1927 - 1942
Cowley School, St. Helens

1942 - 1943
Borough Road College, London University. Teaching Course
Air Squadron.

1943 - 1947
Aircrew Navigator bomber R.A.F.V.R.

1947
Completed teaching course and enrole on fine art course at Liverpool ,College of Art.

1951
A year with professor Souverbie at Ecole des Neux Arts. Some becomes increasingly interesting meeting many interesting people. Participates in a mixed show at the City Univisitaire.

1952
Secure a part-time teaching course at the Lycée de Nice, living in Cagnes Sur Mer which was an artists' town. Meeting many good painters, my work improves. I mount a one man exhibition in the town, which receives good reviews in "Nice-Matin". Also exhibit in mixed shows at the Chateau de Cagnes alongside Picasso and Chagal. Her I was helped greatly by an Anglo-Danish painter, Jack Kampman, together we made a study of Cézanne i.e. in actual practice in landscape painting. I also went with Jack to see Matisse. Jack could not speak French, Matisse was in bed ill but still working using cut paper and helped by two beautiful girls.

1954
Travelled to Denmark to live with my girlfriend. I enrolled at the Royal Academy of Copenhagen. I became very busy and also sold many paintings. I became possible to live on one's art!

1956
By the beginning of 1956 I had enough paintings to mount an exhibition in the city centre. Everything was set up and the exhibition looked great. A couple of days before the private viewing disaster struck. .. a general strike was declared. Completely disgruntled, I took off for England where I was able to get two paintings in the Spring Show, Redfern, but being England, nobody bought anything. My Danish wife came to London but after a year we decided to part amicably. Meantime, we had found a studio in Little Albany, it was there I met Leo Cooper...

1957
I went to Spain with a new girlfriend, Jane. We stayed in the mountains of Cataluňa, ther we met Artigas the potter who made the tiles for the Joan Miro Wall at UNESCO.. He and Miro worked day and night, no electricity, in Gallifa, they used acetelene gas and Artigas. He said he used 1000 kilos of wood per day to fire his Chinese style kiln. Miro left little paintings of insects and birds on the huge rocks of Gallifa Valley - no chance of putting one in your pocket!

I thought I would like to see the sea on the way back to England, so Jane and I made our way back home via Cadaquez where I had once been before in 1951 for a day visit. It was September. Caldaquez was great, there were painters, writers, musicians and good weather, maybe a few thunderstorms. There we met Tim Phillips, the son of Colonel Phillips, head of Canadian General Motors. Salvador Dali, who lived over the hill in Port Llegat, had been commissioned to paint Tim's mother and in return, pluse many thousands of dollars, Tim was made a student of Dali. Tim would argue with me that because my painting was abstract I could not make an accurate portrait drawing and bet me £75 against it. Dali was to be the judge. I chose a fisherman, Juan, and produced an accurate portrait composed of ticks. We went to Dali with the drawing and Dali thought it was great. He was actually (apart from the publicity show) a very interesting chap. We always argued about the business of photographic painting.

In the following years I made, with Dali, several sound tapes for a French producer, Michel. One on food and the other on clothes or "no" and sexual attraction, all a little tongue in cheek.

1963

I lost touch with Dali as he was being closely guarded by a man who called himself a Major and who, I think, relieved Dali of many thousands of dollars. Poor old "Aviddollar" Dali was a nice chap who got on very well the townspeople in Cadaquez and Figueras. After all, it was his back yard.