Murals
Murals were all the rage in London in 1976 when I became a qualified Youth Worker.(PAINTING THE TOWN, Graham Cooper & Doug Sargent).
I began to use my Art skills to occupy, entertain and pass on skills to the local Youth. The first Murals I facilitated were at Quentin Kynasten Youth Centre under the leadership of Robin Collingwood and at The Harrow Club W10 under the leadership of Derek Adams.
The first outside Mural I facilitated was "The Concrete Jungle" at the entrance to the Harrow Club.
The Second and a lot more ambitious was the Skateboard Mural as a Summer Project in 1978. Early on in the British Skateboard Craze, 1977, the Management Committee of the Harrow Club, including myself, decided to fund the creation of a Skatepark on land at the rear of the premises.I immediately saw the potential for a Large Skateboard themed Mural to accompany the Park. The site is well visible to traffic exiting the West Way flyover heading down to Shepherds Bush roundabout. This package was agreed and so came about the brilliant Harrow Club W10 Summer Project. I owe particular thanks to these people for their help and support on this project - Hugo Trotter, Derek Adams, Chris Webb, Robin Collingwood, Saville Kushner and the helpers and young people of the area who contributed. As well as the Mural we added a Sculpture project, taking plaster castes of the young people involved and casting them in concrete. The whole project was difficult at times but in the end was a great success ---- for a while that is. In our haste and ignorance we overlooked the need for drainage in the Skatepark itself and it soon turned more into Duck Ponds than Half Pipes and only lasted for a short time.
In the background a lot was going on. The Information Technology Revolution was gathering pace and the Harrow Club had bought an adjacent building and turned it into the very first and pioneering Notting Dale ITeC.I designed the Logo and even painted the building! So it seemed appropriate to cover the Skateboard Mural with an Information Technology themed one instead. This became a summer project in 1982 and I was supported by Bob Cotton who I had worked with briefly as a visiting lecturer at East Ham college of Art the previous year.
