Welcome

Welcome to my website. 

It is the result of two life-long interests, the seeds of which were sown in the early sixties by the ‘Philip’s Modern School Atlas’ and a small set of Derwent Lakeland colour pencils.

Equipped with updated versions of the same, I retained and followed those two passions for the best part of 7 decades.

My parents took me on mystery tours of the environs of Hartlepool and its wider hinterland, introducing me to the cultures of Durham, York and Whitby. With wide eyes, I observed the differences; the air was not the same, the streets and buildings were new to me, and people spoke differently. The age of these places absorbed me. I could feel their history, I felt their texture and appreciated their patina.

I filled scrapbooks, collected badges and made drawings with my Lakeland pencils. In primary school I won a prize for General Proficiency, and chose a publication entitled ‘Finding out about People and Places’, and the environs of Hartlepool were no longer enough. I began to look further in my finding out.

I was continually told at school that art was not a serious academic subject, so I graduated as a landscape architect / urban designer, and practised for 4 years, with my two passions supressed for lack of time, but still smouldering.

I gave up my profession and took up more serious travelling, leaving me with a desire to record my feelings about place. Sketchbooks were filled then turned into paintings; diaries, also filled, were turned into recorded encounters.

The passions remain, and my website is the result.