Acrylic on box canvas, 50cm x 50cm

When we were offered The Making of the English Working Class to read while studying history A Level, I thought the teacher was having a laugh. It was the size of a brick and I was far too busy playing in bands/turning out for sports teams/moping longingly around girls I fancied to read it. However, I did start to plough through bits of it and it began to make sense. A couple of years later at university The Making of the English Working Class was again on the list and this time I made a point of reading it properly. I’m sure it influenced me more than just about any other text, apart from perhaps the 1972 Topical Times Football Annual, my dad’s Book Club Kafka compendium, or the various illustrated Spike Milligan poetry books.

My portraits often look like someone else - confusingly, this does look rather like Maggie Thatcher’s fave right wing minister, Cecil Parkinson.