Life of Laura

Dame Laura Knight was born in 1877 and grew up in Nottingham.

Her early life was steeped in poverty. Her father walked out on the family and later her mother died. She had to bring the rest of the family up by herself.

Despite these early blows she lived an incredible life, dying at the age of 93 in 1970.

The bulk of her work was concerned with ballet and the stage, and much of these drawings and paintings are being exhibited at Nottingham Castle (18 July - 28 September).

Timothy Willcox is the curator of 'Laura Knight at the Theatre'. He explains what he's included and how Dame Laura tried to express dance in her pictures.

"I wanted to show everything from little sketch book pages to large exhibited pictures...

"The thing about the ballet and the theatre is that dance is an art of pure motion and painting is an art of pure stillness. It's the tension of how you achieve the impossible and put dance into the picture."

Alongside these works there will be an opportunity to view work not seen since Dame Laura's death.

Having exhibited all over the world and becoming the first female artist recognised with a damehood in 1929, Laura was very much involved in the war effort.

During the war she was asked by the Ministry of Information to paint pictures of women in the forces for propaganda purposes.

In 1946, Laura made her own request to become the official war artist at the Nuremburg trials.

Most artists would have sat inconspicuously with a sketch book.

However, Laura wanted to paint from life and so squeezed a huge canvas into a glass fronted press box. Timothy says:

"People were saying 'what's this woman artist doing having this ringside seat?' Once she was booted out of there she slightly lost heart and finished it off at home."

The finished painting 'The Trial' can be seen at the Imperial War Museum.

I went to see the exhibition yesterday and it's marvellous.

You can see not only large finished paintings but lots of sketches. It's always fascinating to see work as it appears in a sketch book and then how they evolve into paintings.

Dame Laura was one of those dedicated people whose work was their life pursuit. She wasn't concerned with making lots of money and becoming a celebrity, unlike many of today's artists, she had her subject in theatre and dance, and pursued it to the last.

You could fill your life with the X-Factor, Heat Magazine and alcohol. Alternatively you could do something which is much more fulfilling and make art.

Bad Santa

“How desperate would a person have to be to have sex with a legless pensioner who’d last had a bath in the 1980s?”

In May 2005, I travelled to London to meet my friend Andy. I met him on a Thursday night, when he usually played football. I played for Andy’s team and we lost 3-1 – my only notable contribution was a lay-off to Andy who belted the ball so hard I’m amazed the keeper didn’t hurt himself saving it. After the match we got drunk in a lovely little bar and talked about Ewoks.

On Friday we awoke with hangovers and watched Trisha. The plan after breakfast was to visit Tate Modern and work our way along the Thames before heading to the National Portrait Gallery. The day would be topped off with a trip to see The Revenge of the Sith at the Barbican – I realise Star Wars is hardly high art but at least we saw it at the largest performing arts centre in Europe.

We grabbed some lunch near Westminster and sat in the park where all of those protests about the War in Iraq used to be. While we sat on a bench eating our sandwiches we spotted a film crew trying to shoot a couple kissing and dancing. It looked like a Bollywood film. I say trying because a bearded old man in a wheelchair was deliberately trying to get in shot. He was being a right nuisance. Every time they wheeled him off, he returned and parked in front of the actors. An exasperated producer tried a final time before he was told to “fuck off”. They gave up and left. The old man wheeled himself towards us.

You could have described him as looking a bit like Santa Claus. Santa that is, who has hit hard times. His beard and hair were unkempt, grey and dirty. He had teeth missing and his fingers were yellow. He looked as though he had been punched below his left eye. He smelt of both alcohol and cabbages. He had a bit a Scottish twang and he was clearly off his face. As if to further highlight this picture of sadness and desperation, he had no legs. He started chatting to us and we responded respectfully. He never told us his name, let’s just call him Santa. We asked him about getting in the way of the film crew.

“I like being a bassstad… an’ they foockin’ deserved it.”

I asked why and he didn’t give us a coherent reason without smiling and gurning. He then asked one of us to do him a favour. I thought he was going to ask us to wank him off or something. He wanted more vodka. I said I’d go to the shop for him. As far as I was concerned we weren’t going to change his alcoholic ways, so why not do a good deed? I was helping an elderly, disabled man after all. Plus, I found it all very amusing. He gave me £20 and ordered Andy stayed putt. Effectively, Andy was a hostage. I popped to Tescos and bought him some Smirnoff; I also bought a disposable camera to take a picture of him. Whilst I was gone, Santa told Andy he’d been in prison for a lengthy term. He had also grabbed and clutched Andy’s hand forcefully.

I handed Santa his vodka, he told me to keep the change. I refused. He then said in a sinister voice, “I’ve got more money.” Well good for you. “It’s at home.” There were two implications here:

1. He would lure us back to his house, or bedsit, and beat us to death – not sure how he would manage with no legs, wrecked on vodka, that but still he was a frightening character.

2. Saying he had money implied he wanted to pay for something, this is what I suspected all along; he wanted us to shag him. How desperate would a person have to be to have sex with a legless pensioner who’d last had a bath in the 1980s?

I could have been completely wrong. He might have just wanted the company. I asked him if I could take a picture. He agreed and sat back in his wheelchair posing like a Pope or a King. I was about to press the button on the camera when he swung out at me and shouted “FUCK OFF!” Andy and I decided to move on. The novelty of the situation was getting rather scary.

“Right, we’d better be off.” I said standing up.

“Where y’ goin’? He said.

“We’re off to the National Portrait Gallery.” I replied.

His aggressive manner lightened and he whispered like a little boy.

“Can I come?”

Andy and I looked at each other.

“No.” I replied regretfully. “I’m sorry.”

We walked away. I kept looking back and he was still sitting there watching us slowly disappear into the throng of the city. He looked like a puppy which had been left at home, looking out of the window. I felt sorry for him but where would it end? If we kept being polite and good willed we’d have been wheeling this sad, broken man all over the place, taking him to the pictures; carrying him up the stairs to Andy’s flat; watching Jools Holland on the TV and finally tucking him up in bed. “’Goodnight Santa!” “Fuck off!”

Learning the Force

Nene College is now known as the University of Northampton. Whilst I was there in 1997, it was an institution in flux and as a consequence somewhat schizophrenic. What was it? - A college, a university, or both? They settled on the latter; calling it the ‘University College of Northampton’ in 1999.

Due to the college’s ambitious plans of becoming a university in the future, they needed to attract as many students as possible. They weren’t picky when choosing. It not only attracted students who needed a second chance after screwing up their A-levels – but also people you would never think of meeting in higher education.

A case in point was my flatmate Mark. Mark was the first person I met on arrival day at the college; he wasn’t supposed to be there until Sunday. He was likeable but not very bright. He was small, skinny with a shaven head; he had taken far too many drugs – which had included heroin. He likened himself, all too seriously, to Luke Skywalker. I will never forget his speech about how one day he will learn The Force and become Obi Wan Kenobi – all this in a thick Leicester, or should I say ‘Less-tarr’, accent. His voice also had a touch of the Scooby Doo about it.

During our first conversation he offered me a spliff. I'd never smoked before, I was always going to try it but not on the first day. I knew about the side effects, including possible bouts of paranoia, and the last thing I wanted to be was all weird and teary on my first day.

Mark had moved in with the help of two of his friends, neither of which I liked. They didn't come out with us that night and in the morning there was a trail of minor destruction, they'd made a mess in the kitchen and set fire to bits of paper which had been stuck to our doors. Cigarettes had been stubbed out on the corridor's carpet.

Mark was doing art but his work was shocking; not in the Damien Hirst, Tracy Emin sense - It was just crap. He worked with marker pen on giant sheets of paper drawing people boxing and smoking spliffs. At one point he persuaded me to do a boxing pose for him whilst he took pictures. When he got the snaps back he claimed I looked like I had tits.

I would roll my eyes at Mark’s deep reflections on the course of his life but there would be others bowled over by his wisdom. We had a relationship like Blackadder and Baldrick, except I wouldn’t make any witty putdowns for fear of becoming unpopular and looking spiteful or pompous. I kept quiet and watched the sage in action, which was funny at least.

Mark was very popular, everyone seemed to know him. Part of his attractiveness was due to being a part-time dealer. He turned our kitchen into a cannabis factory, the packing stage at least. He would microwave tile-shaped slabs of cannabis resin; cut them down into Oxo-sized cubes; weigh them on his personal brass scales and then place them into bags with £10 or £20 labels attached. We would get people knocking at the flat door all the time. To further highlight Mark's drug obsession, and stupidity, during a trip to Amsterdam he posted back some weed to his home address. Needless to say the police came knocking.

In all fairness, people liked him for who he was: Harmless, friendly and at times quite charming. I was a bit jealous of him. The one quality I did crave the most was his self-confidence; I had little and he had it in abundance.

He started seeing a girl called Becks who was pretty and smart. He was seriously punching above his weight. She had clearly fallen for his lines like everyone else had. I think she liked Mark for the novelty. He was never marriage material but he was amusing. I fantasized about her getting fed up of Mark and knocking on my door for a cuddle and then some...

Mark was failing his course because of his poor attendance. He couldn't get out of bed for 9am lectures. This had a lot to do with smoking weed into the morning, playing some shit techno, full blast. (Paul who lived next door had to start taking sleeping tablets). Mark's friends were rallying around trying to save him, preventing the inevitable expulsion. The day before a meeting with his tutors he decided to take part in our vodka challenge in the kitchen. The aim of the game was to pick lots out of a hat which would either say one, two or three. These were how many shots you were supposed to take. It was a bit like Russian Roulette and Mark became the tragic Christopher Walken figure, repeatedly picking out the threes. He got slaughtered and pissed all over the table. Becks, the sweetheart, cleaned it up with the mop.

Mark got his last chance, I have no idea how. However, his relationship with Becks was on the rocks. He told me she'd asked him if they could talk instead of just having sex. He had replied: "Sweetie-Pie... you've got your friends to talk to..." He looked for my approval; I looked out of the window. Becks eventually decided she'd rather be his friend. It didn't seem to bother him. He started seeing Paula from Burnley, who barely spoke or acknowledged me. She was a bit rough to be honest. I heard them shagging in our little toilet and the mental image burned into my mind. However, he had what he wanted which was sex on tap.

Mark's artwork wasn't showing any signs of improvement. He suggested to his tutors that his shaved head was a piece of conceptual art and he was paying homage to Ripley in Alien 3. He claimed they bought it but they were humouring him, biding their time. He failed his year.

Mark hung around for a bit before the summer break. He'd got into a fight with a moronic rugby player and ended up with a broken jaw. He was a forlorn figure sitting in my room and rolling a joint; his jaw was in some sort of metal contraption and he was trying to repeat the Luke Skywalker analogy. I actually felt sorry for the daft sod.

A year later a group of us were walking into town talking about Mark. In the distance, in the glow of the street lights I could see a boney, child-like figure, “Look there he is…” I said. Speak of the devil and all that. “Hi Mark we were just talking about you.” He was flattered and started laughing. I was actually pleased to see him. Then he said: “So Neil, are you still roasting that bird?” He was referring to Niki who I had started seeing before he left – she's now my wife. There was no answer to that and I just shook my head and smiled.

A Little More Conversation...

Conversations with my mum and grandparents were never about anything important like the middle-east or global warming; it was ordinary, everyday stuff. These conversations might have seemed banal to some but to me they were amusing and at times full of accidental innuendo. I loved being a spectator, mentally recording their conversations. Below is an example of how one such chat used to go.

My grandad, or dada (Prounounced dad-dar – and nothing to do with the cultural movement of 1916) is sitting in the armchair near the window, the light reflecting on his glasses. He’s in his favourite brown polo shirt, extra large to stretch over his big belly. He used to be obsessed with sport; a hard tackling centre-back who played for Notts County Boys in the 1950s. When he went down the pit he packed the footy in because of the risk of injury, if he couldn’t work, he and my grandma wouldn’t eat, simple as that. When he was made redundant in the 1980s, his high fat diet, consisting of bacon, chips, cheese, sausage and steak, kept at bay by the hard, torturous graft, triumphed over his once muscular torso, hence the bloated tummy.

My grandma, or mama (mam-mar), and my mum are sitting on the settee. Mama looks on edge. She always does, always worrying about something. Whenever I phone her she always answers nervously, like she’s about to receive bad news. When I say “Eh up, it’s Neil” her tone changes and relief comes into her voice - which always makes me feel like I’ve made her day. She’s been to a lot of funerals in her life, as you would when you’re the third youngest of thirteen children. There are only five of them left. So I guess she’s had a lot of those calls reporting the death of a sibling or their partners.

Mum is wearing a Cliff Richard T-shirt she got from one of his gigs - I can’t imagine Cliff doing a gig, Oasis do gigs, let’s call it a concert. She still has a bit of adrenalin kicking around after perming and colouring old ladies hair all day. She has a cup of coffee in her hands. Mum asks dada what he wants for his birthday; before he can answer she excitedly turns to mama.

“Hey mam, you’ll never guess who I’ve seen on Bulwell Market.”

Nelson Mandela? The Pope? Sigourney Weaver?

Mama plays the game and lists a menagerie of really bad superheroes.

“The Meat-man?”

“No.”

“Potato-man?”

Mum shakes her head.

“Cob-man?”

I could imagine Cob-man as the villain.

“No… Sooty.”

The bear?

Mama looks absent. She bites a finger nail.

“He’s got a ‘tache, goes in the Highbury…”

Still nothing.

“He got done for selling dodgy chicken…used to live on Northolme Avenue, near where you used to live.”

Before there’s even an inch of recollection, Dada pipes up.

“I’d like a nice cock…” He says, all too warmly.

I spit my tea out.

After fifty years of marriage I felt it wasn’t the time or place to come crashing of the closet like Indiana Jones.

“You what?” Says Mum.

“My birthday… I want a cockatiel.”

Mum and I look at each other and laugh. It’s lost on my grandparents. Maybe they didn’t call a penis a cock in their day. Infact, that generation used to call each other a cock with affection - "How you going on cock?" or "Alright me old cock?" I distinctly remember Vera Duckworth using the word liberally.

Mum has since died and these conversational gems of ordinariness died with her. I’m not sure mama and dada converse properly with each other anymore. I regret not buying a video camera sooner and filming them all in full flow but I guess that would have spoiled the naturalism of it all. But still, it’s comforting reliving these moments through the old memory box.