The Artist

Tim Thompson impressed us. His warm handshake and open friendly face made us feel immediately at home, and his enthusiasm for our proposal was infectious. Although he had none of his work to show us, and seldom has even today, he left us in no doubt that he could achieve exceptional results.

Tim, who was born in Hull in 1951, told me that for many years he had lived on the tiny island of Herm in the Channel Islands, where, as a boy, he had become fascinated by the moods of the sea, and had taught himself to paint. In Guernsey he had trained for a diploma in horticulture, and in 1975 had moved with his wife Sharon to take up a job in Devonshire with the Plymouth Parks Department. An accident had now forced him to retire, and as a result he had decided to turn his painting hobby into a full-time career.

The two coastal scenes he painted for us were an astonishing success. So great was the admiration for them that we decided to cover all our bare walls with ‘Thompsons’, but not at our own expense! We would obtain other commissions for Tim, and in return he would give us some paintings, which I and my wife, herself an accomplished artist, would specify. It was a splendidly old-fashioned way of starting a collection, and it worked so well that we decided to stage an exhibition for Tim, to be held during July 1983 at Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

Once, with my two brothers, I had been the proud owner of an 8-metre yacht, but after an unhappy adventure one cold night in January, involving two lifeboats, a Brixham trawler and a number of good ladies with blankets, my family had since been reduced to a vulgar bright-red speedboat, which we had bought in order to advertise our strawberry farm along the crowded South Devon beaches. We now used the Strawberry, as she was somewhat obviously called, to ship the entire exhibition to Cowes. As we crossed the choppy waters of the Solent, those driving their smart Admiral’s Cup yachts determinedly across our bows must have thought our little craft, weighed down with paintings, rather an unusual sight!

A good friend of mine, Robin Rising, the efficient Secretary of the Royal Yacht Squadron, had kindly arranged for us to hold our exhibition in the heart of the yachting world at the Cowes Week Regatta offices. But we had to be out before Cowes Week itself, when the racing started and the competitors arrived. It gave us little time for selling, but as I had by now persuaded Tim to change from painting mostly eighteenth-century warships to concentrate more on yachts, the opportunity to show off his work to professional yachtsmen made the exhibition seem very worthwhile.

At first we attracted little interest, but soon Tim was accepting compliments and the paintings began to sell. Then on the fifth and final day of the exhibition Ted Turner walked in. ‘Say, I’ll have that one in the window,’ said the lean-looking American. ‘Sorry,’ replied Sharon, Tim’s wife, ‘it’s already sold.’ ‘Then let’s have that one on the wall,’ he said. ‘Pity,’ replied Sharon, ‘that’s also sold.’ ‘Hell,’ exclaimed the stranger loudly, ‘what is this—a charity?’ Several interested people who were looking at the paintings now turned their heads, and suddenly there was a hush and you could hear a pin drop. ‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong around here, you’re not charging enough,’ he cracked. ‘By the time I return back down the street, I want to see your prices doubled!’

He came back half an hour later, but there was not a painting left! Our splendid American friend was not to be deterred. ‘Those paintings were fantastic,’ he said, and as he left through the door he asked Tim for a painting of ‘the Battle of the Nile’ and also to paint him a ‘large one’ of Trafalgar. ‘Who on earth was that?’ I questioned a lady, who was following him. ‘You don’t know who that was?’ she exclaimed. ‘That was the owner of the Atlanta Braves baseball team, winner of the America’s Cup in ’77, none other than the great Ted Turner.’

Ted has since asked us to send him ten more paintings, and it was his request, soon after we had returned from Cowes, where the America’s Cup had first been conceived, that Tim should paint Courageous, the Cup winner in both 1974 and 1977, that gave me the idea, in my bath, for this book.

Tim has held other exhibitions, and his paintings sell all over the world, but in no way has this affected him. On the contrary, he remains one of the nicest and most modest men I have ever met, and his capacity for work is astonishing. His ultimate ambition is to paint as well as, if not better than, any marine artist alive, but meanwhile he intends to reduce his output and take an annual holiday with his wife and two daughters.

Tim, who now lives in the heart of Cornwall, was thrilled with the idea that he should paint epic moments from the history of the America’s Cup, although it meant that the paintings would not be sold for a long time, at least until after the book was written. It also meant that together we would have to carry out a daunting amount of research over a long period.