My Life in Art
While I was working at the studio at Ludham Bridge, the local archive group asked if they could film me giving a talk about myself for their archives. I agreed, so they sat me down and-I came to Norfolk in 1977. I’d lost my house and my job, and I thought I might as well sod off and do something I like while I’ve got the chance. I thought it should be possible to earn a crust by sitting on a boat and selling paintings to tourists. So I came down one winter weekend, found a little boat, River Gypsy- a 16ft two birth cabin cruiser, a Yare Craft. It was like a wardrobe with a sharp end. She was built just for playing in at weekends, but I lived on board for 12 months! It was like doing a navvying job while wearing a silk suit; I wore her out!
Then after a year, I found my houseboat for sale, at Thurne- Walrus- an ex landing craft, but never used as such because they were like Kleenex boats. They were used once and discarded where they lay. I was told by Tim Whelpton, boat builder, that she was converted to a houseboat in Horning, just after the war. Someone else told me that in the 60’s she was on Barton Broad with a family of eel-catchers living on board. Then when I caught up with her at Thurne she was in a very sorry state, and had I known then what I know now about boats, I never would have touched her, but if I hadn’t bought her I wouldn’t be here now!
My personal philosophy is that you can look back down your life and think I wish I hadn’t done that, wish I hadn’t said that, hadn’t met him, hadn’t gone there, but they are all links in a chain; if you take any one of those links out, the chain doesn’t come to where you are now, so if you like it where you are, don’t tamper with it”. So I’m glad I was taken in over the purchase of Walrus.
I bought Walrus in the August of ’78.I went home to Sheffield for Christmas, and some of you may remember that was one of the worst winters we ever had in Norfolk. I got snowed in, in Sheffield. I got back to my aunt’s house in Yarmouth and was snow-bound again, and when I finally made it back to Thurne Walrus had sunk- only in a couple of feet of water, but it was enough. I got her up in a day because I got someone with a truck and a pump, so we soon got her up.
Then I met Ron Herbert. What you would call a likeable rogue. He was my landlord at the moorings. Ron was the sort who would look for someone with a need, and he would fill that need- double. But then, before you could draw breath, he would be collecting on his investment. He once told me he preferred bad company to no company at all; I didn’t ask him which class of company I came into.
Well Ron turned up; my boat was sunk and back up again, but still in a very sorry, soggy state. So he said ‘You need somewhere decent to sleep until you’ve set her to rights. Sleep on my houseboat- she’s doing nothing. Stay as long as you like!’ I said ‘thank you’ and moved aboard. Later that day, so did he. He cooked a wonderful supper, then just before turning in, he asked ‘Would you like to give me a hand cutting some reed tomorrow?’ I thought, well I can hardly say no, so I said yes.
He said ‘I think I can pay you 10p a bunch.’ I thought ‘Oh no, it’s a job! And I was lumbered with Ron Herbert for two or three months- until he went off eel catching in earnest. I did reed cutting and shooting and hauling nets, and all that. It did teach me all about reed cutting and eel catching, though.
There were other characters in the eel catching line. Tom Boddington was one. Tom was married quite late in life, to a lady named Dee. Dee had lead an interesting life, as had Tom. He’d been in the Merchant Navy- all around the China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the East Indies and the East African Coast. He came back with his little bag of strange words- Kick the budgie- How much? Jaldie –jaldie-Hurry up! He never did laundry- it was always dhobie to Tom, and he liked his chota peg of an evening, if not a burra peg.
At one time, Tom and Dee had a houseboat at Womack, opposite where Reg Peek, the river inspector, kept his launch. Occasionally they would arrive back from the New Inn, in the small hours, with Dee sparked out, on the back seat. Rather than attempting to manhandle her in and out of the dinghy, he would just leave her and cross the river alone and so to bed. So one morning, Reg turns up for work to find a neat pile of lady’s clothing on the quay heading. He thought that some poor soul had gone to meet her maker. He eventually found that Tom had left a comatose Dee to sleep in the motor, as usual. Dee woke up some time later, couldn’t wake Tom with her shouting, so she had just stripped off, swum across, and gone to bed! What a woman.
At Thurne I started selling paintings through Ramblers, which Reg and Thelma Parsons had opened in the Spring, following My arrival. I also learned to come up into Ludham to shop. I discovered Thrower’s wonderful deli counter, and the Ludham Butcher’s. There was a shop at Thurne, run by Basil and his wife, Marion. He was – interesting. I once asked if they would take delivery of a few bags of coal for me to take across the river. They said yes. The coal was delivered; I ferried it across to Walrus, and a few days later I took a small bunch of flowers into the shop, and asked Basil to give them to his wife, as a small thank you. Flowers? For his wife? He looked at me as though he had caught us in bed together. I couldn’t get out of the shop fast enough!
I also discovered Ludham Bridge where I bought petrol, and all manner of stuff from the Chandlers’, now no more. Of course, at the Ludham Bridge Dog Inn, I met Brian and Judi Lawton, who then sold my paintings off the pub walls. Though they are long since retired, the friendship endures.
Throughout that winter of’79/’80, which I spent on Walrus, even in the worst weather, it was really snug in there. I had over a dozen Paraffin lamps and as many candles as I cared to make, and with the little fire box lit, and the oven going, even with 6” of snow on the roof I needed to open the doors. The only downside was that the days were very short, and the evenings very long. After eating in the evening, I would often try to listen to a concert on Radio 3, and I’ve slept through some of the finest music ever written.
I made two other exciting discoveries; first St Benet’s Abbey- the only monastery not dissolved by Henry V111, due to some chicanery with his crony, the then bishop of Norwich, so it’s still on the books as a going concern, so to speak; wonderful story! The other associated find was the Chequers’ Inn, long gone now, but was originally the abbot’s rooms, and stood on the bank, on a site still identifiable.
As an intellectual exercise to while away the winter hours, I decided to prepare a planning application to rebuild the Chequers. Reg Parsons did suggest I might try saying we’d just been closed for refurbishing. I spent many a pleasant hour drawing the scheme because I’d worked in architecture, so it was familiar ground. (In fact I still have a complete set of ¼” scale working drawings if Whitbread’s are interested). I was also involved in a singing group run by a chap called John Bradnock, over at Thurne. We didn’t aspire to call ourselves a choir, but we enjoyed it. We called ourselves ‘The Mud-weights’. They all knew that I was doing these drawings, and John asked me, one day “How are you getting on with the Chequers?”
“I've come to a stand-still” I said. I need a block plan from the planning office in somewhere called North Walsham”. I’d never heard of the place.
“You want to talk to Valerie. She comes through there every day to get here”. This was the girl who worked with John and his wife in a new sailing business. So I saw this girl, Valerie, told her what I wanted, and she said she would get it for me. About a week later, I saw her in the pub, early one evening, and asked if she had got it.
“No, they didn’t have one” came the reply.
“You’ve made a right mess of that” I replied.
What do you mean?” she asked, rather indignantly.
Well, you were supposed to say ‘Here it is’ and I was going to say ‘That’s exactly what I wanted. You must come over to the boat for a meal. I’ve done the shopping, so you might as well come, anyway” and she did.
That would have been January 1980, and we were married on June 21st 1980. One day, I’d got plenty of stock, so I thought ‘What shall I do? I know; {‘ll paint my name on the side of the boat’, so I painted-
NEIL SMALLEY- LANDSCAPE PAINTER IN OILS
And before I’d finished, someone was wanting to tie up alongside, and asking if I had any paintings for sale. I thought ‘This is a good idea. I’ll paint the other side, tomorrow’, because up to then, I’d been selling through shops, pubs, all sorts of places. So from then I concentrated on selling from the boat, though I still sold through Ramblers and the Dog.
Then our son, John was born on Bastille Day, 14th July 1982, and we trugged along, together with Barney the wonder-dog, and the Flying Grannie (my Mother who visited whenever she could) and then in 1985, when we knew our daughter was on the way, we had to do some serious rethinking, because that was going to get too crowded on Walrus. 1985/86 was a very busy winter! I took Walrus out of the water at the back end of ’85 because I wanted to do a continuous tingle patch, all round the waterline, which she badly needed. -Miriam was born on 18th December- a week before Christmas. Then there had been these two coves wandering around, wanting to make a T.V. programme about Emmerson’s holiday on the Broads, on the wherry yacht, Olive, and they wandered into Thurne, one day, went into the shop and said “We’re looking for interesting people to interview for this programme. What’s that?” indicating Walrus.
“Well you want to talk to him” said Amanda, who had replaced Basil. “You won’t find anyone more interesting than him”. So they came and saw me, interviewed me and- fine; we’ll do it.
Walrus went back into the water, and- deep breath- stayed afloat- sigh of relief! Then on Good Friday of ’86, we moved house to Catfield and the boat became a lock-up shop, in effect. The house had its own archive. When we first looked at it, there was a nasty ‘30s fireplace with a slab of brickwork above it, but when I looked to one side, at mantle height, there was the end of a beam showing. Then lurking behind a piece of plaster board at the other side was- the other end of the same beam? - suggesting that behind the fireplace was an inglenook. So I raced upstairs to look at the chimney breast, and sure enough, it was 5ft wide. So there must be an inglenook. But the estate agents didn’t know.
The week after we moved in, BBC2 started a series on country houses, but hovels, not mansions, and I’m looking, and I thought ‘That’s this house’, but it wasn’t this house in Catfield; it was this house in Northumberland. It’s a pattern you see, not only throughout the British Isles, but through all of western Europe. And they didn’t just build to the same design; subsequent extensions and developments were pursued along identical lines. You start with the cell that you live in, length roughly twice the width. Across one end- fireplace centre, door one side, loft ladder, the other. At the other end partition of roughly a third to form an stable or byre, to house a horse, or to fatten a couple of pigs; in the Alps it might house goats or sheep. Mum and Dad sleep over the animals for their warmth (similar partition in the loft) kids and oldies can jockey for spots near the chimney breast. When you need to extend, first you build down the back, then you build over that, ten across the end, then over that. This is the way they did it from the tip of Italy to the wastes of Lapland. Our house has its own archive built in.
Then this wonderful ‘Emerson’ TV programme was shown, early in 1987 and it brought me the best year’s trading I ever had. In that summer I became quite respectable. Private boat owners who had dismissed Walrus as ‘that big grey thing’ were now calling ‘Hello!’ as they passed and went home talking of ‘our friend, the artist’ very likely. They showed it again at the end of the summer, and again the following Spring, which brought another good season’s trade, so good that it attracted the burglars, because in 1989 Walrus was burgled! It was the middle of June, and they took three and a half thousand pounds worth of paintings. They even took a little pile of business cards from the mantelpiece, so I presume that somebody claiming to be Neil Smalley had a stall at a car boot the following weekend, at the other side of the country, with half price paintings (still got the price tickets on them) - folk would snap them up with a bare glance.
I remember the morning I found it, I phoned Valerie and she came down to the boat with Miriam who wasn’t at school yet. When they arrived, I was busy with the river inspector and the police- scene of crime officers. Valerie and Miriam were sitting in the wheelhouse, and as I passed, Miriam asked-
“What’s the matter, Daddy?”
“Someone’s been and stolen all my paintings” I replied. I couldn’t see how I would ever be able to paint again. It’s the nearest I’ll ever come to knowing how a rape victim feels- sixty two times over, because there were sixty two paintings gone. Miriam pointed through to the for’ard cabin, where she knew I worked, and said-
“Well you’ll just have to go in there and paint some more, won’t you?”
“Yes Miriam. I will”.
I started the next day. I just wanted to get the walls covered- something quick and cheap, and in the first day I did three paintings which would normally have taken a day each. When I’d done them I thought ‘they were quick, but they aren’t cheap because they’re bloody good! And they were. I worked out that what they had stolen had taken me three months to produce. I replaced the ticket value in three weeks, and the numbers in another week. It was some of the best work I’d ever done.
It’s right what they say about necessity being the mother of invention. I couldn’t do it now. I couldn’t have done it a week later, but when \i needed to, I did it, and when I’d finished I was like a wet rag. I sweated out the rest of the season, then went to see the Paul family at Ludham Bridge Boatyard to see if they had somewhere for me to rent because I couldn’t cope with the threat of another visit from the thieves.
So at the end of the season, the boat got the ‘Viking Funeral’ treatment, and I moved to Ludham Bridge.
The archive group kindly provided me with a transcript, later, but first a film enthusiast pointed out that they had filmed the entire talk with me sitting under a large TOILET sign. The enthusiast came to the studio and filmed the whole thing again, for them, and kindly gave me a copy.