Page 54 - She's One Crazy Lady!

One of my tuto“
all these fancy subjects had to do with being a primary school teacher, but I suppose we had to broaden our knowledge and understanding in as many areas as possible. Today, I feel humbled that my education lecturer at the time, Mike Bell and his wife, Stella, a fellow headteacher in my era, became highly valued members and friends of Crazy Hats right from the start.
You can guess what my main subject was – art; I was in seventh heaven at Nene College, for the facilities available were amazing and I was to spend every hour available in the art studios, and in the well-equipped darkroom, where my love of photography grew, and in the screen-printing rooms, happily working alongside very talented and gifted students and tutors. One of my tutors, Denis Parrot, has proved to be a life-long friend. Not only was he extremely talented, but he also believed in me and having got me an interview, even encouraged me to accept a job with wallpaper designers, Sandersons in Oxford, as the type of artwork I did was, apparently, what they were looking for. I didn’t follow this up. My heart was set on being a teacher. Denis often took groups of us out to look at galleries in many locations – he brought art alive. I’m not a good artist at all but I do love symmetry, colour, shape, pattern and design and most of my work related to these. I remember, and still have the book I did about the study of an onion, and another about Egyptian Mummies and the beautiful geometric patterns on their mummified forms, patterns that I worked on by going to the British Museum in London on Saturdays, for many weeks, sitting in the said galleries with my sketch book – no mobile phones then to take instant photos!
rs, Denis Parrot, has proved to be a
It wasn’t all work. From the beginning I enjoyed a very active and full social life at college and palled up with Paul, Neil and Chez, to enter a team in the Northampton Table Tennis League, playing weekly matches in the town and against other colleges across the country at weekends. Similarly, I was introduced to Fred, who towered above me, and he and I played mixed doubles in the local tennis league and, like table tennis, played matches against other colleges. I also played mixed football again. I was very fit and often wondered how I found the time to do any work!
College days were so much fun!
Denis Parrot kept in touch with me long after college days. We have exchanged Christmas cards and notes ever since. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was to learn his wife had it and later died. We spent a long time talking about her. To show his support for the cause, he rallied his friends to come along to our annual walks and always made a fuss of Mum who, being blind at that time loved it when he used to approach her with a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. Denis was, and will always remain very special, as will fellow student, Ian, who was a year below me but excelled in the same kind of artwork I enjoyed – his work was meticulous. Ian and I became good friends, and we often went out in his yellow sports car. Years later, we were to work together, which was so much fun, and, like Denis, we are still in
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life-long frien”
d.