Low life | 25 July 2019

‘So what are your plans?’ said our gentle, civilised Airbnb host over a tray of tea and cake to welcome us into their perfect home. I outlined the highlights of our prospective three-day literary tour. ‘The Augustus John exhibition at the Salisbury museum; the Henry Lamb at Poole; Hardy’s cottage. And if we have time the Barley Mow on the Wimborne Road where Evelyn Waugh wrote Decline and Fall.’ ‘My word, you are a cultured couple,’ he said, half-humorously. ‘Oh, we’re so cultured it’s ridiculous,’ I said.

The Augustus John exhibition was wonderful. (So was Salisbury’s museum.) Michael Holroyd’s biography of John, then his pictures, were the spark which inspired Catriona to pick up a paintbrush and me to start looking at paintings. Every picture at Salisbury museum was familiar to us via art book reproductions. I was shocked, however, to see that the works that I had imagined to be small were huge and vice versa.