1930-2001. His artistic flair was apparent from an early age: he sold his first painting when he was nine to the family doctor. While still a schoolboy he was complimented by the Duke of Gloucester for a large wall mural in a public building and in the same year won a national drawing and design competition.

His youthful insistence to get to the source of certain subjects invited problems. When only sixteen years old, he was arrested on Biggin Hill Airfield for stubbornly ignoring the camp adjutant’s refusal to allow him to sketch the aircraft. Uncontrollable enthusiasm compelled him to climb the barbed fence and produce in less than an hour a commendable water colour study of a lone Spitfire standing on a wet tarmac. The reprimand that followed was never forgotten, but the resolution, so necessary in later trips to Africa, was instinctively nurtured.