I painted and drew as a child. When I was about 12, mum, dad, my sister Cathy and I visited the Tate Gallery. In the basement I saw Hymn to Death by Cecil Collins, a big painting of 1953. This was the only thing I saw that I really connected with; a collection of symbols redolent of death and angelic resurrection. Later I went to Liverpool Art College. Following a week’s drawing course with Michael Chaitow in the late 70’s I joined Cecil Collins’ drawing class at the City Lit.
The internal world pictured in symbols and the spontaneous, non intellectual approach to drawing that characterise Cecil’s teaching, remain central to me.