Wednesday 12 August 2015

Royal Archive

Daniel has finally managed to put the video clips of my meetings with the Queen and Prince Philip onto my website. You can view them on the NEWS AND REVIEWS page.
Prince Philip came to visit Hills Road Sixth Form College in 1991 when I was working in the Art Department there and said  'and do you ever throw anything away?' I remember trudging through the snow at 4am in the morning to get there, to meet Security and  their sniffer dogs. They said the art dept. was a security nightmare as there was so much stuff.
I met the Queen in 2003 in the rather grander surroundings of Buckingham Palace. The department had been awarded one of the Queens Anniversary Prizes For Education and it was my job to introduce the students and staff we had chosen to bring. We also met Princess Ann, who when she learnt we were the 'art group', insisted that we should visit the Queens Gallery next door, as soon as we left the Palace. As the admission fees would have come to £100 it was jolly nice of her to get us in for free.
I was too shy to tell her that she was in one of my family paintings entitled 'The Puppets Dream', though. I'd actually  dreamt that the princess had been reviewing the Navy and fallen overboard. Seconds later she appears again, hat intact and still waiving out of the spout of a whale. You can see it when you next visit.

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