I was born in Birmingham in 1950, and educated at Lordswood Tech. It was in the final year at school that my real interest in painting took hold, when, with encouragement from the art master, Mr Hart (Yes really! )I tried oils for the first time. After school in 1967, family commitments meant work came first, so I absorbed as much knowledge as I could from books, basically teaching myself.
The need to see what others were doing saw me join Lew Thomas, night school classes in 1971, attending through to 1975, when with other like-minded individuals became a founder – member of the Saracen Art Group, exhibiting with the group into the late eighties.Between these years, I was awarded first prize in the Birmingham Spring Festival art competition 1978, co – founded “Artco” with Jim Taylor, and with him organised a year- long touring exhibition of our work in the Midlands in 1983.
