He lived a life full if adventure. He came from the slums in Gillingham, Kent in the UK. Born into a very poor family, he enrolled in the navy cadets at a young age (11ish?) and got a job cleaning the toilets on the ships on the weekends (gross!) to help support his family. His father was an alcoholic who died young, but he had a very good relationship with his mother and after opening up to her about wanting to go to art school (nobody in his family had ever been to university), she supported him on his quest to gaining a full scholarship to one of the leading art schools in the U.K. During his time at art school he met my Grandma, who came from a rather wealthy family (her dad owned various Jaguar car dealerships in the U.K, and also a very successfull timber company in Bedford, U.K) and they got married a year or so later and rented a flat in London overlooking the Thames (for 8 pounds a month, which apparently back then was quite the steal!) After art school, my Grandpa went on to get a job at the BBC where he ended up working for over 40 years as a set designer. He travelled all over the world designing sets for Top of The Pops, Miss USA, Dr Who etc etc etc. The list goes on and on lol.. he lived a very fulfilling life!

I ended up moving in with my grandparents when I was 13 as I was having trouble living with my mum and stepdad (I grew up in Singapore up until that point), so he was a real father figure to me. He died 7 years ago yesterday, although it feels like just a few years ago ☹️. My Grandma is still alive and I am incredibly close to her still, which is nice.

Thank you kind stranger for asking me about his life... writing about it has been really cathartic for me and brought back so many memories which I had forgotten, so thank you for that! Xx