“I have reason to believe in miracles”
I have always considered myself to be a countryman, albeit I was born in the East End of London. My birthplace, Clapton E8, was more country than city, being only yards from the River Lea and Lea Marshes. I attended St. Bernard’s R.C. School 1952 to 1957.
As a small boy I marvelled at the sight of Sticklebacks and Newts, which, with my young brother Steve, we caught in a drag net from local ponds and canals.
My early infant years were spent living in a wonderful old cottage as an evacuee at Brent Eleigh in Suffolk. After the war my countryman claims took a sever nosedive when we moved to Poplar near the Gas Works at Stink House Bridge, and then to Bow opposite the asbestos factory.
I was however, always able to venture out into ‘my’ countryside on my sister’s ‘hand me down’ bike - I discovered Wanstead Flats and Whipps Cross.
At the age of eleven I became a paper boy delivering newspapers, and was able to save enough money to buy a real bicycle and was now really mobile and discovered Epping Forest and treasures further afield; the villages of Chigwell and Abridge, in a landscape I regard as my area of outstanding natural beauty……
Road Racer!
In 1964 I borrowed £250 from my father, negotiated buying a Manx Norton Road Racing Motorcycle, and a clapped out banger van to transport it. I went off to Brands Hatch and did a few laps and decided I was a Road Racer and spent the 1965 summer racing at many circuits. I raced in the “Stars of Tomorrow Road Race and on August Bank Holiday Monday I was back at Brands on the 3rd row of the grid amid some of the Greatest Road Racers in the world. Halfway through the race I lost it and was dumped unceremoniously onto the tarmac at ‘Clearways. I was bitterly disappointed but very lucky to be OK. The photo below commemorates a memorable part of my life. (My racing number that day was No. 6). The painting depicts Druids Hill at Brands Hatch, on a July day in 1965.
I finished my remaining races during that year and gave up the sport.. I have no regrets and remain mindful that a well turned out Road Racing Motorcycle in the hands of an expert is beauty in motion. An art form demanding touch, timing and courage, in rather the same way as does a good watercolour. Get it wrong and there’s no second chance.
Following retirement, and following another accident being knocked off my bicycle by a car on a dark wet night, I was put in touch with the Ford Motor Company by the driver of the car. Ford then employed me as an in house fireman at a new office building in Brentwood. After 13 very happy years I retired in December 1992.
When I left school I became a Cabinet Maker from 1957 to 1962. I then joined the London Fire Brigade and retired in March 1978 due to ill health: Rheumatoid Arthritis. I remain privileged to have served with such wonderful colleagues and to have been part of that team.
There is one moment in my life that stands out as more important than any other. It was 1976 when I attended my first Rheumatology clinic under our National Health Service.
I waited to be called into the consultancy room, desperate for help, because over the five years or so since being diagnosed, I had become weak and crippled; at times with excruciating pain. Dr. Geoffrey Clark promised me two things by saying ”You’ll not now suffer as much as you have in the past, and that I can do so much to help your mobility”.
Throughout the many years that followed my first meeting with this really great man, I was to be treated by him countless times. I received the most incredible results from his skills especially treating all my joints with cortisone injections.
At 82 years of age I can best sum up the reality of what happened to me with a line from a Bob Dylan song, “My Back Pages”, “ I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now”. April 2023
Pick up your paintbrush!
I'm wholly inspired by the great Renoir, he like me, suffered with RA but remained a lovely joyous person, who murmerd his last words 'I believe I show promise'. Again, like me, he was born in 41 - 25th February 1841 and me 18th February 1941. Not only am I mesmerised by his masterpieces, I also feel a special closeness to him.
