THE DAY I WAS FOUND GUILTY

Autumn lends itself to reminiscence and, 30 years on, it is perhaps time now to disclose that I was once found guilty of corrupting the morals of the young.

This, of course, was the same charge on which Socrates the great Greek philosopher was convicted. Standing trial before a jury of 500 of his fellow Athenians, he too was found guilty and the sentence in his case was death. He remained on bail and had the chance to scarper – indeed everyone would have been glad if he had – but the father of Greek philosophy nobly declined to do so and, gathering his disciples around him, drank a goblet of hemlock in the local lock-up. 

Socrates’ most famous student Plato was absent but others, such as Apollodorus, disgraced themselves by openly weeping and sobbing. Being Greeks, of course, they were very emotional. “Oh do stop your caterwauling,” said the philosopher, whose legs began to feel heavy as the hemlock slowly took effect.  Eventually he spoke his last words and it is, perhaps, worth reminding ourselves of the final utterance of the great man: “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius.”

Well autre temps, autre moeurs (as we say in Essex). We shouldn’t be surprised that 2,400 years later different standards apply. In my case the sentence wasn’t death but a public shaming. Here’s how it came about.

In those days I was a ‘bright young thing’ working for Essex County Council.  I wore 3-piece suits and had hopes of rising high in public service. In my more private moments I even dared to hope that one day I might match the achievements of one of my father’s cousins and become a chief librarian somewhere (in her case it was Dulwich or Catford or some such on the South Circular). It’s good for a young man to have ambitions. My latest posting was in Promotion and Development and it was there that I was entrusted with a significant responsibility: to select six paintings from the huge Arts Council collection of high-value art housed in a bunker under the Hayward Gallery on London’s South Bank.  These were to be displayed in public buildings in the county, for the enjoyment and education of the public. My senior colleague gave me clear instructions:  listen to the advice of the curators but make my own decisions.

So I set off. Knowing nothing about art I thought I should at least be appropriately dressed and so wore a grey herringbone 3-piece tweed suit and a blue silk Paisley bow tie (be gentle in your judgment: this was the 80s and I was visiting Art). On arrival I was taken in turn to see many different paintings – each of them lifted out into the light by two attendants in their brown warehouse coats. In the heavily demarcated and unionised 80s, to have touched the frames of a painting without the protection of a brown warehouse coat and union card would have led to the modern equivalent of the goblet of hemlock.  Five of the six paintings were soon selected but, as each choice was made, the curator’s irritation became steadily more evident. Finally, she lost her temper with me, accusing me of selecting only ‘safe, candy-box’ pictures.  I retreated behind the sure defence of the Paisley bow tie but, to be frank, her point was valid. As a bright-young-thing, fearing to rock the boat lest that should also rock my career, I had indeed played too safe. So, in a gesture towards the challenge that all good art should provoke, I boldly said that she had a free hand to select the final painting, due to be displayed prominently in Buckhurst Hill Library in West Essex.

Given her pent-up anger, it is perhaps unsurprising that she then chose a painting the shock of which no amount of grey herringbone tweed could deflect.

It was a dark depiction by Maggi Hambling of her mentor, Arthur Lett-Haines. There is a milk bottle on the table. The light is harsh. Even today I suggest that it is a disturbing, ill-favoured image and one which, I was very sure, would be unpalatable to the people of Buckhurst Hill who would much rather enjoy a gentle pastoral scene. Yet, having committed Essex County Council to a course of action, there was nothing to do but smile and commend the expertise with which she had selected a painting all but guaranteed to end the career of this young executive. Business being concluded, I returned to base to work through the six weeks or so until the paintings were displayed in their new homes.

Well 30 years on, it is some comfort to me that my judgment of both the Hambling and the tastes of the burghers of Buckhurst Hill were both spot-on. So disturbed were local people at the placement of Ms Hambling’s work that they complained in large numbers to their local councillors; complaints amplified by the local papers. The clamour was so great, in fact, that in due course the Epping Forest District Council held a vote of censure in the belief that the public display of such art would tend to corrupt the morals of the young people of Buckhurst Hill. While the Liberal Democrats and Labour councillors bravely defended the public’s right to be offended, the Conservative majority carried the day. As the (mercifully unnamed) person responsible for the outrage I was found guilty by the people’s representatives and in the public press. 

Which goes some way to explain why, if you alight today at the station between Woodford and Loughton on the Central Line, upon leaving the station precinct you are immediately confronted with slack-jawed, feckless men and women now in their mid-forties, shuffling aimlessly between Waitrose and Starbucks, their eyes dilated and their brains addled through early exposure to degenerate art. It’s a fair cop. I did it.