A Breath of Fresh Air

More memories of Batley School of Art in the late 1960s. My thanks to the graphically gifted alumni who commented on my last post.

Peter Ludlam, Graphics Tutor, Batley, 1964

We were lucky to have experts in ceramics, textiles, graphic design, printmaking and painting and decorating at Batley but there was only one tutor who had worked – as I hoped to – as a freelance illustrator.

Peter Ludlam had started as a graphics tutor a few years before I started at Batley. My thanks to his daughter Danae for the photograph. He was part of the post war generation who were called up for National Service. Danae tells me:

You were called up to National Service at 18 but could defer it for 2 years if in full time education. 
My father went to Leeds School of Art and then did his 2 year National Service.

A former student John Oldfield recalls when Peter started as a tutor at Batley:

I started at Batley in September 1963 Peter started one year later and was a fantastic breath of fresh air. Generous with his advice and highly motivating.
He had a small studio under his house which he let me use and even let me borrow his brand new Vauxhall Cresta to attend an interview! Great guy, many fond memories and much gratitude.

Nick Dormand started at Batley a decade later in 1973:

I loved the rigour of the foundation course and the way it was designed to introduce me to as many disciplines as possible in the year. I remember Peter Ludlum with fondness .. he suggested that I should study graphics but I wanted the freedom of a fine art course which I followed at Exeter . Looking back I don’t think I would have survived the free wheeling Fine Art course without the grounding Batley gave me! I am now retired but I spent pretty much the whole of my working life in Art Education which was so enjoyable. So I have much to thank Batley for!

There was once an exhibition of tutors’ work in the basement studio (below the locker room in my photo) at the back of the main building. I was interested to see some of Mr Ludlam’s illustrations for advertising. It was in the regular format for magazines of the day: main illustration, paragraph of copy and ‘pack shot’ in the bottom right corner. These might have been illustrations for Schweppes’ long-running ‘Schweppeshire’ series. They were something along those lines.

He once told he gave up on illustration because, in his opinion, the job always went to ‘young Nigel who does those lovely drawings’. i.e. there was an element of nepotism in choosing illustrators in the 1950s.

In 1969 British photographers were making an impact and it was sometimes assumed that illustration was old-fashioned and out-dated. Some illustration courses closed down.

One day when he was chatting to me in the graphics studio he spotted something with his illustrator’s eye that wasn’t immediately apparent at that time:

“Are you growing a beard?” he asked.

“Well, trying to!”

“Beardy Bell!”

Thank you Peter.