In the early 60's old granny London kicked back her heels, took an extra swig from the cider barrel and tossed her knickers in the air. Life was a carousel that never stopped spinning. Don't trust anyone over thirty and heave the old out the window.
     It was a time of excessive excess. The abuse to which we subjected our poor bodies would have put normal people in the hospital. But then, we weren't normal! We had a keen awareness that we were living in a remarkable time and felt constrained to make as much of it as we could.
     All good things come to an end, though. Round about the early 70's, Swinging London had a nervous breakdown. The party finally ended with no one there to pick up the empty glasses and take deposits back on the bottles.
     Our vision in those splendiferous days didn't reach to the distant hills. We were happy with that over-accommodating playground. And who wouldn't have been? The Arts were in the forefront of the new wave. Artists were both the cheerleaders and the people being cheered--an exhilarating state of affairs. I don't think any of us knew why this was so, and we didn't particularly care. We simply enjoyed the release and dutifully led the procession. And what a procession it was.
     Abstract Expressionism at the Whitechapel.
     Beyond The Fringe.
     Look Back In Anger.
     Film, theatre, literature, art. London's creative houses, sitting with curtains drawn, were awakened from a dark sleep.
     It suited us down to the ground. We relished it, twirled it around, danced with it, and took it to bed. The riotous, raucous, roaring band played on and on. It was strong liquor, frothy and seductive. One never seemed to drive to work in the morning from the same direction. We all agreed that we were on one hell of a ride.
     But in the still quiet hours, the beginning of an irksome little notion disturbed me now and again. It didn't slow things down or get in the way. It just popped up unexpectedly. A thin, small voice would nudge me, whispering, "Take a look at yourself, young man. What do you see? Where are you going? And the work you do. What does it provide other than a brown envelope every Friday?"
     Then, the even more disturbing questions, "Are you making the most of your artistic talent? When you're an old man sitting by the fire, will you look back at these days as wasted time? When, when, when will you truly begin to become an artist?"
     I would take stock of these disturbing thoughts, go slightly out of balance, stop drinking and smoking for a couple days, then forget about them altogether and proceed on just as I had. After all, I didn't have it so bad. I certainly wasn't making full use of my college art education, but I did work as a designer in one of London's leading advertising agencies. As long as I showed up sober and on time, and was able to continue presenting the illusion of competence and enthusiasm, my position would continue, albeit at a pittance.
     I drove a nifty light-blue Mini Cooper with a leather-wrapped steering wheel. This beauty was capable of impressive turns of speed. I shared a comfortable maisonette with two close friends in fashionable Kensington. My social life, not to mention my love life, was full to overflowing.
     To what then did I owe this malcontent? I decided to talk things over with my flatmates.
     They thought perhaps I simply needed a bit of change and advised an immediate holiday on the continent. This was completely out of my financial scope, but the advice was offered in the right spirit.
     Perhaps change of a different sort?
     There is no greater procrastinator than a man of reduced means. However, having aired my concerns, my inner dissatisfaction took on greater importance. Once you open problems to scrutiny, they demand solution.
     I had reason, I suppose, to be concerned. Much of my childhood and my entire university experience focussed on the pursuit of art as a career. After the death of my father, when I was thirteen, my mother and I were in continual financial distress. Although indecently young, I arranged to sell a watercolour here and there through a local merchant. The idea of being paid for something that until then had been a childhood pastime was heady wine.

     I recall the brisk crackling winter morning when I wove my way through the bustling country market, passing greengrocer stalls ripe with the smells of fresh celery and brussel sprouts, the fruiter with oranges and bananas in hanging bunches, women's clothing stalls, shoe stalls, corset stalls--all jostling with business. Entire place settings for half price. Imagine.
     Mr. Alf, a chubby, chortling fellow with long mutton chops and an old Derby hat, was winding up an old gramophone. I had been assured that he was always interested in unusual items for his stall. Clearing my throat to get his attention, I walked right up to him.
     "Mr. Alf, I have a watercolour I did the other day. I've put it in a frame and I think it looks really nice. Are you interested?"
     He surveyed my masterpiece. "I don't reckon there's a business fa Watter culurs or whatever ya call um."
     "Tell you what, Mr. Alf. You show the watercolour on your stall for the day. If it sells, you pay me half. If not, I'll take it home at five-thirty."
     Such is the temerity of the destitute.
     "Well," he said, scrunching his face around and scratching his mutton chops, "won't cost owt to try, I reckon. And what do we know we might 'ave a buddin' Rembrandt on our hands!" He launched into a cackling laugh, then shouted to a passing housewife, telling her how much she would be missing if she didn't buy one of his used tea kettles.
     I returned at four o'clock. I could wait no longer. Sure enough, it was gone! Alf dropped five tinkling shillings in my hand and gave me a hearty slap on the back. I never asked how much he sold it for or who bought it.

     On reflection, if any single event in my young life stirred my dormant creative soul, it was the moment I received money for that little watercolour. When I scurried home to show my mother the shining coins, I was thrilled beyond reckoning.
     I wish I could tell you that I was a child prodigy, but my artistic origins were much more pragmatic. Art appealed to my basic instinct of larceny.
     I wanted to produce more stuff to sell at Saturday market so Mum and I could buy an extra sausage or two for dinner, or yarn for a new sweater in winter. If it meant more watercolours of the "Lake District in Spring," that was just fine by me.
     My singular quest for income became stymied by the close attention that my art teacher was beginning to give me. I made the unspeakable mistake of asking if he could suggest efficient ways to double my output and raise my prices. It was the only time I ever saw him lose his temper.
     "It's not so much that I mind you making a couple of extra shillings at the weekend," he said a few days later after calming down, "but I've every hope that you have what it takes to become a real artist. I mean a real one. A person of vision and integrity, capable of creating significant works of substance and importance. Not some hack that paints whatever the current popular subject happens to be."
     Soon after, Alf took ill and retired from trade. Fate had saved me from further artistic degradation.
     My art teacher set about grooming me with ferocious intensity. All my free time was to be spent drawing plaster anatomical molds. Invariably, Friday afternoons found me lugging home a plaster cast of a hand or foot, from which I was expected to produce half a dozen studies by Monday.
     It would be impossible to put a value on the months spent in that unrelenting curriculum. Unquestionably they later helped me gain the much coveted admission and scholarship to the Art College in London. That which I regarded as a punishment turned out to be a blessing.
     Yet there I was, nearly a decade later, employed in a London advertising agency. Rather than paints and brushes, my tools were straightedge and mechanical pencil. My imagination was continually circumscribed by deadlines and budgets.
     Reflecting on my lot, I realized that I was quite a distance from the goals that my art instructor had envisioned for me. My existence was rather silly, consisting of a banal routine that produced nothing by week's end. No person had ever been given an O.B.E. or a laurel wreath for industrial design.
     Most of my friends were involved in the arts in some form. They were writers, actors, painters. None had achieved the pinnacle of success yet, but they were giving it a go.
     Of even greater concern, the frantic life in London seemed to have gained the better of me. What was to be accomplished, ultimately, by the delirious turmoil? What had I achieved? Where was I headed?
     As is often the case, fate had my problem well in hand. The agency presented me a sizable project. I was to be responsible for the design and installation of a large trade show exhibit for an illustrious client. Conveniently putting aside all inner doubts about the value of my work and the life I had been living, I planned to design an exhibit of sufficient quality to submit to the Society of Industrial Designers, in support of my application for membership.
     I laboured over the concept, spending hours of overtime refining the intricate electrical, plumbing, and construction details. I wanted every element to be perfect, from the artistic to the practical. It was a gigantic job even by agency standards. The completed working drawings and visual layouts formed a thick sheaf of over fifty pages.
     The final bids arrived, and to the delight of my supervisor I had brought the job in twenty-five percent under estimate. This news would be well received by his fellow Directors, he assured me.
     By that time I was confident that my design warranted an architectural award and would automatically place me among the industrial design immortals. Not to be overlooked was the raise and bonus that would be forthcoming for simply being a genius.
     The one ticklish problem I'd had throughout the design process was working with the obnoxious account executive overseeing the project. He was responsible for feeding me data from all departments involved, so I could coordinate the varying details into the overall design.
     From the outset, this man had been a pain. He was arrogant and opinionated, constantly overbearing and oppressive. For him, the artistry of a design and even its ultimate functionality were of no consequence. His acknowledged corporate responsibility was to keep things on schedule--but it was apparent at all times that his only real interest was to cover his own butt.
     On more than one occasion I had been obliged to bite my tongue in his presence, taking comfort in the conviction that my reward would soon come in tangible form. Most of the time, I was able to keep my focus on the important thing--my design. But I often entertained visions of embedding my T-square deeply into the crown of his pompous head.
     Finally, after weeks of intense night and day activity, everything was ready for commencement of construction. I had completed final plans and strategies with all the contractors involved, had signed off on all final changes, and had given approval for the ordering of materials. Most of the prefabricated sections had already been manufactured so we would have a little breathing room at the end of the project.
     Two days before construction was to begin, Mr. Congeniality himself burst into my studio to alert me about extensive changes that he wanted made. I remained calm, explaining that it would be difficult to change even the slightest detail because all materials had been ordered and much of the construction already completed.
     "Now, Kerry," he said, nose in the air and arse tight as a tick's, "there's no way out of this. The clients want these changes made, and that's that."
     "Sorry," I said, "there's nothing I can do. You're too late." I finally was wielding a little power.
     "Looks like I'll have a word with your boss, then." He was not going to die gracefully.
     I returned to my drawing board, confident that artistic truth and my supervisor's eternal fanaticism about staying under budget would win the day.
     A few minutes later, Mr. Congeniality returned with my supervisor, Mr. Pinstripe. There followed long minutes of huffing and puffing, much cigar smoke blown in my direction, some marginal, insincere compliments of my work, and devious, darting glances between them.
     "Let's put it this way," my supervisor said to me, finally getting to it, "looks like you'll be working at home this weekend. Got to make these changes."
     Mr. Congeniality was having a fine old time. He could not have squeezed another ounce of smugness out of his half smile.
     I made one last try.
     "Sir, with all due respect, I've worked the last four weekends on this project. Any revisions at this stage will mean major changes for the contractors, which will make it hard to stay on budget. Anyway, I really don't see any advantage--"
     I was interrupted by another stream of smoke.
     "Hallam, make the bloody changes, or I will. Get my drift?"
     The two retired to the inner sanctum of Mr. Pinstripe's office. Through the glass door I watched them continue to discuss the job, glancing every now and then in my direction.
     I fixed my gaze on the distant roof tops. Late afternoon sunlight was catching the top of St. Paul's, casting the spires and steeples in a brilliant orange-red. The rumble of rush hour traffic from the street below floated up and through my open window. Not only had I lost the battle, but another weekend.
     The meeting in my supervisor's office broke up. He strolled over to my draughting table.
     "You're a good designer, Hallam. Stick to that and leave the politics to us. I'll see if I can squeeze a few extra hours out of accounts for you at the end of the month."
     With that, he turned and left for the weekend.
     I was revolted with myself. Not only would I have to perform a monumental selling job on the contractors, severely compromising my design in the process, I knew that I should have stood my ground. My self-esteem had taken a bad knock.
     I sulked and brooded for an hour or so, then decided to call it a day and work at home over the weekend. Sheafing through the working drawings in my supervisor's office to sort out what I needed to take with me, I noticed a roll of drawings under the table. Glancing through them, I saw immediately that they were a complete set of my sketches for the project. Included were drawings and spec sheets from A to Z. At the bottom of each sheet was written "Designed Exclusively By" with my supervisor's name. Included with the drawings was his application for his own membership in the Society of Industrial Designers.

Putnam Common Crossroads

     It took about two hours to gather every blueprint, drawing, layout, and scrap of paper that had any connection with the job. It was a sizeable bundle, and I worried that someone would stop me on the way out. I blew ten bob and took a taxi home.
     That evening at a local pub I told my flatmates what had happened. We were on our second pint, and I was still seething.
     "It's unfair," they agreed. "It's savage and criminal and anti-Art and contrary to all that's creative and worthwhile in the world. What the hell? Get used to it. That's life."
     Standing up, I told them I needed some fresh air.
     Strolling alone across Putney Common, I was deep in thought. It had been a long, trying day. Early that morning, as I had rushed to catch the Tube to work, I could not have imagined that by late afternoon my "suit-and-tie, Yes-Sir-No-Sir, three-bags-full" job would be completely awash.
     I was most certainly at the crossroads I had been anticipating.
     My anger began to subside, and in its place developed the germ of an idea. Continuing to walk across the common and along the footpath by the Thames, I became determined to use this opportunity to change, to make a life for myself of which I could be proud.
     More of a life, less of a doldrums.
     The question was how to begin my transformation. I had no money to fall back on. The meagre weekly wage on which I had been existing did not allow the luxury of saving. More often than not, by Wednesday I was borrowing food money.
     I wasn't married. Not even vaguely attached. My love life had been decidedly active, but walking alone that night and looking at past months with the clarity that so often accompanies major change, my relationships with women seemed for the most part a sham. Full of bravado, with no substance. I had very willingly joined the hunt and run with the pack, giving little thought to anything more than finding a willing companion for the evening.
     No ties or encumbrances in that area.
     Wind whistled across the common, bringing the scent of approaching snow. I pulled my overcoat across my chest. Something was going to change. I felt that I had already made a start.
     Throwing all caution known to mankind straight into the face of the freezing wind, I decided to leave England and head to southern France. There I would become the painter I knew was inside me. There I would meet my destiny. There I would find, at least, some warmth in the breeze.
     The longing to live in a warm, or even tropical, climate had a deep origin. Born in Stavely, a bleak, perpetually frigid little town a hundred or so miles north of London, I had dreamed of greenery and balm most of my life.
     Stavely. The very word induces a crouching in my soul. If ever a town exemplified the worst of northern industrial England, it was Stavely. In the first half of the twentieth century, it was a foul, phlegmatic place. Every nook and cranny was coated with a layer of black soot from the steel mills, acid manufacturing plants, engineering works, and collieries.
     For the vast majority of Her Majesty's citizenry, even today there is hardly ever a reason to stop at Stavely. It's always a place on the way to somewhere else. The innumerable pubs soaked in beer and the odd grocery or gentlemen's outfitters with ten-year old grey suits in the window underscore the fact that Stavely has no humor at all. The town never smiles. It creaks at the seams with rheumatics and a bad cough.
     Stavely is where I began. My childhood spent in its sulfuric haze of shaded greys and blacks made a permanent impression. I have been impelled since then toward color and clarity, toward brightness and the sun's warmth.
     Walking that freezing Friday evening through Putney Common, snow approaching, the thought of starting afresh in southern France was irresistible.
     By Sunday evening I had sublet my part of the maisonette. My flatmates thought I was potty, but they accepted my decision with good grace and severe doubts. I sold my few remaining goods and shackles at various pawn shops, and by Monday evening had raised the princely sum of sixty pounds. Trading in my spiffy blue mini for a dilapidated but more practical bright orange minivan, I at least would be clearly visible on the road--a plus when driving among the French. I packed my few remaining possessions, and on a hard cold morning with snow beginning to settle on streets and sidewalks, I said goodbye to London and motored off.
     In the back of the van was the roll of drawings and designs for the exhibition booth. To this day I'm not sure if the booth was ever built. I'd like to think that it wasn't.