7th October 2024

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1961, Digga Rhumby

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Digga's eyes followed Philip intently around the cosy London flat.

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Digga's intense concentration,  although occasionally unnerving an anxious stranger,

in no way detracted from the undisputed good looks of the large brown and white

collie.

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Those eyes, one hazel and one 'wall', were as sharp as the day he had first spotted

Philip on the beach. Philip was taking a little while to loosen up these days, Digga

observed, and the thought gave him comfort as he, in his seventeenth year, was feeling

a similar reluctance to climb down from his favourite armchair. Digga's armchair,

which he had claimed the day they had moved into the flat - after leaving the officer's mess on the airbase at Lee on Solent at the end of the war - was where he had spent many comfortable years with Philip, who worked around him; writing, drawing, talking on the telephone.  Philip's visitors, who were predominantly, but not exclusively, connected to his advertising partnership, were all terribly polite to Digga. Although, unlike the commanding officer at the officer's mess, they had dropped his title 'Lieutenant Commander'; now living in civvy street he was simply - Digga.

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Digga never bored of hearing Philip tell the story of how he came up with Digga's full name, Digga Rhumby, a malapropism of 'rubber dinghy'. Only Philip would have thought of that.  He also liked to hear the story of how Philip had found Digga on the beach in 1946, during his months test piloting aircraft, having been demobbed from active service flying Spitfires due to his ankylosing spondylitis; a condition which, although tiresome, probably saved his life. And the stories Digga was especially proud of; of the occasions he himself had flown with Philip, on numerous occasions.

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He was grateful, when he allowed himself to think of it, that Philip had rescued him from his previous human (an unhappy first year of life and the worst example of dog/human partnership).  Most of the time he successfully managed to push the experience to the very back of his sharp collie mind. Just occasionally, he would meet an individual who would ignite some distant unpleasant memory, and those humans, he reserved the right to treat with the contempt he felt they deserve. He and Philip had had some hairy moments with some of the less sensitive officers, who had seen fit to taunt Digga, and Philip had had to intervene as he sensed Digga's fear rising to levels that would lead to bad consequences - for the seamen, at least. 

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But in the main, Digga, like Philip, was a big softie. He supposed that was why they had formed such a successful union together. Last year, Digga had been photographed for Country Life Magazine. Digga himself felt somewhat detached from the whole experience, although he was not unaware of the pleasure it induced from Philip, who had lately been referring to him more and more frequently as the 'King of Dogs'. Philip said it so affectionately that Digga could not help but respond with a slow vibration of his tail, even if he found it increasingly difficult to move from the chair and, if truth were known, wasn't feeling on top form these days.  It had been the most relaxed of photo shoots. Digga draped across the chair, with his chin resting on the arm, as was his custom. Philip's friend John had fussed around with lighting and finding books with just the right style and texture of cover to casually, but purposefully, pile randomly on the table in the background of the photograph. 

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Digga could read Philip like one of those books. He knew instinctively, when Philip began to regularly attempt to pique his declining appetite with delicacies such as liver and sausage (usually reserved for special occasions) that his own refusal to eat even the most lovingly presented morsels, made Philip deeply sad. Digga did not know how to rescue Philip from the heaviness he emanated, because he simply could not face eating, as much as he tried; for Philip's sake. He was quietly content to stay in his armchair all the time now, provided Philip was there too with his calm and reassuring presence, yet he knew that he and Philip would part, with the greatest respect and affection for one another, and neither of them could bear a  formal goodbye. 

 

When the King of Dogs' mismatched eyes finally failed to open and track Philip around the room,  the heaviness got the better of Philip. For a while there could be no distraction.

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​30th September 2024

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INTRODUCTION
 

2024, Hilary

Three days ago it would have been my father's 102nd birthday. Since he was particularly fond of Battenburg, my family and I have often eaten it on his birthday to remember him. And this year, because it's less sad than wondering if he'd have lived long enough to make 102,  I have imagined my father as a little boy - 'Pip' as I believe he was affectionally known by his own father. I imagined little Pip having his Happy Birthday sung to him during high tea, which he said was his favourite meal as a child. I pondered whether he would have enjoyed being the centre of attention, or whether he would, like a lot of introverts, have just felt embarrassed. He was a self-confessed fussy eater in childhood, although I think his time serving in the Fleet Air Arm in World War Two probably changed those habits, as my childhood memories include many family meals enjoyed together around the wooden table in Myrtle Cottage in the small village of Wiveton. Wiveton, which had not yet become infamous for the eccentric MacCarthy family's 'Normal for Norfolk', and nestles a mile inland half way between Blakeney and Cley, with their respective Watch House and windmill appearing in many of my father's paintings.

My father said, of high tea, that it was a safe meal to be invited to as a child, as he was reasonably confident that he wouldn't be unpleasantly surprised by something he didn't wish to eat. He especially enjoyed what he dubbed 'HBT' (Hot Buttered Toast); thickly sliced with lashings of butter - and perhaps a little Patum Peperium (anchovy paste).  A creative, thoughtful, intuitive he wasn't the sort of father who would often be found making something in the shed, but he has been known to create an occasional item for practical use, including a toasting fork that I was allowed to use - supervised, of course, as I was a sheltered only child - on our open fire, so we could recreate the HBT together. Funny the details one recalls, so many others forgotten.

Unsurprisingly, given his advertising background, my father was equally talented with words as with a paintbrush.  One of my most treasured possessions is a book that he made for me, about his life before I was born (by which time, aged 50, he had survived flying Spitfires in the war and gone on to set up an advertising partnership in London; the perfect combination of his untrained artistic and wordsmith genius). Knowing he was an older father and wanting to pass on his thoughts and feelings on life to his only daughter, he compiled this over some Winter months when the light was too dreary to paint - somewhat prophetically this was just three years before he suddenly became unwell over Christmas with pancreatic cancer, and died two weeks later on 15th January 1986, when I was 12.  The book he wrote contains his thoughts on many of his experiences through life such as his family, London, the war, animals and food - to name a few - and contains original artwork, poetry and family photos.
 

Those who knew and loved my father - his friends, his family, those who bought his paintings - are often as in love with North Norfolk as my father was. Barry Groom, also a watercolour artist,  began his Gardner collection when he wrote to my father in 1984 asking if he might buy a small sketch. My father, with typical generosity, mailed him straight back including a sketch depicting, rather typically, two figures and a dog walking on a Norfolk beach. Barry contacted me recently and said; "This has remained a treasure."  Forty years on he is still collecting Gardner paintings, acquiring a another just this week. He says, "To me Philip is the only artist who really depicts the feel and the spirit of North Norfolk".
 

My father painted from memory, always beginning his paintings with 'the sky of the day', as viewed from his big northern facing window in his folly up some stairs at the end of the garden, from where he could see Blakeney church protruding from the trees. He walked at Blakeney every morning with his beloved collie Moss (from whom we shall hear more directly later). Over the little wooden bridge the two of them went towards the Watch House; man and dog, nearly forty years before the bridge was replaced, just recently, with a shiny green one. It was those morning walks after dropping me at school, and the visits to Cley beach after school, that inspired many of his iconic paintings, as he inhaled the sights, smells and feeling that that those very special places invoke. He was magically able to recreate this in watercolour, as he sat in his studio, smoking his pipe and channelling his deep love of his surroundings through his brush.

Robin Combe, who lived at Bayfield Hall, was my father's best friend and my Godfather, and dropped in most days. Robin once allegedly accused my father of being an a rut; in his arguably monotonous small circle of life in North Norfolk,  every day spent in his studio painting, and strong reluctance to travel any further than Blakeney or Cley. Perhaps this was unfair comment by Robin (whom my father and I and countless others adored and who sadly died in 2021)  given my father had lived through a war and busy central London life - but he simply agreed and declared in his firm, direct but kind manner, which made one reluctant to challenge him - that it was a 'comfortable rut!'  My father felt he had had his excitment earlier in life and had reached a level of contentment that many aspire to;  spending his days in the pebble clad folly he designed, puffing on the pipe which I will always remember him by, and re-creating beautiful North Norfolk for all to enjoy.

Our dear friend Ian Wallace OBE (1919-2009) composed a poem about my father on the day he died, which concludes thus:

"His talent was touched with greatness,

his heart was open wide,

and at Morston or Holkham or Blakeney

he'll always be at our side."

*full poem text and audio on the home page of the website

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Join me as I weave a story around my father's life, our relationship, the loves and the losses; as experienced as a daughter, as described by Philip in his writings, as imagined through the eyes of those around him - including his dogs - and through the people and places of his paintings.

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Next blog update: Monday 14th October