Rum owd boys is an East Angliasn expression. At Great Yarmouth College of Art & Design (GYCAD) I met quite a few Rum owd boys. I’m still in touch with some of them: Chris Finch, Nigel Moody and Fionn Rawnsley, to name a few, experienced childhood under the expansive skies of a county which is the birth place of Lord Nelson.
Norfolk (according to Oliver Rackham) came under Danelaw centuries ago. Populated by folk of Viking descent, East Anglians are used to a free outlook not so restricted as people from Southern regions.
As a boy in East Anglia you could expect fighting, cycling, shooting, under-age drinking, acres of space and the need for creativity to overcome the boredom of agrarian territory.
You could also expect to live in a simulation of the Vietnam war (air wise), as large American bases at Lakenheath and Mildenhall sent killing machines out to practice on the mud flats near Gedney Drove End, abutting Holbeach ranges.
Nigel Moody was a model student. He did two years of foundation studies showing great promise at drawing. Moody lives in Norfolk and his work often focuses on the surrounding landscape.
At GYCAD he was a callow youth, with suppressed vitality which sought outlet in things other than drawing and painting.
It was not uncommon for him to cycle round the F2 room, while everyone else was scribbling. Nigel joined Great Yarmouth and Gorleston Wheelers Cycling Club, encouraged by foundation tutor Derek Mace. Riding a bike became a lifelong obsession for Moody, he has ridden all over the place. Not just to Stalham and back.
He went on to do further studies at Winchester School of Art, where he continued to work at objective drawing in spite of a roster of teaching staff who idolised American abstract expressionism.
During his London sojourn he worked as a bike courier (which back in the day), was more dangerous than it is now. He also worked as a bicycle repair man. In South London he had a dreadful cycling accident whilst on his way to the Fentiman Arms, resulting in a split cranium. However thanks to staff at St. Thomas’ Hospital he survived.
‘Steiner’ moved back to Norfolk where he took up the Bahá’í faith. Further decamping to the Netherlands gave Nigel chance to experience a different lifestyle; after which he came back to East Anglia where he continues to live.
He runs a picture framing business, exhibiting his work locally and has shown at a Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.
Chris Finch was at GYCAD simultaneously, alongside myself and Moody. Nicknamed ‘Hog’ because he came to college riding a Puch Maxi moped, sometimes dressed in a velvet jacket, wearing a deerstalker helmet.
Chris rode a Kawasaki KH250 during his second year at Yarmouth which he bought with his wages from working in a concrete factory. The Kwakker stood him in good stead until his final year at Maidstone when it died and was replaced by a shagged out Royal Enfield Crusader!!
During London days he worked as a motorcycle courier. ‘Hog’ kept an assortment of motorbikes including a BSA ‘Bantam’ and a Moto-Guzzi 850.
Chris’s genial character has grown on me over time – I never reckoned our paths would cross in deepest South London, where in St.Ockwell, I witnessed his horticultural skills at height; he showed me a variety of ways to enjoy smoking including: ‘The Sports Herbal Inhaler’.
The body is made from a gas fire feed pipe, the mouthpiece is a telescopic arial and the grey section is the clutch cable cover from a 1970s Honda motorcycle. The lid came from a cheap football prize, modified to fit. It bears an exquisitely engraved image of a footballer in action, smoking a spliff and breaking wind simultaneously. Like they do.
Chris went on to study Fine Art at Maidstone and subsequently worked with people who have mental health issues, teaching them about screen-printing. He is highly inventive, using his creativity to make a selection of unique velocipedes, showing a mutual interest in cycling! He has three children, all of whom studied art and design. Mr. Finch now lives in Croydon.
The full title of the above is: ‘Surrealist Collage Thugs’ Art (bootleggers from the speech prohibition). Fionn Rawnsley did Foundation studies at GYCAD a year ahead of the former alumni. Tall, blonde and definitely New Wave, Fionn is from a large family and has several brothers, all of whom have worked in creative ways during their lives. When required to state his parents’ abode on paperwork, it was noted Fionn’s mother was ‘walking to India’.
Fionn attended Goldsmiths College in South London. We had the peculiar fortune of bumping into each other, late one Sunday night during the Summer of 1983. I jumped on to the back of a No.36 bus, headed South from the West End and …. there he was! We immediately fell to Yarmouth natter. I saw no more of the mythical ‘Rawnsley’ until we resumed conversation some thirty or forty years later.
Fionn worked in media, film and graphics at ‘the Mission’ in the East End with a group of people known as ‘Muscle films’- Steve Pike, Nicky Bruce and Mike Coulson. Later he spent six years working for Spitting image.
Amongst many things, Fionn worked on bronze casting at his brother’s ‘Crucible Foundry’ in East London. He taught at GYCAD for three years becoming a course leader in Btec 3D design. After swingeing Tory cuts disposed of GYCAD, he worked at Norwich School of Art. Fionn lives in Norfolk with his wife and recently became a grandfather. He currently enjoys using digital media for creative work.
The great thing about these Rum Owd Boys is their sense of humour. Cultured at GYCAD during foundation studies, the hallmark of GYCAD humour is a natural ability to celebrate all things ridiculous, and if they aren’t ridiculous, to quickly make them so.
I’m glad to still know Chris, Nigel and Fionn and am grateful for their continuing friendship. Looking back, you can see just how creative these people are, thanks to Great Yarmouth College of Art & Design. Here’s to Rum Owd Boys.
Photos by: Chris Finch, Fionn Rawnsley, Alan Dedman, assorted GYCAD students/staff.
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