Radio Interview Transcript

Radio 4 Interview - Transcript

(Start of interview)

Joanna Buchan:

A very much more mundane place, right back down to earth on the south coast of England, what comes to mind when you think of Worthing? - a genteel atmosphere, some faded memories of childhood summers perhaps?. It's not the place which springs instantly to mind now is it when thinking of a centre of the artistic avant-garde. But for one working artist, Worthing has become his haven, his inspiration almost - Bob Brighton is a slight figure, with a red headband, round glasses and a very warm smile. One blustery day last week I met him in the small room he calls home.

Bob Brighton:

I was two months premature - wasn't expected to live anyway, and I was always treated a little bit special. I didn't grow up with prejudices... and even though we were bombed out in Brighton, one of the few houses, I was friends before I went to the grammar school with the German prisoners. And mum and dad, they even invited them in the home.

Joanna Buchan:

But were you happy as a boy at school, I mean what did the other boys make of you?

Bob Brighton:

At school, like life generally, I've had to fight my way every inch of the way. The 'group', were against me. I think one of the things that really irritates people and irritated them, I can look back and say to myself, it never occurred to me to ever tell a lie and I think it was that that really annoyed people. But the 'crowd' generally have always given me a tough time, they've always done so, until recent years when I came to Worthing. And that's the first place I've ever been accepted.

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(Joanna and Bob take a walk along the seafront)

Joanna Buchan:

It's quite strange in the beginning of winter as we are here and that's a wintery wind coming straight from Russia - and the sea is sort of steel and grey and green...

Bob Brighton:

Well, the wonderful thing I like about this time of the year is, the magic colour of this time of the year is silver grey, now I see it as utterly beautiful. And where you get the sea, especially when it's to the south, you get that wonderful reflected light, so, I don't think I'm addicted to the sea so much - it's the light that it brings all about you. And it transforms everything. So I walk in the space, the air and the space is my one domain I would say.

Funnily enough, looking at my work now, when I look upon myself as a great world artist, as a student, I was totally addicted to the pencil and objective drawing. And I did start to kind of rebel in the last year, I began to find my imagination. And I found it through Egyptian art and Blake, for instance. And from then on really, I was really on my own.

Joanna Buchan:

Did you ever think at this point that I'm going to have to get a job aren't I, I'm going to have to find a way of using my talent to make a living?

Bob Brighton:

Not at this point, because I had refused to do my military service. And I thought I would go to prison. But when I went to the tribunal they kind of clapped me out, because I said I wanted to go to Switzerland, there's a disaster up in the mountains there. The following day, I sold my books, for four pounds fifty, three pound to get a bus down there, I had one pound fifty when I started. And I went from work camp to work camp. But it was then I started to meet interesting people. And one very important thing in my development, there was at the time the Algerian war, so there were the French, fleeing into Switzerland because they didn't agree with the war. And so there were a few in the work camp where I was. And there was some old boy, Swiss old boy, running it, who I didn't like at all. And he organised one of these 'anti' things, they would have a fast, to oppose the French government. And from the Christmas day to the New year's day we stayed in the school and fasted. And I wasn't the kind of lad to cry really, and one night I woke up sobbing my heart out. And what it was, I suddenly realised... and that's pretty good at twenty two... you know, what a 'so and so' I had been to people really, a thoughtless so and so... I still am!, but I realised it... how I had been to my mum, my mum and dad, how I had been to my girlfriend. And I determined when I came home I would show people, how I felt...

Joanna Buchan:

Show your feelings more...

Bob Brighton:

Oh yes, yes, yes. That's what it boils down to really doesn't it. In other words, there was a lot bottled up in me wasn't there.

Well I had always given my works away or thrown them away. For the simple reason that I was never ready. But that is very very important, that kind of feeling that I get, just as life is a great gift, so I give back to life.

Joanna Buchan:

This does suggest to me however that... you're not in this for the money. Because if you can create and then quite happily give, or throw it away, it's not an ideal way of making a living is it?

Bob Brighton:

Money has never come into it. As far as I'm concerned, the students I was with, they all had it back to front. They were all ambitious and wanted to be famous etcetera. Well, what's that got to do with a developing artist?. An artist as a person, a human being, develops where they are - out in the world.

If I had chosen to come to Worthing, I doubt if I would have come, last place on earth. Because I thought I was totally unsuited. But even when I decided that I was going to make new friends - people who love the things that I love, I decided that I would walk up to anybody in the street and say "I'm Bob, who are you?" and in Worthing, you can do that as easy as anything. People respond. And also, and this is the real positive thing, although 'old' people, when you meet them a lot of old people are incredibly materialistic here, old age, never the less, brings a wisdom all of it's own. And it brings an atmosphere to Worthing that I, when I decided I want to only be known for my more profound, mature works, that really fits in very well.

I was fifty when I had my first exhibition in Worthing museum. I have always waited until I was ready, until my apprenticeship was over, but at fifty I was ready. And as such, you break into a new dimension in your own personality. And I discovered the whole world was my home. All people was my family. I had become a social being, truly a social being, I mean, not one that pretends by just doing a job.

Joanna Buchan:

All the things though that you were saying about feeling uneasy in your childhood, maybe being the square peg that couldn't go into the round hole...

Bob Brighton:

You see, I didn't see it that way then. I was too busy fighting and working and concentrating on what I was doing...

Joanna Buchan:

But it is tough being different...

Bob Brighton:

Oh without doubt. Without doubt. It's a real hard road and I don't advise anybody to do it, or even try.

Joanna Buchan:

But do you want to fit in, is it important that you fit in wherever you are?

Bob Brighton:

Once an artist fits in he is no longer an artist I would say.

Joanna Buchan:

Don't you find it rather funny though that, for an artist who's never wanted to fit in - because then you wouldn't be an artist - here you are, perfectly happy to end up, in Worthing, South coast of England, can't get much more, you know, comfortable than this...

Bob Brighton:

There's a wonderful enigma where this is concerned. The moment I stepped right out and became a true individual, I stepped right in to society. The last ten years or so, what has been so wonderful and has been such an unexpected luxury for me, is that I have been accepted.

Joanna Buchan:

Well, you better watch out then, or you won't be an artist anymore!

Bob Brighton:

(Laughs) Well I think they can go so far, but I don't think they can go all the way.

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(Joanna and Bob visit a seafront tea room)

Cafe waiter

Two teas, one coffee, there you go.

Bob Brighton:

Yes, thanks, thanks very much. O.K., now I'm happy, I've got a cup of tea!

If you really sum it up, my attitude to Worthing is the response I get here. I certainly don't feel I'm on my own. I have a lot of people who know me and don't know me, who are very sympathetic to me and enjoy me being here. I think that's one of the reasons why I like being here, because I can find the contentment that is mine. I'm really nobody in Worthing. People, you know, they recognise me, but they don't really think I'm anybody that special and that's nice. I can just be Bob!

Joanna Buchan:

And he is... Bob Brighton.

 

(End of interview)