IMPORTANT Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. THIS TRANSCRIPT IS STILL IN DRAFT FORM THE NATIONAL LIFE STORY COLLECTION INTERVIEW SUMMARY SHEET Title Page ____________________________________________________________________ Ref. No.: C466/111/01-09 Playback No.: F8734-F8739; F9432-F9434 ____________________________________________________________________ Collection title: Artists’ Lives ____________________________________________________________________ Interviewee’s surname: Adams Title: Mr Interviewee’s forenames: Norman Date of birth: 09.02.1927 Sex: Male ____________________________________________________________________ Date(s) of recording: 28.02.2000; 02.05.2000; 12.05.2000; 23.06.2000; 25.01.2001; 30.01.2001 Location of interview: Interviewee’s house Name of interviewer: Melanie Roberts Type of recorder: Marantz CP430 Total no. of tapes: 9 Type of tape: TDK D60 Mono or stereo: Stereo Speed: Noise reduction: Dolby B Original or copy: Original ____________________________________________________________________ Additional material: None ____________________________________________________________________ Copyright/Clearance: Full clearance ____________________________________________________________________ Interviewer’s comments: ____________________________________________________________________ Norman Adams C466/111/01 F8734A Page 1 [F8734 Side A] Starting the interview with Norman Adams on the 28th of February 2000. And the first question I’m going to ask you is, when and where you were born. I was born in London, in Walthamstow, on the 9th of February 1927. And, that was when I was born. Right. We didn’t, I didn’t hang around in Walthamstow very long, my parents, they moved quite soon, and, I’m not sure how old I was, but you know, I was...I wasn’t a year old, I was just, just a baby still really. Do you know if you were born in a nursing home or at home? I was born at home. Yes, I was born at home, I’m pretty sure of that, yes. And, I’m an only child. And, I say, my mother’s just died actually. I was almost on her twentieth...she was twenty, I know that, when I was born. But it was very near her twenty-first birthday, and I think, I can’t remember whether ... Yes, no, well I was just a few days early, so just missed being on her birthday. So she was very young. She was, yes. But they, they had no other children. I think that...I don’t know why; I think she...she had... I was rather a painful experience for her. (laughs) They did have a child I think at one time, I was still very young, or they were going to have a child, and I think she lost it. But, she never talked much about it, but you know, there was...there were always some things surrounding that, that... I’m pretty sure, well Anna’s absolutely certain, she’s talked to her at times about things, that that happened. And you know, she Norman Adams C466/111/01 F8734A Page 2 had I think rather a depressing time. But, that, you know, it sorted out, and... Anyway, that was when I was born. Did you ever go back to look at that house, as a child? No. Never. No, we moved not very far away, just a bit further out of London, just across to Hendon I think is where they went first of all, you know, just off the Edgware Road there somewhere. And then they, they were near my grandmother, my father’s mother, and his younger sister who lived with her mother. And, and we were moved into...actually it was, it was the same road actually, further up, York Road I think, yes York Road. And, it was very near the Welsh Harp, which really was a pond then, quite a, quite a... It’s all been drained now, and it’s just...no sign of any water there at all, but it was quite a, quite a large lake. And, you know, I remember that being at the bottom of the garden, bottom of the road, this wasteland at the bottom of this big lake. And it was, it was rather a frightening kind of image, because, always was warned, children were very often having accidents there, getting...one or two children got drowned on different occasions. And, you know, when one went out to play with other children, one was always warned not to go too near the Welsh Harp. I remember that as being a kind of bogie in the distance, you know, that, something dangerous, if you get too far away, you know. And I think my parents, particularly my mother, had that feeling, you know, it was all, everything in life had to be, you know, you have to shut yourself in and avoid danger, you know, which... I mean, they were working, you know, working class people. And... And then there was the... My father had been called up during, the First World War that was, towards the end, it was only within, I think, just within his age range I think for being called up. And... Because they started it in the First World War didn’t they, conscription, I think they did. Yes. No they did. Yes, in the First War. Norman Adams C466/111/01 F8734A Page 3 Mm. And, he was in the Navy, and... This was all before I was born of course, and before, before they were married. And... But... You know, they had gone through that, and... But then there was the, the General Strike, and the slump and all that business, during the Twenties, and... Did he talk about that when you were young? Mm? Did he talk about his experience? Yes, yes well they, they did. You know, I came in 1927, and... He had actually landed himself a very secure job, boring, working for London Transport, just sort of clerical work. He was good with figures. I know he had the most, the most beautiful handwriting. He was very proud of his handwriting actually. And, and he used to make letters in a book, he copied out different illuminated things, headings of old books and things, and in...from old Bibles and things like that. And, and I don’t know, I used to sit and look through these, and thought they were terrific, you know. I think calligraphy was much more admired wasn’t it. Yes. Because I remember it in my childhood too, people practising writing, and really admiring that kind of skill. Yes. Yes. Norman Adams C466/111/01 F8734A Page 4 And liking the colours and the decoration, and that... But... And... But he, but he... He... You know, he never...he never did anything very original in the way of drawing or painting; I never saw an actual composition by him. He copied everything really in this book, if he liked something... He just liked the skill of copying it. I mean did he copy things other than kind of illuminated lettering? Yes he did, yes. [inaudible] free things. He had a book which he carried around, a drawing book which he carried around with him when he was in the Navy, and that, he was...and he just did drawings of things in it all the time. And he... Cartoons he used to copy too, out of magazines and the newspapers, and that sort of thing. But, nothing very interesting, but it was... Obviously he...if someone had got hold of him and taught, you know, explained a few things to him, he could have been an artist. Well in some ways he... But he had that possibility. Except that, you know, he was...everybody was desperately keen not to be unemployed, because the jobs were so scarce, and, then he landed this, which was a very safe job. Did he ever talk about it being boring? Yes. Oh dear. Yes he did. Yes, it was... And he was very angry at times, you know, he had scarcely any education at all to speak of, just an ordinary school, whatever they were like when he was young, when he was a child. And many of the members of the staff who had been to grammar school and gone up to, gone to university and this sort of thing, they were all Norman Adams C466/111/01 F8734A Page 5 promoted above him, although his work was in no ways inferior to what they were doing. And he just felt the unfairness of the whole system. And he was...I was very...I became conscious of that as a child, but he nevertheless stuck to his job. He took the first, the earliest retirement that was available at that time. He was still quite, relatively, middle- aged. Well he was a middle-aged man, he wasn’t very old. Do you know what age? Because retirement ages have changed haven’t they. It couldn’t have been... I think he must have been still in his fifties, or, you know... But he... And during that time he did start to draw and paint a lot, but again he always copied things, but landscapes, he copied landscapes. I know when, he came up to see us, this is years ahead I’m jumping now, when we bought our place up in North Yorkshire, which was forty, forty-five years ago now, and, and I persuaded him to...there’s a mountain, Pen-y-ghent, it’s part of the Pennine range, it’s...the area where we are is known as the Three Peaks, there’s Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-ghent, and our house up there is fairly close to Pen-y-ghent, it’s on the slopes of the hills, it’s 900 feet where the house is actually.