Artist Hugh Winn
Talented artist and teacher Hugh Winn who started at St Mary’s College in 1951.
There are still former pupils out there who are discovering this project and it was in this vein that Hugh Winn got in touch with the website:
“I came across this project by chance,” says Hugh who started at St Mary’s in 1951 and was in the same form as the likes of Alwyn Pickard, David Barker and Roger Evans.
“I had been a pupil at St. Stephen's Primary in Welling before St Mary’s,” says Hugh who was born in Sidcup in 1940 and lived there until he got married.
“I left St Mary’s in 1958. My intention was to go to art college but I was too late in applying so to fill time for a year I worked as a clerk in an office in Holborn. Quite Dickensian, very dusty but interesting. In 1959 I eventually enrolled at Bromley Art College training as a painter.
“In 1962 the college moved to the Bromley Tertiary College site where I did a post-grad year in an attempt to get into one of the London Colleges. I was unsuccessful but fortunately got a job as a technical assistant in the art department at Avery Hill College of Education. I helped in all the disciplines but chiefly in the pottery.
“I spent two years there being persuaded to take up teaching. For a year before training I 'taught' in a boys' secondary school in Erith. I think I was taught more than teaching - a baptism of fire one might say. The next stage was a year at Goldsmith's College, training to teach art. My first teaching post was in Hornchurch. Initially I made the journey from home in Sidcup by way of the newly opened Dartford crossing to the secondary school where I stayed for seven years. This proved to be a happy period - making many friends, developing a philosophy, falling in love - with the language teacher across the corridor.
“We married in 1968 and bought a house in Upminster where we have since lived for 55 years. We have two daughters, the elder married a German and lives in Munich, the younger lives in Tiptree and has two children, both at secondary school. In 1976, I moved to a Catholic secondary school in Walthamstow as head of department, retiring in 1992 as deputy head of faculty of arts. I enjoyed my time there, making many friends from staff and pupils.
“Since leaving teaching I have worked at painting. My work is abstract and for the last few years I have tried to capture the essence of music in visual form. This is what occupies me, challenging but rewarding.
“I have had no contact with former classmates, most of my friends are from my days at Bromley Art College and in 2010 a colleague and I curated an exhibition for 19 of us in Hall Place, Bexley. This was to celebrate 50 years since we enrolled and to show the rich variety of forms our education in art had taken us.”
It was great to hear from Hugh who I’m hoping will share some of his art for us to enjoy.