The Dower House was in Quorn, then a small, beautiful village which had the distinction of having the premier fox hunting club in England and six pubs.  The town of Loughborough and the college were about three miles away.  We had our own small bus with an accommodating driver and schedule.  Study time was divided between wood shop,  academic subjects and two additional crafts.  I chose silversmithing and weaving.

My first two years of workshop study were with the same group of about eighteen students in the same workshop with the same tutor.  His name was Eric Drake and he had a profound effect on me.  He was the first of a series of superb individuals and teachers that I encountered over the next twelve years of my self-imposed studies.  His “M.O.” was to gather the group around a bench to deal with every aspect of methods and making.  His call to attend was frequently met with groans by the rest of the group who were an accomplished lot.  Not me.  I was quick to respond and eager to listen.  His words and explanations resonated with me.  I was hooked. 

What was so appealing and captivating to me was the logic and incontrovertible nature of the working methods he proposed.  It went like this…

We are working with hand tools to form solid wood into furniture.  We are at the end of the line of many capable, clever woodworkers who have been doing the same thing for a long time.  In that time they have solved and resolved every technique and method it takes to create the work.  The working methods they developed and used give the best results with the least effort in the shortest time.  As a result we adopt and use their vocabulary and their working methods.

Sounds rigid but it isn’t because there is a rider, a corollary…anyone who makes an improvement to these methods, say by getting the same result in a shorter time or even a better result in the same time, then we will adopt that method.  In other words, you were the recipient of a body of knowledge that was incontrovertible.  It was your job to understand it and to develop the skill to use it.

In those first two years, Eric Drake was not the only influence in the workshop.  As well, we were visited frequently by Edward Barnsley.  He was what today you would call a visiting professor.  In the ceramic studio, David Leach, the son of Bernard Leach, who is still regarded as England’s most prominent studio potter, was the School of Art’s artist-in-residence.  The presence of tutors of this stature speaks to the quality and essence of Loughborough.

Edward Barnsley was the son of Sidney Barnsley.  Sidney and his brother Ernest were architects trained by G.E. Street along with others like Philip Webb, John Sedding, Ernest Gimson, William Letherby and William Morris.  These men, along with colleagues and member of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement,  were at the core of The British Arts & Crafts Movement which gave a direction to the industrialized Victorian era in Great Britain.  This movement was adopted, in one way or another, by most every industrialized European country as well as the U.S.  This energy and innovation in Europe were the forerunner of today’s Modernism.

In the large workshop of the final year, industrial strength basic machines, table saw, jointer and thickness planer, were the norm.  In the first term one was tasked with making a piece of furniture for the College.  The design, joinery and the material of the work were in the Arts & Crafts mold which was and still is acceptable and refined but a mold, nevertheless.

On more than one occasion when Barnsley had drawn an impromptu crowd about him talking about the aesthetics of our work, he would express regret at not having had an education in design.  His confession was poo-pooed by his listeners who were, by now, accomplished and steeped in the Arts & Crafts aesthetic.  I didn’t voice my agreement with him because, at that time, I could not have given a good account of my agreement if challenged to do so. 

It didn’t take long after I was appointed to my first position in 1955 to teach woodworking and furniture making at the Kingston-Upon-Hull College of Art for me to understand exactly what Edward Barnsley meant by his lack of design education.  Because of circumstances of one sort or another, I had the time and the opportunity to do two things – to take drawing classes in the College of Art and to take classes in wood science and wood technology at The Hull College of  Technology.  By 1958, I had completed the wood science course.  At that time an opportunity came along for me to attend classes at The Leeds College of Art to study furniture design.  My previous studies in making and materials meant that I could concentrate on the design aspect of the work.  So, every Monday for the next four years, I spent ten hours in class with another great teacher, Ted Orem.

My time in the city of Kingston-Upon-Hull was from 1955-1962.  Written up in a way that documents success at gaining this degree or that degree offers no reality or the nature of one’s life.  For me, at the age of twenty three, came the arresting realization that, for the first time, I was on my own. 

After eighteen years in a tiny rural village and a great grammar school education came two years in an august regiment, The Welsh Guards, where your rank smoothed your path.  Then, three years in a closed community of like-minded colleagues and friends.  The commonality of the three experiences had its effect in that all were populated by males only and all provided the necessities of life to a degree that was now,  way beyond my means.  Plus, transport was always provided.  The realization of my situation was cathartic.

My accommodation in August 1955 was in a large three story row house which provided a room, breakfast and dinner.  This, along with half a dozen characters with whom I had nothing in common.  Transport was a bicycle.  After five months and on returning from Christmas vacation, I moved to a more salubrious two family house with an older doting couple and a yapping dog.  Transport was a bicycle.

I knew from the beginning of that academic year that my salary would not afford even the most meager apartment.  As well, I knew that life as a boarder was unacceptable.  This was a conflict.  It was resolved early on in that first year when I discovered that the city was home to a company that manufactured caravans.  I certainly couldn’t afford to buy one, but they would sell me a chassis. 

By the summer vacation of 1956, I had done the research as well as the design work and with some borrowed money set off to build the twenty two foot long caravan which was home for the next six years.  My woodshop, which was new to the college, was in an old, now empty Victorian era school built in 1875 and since the only other occupant was the silversmithing workshop, space and solitude were in plentiful supply.  By the end of that summer vacation, my new home for the next six years was completed and sited in the orchard of a rundown stately home in the country about ten or twelve miles from the workshop.  Transport was now bus and bicycle.

To be continued…

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