didn’t live and breathe in the world of orthodox
2 metres tall) and kindly presence. He provided
administrative matters. The daily life of his own
a kind that have even the most dull and ham-
teaching methods and discipline or of mundane current fads, fancies and preoccupations but behind it all there was a deep concern with creativity and imagination, and if some of this rubbed off on those of us who crossed his path so much the better.
For his farewell to the school Battiss persuaded
a reluctant Headmaster to hand over the entire school for an hour for a pop concert in the
assembly hall. Held as it was in the heyday of The
Beatles, it was received with wild acclamation by the boys. Although the disciplinarians were once
again incensed it was, as Battiss had intended, a joyous event and a far cry from the customary dry speeches and presentations.
Larry Scully also had his pet interests and projects but in his case these were rather more
substantial and durable. Beyond the classroom he was a theatrical producer-director and he presented innovative ‘kinetic’ slide shows long
before technological advances made such things properly feasible. As a hands-on art-historical
exercise he put some of the boys to work on a facsimile of the Van Eyck Ghent Altarpiece
which has survived and is to be seen today in the school museum.
I remember Scully as a man with an instinctive
encouragement and ideas and inspiration of handed boy a glimpse into the magic world of visual imagination and creativity. As a pupil
and, later, a teaching colleague of his I cannot
remember him ever imposing his own vision or
methods upon the boys. He proceeded rather by a sort of visual Socratic method, taking a boy’s initial halting effort (no matter how horrible) quite seriously and turning it, with a couple of gentle
suggestions, into a springboard from which something more promising might be launched.
The process, repeated may not have produced
a schoolboy masterpiece but the end result was often a pleasant surprise and a sense of achievement for its author.
And even if nothing presentable was, after all, forthcoming, the art room boys could still agree
with one of their number who said: ‘ This year has been the most interesting I have yet experienced
at school. Soon after the first term I realised I was not a Geographer, and so I became an
artist. Now I realise I’m not an artist either, but it’s much more fun trying.’
Ah yes! The Gods of the Art Room of old. They are long gone, but never forgotten.
Written for inclusion in Zest, Mark Henning.
empathy and sympathy for the travails of the
miserable adolescent. I think of him in that Art Room – with musical background produced by an ancient record player – as a large (well over
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