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St Edward’s:
150 Years
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Chapter 5 / Doorways and Gateways
studio. This cramped space had atmosphere but very little else.
The need for space and expanding staff, including Phil Jolley,
Tabatha Ryan and ex-headboy Tim Greaves, meant that we
converted the boilerhouse from a maintenance storage space
into an Art Room. Two teaching rooms in the Design Centre
were opened up into one studio and the whole top floor
became a part of the Art Department.
Nick Grimshaw
Head of Art Department
1998–2008
I was taken on as a replacement for Michael Buck in 1997, but
I use the word replacement advisedly, as Michael was truly
irreplaceable. I joined a relatively small team of artist teachers
with increasing pupil numbers. Initially I was part-time and
thought it would only be for a year or two but such was the
job and the camaraderie of my colleagues and friends in the
Department and Common Room that 16 years on I find myself
writing this just having stepped down from Head of Art, a
position I took up when Nick left in 2008.
It was clear from the outset that Nick Grimshaw ran the
Art Department in a way that was revolutionary for a school
at the time. It had a Bauhaus-like ethos, as Nick himself was
fascinated by the work of Walter Gropius, whose ‘total’ vision
was a model he aspired to. Nick was an accomplished painter
and a meticulous draughtsman, who also had an encyclopaedic
knowledge of techniques and materials. Nothing was too much
trouble, and no idea was impossible.
In the early days of the new building for Art and Design
and Technology year groups were mixed and the studio was
jam-packed with pupils, staff and stuff: canvasses, easels,
paints, an etching press, the materials’ store, the paper racks,
the tables covered in paint, not to mention the still-life props.
These still-life objects mostly came from Nick’s family home
and hung from the walls and ceilings of the Department like
ripe fruits waiting for hungry pupils to pluck and do something
creative with. Nick’s father was an exceptionally gifted artist
but also a distinguished officer during the Second World War,
and many of the still-life objects in the Art Department had
found their way to the shelves in our studio from the armoured
divisions in North Africa: Jerry cans, helmets, gas-masks, park
pickets, gaiters, grease guns, paraffin burners, periscopes, bits
of guns and barbed-wire entanglement screws. Add to this
my own 1949 Royal Enfield motorbike, which I lent to the
Department for still life purposes, and much beach-combed
junk that Tabatha brought up from Bideford, the studio was
ART
I was appointed as assistant art teacher in 1979 by Chris
Ruscombe-King, who also taught at the Ruskin, and I found
that there were only a handful of pupils taking the subject and
that nobody that year was taking a public exam in Art. His wife
Mo taught the Shells ceramics.
My future wife Sue de Mestre was taken on at the same
time as I was to help with the Shells ceramics as she was
the only one capable of firing the new kiln. When Chris
resigned through failing health, Sue’s hours were increased,
and for many years she and I were the entire Department. We
occupied the Memorial Library building, drawing and painting
upstairs and ceramics downstairs (still Art). From this humble
beginning we built a Department that at its height had 43
pupils taking A Level.
When Information Technology moved into the Memorial
Library, we moved into the Old Gym. This wonderful old
single-story wooden building was a fabulous place to work
in. It came complete with a wonderful sprung maple floor
that had gained an attractive patina from innumerable pupils’
plimsoles. Sadly our grubby outdoor shoes and all the paint
spills soon ruined it. For some reason I had taken a chainsaw
to a nearby disused telegraph pole and erected it inside and
painted it fluorescent pink.
Mike Buck (OSE) took over when I had a term’s
sabbatical (1986) and after numerous resignations, which
I ignored, he finally settled to become a fabulous art
teacher who taught, inspired, and befriended generations
of aspiring painters. Mike’s humanity and great sense of
humour are something very special. The department was so
much shaped by him.
While the new Design Centre was being built, we moved
into the upstairs above the then laundry, now the Drama
Top left: Art class 1959 with L.L.
Toynbee.
Above: Art Department, Cooper
Quad, prior to the new building.
Left: Phil Jolley (Head of Ceramics),
Jane Bowen and Richard Siddons
preparing for a class.
Left:SchoolbuildingsinthestyleofPiper
by the Shells, 2013, in the North Wall.
Below left: Portrait of Freya Douglas
Ferguson, by Deya Ward-Niblett.