Take note as John's art goes on show (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Take note as John's art goes on show

11:00am Wednesday 20th January 2010

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AN ARTIST with a keen eye for detail is showing a retrospective exhibition of his work at Fairfields Arts Centre in Basingstoke.

John White, who since 1970 has been an active member of Basingstoke Art Club and has been its chairman at various times, has compiled an eclectic collection of his work, covering natural history and human interest themes, in mixed media as well as prints, relief prints and etchings.

The prints and etchings give a clue to a fascinating career that John enjoyed working for global banknote printer De La Rue, now headquartered in Jays Close, Basingstoke.

“I was brought up in north-east London,” said John. “In fact, my mother tells me I was born within the sound of Bow Bells – so I’m a Cockney!

“I went to a technical school in Walthamstow and then got an apprenticeship with De La Rue and they sent me on day release to the prestigious Central School of Art and Design, in Kingsway, London.

“Basically, for five years De La Rue were training me to design for engraving banknotes. At the school, I was trained by the most accomplished engraver of the day, George Friend, who produced a lot of beautiful work.”

In fact, George Friend cut the lettering on the Sword of Stalingrad, which Churchill presented to Stalin in 1943, recognising the extraordinary suffering and heroism that took place during the Siege of Stalingrad.

Recalling his lively classmates at the school, John, 77, of Linnet Close, Kempshott, said: “We were a great variety of people – silversmiths, goldsmiths and engravers – young lads all doing similar things for various companies situated in that part of London.

“I got a good grounding there – you understood the trade and what went on and all the various processes. All the work in those days was engraved on to steel for the banknotes.”

“There is no engraving left and the artists don’t use paintbrushes or pencils any more, because it’s all done on the computer now,” rued John, whose younger brother Brian, who lives in Micheldever, followed in his footsteps, doing the same work for the banknote printer.

During John’s apprenticeship, De La Rue, then known as Thomas De La Rue, was headquartered in Bunhill Row, near Finsbury Square.

“Half of the building had been bombed during the war,” recalled John.

“After the Blitz, the bombed sites were cleared and they were just holes in the ground, which were all basements, with just one or two buildings still standing.”

Having deferred his National Service until he was 21, John joined the RAF during the onset of the Suez Crisis in 1953.

“The Government was very concerned about what Nasser was getting up to in Egypt and the Suez Canal,” said John. “They desperately needed photo plotters and interpreters for the aerial photographs.”

John and others from similar backgrounds were quickly sent out to the canal zone, where they received on-the-job training.

“The RAF were flying sorties across Egypt every day to watch Nasser’s troop movements and so we were kept busy,” said John. “The planes were specially adapted to take aerial photographs, with two cameras set on either side of the plane.

“You’d get a stereo pair of photographs and you could view them through a special type of spectacles, which gave a threedimensional effect.”

John was later sent to Kenya to interpret photos looking for the movement of the Mau Mau insurgents in the Aberdare Forests, near Nairobi, where he was to spend the rest of his National Service, before returning to De La Rue.

Married with three daughters, John was to leave his home in Chingford in 1969, following De La Rue’s relocation to Basingstoke.

“We were at Basing View to start with, which was interesting, although my wife was unhappy at first. She had to leave her family and friends in London and was at home with three children. But we soon made friends because we were all in the same boat then.

“We moved to a very nice new house in Kempshott, which was considered a village outside Basingstoke then. We’ve seen the town grow slowly and we have seen it develop and we like it.”

John believes that the move to Basingstoke was good for De La Rue too.

“The company got a nice new building and it gave them a good image. We had new, modern work surroundings and new equipment was brought in.”

One of the paintings on show at the Fairfields exhibition, called A View From Within, incorporates the view from John’s Basing View window.

“It’s quite an abstract painting,”

said John. “It’s a head drawn in a highly stylised way where you can see the workings of the mind, shown as the workings of a watch.”

John retired as a senior designer from De La Rue in 1994, but banknotes that he helped to design are still in circulation in parts of the world, for which he feels a certain amount of pride.

Reflecting on his career, he said: “I enjoyed my work and it was nice being able to travel with De La Rue.

“As a designer, I was sent out to various parts of the world to take designs or do research work for customers, and prepare designs on the spot.”

Describing banknotes, with all their security features, as highly complex, he said: “A team of highly-qualified people with various skills are involved in producing banknotes.

“I was just involved at the start of the process, producing the concept of the designs which were then passed to others.”

John’s exhibition, which is free and opens today, is at Fairfields Arts Centre, in Council Road, until Thursday, February 18.

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