Recently, I called upon Carol, our Much Marcle website expert, to help me to sort out some of my ‘issues’ with my computer skills, or lack of them. Whilst reviewing the various contents of my computer, Carol opened the file in which I store the electronic images of my paintings. Her reaction was immediate.
‘Never mind worrying about getting to grips with technology; you’ve got to set up a website and get these images put onto it’. She declared. ‘Write something about each image. Tell their stories. That’s the first thing you’ve got to do.’
Somewhat stunned, I immediately set about writing up the story behind each image – and there is still likely to be a long way to go. But what you see here is, I suppose, my personal record of some of the various places and regions of the World in which I found myself living over the course of several decades. They include The Far East, Kenya, the Balkans, the Middle East; most particularly, Lebanon.
Lebanon, a country that I did not even know existed when, as a child, living and attending school in Malta, I would sit on one of the huge honey-coloured ancient sandstone blocks of the Prehistoric Temple of Hagar Qim gazing out across the Mediterranean Sea towards the East. The place across the sea, I was told, was Lebanon.
I would wonder what this place was, little knowing that one day, many years later, I would live in that beautiful country for three years until my time there would come to a sudden and dramatic end with the bombing of Lebanon by the Israelis in July 2006.
My departure from that Country was equally as sudden. I had twenty minutes to pack a rucksack before rushing to the Beirut Docks to board a British Warship before the evacuation came to an end. The warship was HMS Gloucester. She landed us in Cyprus a few hours later from whence we were flown back to London. No goodbyes, no lingering farewells. Just over. Finish. I felt like a rat leaving a sinking ship, but I was convinced there was no way Lebanon would sink. That small country’s history and people have proved otherwise many times over several millennia.
So, here I am in Herefordshire and this is my first website.
‘Never mind worrying about getting to grips with technology; you’ve got to set up a website and get these images put onto it’. She declared. ‘Write something about each image. Tell their stories. That’s the first thing you’ve got to do.’
Somewhat stunned, I immediately set about writing up the story behind each image – and there is still likely to be a long way to go. But what you see here is, I suppose, my personal record of some of the various places and regions of the World in which I found myself living over the course of several decades. They include The Far East, Kenya, the Balkans, the Middle East; most particularly, Lebanon.
Lebanon, a country that I did not even know existed when, as a child, living and attending school in Malta, I would sit on one of the huge honey-coloured ancient sandstone blocks of the Prehistoric Temple of Hagar Qim gazing out across the Mediterranean Sea towards the East. The place across the sea, I was told, was Lebanon.
I would wonder what this place was, little knowing that one day, many years later, I would live in that beautiful country for three years until my time there would come to a sudden and dramatic end with the bombing of Lebanon by the Israelis in July 2006.
My departure from that Country was equally as sudden. I had twenty minutes to pack a rucksack before rushing to the Beirut Docks to board a British Warship before the evacuation came to an end. The warship was HMS Gloucester. She landed us in Cyprus a few hours later from whence we were flown back to London. No goodbyes, no lingering farewells. Just over. Finish. I felt like a rat leaving a sinking ship, but I was convinced there was no way Lebanon would sink. That small country’s history and people have proved otherwise many times over several millennia.
So, here I am in Herefordshire and this is my first website.