Concordia

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14 15 Concordia Merchant Taylors’ School Summer 2015
We got a commission to make
‘Sterling’ for a building by Albert
Bridge. It was a contemporary work,
and controversial as it depicted the
pound fighting the ECU (European
Currency Unit), the name first given
to what later became the Euro. Mrs
Thatcher, as she then was, our Prime
Minister, called me to her office. She
wanted a bronze maquette of the work
for her desk and commissioned me
to design and make similar works
depicting the currencies of all 9 (at
that time there were only 9) Common
Market countries. She was intending
to have these sculptures with the flags
of the nations in a lovely curve, like
the front of the UN in New York, as the
forecourt of the European bank in the
City. Then the bank went to Frankfurt!
We went on to make a 17-metre high
Keris (dagger) as a national monument
for Malaysia, designing the entrance
to the Commonwealth Games stadium,
the fourth largest in the world. Then a
Portcullis and Crown for the Palace of
Westminster; the Runnymede Magna
Carta Fountain; an Open Outcry trader
and a Globe for LIFFE in the City of
London and a sculpture dedicated
by HM The Queen with President
Mitterrand to open the English end of
the Channel Tunnel on June 6th 1994.
Many other commissions followed.
Now aged 76, and very happily
married to my third wife Grace, I am still
hard at work. I am executive chairman
of The National Open Art Competition
NOA and its Exhibitions, (www.
.
I also run, with a small and dedicated
team, a not-for-profit registered arts
charity, The Chichester Art Trust. We
get more than 3500 entries from artists
and photographers across the entire UK
and give over £60,000 of prizes every
year all supported by sponsors, patrons
and those who wish to encourage
creativity and want to give young and
emerging talent a chance to succeed.
I adopted Auriol’s son Tom and
Grace has Michael, a teacher of 32,
so we have two lovely sons and a
young granddaughter, the light of
our lives! I am usually to be found in
my West Sussex studio or my office
near Chichester at work with NOA or
from time to time at a bronze casting
foundry making work for those who
have commissioned me. Occasionally
you may discover me in a classic car as
I drove the Monte Carlo Classic in 1999
and Around the World in 2000 in two
rare Facel 6’s, which you can see in
the photographs.
I don’t believe in the word retirement;
you do that when you die......career
change is much more fun!
I rather hope that this story can
inspire other Merchant Taylors’ boys.
I believe two valuable lessons are that
tenacity and hard work usually pay off
and in the face of adversity it is often
possible to turn bad into good. There are
opportunities at every turn in life. Learn
to see them, grab them, run with them,
and never take no for an answer. The
groundwork put in by my teachers at
Merchant Taylors’ played a huge part in
whatever success I have enjoyed.
I don’t believe in the word
retirement; you do that when
you die......career change is
much more fun!
Opening of the Channel Tunnel, 1994
LIFFE Trader
Sterling
Cordon Bleu crossing the Saraha in the 2000 Around The World in 80 Days rally