From the age of six to eighteen, I spent my life roaming the woodlands, pastures and small streams at Apperley Dene in Northumberland.

The spirit of this place is still in me. Maybe it always will be, as this series of paintings has been going on for over 25 years and there must be paintings and drawings of the place all over the world by now! Indeed my entire first degree show, in 1982, was made up entirely of massive abstract paintings inspired by Apperley Dene.

The work is always drawn from the memories of my childhood experiences, rather than directly from the landscape and so it is non-representational.

I visited the place recently to take some photographs and do some sketches. Although I was delighted that little about the landscape has changed, my secret childhood world all seemed much, much smaller…