Alison – These remarkable faces came out of the eurasian crafts antique shop in the Great Western Road a long time ago, where someones father did a lot of travelling and got a lot of remarkable objects for the shop. I acquired them a long time ago because I was absolutely fascinated at the way they made use of the root hairs to make hair, and I also loved the soft plasticity of the nose and the mouth. I don’t actually know what the native people actually look like from the area round Bali. These are supposedly from the little island of Sumba [Antony says – well in fact they come from the whole of the Far East – China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia. Indonesia would have been the main importer, and probably because of the holiday connection, Bali in particular]
I was always absolutely fascinated by the skill in them, of using the curve in the wood, and I always found them very arresting and delightful, because the human face is not easy to make look attractive, particularly hair. So I just loved the nobbly hair.
[Anthony – its the roots of bamboo, because bamboo itself is difficult to carve – it’s only when you get to the root that it goes solid]
I got lots of things for the house from Eurasian Crafts, but at the moment I can’t think – I got rugs, jewellery, ceramics….. [Anthony says – With Stepping Stone and home school, it was that period she found eurasian crafts fascinating]. They had lots of amazing ethnic instruments and I got lots of wonderful drums – I’m sure that went into the home school life. I got a beautiful collection of drums.
Anthony – home school time must have been early 1980s – Barnaby born in 73, Ben in 75 , 2/3 years at Garnet Street school then Glasgow Academy, so probably about 1985 or 86 we started home school. [Mil – that can’t be right – I left Rugy in 1984, then long discussion about timing which gets nowhere]
Margarita Burrell was a wonderful musician and also taught Eurythmy. She had a Eurythmics class and also a bamboo pipe class. Little boys absolutely loved her, and loved making bamboo pipes – I think that appealed to the male. I seem to remember that home school had external teachers for various things, and Margarita was one of them. The challenge was socialising.
[Mil asks what led you to homeschool the boys?]
Alison – I was very cross with Glasgow Academy…. What was it?
Anthony – when he moved from first to second year, it included a teacher who eventually married Hugh Fraser and she threw chalk and she was politically incorrect in her attitude towards discipline and mum knew that Ben would go into a shell if he had her, and so at the end of the first year, we asked if Ben could be in the other stream, and when we went at the beginning of term he was in her [the same] class, and so we just removed him there and then, and homeschool was started the next morning.
Antony – it wasn’t part of my thinking – I would never have dreamt of home schooling – and I was very worried at the time when mum decided that was what she was going to do, and for the sake of unity I went along with it – it would have been awful for the children if we quarrelled. But she had always said she wouldn’t do a school run, so when Jill was doing all her driving into Bearsden, or Anniesland with the children, mum made it absolutely clear she wouldn’t do that. Walking to Garnetbank was fine, walking to Glasgow Academy was just about acceptable, but to get in the car each morning and drive in the rush hour, she would have done anything to avoid. So to a significant extent, it was mum’s negativity [Alison says ‘oh Anthony]
Anthony – going back to the paradise wood carvings, of which we must have about 50 in the house, so there are boxes of them, and mum went to town on them because I never bought any of them. Would you like any? I think when the time comes I will put them all out.
The Royal Collection 