nature
Jim's lack of extravagance and his love for the arts
Elisabeth Swan
Transcript
There was no extravagance going on of any kind. No, he wasn't earning much and he was always giving money away. They weren't really wanting the things that cost a lot of money, I don't think. Jim was in that way like... evangelical is the proper word really, a sort of keen missionary. All his life, I think, he wanted people to get the pleasure and authenticity of things looking lovely, indoors as well as out of doors but my mother was terribly keen about nature and about things she saw in the country or at the seaside whereas Jim was more appreciative of things which artists had made very often but they both were very aware of what they were looking at.
Helen's love of nature
Mary Adams
Transcript
I had a very great deal in common with her. We shared a great love of nature and of country things and all that. She loved being a peasant and living in the country. Once I was married and we lived in the country, she loved coming down and picking up sticks for the fire and fiddling around, you know, gathering mushrooms and apples and things. She was herself. She sort of blossomed in that environment. She was wrongly placed, I think, in a town, city, arty kind of.. it wasn't her kind of thing at all, any of it. And she did, certainly at Kettle's Yard, she made it quite clear it wasn't her life, she wasn't taking part in it except to be there and support him and feed him and all that which she did perfectly. But it wasn't the way she wanted to live and her joy when she used to come and see us, because we were farming, at being just a sort of rustic kind of person was absolutely apparent.
Walking in Tangier, 1937/38, and Helen's love of literature
Elisabeth Swan
Transcript
Their house was up on the mountain and one got very fond of the scenery, I mean, it was really Mediterranean scenery with wonderful views of the sea. We went every evening for a walk round the back which was quite a rough walk and we'd go to the Mediterranean coast and Mummy was always quoting, 'Nobly, nobly Cape St Vincent to the North-west died away; sunset ran, one glorious blood red, reeking into Cadiz Bay'. You know, she came out with quotations at the drop of a hat. She was so familiar with English literature really and poetry. So we really loved those walks and then we often had a session of being read to from a nice book before we went to bed.
Invigilating c.1980, responding to the whole visual environment
Eleanor Engle
Transcript
You know, at the age 19, 20, it was really, I think it was probably very influential on me. The fact that, it wasn't just that it was pictures all over the wall, but it was that everything was, sort of, mixed in together. Lots of people said, 'Oh, it's so nice because it has such a peaceful atmosphere there', but I think for me, really, it was just that it was a... the whole thing was a whole visual environment. Visual language is not the thing in Cambridge and that's what I was pining for, that's what I wanted. Being in that environment, you know, having the excuse to be there for two hours on a Saturday to let people in, but really it was so that I could just soak in that whole... and look at, really just, not just soak in but actually look at all that whole visual environment - it's pebbles next to wild flowers next to Gaudier-Brzeska, a bit of thing, a bit of sculpture... I suppose because I sat on that table letting people in, that really sunk into me somewhere.
