A SMALL ACHIEVEMENT 1964

It’s 1964. I am 16. I am in Wilfrid Puddephat’s art class. It was generally held I was good at art, and I took it at ‘A’ Level - though looking at the current output of the school I begin to doubt!

Puddephat is an odd character, quite apart from the name, see ‘David’s Story of the discovery of the Guild Chapel Frescos’. He is the only master without a university degree, and therefore cannot wear a gown on formal occasions, and he feels bad about it. He survived polio as a child, but his face is slightly lop-sided as a result. He spends most of his time sitting in the corner of NC2 sorting his slides, peering at them in a viewer held up to the light, and inserting them in order into a Kodak Carousel. He is single; perhaps 45; caring for his elderly his father; an acknowledged expert on local history and the history of the school and a stalwart of the Stratford upon Avon Art Club. He and Winnie Phillips have afternoon tea in the bow window of the Spinning Wheel Tearooms.

(He dies of a massive heart attack some ten years later, jack-knifing into his porridge at the breakfast table, leaving all his money to establish the ‘Wilfrid Puddephat Memorial Lecture’ at the Arts Club).

One day he announced to the class “I have been asked by the headmaster of a new primary school across Clopton Bridge to invite you to take part in a competition to design the School Badge, to be part of the school uniform”. I thought there would be no harm in having a go.

I often passed the time looking at and feeding the swans on the Avon, learning to distinguish the males from the females, watching the nesting and the cygnets. What better subject for a school just on the far bank of the Avon than a swan?

So I designed a somewhat stylised white swan on a dark green background with two blue waves, and a yellow beak, and handed it to Puddephat. About a month later he told me I had won! Come the autumn term, blazers and caps were being sold with my badge on! I was pleased that they had thought it worth it to include the very small extra yellow colour for the beak. I can’t remember if I got any money but Puddephat told me he was a bit irritated because they asked him to prepare the actual artwork for the embroiderers.

And Bridgetown School uses it to this day!

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