It is spoken in the family story that my Granny as a young woman in the early years of the twentieth century along with her brother Harry and two other sisters, walked the two-hundred and forty three miles from the tiny Scottish coastal town of Ayr to Stoke-On-Trent, my home town. The finer details of this great trek have been eroded by time and by the passing of all whom who undertook it even if the memory of them as individuals has not diminished. Her husband, my Grandad hailed from the Black country where our name is more prolific and a significant piece of the family story begins here in Stoke.
I was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia in Central Africa. My father; the son of the afore-mentioned union travelled his own journey – it must be in the blood! The war for independence that created Zimbabwe was not my father’s war, and thus we (I was a one-year old on this journey!) drove the three-hundred and sixty-five miles to Blantyre, in Malawi where we lived and I grew up and was schooled for the next sixteen years.
In 1984 I made my own journey – here to the UK.
One of the first things I did was to visit Blantyre in Scotland; birthplace of Dr. David Livingstone – the man who put the place where I'd spent the early years of my life on the map.
It is with a huge sense of adventure that I now bring my work here to Edinburgh by the kind invitation of Linsay Given Black of Art & Craft Collective, and I am truly delighted and honoured for yet another great connection with Scotland...
Very much looking forward to our Autumn exhibition with Ian - always great to have background on our artists! Imagine walking from Ayr to Stoke-on-Trent - amazing - it is the stuff of TV period drama.
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