Mr. Bevan.- Art

Mr. Bevan- A admirer of Vincent Van Gogh. 

 Mr. Bevan taught Art in my time at Tulketh. He operated out of room 5, which was on the at the back of the second floor of the block facing the schoolyard. The long window in the room looked out on to large playing fields at the back of the school.

The Art classroom was typical of the time full of long dark wooden trestles with stools, pupil’s artwork displayed on the walls with a teacher’s desk and storeroom at the top of the class.

Mr. Bevan looked like a lot of the modern teachers of the time longish hair, moustache and of course the beige or green jackets with similar coloured shirts and kippa style ties of the seventies. He reminded me of a Preston North End player of the time called Alex Spark.

In the second year at Tulketh our paths crossed in form 2o as our Art teacher for the year. We had very briefly crossed paths in the first year when we had 2 hour/4 periods lesson on a Friday afternoon of a different craft/technology subject which changed every term.

His lessons were quite informal and enjoyable I thought at the time. We learned about colour, line, tone, form, communication and talked about famous artists like Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and many others.

I think I impressed him with knowing that the famous Don McLean number one record from 1972 called Vincent written about the famous  Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh, when he asked the question.

Back then we generally set homework to do to bring back to the following weeks lesson.  Every week without fail we were given an observational drawing task and had to bring into class the next time. Usually, it would be things like drawing of a fork in a glass of water, a cup and saucer, a table and lamp.

Off I would go and use my Art sketch book to draw the selected homework to great frustration sometimes could not get the hang of some of the tasks. Luckily for me my mum was not a bad drawer of objects and for the princely sum of a quarter of dolly mixtures from the Sweet cabin shop on nearby Eldon street would sometimes complete my homework for me.

When we would return the following week with our homework. At the start of the lesson we would have to line up our homework with our name at the top of our masterpiece on the front trestle for everybody to see.

Of course, there were the usual sniggers and laughs from various members of the thirty pupils plus classroom prior to inspection. Mr. Bevan would then go through each piece of work with some advice and a grading between 1 and 5 with 1 being excellent and 5 being poor. The advice Mr. Bevan gave us was always constructive and never mocked some of the poor efforts.

I would do okay most weeks getting 2 and 3 mainly and once 5 because I drew something in pen instead pencil because I’d lost my pencil case.

It was good to look at other people’s work and judge it against your own. There was an exceptional observational drawer and artist in a lad in our class called Phil Sullivan who once give me sketch drawing of a Triumph TR7 car which were huge in the seventies. I remember for many years I kept the drawing, but it got lost in moving to a new house.

We did not do an exam in Art until the summer for some reason. I remember it being an observational task like the homework with some questions to fill in on some artists work.

I remember getting a healthy 60% in the exam which was pleasing at the time. For the final few weeks up to the summer break we mainly talked about our hobbies with Mr. Bevan and what we would be doing in the third year. Some of us looked through the window which faced the playing fields and watched various classes playing various sports as well.  

Mr. Bevan left Tulketh in the summer of 1977, to become Head of Art, at Lostock Hall High School. The following term in the third year which is one of the most important of the five years we taught by a new teacher Mr. Middlehurst.

 

 

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