In 1992 this picture won the BP Portrait Award, an annual prize that is still given at the National Portrait Gallery. It is by Lucy Willis who, at the time, was teaching Art to prisoners in Shepton Mallet jail and it depicts one of her classes. She looks through the other end of the telescope from the Koestler Trust artists, as it were.
I have a few of her watercolours, collected over more than thirty years and sometimes give them as presents. An etching of Night Bathers in Zanzibar was one such; an appropriate wedding present for Chris and Emily who were going to Zanzibar for their honeymoon.
In 1946, Farrokh Bulsara was born there, a Parsi, whose family originally came from Gujarat in India. He is better known as Freddie Mercury, lead vocalist and lyricist of the rock band Queen. Walking into central London this week I passed a door set into a high brick wall. It is surrounded by tributes to Freddie who died there in 1991. He is not forgotten by his fans who leave fresh messages daily.
I was on holiday when the Princess of Wales died. In fact, we were on a sailing boat in Croatia and only heard the news on the Wednesday after her death. However, I do remember the public outpouring of grief and the bunches of flowers outside Kensington Palace. Her admirers seem not to be as staunch as Freddie’s.
You might like to know that Freddie left Garden Lodge, in Logan Place, to his close friend Mary Austin who still lives there. Lucy’s prize-winning picture was bought by John Cleese who owned it until 2003. She exhibits at the Curwen Gallery in London.