Royal College of Art, Valentine’s Day, Wednesday 14 February 1972: Today at 11 o’clock a dreadful fire. The College shop on the Ground Floor was in flames. Painting my mural in the college greenhouse, I at first thought the alarm was a distant circular saw but I was puzzled by why so many people were hurrying through.
The smoke was funnelled up the stair well and got into the greenhouse. From the courtyard I could see it billowing out of the windows. At least 7 birds are dead. Of course small birds are very susceptible to fumes.
I sketched four of the dead birds on the following Friday.
(adapted from my student diary and sketchbook)
Photography Course
The following week, I had a break from the painting when I took the college’s three-week photography course, which I’ve written about previously in this Wild Yorkshire blog.
On the following Thursday, after a morning of photography at the Chelsea Physic Garden, I met up with my tutor John Norris Wood. Judging from my conversation with him he’d spotted the flaws in my workflow and I haven’t changed much fifty years later!
The Demise of the College Greenhouse
In 1985 this appeal for help in the college greenhouse appeared in student newsletter. My thanks to Sarah Mercer, Digitisation Officer (Special Collections), at the college library for spotting this and to Henrietta Goodden for passing it on to me.
The greenhouse would soon be repurposed as a drawing studio. The Rector, Jocelyn Stevens offered to rehouse the birds in his own greenhouse.
Tchaikovsky Concert
And just one more piece of ephemera: ‘The highlight of today,’ I recorded in my diary for 11th February, ‘was the Tchaikovsky concert; Nutcracker, Piano Concerto No. 1, Capriccio Italien, Swan Lake and, with cannons and the Coldstream Guards, the 1812 overture.’