NATIONAL LIFE STORIES ARTISTS' LIVES Lynn Chadwick Interviewed by Cathy Courtney C466/28

325 Pages·2011·1.21 MB·English

NATIONAL LIFE STORIES

ARTISTS’ LIVES

Lynn Chadwick

Interviewed by Cathy Courtney

C466/28

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The British Library National Life Stories

Interview Summary Sheet Title Page

Ref no: C466/28/01-11 Digitised from cassette originals

Collection title: Artists’ Lives
Interviewee’s surname: Chadwick Title:
Interviewee’s forename: Lynn Sex: male
Occupation: Artist Dates: 1914 – 2003

Dates of recording: 1995.04.04, 1995.04.20, 1995.05.16

Location of interview: Lyppiatt Park
Name of interviewer: Cathy Courtney

Type of recorder: Marantz CP430

Recording format: D60 Cassette
F numbers of playback cassettes: F4555 – F4565
Total no. of digitised tracks: 22 Mono or stereo: Stereo

Additional material:

Copyright/Clearance: Full clearance. © The British Library

Interviewer’s comments:

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Lynn Chadwick Page 1
C466/28 Tape 1 [F4555] Side A
F4555 Side A
Interview with Lynn Chadwick on April 4th, 1995

To begin absolutely at the beginning, where and when were you born?

When? I was born in November, 1914, in a place which was then almost a suburb of London,
called Barnes. And it had a Common and horse traffic, I Remember that.

In terms of carriages, or what?

Carriages? Oh yes. You see, that only ... well, ... everything was horse-driven then. There
were only just a few lorries and they usually had solid tyres too, they made a terrible noise.
And there were also polo ponies that used to go backwards and forwards, because there was
Roehampton and Ranelagh there, polo grounds, and so you could hear all these horses going
past. And it was, it wasn’t a village, but it was much more removed from London, in those
days, than it is now.

Were you actually born at home, do you know?

I was born at home, yes. Number 66 Station Road.

And did you know either sets of grandparents? Did you know your grandparents, on either
side?

No, because two of them were dead, and the other one, my Chadwick grandfather, was not in
England. In fact, he was just passing through on his way to New Zealand, so that’s the only
time I ever saw him.
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Lynn Chadwick Page 2
C466/28 Tape 1 [F4555] Side A

Do you know anything about his life?

No.

Did you get told stories?

Not really, no. No, I don’t really know about my grandfather. The other Grandfather, my
mother’s father, I know a little bit about him. He was a curious man, because he was, in a
way, a craftsman, as he had a joinery firm and made furniture. And, on the other hand, he
was well-known as a sort of ... not a naturalist, but an antiquarian, he used to collect objects.
And he was also slightly interested in the political scene, inasmuch as he was a political agent
for somebody.

In which party?

That’s what I don’t know, really. I know that it was for someone called Trevelyan, but I
don’t know what, what Party he was.

Is that the famous Trevelyan family, do you think, or not?

Well, it’s a big family, so I don’t really know which side of the family it was. I mean it’s a
Welsh, it’s a Cornish name, isn’t it - Trevelyan.

And where did your mother grow up? Was she a Londoner?

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Lynn Chadwick Page 3
C466/28 Tape 1 [F4555] Side A
No. She was born, I think, in Galashiels in Scotland. And she went to school in Edinburgh,
Edinburgh High School. She was brought up in a place called Galashiels, that’s where they
lived, in Selkirkshire. And she, when she left school, she became a governess, or a school
teacher, or something. She was both a school teacher and a governess, that’s right.

And had she thought that she would go on having a career, or was it something to do before
getting married? Have you any idea?

Well, you know, I don’t know how it was in those days. In any case, you know, the trouble
with all women, not the trouble, but the ... what the, what the history of all women is, that
they set out on a career, and they get side-racked, so they don’t continue it. Anyway, my
mother was a school mistress, or something like that, in Ireland for a while. Then she got
married and went with her husband to Portugal, where they lived in Portugal for a while, I
don’t know how long they lived, and then I think my mother’s first husband died.

And she had no children with him?

She had no children by him, no. No.

And did she ever talk about him? Was he a shadowy figure in your life?

He was a shadowy sort of ... no, no, I didn’t hear about him at all, but his brother lived near
here, and so that’s how I first came to this part of the country, because my mother’s brother-
in-law lived here, and we used to come to see him.

Where did he actually live?

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Lynn Chadwick Page 4
C466/28 Tape 1 [F4555] Side A
Well, I think it was somewhere near ... Sheepscombe. I think it was.

And would you come and stay with him, or would you come for the day, or what?

No, no, no. No, no. We used to rent a cottage near here, and used to come for summer
holidays. For two summer holidays, anyway, I remember two summer holidays, roundabout
1920/21.

And did they make very strong impressions on you? Have you got vivid memories of those
holidays?

Of?

Of those two holidays.

Yes. They were really, they were ... it’s a sort of formative period, you see, too, and it was
marvellous being in the country and being able to wander about barefoot. Yes, it was very
good.

Mmm. And what about the lie of the land, did it make any impression?

A little bit. Not much. But the biggest impression was, of course, quite a different thing,
because this cottage we used to rent was near this place called Whiteway Colony, which was
still inhabited by almost the original settlers who were sort of, if not Russian, there were some
Russians, but they were still sort of people who were looking for an alternative way of life.

And did you visit them?
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Lynn Chadwick Page 5
C466/28 Tape 1 [F4555] Side A

Well, we were right next to it, and we used to go there to get, to get the bread and things, yes.

And what was it like, what was the atmosphere?

Well, you know, I was only six years old, it’s difficult to remember exactly how it was,
because I, I don’t know. No, I don’t know from that ... at that age, at that age, I don’t really
remember.

Have you got any memory of the building and the interior?

This ...

No, the people you were talking about.

No. In those days, they lived in extremely primitive sort of home-built fabrications, really, in
those days, in those days, because I’m confusing it slightly when I, because later, when I was
20/21 years old, I used to come back here again, for a different reason, to see the people who
were living in the house which we had rented. That’s right. So that was much later, that was
sort of 1933 or ‘34. And so that it had changed considerably, and the people had changed,
and they had become, shall we say, more bourgeois, the people, the original colonists,
because they were, they were, you know, there was a community. They tried to run it as a
commune, but it didn’t work very well, but anyway, they tried.

And was that idea attractive to you, the idea of simplicity of the commune?

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Lynn Chadwick Page 6
C466/28 Tape 1 [F4555] Side A
No, no. It didn’t really mean anything, really. Not really, because it probably wasn’t
presented to me in a reasonable way, anyway, by the family.

And, going back to your mother’s father, did anything of his collection of objects, or anything
he made, get passed down to you? Did any of it filter through?

Not to me, no. No, well, there is ... I’ve got a chair, mmm. And I’ve got a curio cabinet,
that’s what I think, they used to keep objects in. The only thing that I know that he made that
exists, were the, the pew ends he made for St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, and these
eventually were transferred to some church in Chicago, so I really don’t know.

So you’ve never seen them.

No.

And did you get any idea, from your mother, what sort of personality he had? Was he an easy
man for her to have as a father?

Well, no, I don’t ... no, my grandfather, I don’t know. I didn’t hear very many stories about
him, except that he did have a rather convenient memory, rather like I’m getting now, and he
was able to forget what he was supposed to be doing, quite easily. I mean, for instance, one
day my grandmother said to him, “Look, go and wash your hands, because we have someone
coming to lunch”. So he went off to wash his hands, and he was looking around and thinking,
“Now, what did she say I’ve got to do? Oh, yes. Oh yes, I know. Fishing”. And he saw his
fishing rod there, “I’ve got to go fishing”. So he went off fishing and came back in two
weeks time, you see! Rather like that! I think, I quite understand that now, though. A very
convenient form of amnesia.
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Lynn Chadwick Page 7
C466/28 Tape 1 [F4555] Side A

But did you pick up from your mother that she was fond of him? Did she seem to be easy in
her memory?

No, I couldn’t tell, no. That was never referred to. But we didn’t have intimacies like that,
really, almost. It was very remote, all the conversation about the family.

And do you know anything about your mother’s mother, at all?

No, except she was a likeable person, apparently. And I don’t know what you might call ...
really grandmotherly.

And did you mother have brothers and sisters?

My mother, my mother had, I think, three sisters, two sisters and three brothers.

And were any of them part of your life, as you were growing up?

No. Well, we used to go to Scotland for our holidays sometimes, and I used to see my
cousins up there, yes. So I was quite used to the, the “Borders”, as the country is know up
there, the “Borders”, and the, the lowland hills, I was used to the scenery, and I used to enjoy
it very much.

So they would have been, sort of, more or less outdoor holidays, would they, by the sound of
it?

Oh yes.
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