JOHN BELLANY AT WORLDS END

John Bellany at Worlds End.
Oil on canvas

By 1975 I had been living in London for five years but never bumped into John Bellany. That summer my pall John Kirkwood came to stay for a few days and suggested we pay him a visit. He knew John and also where to find him. I have this memory of walking across a huge flat area of crushed red brick, with the twin chimneys of Lots Road power station belching steam in the background. In the Bible it was Lot's wife who looked behind and was turned into a pillar of salt. There were no pillars of salt here but we were at a place called Worlds End that looked like it had been cleared by a nuclear explosion. The demolishers had left part of a row of what were called 'artisan dwellings'. These were two story, red brick buildings with very small rooms. We made a bee line for the very end one which I thought was derelict. The door was open so we shouted and went in. We squeezed past a large canvas covered with slashing brush strokes and climbed the stairs.

John Bellany was talking to a young woman who was just leaving and he welcomed us in. The two Johns did most of the talking. I didn't know much about him except that he'd been a star at Edinburgh College of Art and at the Royal College in London from 1965 - 1968. He had a reputation of being a brilliant painter but as I'd seen little or any of his work I was still to be convinced. He sat slumped in an old armchair wearing a fashionable, but ludicrous patchwork denim suit.

"Well," I thought, "This guy fancies himself as a dandy." Then I looked at all the pictures on the wall behind him. Little portraits, fishing boats and harbours, probably done when he was at college in Edinburgh. They definitely had something, almost a folksy naivety which I liked. These, I knew were not his best or recent work but personal things he'd kept. All this seemed to fit in with the sartorial absurdity of the denim suit - he was a showman.

In the painting I included an accordion lying at the side of his chair. I can't remember if it was there or not but he was a good musician and singer. During his time in Edinburgh he played in a band called the Blue Bonnets. In the film his son made of Bellany's life there is a piece of blurry, black and white film of him moving between the tables in a pub, playing the accordion and singing the 'Road and miles to Dundee.' He was a natural entertainer with a good voice who sang with feeling.

Bellany suggested we went to an Irish pub that had good music. I imagined it would be a raucous bar packed with hairy Irishmen swilling Guinness. Nothing could be further from the truth. This was very much a family bar, everyone sitting at tables and no bad language. At closing time the band played the Irish national anthem and they all stood up. We did not attract attention to ourselves by remaining seated!

Sadly, I thought that Bellany was only half the character I'd expected him to be. He was reputed to be the life and soul of the party but seemed to me quiet, distanced and preoccupied.

Of course, I had no idea of what was going on in his personal life. Earlier that year he had split up from his wife, Helen and their three kids. This provoked a nervous breakdown and he hadn't long returned from Edinburgh where he had fled to recover. When I met him he was still the the depths of a dark depression.