www.albiestales.co.uk part two

ALBIE WAS SPELLBOUND at the sight of the majestic red-brick building that stood before him, which was to be his ‘place of learning’ for the next three years. The lad marvelled at the three storeys of tall windows and the gleaming verdigris-encrusted copper-domed tower, as he gazed in wonderment at the School of Art in St George’s Street, Norwich.

ON THAT SEPTEMBER MORNING IN 1957, Albie found himself being jostled by other students as he stood transfixed on the granite steps leading to a pair of heavy wooden doors and the entrance to the Art School. Once inside, he joined the eager throng in the magnificent foyer – the like of which he’d never seen before – with the marble statue of some Greek entity gazing down from its lofty plinth by a staircase.

“Looks pretty ’armless!” chortled Albie to himself at the amputated sculpture, then he noticed one small item of pudendum. “Crikey, tha’s a littl’un!”

“Who you callin’ a littl’un?” the lad standing behind Albie asked, giving him a poke in the ribs.

“No, not you,” laughed Albie, pointing to the statue. “Him over there – wun’t take a large fig leaf to cover that, would it?”

Whilst Albie stood patiently queueing with the other students, he continued his visual exploration of the main hall. Looking down, he noticed the magnificent mosaic floor, with a fearsome lion standing guard over Norwich castle. To Albie’s right was a magnificent staircase with heavily-polished banister rails. How many students had been tempted to slide down those, he wondered?

Next to the staircase was an archaic lift with black-painted concertina doors, which rattled and clattered upwards and out of sight.

There was a definite aura about this place. It was a combination of all the senses: the sound of happy, laughing voices echoing along distant floors, the sight of so many different shapes and sizes, colours and textures, that lined the walls and ceilings, together with the unusual smells that invaded his nostrils. Lavender-scented polish and beeswax, he noticed, particularly heavy in the air, and a more pungent – yet not at all unpleasant – smell of paint and linseed oil. Yes, thought Albie, there was a definite ambience about this place.

Allowing his senses to roam freely, Albie was suddenly aware of a more subtle, floral fragrance, that threatened to engulf his inquisitive nostrils. Tempting, invasive, but with an almost friendly warmth to it, this new-found muskiness seduced him with its presence. Turning around quickly, Albie realised there were members of the fairer sex there as well!

GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS!

Girls, at last, he thought!

Girls with long, golden, flowing tresses like the warmest, burnished copper and some with the darkest, raven-black hair you ever did see.

Girls in pretty gaily-coloured dresses prettily-patterned with butterflies and wild flowers, with lacy, off-the-shoulder blouses in delicate pastel shades, and around their necks beads of amber and colourful crystal dangled provocatively with their every move – and, from what he could hear, they were all aspiring to be artists!

Albie found it all so very hard to take in and hoped, when the time came, he would be able to find the right words to say to these beautiful, seductive enchantresses, and regretted being denied the chance of fraternising with girls in the past.

“Next, please!” called a voice in the office nearby. “Who’s next?”

Albie, still daydreaming about the sights he’d seen – especially the young ladies around him – failed to take any notice.

“Come on, boy, wake up,” said Brenda, the Art School secretary, with a degree of impatience. “Wha’s your name, then?”

“A- A-Albie,” he stuttered, attempting to regain his composure. “The name’s Albie, an’ I watta be an Artist!”

“You an’ everyone else,” laughed Brenda, giving him a wry look. “But, you certainly look the part!”

Albie’s mother and father, knowing how much their one-and-only child had set his mind on ‘being an artist’, had left no expense spared on kitting him out for his first day at Art School – there he stood, in front of all the other students, wearing the finest lilac shirt that money could buy – from the Co-op, naturally – and a bright, canary-yellow bow tie! That was his parents’ idea of what a real artist should look like! However, his bright red beret, which his grandmother had ‘thoughtfully’ presented him, had mysteriously disappeared out of the train window on the way to Norwich. Sorry, Granny!

The other students all had a good laugh at the Sheringham lad’s ‘get up’, which, as it turned out, was to be only the first of a great many at the lad’s expense, but Albie didn’t mind as he was one step away from fulfilling his ambition – to become an Artist!

“Sign here, Albie,” said Brenda, giving him a form to complete. “This is for the Students’ Union – you do want to join, don’t you? That’s a shilling a week!” He quickly signed up and joined the massed ranks of students everywhere.

Enrolling on a four-year Graphic Design course, Albie noticed some students had the yearning to become Pablo Picassos or Henry Moores, opting for Painting or Sculpture instead.

“You’ll do ‘History of Art’ for the first year,” Brenda informed the lad. “Then, in September 1958, you’ll start the Graphic Design course – with an Intermediate exam during the following year!”

“Oh God, no-oo!” Albie said, exasperated at the thought of an examination.“Not another one – I thought that wuz all over an’ done with?”

Examinations had never been the lad’s strong point – that much he already knew – for, when the results of his past efforts at the Paston School had been made known, he had failed his GCEs miserably. All except one that is, as, luckily for him, his favourite subject, Art, had been passed with flying colours gaining 98%!

A BOHEMIAN

Albie had some rather odd ideas about what being an artist meant, or thought he did. He could see himself drawing and painting away to his heart’s content in some cosy, little rooftop garret, dressed in suitable attire as was befitting an angry young man – and thought of himself as a ‘Bohemian’.

Now, if he had taken the opportunity to discover the true meaning of the word he might have felt differently about his adopted title, as, roughly translated, it means of ‘free and easy habits, manners, and sometimes morals’, of which his long-suffering parents would have deeply disapproved!

However, he remained in blissful ignorance and, being a bit of a romantic, was eager to adopt the garb and lifestyle befitting of an artist of Bohemia.

ALBIE MEETS ‘DAV’

After enrolling, Albie and the rest of the new students were given a guided tour of the Art School, which occupied the top floor of the Victorian building. Visiting each room in turn, they were shown where Graphic Design, Painting, Sculpture, Textile Design and Calligraphy classes were held and finally taken to the Principal’s office on the top floor.

Nöel Spencer, Principal of the Norwich School of Art, came out of his room at the top of the stairs to welcome the new students. To Albie, he appeared a genial, soft-spoken man, with a Northern accent and had the distinction of being an accomplished pen and ink artist.

“If you would all like to follow me,” Mr Spencer beckoned, puffing on his favourite briar pipe amidst clouds of sweet-smelling tobacco smoke.“We’ll go and meet Mr Davenport, who will be your tutor on your first day.”

Leading the way along the cream-painted, well-lit corridor, its walls decorated with works of art by students of previous years, Mr Spencer opened the door into the ‘Life Room’.

Inside, a ruddy-faced, silver-haired man, wearing a bright red scarf knotted tightly around his neck, was busily arranging easels and chairs in a gentle arc around a central wooden platform.

“This,” announced Nöel Spencer, with a flourish of his hand, “is our Mr Davenport – or ‘Dav’, as he likes to be known.”

“Very pleased to meet you, Sir,” said Albie, holding out his hand, having lost none of the good manners drummed into him at the Paston School.

“No; man,” Dav said rather touchily, or so Albie thought. “No! You don’t call us ‘Sir’ here, y’know – call me Dav, all right, man?”

Albie, flushed with embarrassment, nodded in agreement, but inwardly knew it was going to take a lot of getting used to after the harsh disciplines of his previous school.

Dav then began by summoning all the students together. “Take a seat at an easel,” he instructed them.“Then, when I call ya’ name out, stand up – so we can all have a good look at you!”

With much scraping of chairs and rattling of easels, the students settled down as requested.

THE ROLL CALL

“When I call ya names out,” said Dav, standing on the wooden platform in front of the students, “stand up an’ we can all get t’know one another, right man?”

The art tutor then began the roll call and, as a name was called out, a student would arise, with the more extrovert amongst them taking a bow. Heads turned, eye contact was made, and they all began to get to know each other – or at least put names to faces!

“Geoffrey.”

A boy from Eye in Suffolk, grinning from ear to ear, quickly stood up and gave cheeky wave to the others.

“Pippa,” called out Dav – and a rather attractive, elfin-like girl quietly rose to her feet, struggling to control her embarrassment, revealed by her blushes.

It was all so strange to Albie as, at his previous school, all his former school friends were known by their surnames – yet here, it seemed, everyone was on first-name terms, including the tutors!

“Albert,” said Dav, looking around the room. But no-one stood up.

Trying again, but this time much louder in case the student of that name was hard of hearing. “ALBERT!”

Still no reply from the art students, many of whom were glancing around for the elusive lad.

“Albert!” Dav shouted, rather impatiently, “is there nobody at home?”

This time he gained a favourable response from the boy from Sheringham.

“Actually,” the red-faced lad proclaimed, hoping to set the matter straight, “it’s Albie if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, Actually Albie is it,” laughed Dav, and all the other Art students laughed with him.

From that day onwards, until the day Albie left, the nickname stuck and he was always known as ‘Actually Albie’! But he didn’t mind of course as, for once in his life, he was doing what he wanted and felt wholly proud to be a real artist!

SQUARING UP TO DAV

“Right,” announced Dav, after he’d called out all their names, “I think it’s a good idea for you to start with the effects of light on form.”

Then, indicating a collection of inanimate objects lying in a higgledy heap on the floor, he began to explain what he expected of his art students.

“Now, have a go at these first,” he said, pointing to the assortment of wooden cubes, cylinders and spheres.

“Just look at the way they catch the light and cast shadows,” Dav continued, “an’ how it emphasises the surface texture – do ya best to capture that, will ya’?”

Albie set to work as instructed, holding his pencil at arm’s length, as he had seen the other more mature art students do, and began to transfer pencil to paper, whilst Dav went round the class giving each and every student the benefit of his experience and some constructive criticism.

“Good, man,” he said, coming to Albie, “you’ve captured the form quite well, but, hey, man, watch out for your perspective!”

Albie could see what he meant and, taking an eraser from his pocket, began to rub out the offending lines on his drawing.

“No, no, Albie, throw that thing away,” Dav remarked loudly, shaking his head furiously. “Never use a rubber, always keep your construction lines feint so that you can work over ’em – they’re all part o’ the drawing, man!”

Under Dav’s expert eye, they began to draw representations of wooden cubes and cylinders, tackling the problems of light and shade. Using their 3B pencils to good effect, they captured the mellow shadows cast by the north light streaming through the tall windows, high above the River Wensum.

Albie made many new friends that day. Sitting on one side of him was ‘Nipper’, the ‘littl’un’ he’d met earlier when enrolling, who, he discovered, lived on Aldborough Green where they played ‘bandy-wicket’ – which he took to be a country version of cricket!

On Albie’s other side sat Geoff from Eye, from the depths of darkest Suffolk, beavering away at his drawing.

“That dun’t look very much like a cube t’me,” said Albie, leaning over to look at Geoff’s work of art. “But tha’s pretty good, I hatta admit!”

Looking up, from the bland whiteness of the paper, pinned tightly to the drawing board, were the familiar, surly features of Elvis Presley – all beautifully crafted in varying shades of black and white by Geoffrey’s most capable hand.

“What’s this, man?” snorted Dav, pausing to look over Geoff’s shoulder. “I thought I said draw wha’s in front of you?”

“Too square, man,” laughed the lad from Eye, grinning sheepishly at his tutor. “Don’t you just dig the beat?”

Dav, showing his displeasure by scribbling over Geoff’s ‘work of art’, replied coldly: “I’ll give you the beat – you’ve got the highlights all wrong, man!”

Although, afterwards, he had to admit the student showed some sense of direction – but where he was going was anybody’s guess!

At lunchtime, Albie joined Geoff from Eye, Nipper from Aldborough and Dick, from nearby Magdalen Street, and together they made their way to Norwich Market Place, with all its colourful sights and sounds of the costermongers going about their business.

“Pape-per, pape-bor,” shouted the blind newspaper seller on nearby Gentlemen’s Walk, as the foursome made their way towards the tempting smells of the chip stall at the back of the market.

Sitting on a wrought-iron seat next to Norwich Castle, overlooking City Hall and Davey Place, Albie began tucking into his chips-in-newspaper he’d bought from the market stall just off Guildhall Hill.

Glancing sideways at his fellow art students, all suitably attired for their first day at Art School, he ripped off his bow tie, loosened the neck of his lilac shirt – revealing his blue-enamelled St Christopher medallion dangling on its imitation-gold chain – and began tucking into the mound of crispy, golden chips swimming in a pool of vinegar.

“This is the life,” he declared, taking another mouthful, “tha’s hooly great to be a Bohemian, that is an’orl!”

NEXT: Albie suffers an embarrassing moment when he takes a look at life!

SOME OF ALBIE’S FAVOURITE WEBSITES A Norfolk Entertainer A Moment in Time Enjoy North Norfolk Enjoy Norwich Flint Holiday Cottages Norfolk Churches Norfolk Dialect Norfolk Village Signs Norwich City Hall and the Lions Picture Norfolk Remember Norfolk Sculthorpe Spyplanes

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