the grounding Batley gave me! I am now retired but I spent pretty much the whole of my working life in Art Education which was so enjoyable. So I have much to thank Batley for!
There was once an exhibition of tutors’ work in the basement studio (below the locker room in my photo) at the back of the main building. I was interested to see some of Mr Ludlam’s illustrations for advertising. It was in the regular format for magazines of the day: main illustration, paragraph of copy and ‘pack shot’ in the bottom right corner. These might have been illustrations for Schweppes’ long-running ‘Schweppeshire’ series. They were something along those lines.
He once told he gave up on illustration because, in his opinion, the job always went to ‘young Nigel who does those lovely drawings’. i.e. there was an element of nepotism in choosing illustrators in the 1950s.
In 1969 British photographers were making an impact and it was sometimes assumed that illustration was old-fashioned and out-dated. Some illustration courses closed down.
One day when he was chatting to me in the graphics studio he spotted something with his illustrator’s eye that wasn’t immediately apparent at that time:
My attempts at drawing – and, even more tricky, writing – with my non-dominant hand. Guest artist: my great niece Florence, who drew the snowman with the psychedelic mandalas.
After several over-enthusiastic sessions trimming back the rowan and crab apple with secateurs, the doctor has suggested that I take a break from anything too strenuous with my right hand for a couple of weeks, so no more big pruning sessions, but I will be doing some gentle exercises with a squeezy soft ball.
As a military policeman, Doug’s beat included the pyramids and the ‘Sweet Water Canal’ (Ismaïlia Canal).
A time capsule in a small leather pouch: thanks to my cousin Kathleen Finlayson I’ve been able to read a letter that my father wrote in the YMCA in Jerusalem in the final months of World War II. Doug – Robert Douglas Bell – was then aged 25.
Doug’s niece, Kathleen Bell, as she then was, was aged 14. She hand-stitched the pouch herself when leather became available again at the end of the war.
Those initials after his service number indicate that Doug was:
CSM: a Company Sergeant Major
SIB: in the Special Investigations Branch
CMP: of the Corps of Military Police
MEF: part of Great Britain’s Mediterranean Expeditionary Force
1432272 CSM Bell RD
SIB, CMP, MEF.
24 Jan 1945
Dear Kathleen,
I hope you will excuse me for writing in pencil and also if the writing becomes a little unintelligible.
The reason is that I am writing in the Y.M.C.A. Hostel in Jerusalem. All the writing tables are in use so I am writing in an easy chair whilst balancing the pad on my knee.
Well, I am now on the 5th day of my leave, but as it took me a day to get up here, it’s only my fourth day in the Holy City. Like most places it has a modern side as well as new. The old city is still surrounded by a wall and has to be entered by various gates. The streets are very narrow and cobbled, and being built on a hill are very steep.
In Cairo
On Monday, which was my first full day in Palestine, I went to Bethelhem which is about eight miles away. I saw the Church of the Nativity and the Bethlehem Xmas bells, also the native craftsmen who work in pearl, ivory and silver. Their work is really skilled, having been handed down from one generation to another.
Mother of pearl brooch from Bethlehem which Doug bought for his mum, Jane Bell.
I don’t know whether this will arrive before the letter I sent home, but I have sent your Grandma some sets of photos which show the various places around here. She will show you the snaps of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, etc which will show you the places far better than I could ever express in words.
An earlier set of Will’s Cigarettes cards: Garden Flowers New Varieties (Series 2). 1939.
It is very cold here, but the air is very pure and clear so that visibility extends for miles. Before my leave’s over I hope to visit the sea and the Dead Sea. I enclose a few flower cards which I thought you might like. Perhaps you will give Dorothy one or two. Well, I must close now. I hope you are still enjoying your job.
Please give my best wishes to all,
Be seeing you soon,
Doug
Later that year, on the 23rd May, 4 years and 232 days since he enlisted, Doug left the Middle East and according to his record he was ‘HOME’ the next day. He’d arrived in the Middle East shortly before the outbreak of World War II on 24 August 1939.
Impending Release
He was given a glowing reference on his impending release from the army:
A very smart and competent W.O. who has been of great service to the Corps. Has a very high organising ability and has handled his duties with tact and skill. Has a very marked aptitude for man management and could be employed to advantage in a supervisory capacity.
George Street, Wakefield: Wall-rue and Maidenhair Spleenwort on a brick wall which probably dates back to the days of the cattle market, and a mossy pool on the roots of an old flowering cherry. The ‘well kept secret’ herbs and spices are served at Kentucky Fried Chicken, Westgate Retail Park.
It rained for much of today but by 4 o’clock the towering cumulus clouds had passed over and it was bright enough to encourage me to put on my 1970s black wellies and cross a soggy, mossy lawn to trim back the ivy by the shed.
The birds are already singing and showing interest in denser sections of the hawthorn hedge. Luckily I pruned the rowan, crab apple and the holly hedge at the end of the garden a month ago.
Barbara spotted some frog activity last week and today I noticed two clumps of spawn in the usual, sunniest, corner of the pond.
