Thought for today:
"All my life I have sensed, smelled, spoken and written in image form, whether I've been reading a book, writing a book, making a speech, solving a problem, having a dream, watching a film or observing a pair of sparrows having a tug of war as to who will win the worm. I am undoutedly influenced and pleasured by imagery as my many paintings I have around our house will testify.
I believe that the nature of imagery that stimulates our senses, also excites and pleasures us, relaxes and soothes us. I also believe that the nature of our imagery defines us in large measure as to the type of person we are and determines the kind of person that physically attracts us, and who we seek out as a short-term playmate and the one we choose as a long-term partner.
Like my mother before me I have always known myself to be a hopeless romantic. A few of the earliest images that ever penetrated my mind and stayed firmly fixed in the recess of my memory ever since are the two that reflect the suge of happiness that filled the world after the end of the 'Second World War,' that happiness that broke out between friend and friend as well as stranger and stranger in an outburst of spontaneous combustion of hope for a brighter future and more settled world where peace would rule supreme.
Although I was a war baby who was born in 1942, I was never aware of the horrors and death that surrounded Great Britain during those harsh years and the hardships that everyone endured. What I can remember is the sudden shout of joy and the return of smiling faces when the war was finally over and normality started to return to a nation. I recall the change back from powdered eggs to solid ones with yolks that looked yellower than they had ever looked. I remember the change of colours in women's dresses and frocks from drab greys to bright cheerful polka-dot patterns boldly emblazoned with all the colours of a female rainbow embracing a man-made heaven-on-earth. Out went the scarf-covered heads concealing dozens of hair rollers setting the locks in curls beneath cover and in came new hair dos and modern perms that returned to women their crowning glory. No more need was there for women to crayon lines up the back of their legs to mimic the wearing of nylons, as real nylons started to become available once more, with their sensual stretching over female leg and graceful removal with all the skill of a striptease artiste as stocking garters are unclasped in anticipated pleasure yet to come.
Of course lots of significant changes happened in the lives and fashions of men and children also, as well as institutions and organisations across the land, but as I said, I was a hopeless romantic so it was the changes in the ladies of the land that were imprinted and stayed in my memory most!
Such simple yet stirring imagery of the time; a sailor kissing a strange woman on the streets of New York when news that the 'Second World War' has ended, and two young attractive women sitting and laughing together on railings at the sea front, totally oblivious to the rest of the world as they celebrated a happy day's outing along with the fact that Great Britain never had it so good!
Such were the images of my youth that cemented my mind in permanent romantic mould, making me jelly in the hands of the fairer sex who were determined to have fun and live freely in the moment of teenage irresponsibility." William Forde: April 23rd, 2018.
"All my life I have sensed, smelled, spoken and written in image form, whether I've been reading a book, writing a book, making a speech, solving a problem, having a dream, watching a film or observing a pair of sparrows having a tug of war as to who will win the worm. I am undoutedly influenced and pleasured by imagery as my many paintings I have around our house will testify.
I believe that the nature of imagery that stimulates our senses, also excites and pleasures us, relaxes and soothes us. I also believe that the nature of our imagery defines us in large measure as to the type of person we are and determines the kind of person that physically attracts us, and who we seek out as a short-term playmate and the one we choose as a long-term partner.
Like my mother before me I have always known myself to be a hopeless romantic. A few of the earliest images that ever penetrated my mind and stayed firmly fixed in the recess of my memory ever since are the two that reflect the suge of happiness that filled the world after the end of the 'Second World War,' that happiness that broke out between friend and friend as well as stranger and stranger in an outburst of spontaneous combustion of hope for a brighter future and more settled world where peace would rule supreme.
Although I was a war baby who was born in 1942, I was never aware of the horrors and death that surrounded Great Britain during those harsh years and the hardships that everyone endured. What I can remember is the sudden shout of joy and the return of smiling faces when the war was finally over and normality started to return to a nation. I recall the change back from powdered eggs to solid ones with yolks that looked yellower than they had ever looked. I remember the change of colours in women's dresses and frocks from drab greys to bright cheerful polka-dot patterns boldly emblazoned with all the colours of a female rainbow embracing a man-made heaven-on-earth. Out went the scarf-covered heads concealing dozens of hair rollers setting the locks in curls beneath cover and in came new hair dos and modern perms that returned to women their crowning glory. No more need was there for women to crayon lines up the back of their legs to mimic the wearing of nylons, as real nylons started to become available once more, with their sensual stretching over female leg and graceful removal with all the skill of a striptease artiste as stocking garters are unclasped in anticipated pleasure yet to come.
Of course lots of significant changes happened in the lives and fashions of men and children also, as well as institutions and organisations across the land, but as I said, I was a hopeless romantic so it was the changes in the ladies of the land that were imprinted and stayed in my memory most!
Such simple yet stirring imagery of the time; a sailor kissing a strange woman on the streets of New York when news that the 'Second World War' has ended, and two young attractive women sitting and laughing together on railings at the sea front, totally oblivious to the rest of the world as they celebrated a happy day's outing along with the fact that Great Britain never had it so good!
Such were the images of my youth that cemented my mind in permanent romantic mould, making me jelly in the hands of the fairer sex who were determined to have fun and live freely in the moment of teenage irresponsibility." William Forde: April 23rd, 2018.
