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09
I was recently browsing in a Swindon charity shop when I came across a copy of the children’s book Pepper and Jam by Reginald Pepper. The book’s story is “told” by two cats, Longbody and Tractor, and tells how the cats evade being put into a home, with a little help from Reginald Pepper; who also illustrates the story with thirty paintings.
Pepper, a naïve self-taught painter, had been born in Swindon in 1931 and had remained in the town for all of his life. He lived with his mother and two cats in a back-street house and, apparently, had never been able to hold down a steady job. He could, however, paint and during the 1980’s his primitive style became fashionable with the London “art-set”, so much so that there were a number of exhibitions in a London gallery which also sold the work of painters such as Alfred Wallis and James Dixon.
Reginald Pepper had been discovered by the artist Joanna Carrington, a niece of the Bloomsbury artist Dora Carrington, who was acquainted with Pepper’s aunt May.
Joanna was responsible for Pepper’s first exhibition and became his agent. Some of Pepper’s later exhibitions were shared with Joanna’s paintings.
Pepper’s paintings are charming. True, they lack perspective, the people depicted in the paintings have very small heads (apparently, this was thought by some to be a reflection of his own mental capacity), whereas animals, cows and pigeons were popular subjects, are exaggerated in size. His first solo exhibition, a sell-out, took place at London’s Portal Gallery in 1981. Two years later his work was shown at Amiens University, France and the book Pepper and Jam was published by Jonathan Cape in 1984. In 1985 he had a show at the Terrace Gallery in Worthing, and there were three more shows at the Portal Gallery, in 1988, 1993 and 1997.
But, some people began to smell a hoax! Mr Pepper, it seems, was never available for interview by the press, nor would Joanna Carrington allow anyone else to meet him. In 1984 Joanna’s husband, Christopher Mason, made a film about Pepper, who, by this time, had disappeared. The 55 minute film, An Investigation into the Disappearance of Reginald Pepper, had actors portraying Pepper and his family. At one point in the film Joanna Carrington is asked if she was “Reginald Pepper”, a fact that she “strongly denied”. But, of course, “Reginald Pepper” was indeed the alter ego of Joanna Carrington and it was true that she had produced all of Pepper’s paintings.
Joanna Carrington (1931 – 2003) was an extremely talented painter whose work can stand alongside most of the other great 20th century British painters. It seems that she discovered the idea of “Reginald Pepper” in 1973 when her husband, Christopher Mason, was making a film about Alfred Wallis. Her decision to paint as a “primitive” came about because she thought that it would be a form of relaxation for her. When she took some of her “Reginald Pepper” paintings to the Portal Gallery she was about to say that they were, in fact, her own work. It seems, however, that the Gallery owner was so taken by the paintings, and with the story of “Reginald Pepper”, that Joanna was unable to tell him the truth. And so the “myth” of Reginald Pepper began. As to the name, “Reginald Pepper”, did Joanna, I wonder, take it from the character “Reggie Pepper” who appears in a number of P. G. Wodehouse’s novels?
I love the story of “Reginald Pepper”. In a way it reminds me of the story of Ernest Lalor “Ern” Malley – Australia’s “greatest modernist poet” – whose poems were accepted by the Australian avant-garde and published in the magazine Angry Penguins in 1945. Malley, so the story went, died, unrecognized, at the age of 25 from Graves’ disease. The poems were found later by his sister Ethel, who forwarded them on to Angry Penguins. Thinking that they were great art, on a par with the poems of Auden and Elliot, Max Harris, the magazine’s 22 year old editor, published them in a special issue of the magazine. He even commissioned Sidney Nolan to produce the cover illustration. It was, in fact, another hoax, the work of two disgruntled Australian conscripts. The hoax was soon discovered, although this did not stop Harris from later appearing in the Dock charged with publishing “obscene material”!
I do not believe that Joanna Carrington started out to deceive when she invented “Reginald Pepper”. Things, I suppose, “got out of hand” and, if people wanted to believe in “Reginald Pepper”, then why not let them? He was, after all, a very fine painter, one of Swindon’s best!
With thanks to The Friends of Swindon Museum and Art Gallery.
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08
I remember Swindon.
A case of vertigo on diving-boards that refused to be blown-up.
I remember Swindon.
Where the Guerilla Squad was conceived - a remarkable concept in concussed percussion and a memorable performance at the Hippodrome Night Club in London with distinguished musicians and performers from Swindon - now old friends.
07
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06
I knew Dave pretty well, thought I did anyway, we got on and even though I stopped speaking to him it was more out of my embarrassment and disappointment in his behaviour.
We used to spend a lot of time in Queens’ Park, hanging about, drinking cider, listening to a transistor radio, hiding in the bushes and shouting at people as they walked past and watching the reaction. It was all pretty childish, we had time to waste and this seemed the best way. There was the tree we’d always called it the tree, ever since school when we did nature surveys there. What happened at the tree was daft an extension of everything else.
We had always been good friends, a boy and girl though we never went out with each other because we never wanted to it wasn’t like that. One day talking about all the boyfriends and girlfriends we couldn’t get and the bands we liked. We teased each other about how girls twang and boys beat in time all over the world to forget. The idea was we would sit facing away from each other with our backs against the tree like bookends and form a duo. I knew boys did this sort of thing together all the time, so why couldn’t we? He thought it was hilarious and so did I but when I’d come and asked him where he’d got to, he said he hadn’t done it and it was a stupid idea. That left me a bit cold, a betrayal because he knew I’d gone solo and now he had something on me, which had never happened between us before.
We left the Park, it was sunny, and despite there being loads of people around no one knew what had gone on between us, I can be very discreet. Not even sure if we said goodbye or anything but I was not happy with him. Next thing I hear he’s told his mates about it, which makes me look a bit daft. Now did I tell anyone about all the childish things he’d done down the Park? Collecting dog shit and putting it under a banana skin would be really embarrassing if all his football buddies knew he acted like a five year old, aged 17, but I kept these things secret because that is what friends do and he broke that.
Do I care, well not really, people laughed and maybe I ended up looking foolish but I wasn’t. He showed what a bad friend he could be and that he was really scared all I did was have a bit of laugh. The only thing I regret is the way he turned out, chances are we would have carried on as friends and forgotten about this along with all the other daft things. We’ve both got long-term boy / girlfriends now, we could all get along together, but he ruined that, so who is the fool?
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05
There’s not much to say about Swindon
It’s hardly the Unter den Linden
But if you’re looking for fun
I tell you my son
There’s many a worse place I’ve sinned in
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04
Swindon could beat Arsenal they’d done it before, the last time was in the League Cup and this time it’s the FA cup so why not? It makes sense; Swindon will beat Arsenal in all the cups, obviously.
32,00 people filled the County Ground most of them knew what would happen Swindon would win again, but they didn’t and it was even difficult to believe it that night on Match of the Day but it’s true Swindon Town 0 – Arsenal 2.
I went to the game with my brother and for a lot of the time we were together, we clapped together, shouted together, it was nice to have him there but pretty soon the Town End got to me. I didn’t need him anymore and I found my voice, ‘We hate Arsenal.’
When the game was over the crowd carried me to the exit, I had no say in it, as my body was lifted and dragged along I watched my brother being moved in a totally different direction. I waited for him by the newspaperman but got cold and bored so made my way to the bus stop.
‘I’ve lost my brother and I don’t have any fair to get home’
‘You better get on then’ the conductor said
The ride was free all the way back to our red brick barrack house in Wroughton. I said nothing, what was there to say I was home, Mum and Dad said nothing either until about an hour later, ‘Look David’s in a Police car, didn’t he come home with you Robert?’
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03
The closing of the Swindon Works 1986
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02
Surveys are carried out by a flotilla of various types who litter the streets of every town especially Swindon.
Mostly you walk past and want to escape but occasionally one catches your eye and you stop. Is it for the interaction, because you feel sorry for them or even because they appeal to you in some way? Just like the cold phone calls selling you stuff, most of which can be ignored, until one day for some reason a voice gets to you and suddenly hours seem to go by discussing phone tariffs.
Not many women can resist a smiling handsome young man who walks towards you purposefully and excitedly, “Hello young ladies, well one young and one not so young lady.’
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01
How can you remember the first time when it is one of many chopped, sliced, cut and pasted into one? The trip never goes any further but gets fatter, places and things I’d never seen the previous hundred times become new landmarks. Landmarks from a few hundred trips before that become distant fables, which crawl back into my mind on a certain stretch of road.
A barn owl twitching with life by the verge early one morning, I hadn’t the guts to put him out of his misery. A rumble at 2.30 in the morning, not quite like a lorry on the distant A346 was the aftershock of an earthquake from the North of England I discovered via World Service radio when back home. The journey by association was news, someone in Iraq, Australia or Peru might have heard about a tiny earthquake in England and now they are in on my journey. These spirits stand on the edge of the road and clap as I cycle through The Ogbournes, Draycott Foliat, Chiseldon, Hodson and then on to Swindon.
On Friday I had an appointment and even though only a couple of miles from the CO-OP clock in Newport Street I needed to know how early I was. My shorts have a low pocket with a flap while pedalling I open it up and pull out my phone to look at the time. Top left and top right buttons for on and the screen is illuminated, looking down hopeful that now I’ve turned under the trees at Coate out of the sun I will be able to see. Without reading glasses no amount of illumination is going to help me read what is on the display. I guess the time to be about 1.45 pm on reaching the CO-OP clock it seems that prediction was right.
Two hours later standing in a shop my £20 note leaves a solid gap that my hand scrabbles around but cannot find while I try to pay. I never saw it until now; attached to my bright orange phone the crisp £20, hit the floor as my phone lingered in my hand over the handlebars.
Never mind it’s only money. No, it was £20, money is what people push about on world stock exchanges it means nothing and it has a different value. This was £20, this was food, a new bike tyre when this one tears, this was a lunchtime treat for two when I was feeling a bit down. This was not money it was solid I know what it could do and without it I cannot do these things.
Cycling home I look across the same stretch of road and see nothing. Two boys on mountain bikes carrying golf clubs turn ahead of me. Maybe they have it and when I imagine them using it on free chips and pop after golf I want to chase after them with another £20 I don’t have to extend their pleasure.
It’s Monday lunchtime and back to Swindon past the burger van where various tradesmen I know always seem to be eating and drinking. Past the tree lined footpath to Barbury Castle. Past the site where a new house stands replacing an almost identical one, which burnt down in 2004. Onto the Ridgway and up the small hill to Chiseldon where there is always the same white van. Down to Hodson past the Cottage where Richard Jefferies still sits listening and learning from the gamekeeper. Then through the traffic lights and over the M4 where I take the bend a bit too wide then past the spot where my £20 went missing. Scanning the verge a white glow blares out from the grass. I stand on the pedals to slow down, and wait for a car before going back. There it is looking up at me, with the eyes of a dog thoughtlessly left outside the supermarket by a forgetful owner. A £20 note with doleful Queens head folded just as carefully as when it went into my pocket three days ago.
