Robert Wyatt

In 1965, I was a foundation course student at Canterbury College of Art and Robert Wyatt was our life model. At the time, he was in a local band called the Wilde Flowers, who played at the art school dances and at a local club called the Beehive. The lead singer was Kevin Ayers who wrote a song about my friend Geraldine. He went solo when Robert formed Soft Machine a year later. Robert moved to London and Quentin Crisp started to model at Canterbury sometime later. Ian Dury came to teach the year I left.

In the early 1990s, Robert got in touch with me to ask if I had any life drawings from before his accident. My mum had kept two behind the wardrobe so I posted them to him. Robert sent me a thank-you note on the back of two photographs: ‘Were those the days? Anyway,
 I think they’re really good and provide proof that I’ve always liked a
 good hat.’

In 1976, I wrote an article for the first issue of Art Monthly. It began: ‘I bought my first dress at Biba the same afternoon I saw the Duchamp show at the Tate […] I was an art student at the fag-end of the 1960s. If only my parents had made love not war I could have been part of the New Generation.’