SometHing beginning with H

SR What was the journey of you becoming an artist?
H I kind of knew that I wanted too do something creative and I ended up training as a telephone engineer when I was 17 and hated it. And I really didn't know what else there was to do. I'd had art classes at school but I hated those as well. And there wasn't really ant sort of suggestion of ö there was nobody in the careers dept at school saying, well, you could be come a botanical illustrator or you could become a painter or do this or do that or you could work in a media company, you know, all these options. And my parents didn't know that these sort of things existed. They felt that artists ö that the world of artists ö was drugs and sex and alcohol and rock and roll. Something that a child of theirs should be gently steered away from.
SR Were they explicit about it?
H Well, they were afterwards, after the steering had been done.
SR I mean, where were they with you in terms of being involved in art and things?
H Well, I think they thought it was just a little mistake that I would eventually grow out of and that I'd get on with things properly.
SR And how's you mum about that now?
H Well, they're both dead now.

continued on page 2