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(BIRDS CHIRPING)

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(PLANE DRONING)

ERIC RAVILIOUS: "My darling, Tush.

I have dreamt of this moment since I was a boy.

I'm staying at the aerodrome on the west coast of Iceland.

The pilot flew us here over that mountain country

that looks like craters on the moon,

just like those photographs the Ministry of Information gave me,

with shadows very dark, and striped like leaves.

My imagination is so taken with the idea of painting Iceland.

This commission has to be my most exciting of the war so far.

It's a surprising place and full of potential subjects.

(EXPLOSION)

The convoys of ships slinking past on their way to Russia,

menaced by German U-boats.

Thanks for sending the engagement photo.

We look so innocent.

Missing you, Tasha.

Pity you couldn't be here with me, my love.

It's jolly cold here.

The weather is deteriorating, rough and windy and rainy.

Just been offered a ride with the crew

searching for a missing American plane.

I intend to stay here, drawing and painting, till Christmas.

Goodbye, darling.

I hope you feel well again.

Take care of yourself, and kisses to the children.

Eric."

(RATTLING)

(INSTRUMENT BEEPING)

PILOT: Mayday, mayday.

Mayday, mayday. Are you reading me?

We're losing altitude. I repeat, we're losing altitude. Over.

(HEAVY RATTLING)

(RAPID BEEPING)

(CRASH) (SPLASH)

(KEYS CLACKING)

TIRZAH RAVILIOUS: "I hope that you may be one of my descendants

but, as I write,

a German aeroplane has circled around my head,

reminding me that there is no certainty of our survival."

(MELLOW MUSIC) (LIGHT SCRAPING)

I first met Eric Ravilious

when he came as teacher of design at Eastbourne School of Art in 1926.

There was competition around him,

and he flirted with most of the girls in turn.

We shared a passion for art.

ERIC: I worked simply all day.

The colour is so lovely, and the design so beautifully obvious.

The chief wonder of the place is when the sun shines,

and the backing of it is a cold blue northern sky.

Beautiful weather of exactly the right sort.

TIRZAH: Ravilious asked me to come for a walk,

and I set off feeling a bit apprehensive,

not knowing how someone who was not quite a gentleman

might behave under such intimate circumstances.

(SEAGULLS SQUAWKING)

He later made a drawing of me, for an almanac he was engraving.

ELLA RAVILIOUS: This lovely little object is the original wood block

for the print of Tirzah reading,

and this was made when she was 18

and I think he was about 22, so they're both very young.

So to see this object that's so early

in their relationship,

in their courtship, is just really lovely for me.

Tirzah's very self-absorbed, reading her book.

Eric is always described as being very cheerful and light-hearted.

So much of his work is so jolly.

It's him really enjoying things, and painting them.

I get that sense from his work that that's how he was as a person.

(TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS)

ALAN BENNETT: I first came across a picture by Eric Ravilious

when I was a boy at school.

It was his train landscape,

because it was on the wall of the classroom.

There were also highland cattle on the wall,

you know, there were any picture they could get hold of.

I like the picture.

It was familiar to me, but with no notion that this was art.

It's a third-class compartment on a steam train,

which I knew well,

though I had never seen the almost mythical white horse

that you can see through the window.

It's exact in every detail,

though if I'd any criticism,

it was that I'd never seen a compartment as clean as this.

Third class compartments on steam trains tended to be quite grubby,

and smack in the centre of the painting is a long strap

to raise or lower the window.

But if you did it, and you looked at your hand,

there were two parallel black marks where the soot had marked them.

It's all there but, as I say, it's a brilliant picture.

(MELLOW MUSIC)

YOUNG ERIC: 46 Charleston Road, Eastbourne, Sussex.

1914.

Art homework. Draw something at home.

It's a scrubbing brush and bucket.

I like drawing my boots.

Drew a candlestick.

Drew Dad's collar and tie.

I like drawing the aeroplanes flying overhead.

ADULT ERIC: No-one thought of me becoming an artist,

and it was quite accidental that I did.

I applied for a scholarship with the Royal College of Art in Kensington,

and after two years' hard work,

I got it, and entered into the Design Department.

ELLA: A lot of the artists that Eric was influenced by

really loved the English countryside

and really engaged with specific styles of landscape.

Eric was also very influenced by his teacher at the RCA, Paul Nash.

Paul Nash was probably the single most

important influence on Ravilious.

He taught at the Royal College of Art in the design school

where Ravilious was.

He'd been well-known as a war artist in the Great War,

and he shared all of his tricks and techniques with Ravilious.

He was a fantastically important figure.

And Ravilious, you sort of feel has looked at that

and then has added to it

in a way that even his teacher hadn't.

(WIND GUSTING)

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

ANNE DESMET: The wood engraving goes sort of hand in hand

with British watercolour landscape tradition,

as a kind of extension of drawing, really.

ERIC: I won a travelling scholarship to Italy in 1924,

with Henry Moore and other students from the Royal College.

My first time abroad. I took my camera.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

I found inspiration in the countryside

around Florence and Siena.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

Italy was in a state of political unrest.

There were shots in the street,

and we watched a large detachment of Mussolini's fascist black shirts

tramp endlessly across the bridge in Florence.

(SOLDIERS MARCHING)

There was a chit of fear in the air,

our peace was once more under threat,

and another war might be approaching.

TIRZAH: One day on Eastbourne Pier,

we had our palms read.

Madam Viola accurately foretold most of the main events of my life.

She said the world was cursed,

and would soon be turned upside down.

She also said I was going to marry an extraordinary man,

a superman.

She took a print of the hand of Eric Ravilious,

just laughed heartily.

She said my husband would not be living with me

for the latter part of my life.

(CHURCH BELL TOLLS)

ERIC: My first major commission

was a fresco to cheer up the refreshment room

and the working men and women at Morley College in London

with fellow artist, Edward Bawden.

Beginning to paint in one corner

of a large bare room is rather an undertaking.

One has to shake off the feeling of having begun something

that requires solitary confinement to finish.

(MELLOW MUSIC)

On one of the walls, I decided my subject would be

life in a boarding house.

(BABY CRYING)

TIRZAH: Eric intended the boarding house to be satiric.

It was founded on the bourgeois dolls' house I had made

at Eastbourne, and it showed me climbing up the stairs.

(SNORING)

ERIC: We've certainly learned a great deal

about methods of working as we knew nothing

of the practical difficulties, and I can't stand oils.

It's like using toothpaste.

(PAINT SQUIRTS)

(PEPPY MUSIC)

TIRZAH: 5th July, 1930.

The first Miss Garwood to marry for over 100 years.

My Uncle John took a cinematograph film of us coming out of the church.

Here we are, the bride and groom.

There are the guests, Aggie Stoop and Mrs Barrington,

followed by the artist, Barnett Freedman and Claudia.

There's father, with the button hole, and mother.

(CHUCKLES) Looking fed up.

(PEPPY MUSIC)

They called me Tirzah because I'm their third girl.

The wedding reception was held at Aunt Edith's house

and, as it was a fine day, we went out into their garden

and ate strawberries and Vita cream.

This was a synthetic cream in which he'd invested some money

and she thought this was a splendid chance to advertise it.

Eric was not looking forward to this intermingling

of our families and artistic friends.

He was nervous that someone would do something embarrassing.

There goes Bawden, with his back to us, the best man,

and with a cigarette, Eric's brother, Frank.

Eric's father, Dad, dealt in antiques,

but sadly went bankrupt after the Great War.

He now made a precarious living selling light bulbs.

My family was well off.

Father was a retired Colonel,

and thought Eric unsuitable to marry.

Early in our marriage, we struggled to make ends meet,

so we both took all the work we could get.

Eric did dozens of engravings for books.

ANNE DESMET: Ravilious made a lot of little tiny blocks

fizzing with patterns.

They, perhaps, more than any of the others

encapsulate what it is that you can do with wood engraving,

that you can have these fabulous explosions of light

and mark making going in all sorts of different directions

on this one block,

or just independent little sizzling blocks

in their own right like a firework.

(FIREWORKS EXPLODING)

ERIC: I loved occasions such as Guy Fawkes Night,

they're fun and they're unexpected beauties.

I did a big drawing,

which I later tinted out of our back window,

adding fireworks and figures strolling

and climbing about in the gardens.

(CROWD WHOOPING)

(FIREWORKS EXPLODING)

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

TIRZAH RAVILIOUS: Eric decided he wanted to paint the country.

We formed a group of artists at Great Bardfield, Essex,

and found a large house of red and black brick

which stood in the main village street.

We shared Brick House, and the rent,

with the Bawdens, Edward and Charlotte.

The garden was particularly nice,

with a paddock containing a lovely big walnut tree.

Eric's main interest was in watercolours.

He and Bawden were, I think, responsible for a change

in the fashion of this rather neglected medium.

They drew inspiration

and mild competitiveness from each other.

Bawden called Eric, "The boy" because of his childish good looks.

They painted several pictures very early in the morning

from the roof of the house, almost overpowered

by the smoke of kippers cooking for breakfast.

ERIC RAVILIOUS: We chose subjects of a documentary interest.

Working in ghastly weather, or with the sun bang in our eyes.

ANNE ULLMANN: He got up very early

and did most of his work before breakfast,

so people got the impression that he was lying about,

but actually he'd done four or five hours work already.

You know, he'd been out there at six o'clock

before people were about, and then he would finish it at home.

It took him an average of three days to do a watercolour.

So he wasn't just dashing them off by any means, they were thought out.

GRAYSON PERRY: What Ravilious does very well,

he takes fairly unprepossessing subjects a lot of the time

and makes them into masterpieces.

Ravilious' sort of bold precision, I think, is the thing.

It's that you look at them and you think how does he-

Because, you know, we know with watercolour

that you've got no second chance with it,

and so he's incredibly confident

to be able to paint like that. Very, very skilful.

Yes, it's interesting, for me, personally,

is that I've lived in Great Bardfield,

so when I see those sort of paintings

by Ravilious, they take me back to my childhood,

sort of wandering, probably on my own,

in an imaginary world across the stubble.

(BIRD SQUAWKING)

Those houses in Great Bardfield,

they didn't even have electricity a lot of them,

and they were, like, really primitive.

It was pretty basic and you can imag-

You can almost smell the damp looking at this painting,

and the wallpaper, you know, it's like,

the blotches on the wallpaper and everything,

and sheets, you know you'd want to air them, wouldn't you?

And I think just the abstraction of it.

It's fantastic, and I love it when an artist can make a great work

out of such sort of pretty basic subject matter.

ERIC: I won a poorly paid commission to paint another mural decoration.

This time on the walls of the tea room of a hotel

on the promenade in Morecambe, Lancashire.

Tirzah and I set off together

and lived in cheap lodgings for several weeks.

ELLA RAVILIOUS: Tirzah's influence comes into those.

She's clearly integral to the whole process.

She's a partner in the whole project,

so I really get that sense from both her and Eric

that the creativity and the making

and the art was the main thing for them.

(FERVENT MUSIC)

TIRZAH: Working together with Eric was such a delight.

Our relationship blossomed as we painted a magnificent seascape

with parachutes raining down from the sky.

ELLA: Tirzah particularly was such a craftswoman and designer,

as well as an artist.

She had this brilliant, unique technique of making paper marbling,

and she was able to get these very discrete,

perfectly arranged patterns,

making something beautiful that she could sell.

But as her activities did bring in some money... (LAUGHS)

..that was quite helpful, I think.

TIRZAH: Eric mostly contented himself with painting

in Essex country, but was pining for the Sussex of his youth

with its background of the Downs.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

ERIC: We often went to a house called Furlongs.

Its great charm

was the wonderful feeling of freedom we had there.

(MELLOW MUSIC)

ANNE ULLMANN: It was very isolated, Furlongs, back then

when there was hardly any traffic on the coast road

and you came off it, and then you turn that last corner

and there it was, about half a mile up the lane.

At first when I was very small,

Furlongs was such a magic place on the Downs.

And the fields were full of poppies

and so it was absolutely idyllic there.

And then there's this sweep of the Downs towards the sea,

and the moon always seemed to climb up the slope.

It was a, it's a lovely spot, just lovely.

I think they all loved Furlongs.

And then his affair took off.

(PERKY MUSIC)

TIRZAH: Furlongs certainly encouraged people to fall in love.

We would wind up the gramophone and put on our favourite records.

Diana wasn't a beautiful girl,

but she was very attractive in rather a feline way.

She had a lovely figure, fair skin.

Eric fell in love with her at once.

ERIC: 21st March, 1934. Furlongs.

"I just had a letter from Peggy to say

that you may be coming down here earlier than Friday evening.

Do if you can. Eric."

TIRZAH: I felt rather strange.

An unforeseen result was a shower of criticism from Eric.

I was no fun. I hadn't any initiative.

Being in love with Diana had changed Eric's way of painting,

and instead of his dry, careful drawings

he did a series of pictures painted freely

with quite wet watercolour.

ERIC: "My dear Di,

You remember me telling you about some wagons?

Caravans? I've bought them.

And if they can be put somewhere in the neighbourhood,

I shan't have to worry about a house for a bit."

TIRZAH: I remember waiting for him late one afternoon

when he should have come back but hadn't.

It was the day Diana said that she couldn't see him anymore,

but I didn't know this.

I realised that something had changed forever in our relationship.

I didn't again have that feeling of being a part of him

that for four years had been so precious.

ANNE: Eric's, I would say, incredibly witty,

very, very good company.

From what I can gather, everybody wanted to be with him.

Very warm hearted, and I think all the girls fell in love with him

because he was, you know, he was funny.

TIRZAH: Helen Binyon was rather big and fair,

with grave, grey eyes and a small nose and mouth.

She was nearly 30, and it was surprising

being so very nice and charming that she was unmarried.

ERIC: "My darling Helen,

I can't get used to seeing you go away.

Yesterday when your train went, I felt like running after it.

This morning, I tried drawing in the cement works.

The wind almost blew me off my perch.

Now, what I'm really looking forward to is the next Furlongs visit.

Goodbye, darling.

Your devoted, and industrious, Eric."

I inherited Helen Binyon's letters and a few years after that,

I was given Diana's letters and I had all Dad's letters.

You get to know the character through their letters, don't you?

Particularly the ones to Helen Binyon.

I didn't read them for about eight years,

I had a sort of mental stoppage. (LAUGHS)

Didn't want to know about it.

Must have been very hard for my mother.

I suspect, you know, her parents had been so against the marriage

because Eric wasn't out of the right drawer,

that I suspect she didn't want to own up

that things were going wrong, just as they suspected.

TIRZAH: My pregnancy was a really unhappy nine months for me.

But when John was born,

Eric assured me the affairs were behind him

and he was ashamed of his past behaviour.

He said that the truth was he'd made a total fool of himself.

He carried on painting the Sussex landscape

that had inspired him so much throughout his childhood.

JAMES RUSSELL: He always kept coming back to the Downs,

and I think partly because he knew it better than other people,

so he knew where to go to find the best subjects.

(INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)

(WOOD SCRAPING)

He liked the pallor of the chalk coming through,

and I think also the chalk figures were carved

into the turf in the same way

that a wood engraver would carve into the wood.

And so for all those reasons, the Downs were always very dear to him.

ROBERT MACFARLANE: He was drawn back and back to these chalk figures,

and I think he saw the paths actually as extensions of them,

the figures were the most charismatic presences of human,

ancient human mark making on the Downs.

But the paths carried that sense,

that atmosphere with them as well.

The path always leads the eye in Ravilious' paintings,

and your feet want to follow.

You look into a Ravilious painting and you want to walk through it.

(MELLOW MUSIC)

The terrain of Ravilious, I guess,

is characteristically the South Downs scape.

It's not savage. This is not kind of high,

wild landscape of the Highlands.

It's curving. It's gentle.

This isn't an English landscape, this is a prehistoric landscape.

I think we see him sort of dreaming his way back

into a pre-national landscape.

JAMES: When he came to make his great watercolour,

which stands as one of his absolute finest watercolours,

and one of the finest of the century, really, by anybody,

he fused the ancient, the figure,

with the modern, with barbed wire which was a new invention

and he used this as a decorative device

and a frame for the chalk figure.

It seems like it's about to come sort of striding out

towards us along the line of the fence.

It's absolutely marvellous.

(INTENSE MUSIC)

ALAN BENNETT: It's hugely appreciated,

but because his paintings are so accessible,

I don't think he's thought to be a great artist

and this is because of his charm.

I'm not sure though that he's properly estimated,

because he's so easy to like.

That he's not thought of as a great artist

is partly also because he's a watercolourist.

Things have to be hard,

if they're not hard then they're not great.

He's so liked, and so loved,

and yet he, nevertheless, he's a shared secret.

ERIC: I've been working on the green landscape,

and finding the tones difficult in the foreground.

This cross-hatching technique may be moderately successful,

if heavy in colour.

I want the thing not to look washed out as they often do.

Just now, I'm perched on top of Belle Tout Lighthouse,

in the lantern, drawing an immense expanse below

with a gale blowing outside.

The picture is all squared over with bars, of course.

The one by night is finished, and I hope to do another.

He must have had a very, very clear idea in his head

of what he wanted to draw, mustn't he, before he started.

I always thought all that cross-hatching and things

came from the wood engraving.

He was teaching as well, don't forget,

with his three-hour bus ride to London,

so it wasn't that straightforward, and he had to earn.

A lot of his friends had a lot of money,

but he very much had to earn his living.

Well, I think he would have been very busy in design work.

ALAN POWERS: His illustrations have a certain following.

Wisden's Cricketers' Almanack went out to thousands of cricket lovers

who may not necessarily have had much of an interest in art,

but they saw that little device that he did on the cover,

so it's penetrated their consciousness somehow.

(APPLAUSE)

ERIC: My darling Tush, I'm up to my ears.

I crawl like a fly over all these finicky bits of wood

and it is slow job.

THIS is me in my striped pyjamas,

having a nightmare.

I've used you as my model,

riding on a rooster for the Golden Cockerel Press Prospectus.

Wedgwood have given me some ceramics work,

but I'm sorry to say

that the family think my beautiful designs

above the heads of their public,

and that to begin with something should be done

which is safer and more understandable.

(SIGHS)

I was for clean sweep,

they were for a method of slow percolation.

It all means that I'd better think of some new designs.

GRAYSON PERRY: When I look at the way he takes a motif

and makes it into a graphic thing, like he's done with the fireworks.

That is something I do a lot in my work.

Because with ceramics, they're quite a rubbish way of communicating,

you know, they're quite small and you've got to be quite...

sort of direct often with an image.

You don't have time to kind of make a very complex statement,

so you've got to make something

that punches as a sort of decorative motif.

I'm particularly fond of these. It's an alphabet mug.

We've got one, also battered, I think.

I love this little bi-plane,

because it seems to echo the little wood engravings

of propellers and bi-planes that Ravilious did.

The little birdcage I think is the one at Furlongs.

GRAYSON PERRY: "D" is doll, isn't it?

ANNE: This "H" for house here seems to me, to echo

his High Street series of lithographs,

this wonderful book that had all of the shops

in the High Street.

Matches. He was a smoker, so he always had matches.

The moon, which he loved.

The xylophone, and a whale. Hmm.

ALAN: The last delight in this, I think,

is that he pops the last two inside, the Y and the Z.

It's a nice memento of my father, with all the things on it.

ERIC: "My dear Tush, I'm working very hard

but not very well really yet.

I managed a drawing, or very nearly and made rather a mess of it.

Oh, one might be good.

All my love, Eric."

ALAN: We have a little bit of evidence

of how many pictures he destroyed

and, you know, it's more than half, um,

of the ones that he started.

The one called Muggery Pope, his friend, Peggy Angus,

picked the torn up bits out of the bin

and pieced it back together

and it's really very helpful to be able to see them

and see how he sets about the job.

I don't think he can quite draw cars.

(LAUGHS) I think his cars are a bit boxy.

There's a picture, in a big landscape,

and there's one little red car.

It looks like a toy car, but that's rather endearing.

(CAR HORN HONKS) ERIC: September 1937.

"Dear Sir, Please accept my painting, Wiltshire Landscape,

for the Artist Against Fascism and War Exhibition.

The thought of another war is unbearable.

Like many artists, I am drawn to war as a subject,

but deeply troubled by this impending disaster."

TIRZAH: In Eric's Wiltshire Landscape,

I could see that his empty road ahead

felt like a premonition of the approach of war.

(PLANES DRONING)

I hated aeroplanes.

Their sudden droning reminded one of the murders and horrors in Germany,

the significance of which seemed to be escaping the British people,

powerless to do anything.

When John was nearly two,

we welcomed a German Jewish refugee into our house

who'd escaped for political reasons.

He liked his bacon raw in the morning,

and continually greeted my best cooking efforts

with "Is this an English dish?"

Well, it should have been obvious that if we'd been typically English

we should never have had a refugee in our house at all.

(CLOCK TICKING)

DAVID HEPHER: This particular painting was of the vicarage

that my parents lived in between about 1936 and 1940.

Eric and Tirzah moved into the village,

I think six months or so before my parents

moved into that house,

and the picture was called The Vicarage.

ERIC: This picture is a bit too pale,

and whenever I see the cart opposite in full daffodil yellow,

I wish I'd laid out the colour more.

DAVID: One winter, which I think is the winter of '36 or '37,

they stayed with us in the Vicarage

because the pipes in their house were frozen up.

I was about four years old when I got to know him.

And so I saw quite a lot of Eric and Tirzah

and particularly the eldest son, who was my age, John.

I had this sword and I wanted a shield to go with it.

My father asked Eric if he would draw a lion

and a unicorn on the front of my shield.

The thing I can remember about it

is the kind of pained look that passed over Eric's face

when my Dad asked the question.

He actually did a marvellous drawing on the shield

and I kind of coloured it in with crayons and that was that.

ERIC: I'm out sketching in the cold,

and the paint is frozen on my brush.

The snow picture is finished, not bad, rather pretty,

but so is the thing, like a Christmas card.

GRAYSON: I use him as a touch stone

of kind of English tone,

you know, there's something so English about his palette

and the way it teeters between sort of expressiveness

and kind of quite clear-cut design.

ERIC: "Eastbourne, February 1939.

We explored Beachy Head in the sun this morning.

I shall draw there all the time if I can.

An immense bar of light on the sea is splendid, and must be done.

I began work there on a projecting bit of cliff,

about four yards square, but flat and comfortable

and looked into the eye of the sun as long as it could be borne.

The sun is no trouble, it's the wind I don't like.

I'm going up there after supper to see how the light looks.

Dinner is coming and I've cleared off the table.

I find it hard to say what it is to be English,

but Ravilious is part of it.

His definition of Englishness is not cosy.

It could easily be thought to be so but it isn't.

It's too rigorous for that, really.

Tea at Furlongs, which has afternoon tea

set out in the garden of a cottage against an idyllic view,

you couldn't imagine something cosier,

but it's not cosy, it's slightly ominous.

There's nobody there, for a start,

and there's a feeling that something is going to happen.

In Auden's words, "Something is going to fall like rain

and it won't be flowers."

Tea at Furlongs, I always think could be called Munich 1938.

(PLANE DRONING)

(AIR RAID SIRENS WAILING)

TIRZAH: When the war started,

I'd just given birth to our second son, James,

but always our happiness was overshadowed,

as was everyone's,

by the thought of the Germans invading.

Eric took some pictures to Tooth's Gallery

for his one-man show.

It was a lovely day and the pavements were crowded

with well-dressed people.

We walked along to Piccadilly Circus,

and I thought how awful it would be

if a bomb were suddenly to fall in the middle of them.

Eric just painted six stunners in one month,

which is incredible

because working conditions are hard.

ERIC: Castle Hedingham, Essex. September 1939.

"My darling Tush, as the war was starting this morning,

I put myself down for observing

and started at two this afternoon.

It's looked on as an old man's job, which depresses me rather,

but it is useful in these parts

and may even be dangerous or enough to count."

NEWSREEL READER: When the story of the war comes to be written,

prominent place must be given to the men

who, in town and country, from coast to coast,

keep ceaseless watch on the skies

from rooftops, huts, pill boxes and trenches

for the approach of aircraft.

We have every reason to be proud of the men

of the Royal Observer Corps. They're grand fellows.

ERIC: "Here is a picture of me saving the country.

I work at odd hours of the day and night watching aeroplanes

up on the hill and working with a partner,

not in the picture.

We wear lifeboat men's outfits against the weather

and tin hats for show.

It's like a boy's own paper story,

what with the spies and passwords and all manner of nonsense.

All the same, as far as wars go, it is a congenial job.

We get Germans over from time to time

and then, of course, it's a buzz of activity and excitement.

They may give me a permit to draw guns, military things soon.

Eric." (AEROPLANE DRONING)

CHARLES SAUMAREZ SMITH: The moment war was declared,

Kenneth Clark, the Director of the National Gallery,

recommended that they did a version of a scheme

they'd done in the First War to support artists.

There was an element of propaganda

for Britain and Britishness.

But Clark himself was interested

in the idea that it could be a documentary record.

And he selected the artists he liked and admired.

Ravilious got the commission Christmas Eve, 1939.

ERIC: "My dear Tush,

I caught the train home after being measured for my uniform,

along with Barnett Freedman and John Nash.

We're all official war artists now.

They say that a Captain of the Royal Marines

is less conspicuous on land, it is khaki,

and without responsibilities or embarrassments at sea.

So that is what they're gonna make us.

It was great fun yesterday, being inspected by the King.

You will be pleased to hear that he enquired

what I was doing among sailors,

though whether he approved or not I couldn't tell you.

Love to the children, Eric.

Oh, please will you send my red and white striped dressing gown?"

What drew Ravilious to war was that sense of the world changing.

Actually, they were part of the war effort,

and that must have given them a strong sense of responsibility

and interest and engagement.

Although it was frightening, it was also exciting.

On a very basic level, he's being paid a salary.

He was short of money all his life,

so to have regular money coming in is wonderful

and he's being paid to paint full time.

ERIC: "Darling Tush, I've been out to sea

drawing a light ship and a wreck from the duty boat.

It was uphill work. The wind never ceases to blow here.

Tomorrow, I'm going to sea for a week, only escorting a few trawlers,

so there's no need to worry, Tush. No dangers except the weather.

The scene is Whitstable oyster beds,

and they're dealing with a magnetic mine.

RMS is one of those irresistible abbreviations

for "Rendering mine safe" and seems to be generally used.

People will think it has to do with the Royal Marines,

but we can't waste a term like this.

(SEAGULLS SQUAWKING)

(TRAIN CHUGGING)

"The noise of bells and trains is incessant and deafening,

and wakes me up at night sometimes.

It's hard to keep up this cracking pace painting all year round.

The promised check from the Ministry of Information has never come,

confound them!

I see I have £5 to last, which isn't enough,

so can you send me another, no later than Monday? Eric."

(WIND GUSTING)

In April 1940, there was bitter fighting in the Arctic North

as the Germans worked their way up north through Norway.

Ravilious was stationed

in the Royal Navy Destroyer, HMS Highlander,

ready to fight the threats of German escort ships and U-boats.

(SHIP CREAKING)

ERIC: "My dear Tush, the ship is rolling about

and I can't control the pencil.

The wake from a ship like this is remarkable,

and I'm trying to do something with it

by day or night, but painting on board is all but impossible.

The post is being collected, so I've only got time to say

the sun hasn't shone much by day and night this week.

(SEAGULLS SQUAWKING)

The dolphins are nice. You'd love them.

I'll come back as soon as I can,

but I've no idea how long this trip will be.

All my love to James and John, kisses, Eric."

Fighting at very close range took place between British warships,

British battleships, destroyers

against German battleships and destroyers.

Much of the combat taking place in the deep fjords

of the Norwegian coastline.

(EXPLOSION)

ERIC: I give and bequeath all that I have to my wife,

with the exception of the Redcliff Road Interior

which I leave to Edward Bawden of Brick House, Great Bardfield.

I want the property, paintings,

books, junk furniture and the rest of it

to pass to my wife and children as soon as I die.

Eric Ravilious, Captain Royal Marines, May 12th, 1940.

(EXPLOSIONS)

(INTENSE MUSIC)

ROBERT RUMBLE: Highlander's main role in the Norwegian campaign

was to provide an escort for British aircraft carriers.

(EXPLOSION)

For example, Ark Royal was firing her anti-aircraft guns by night,

which would have lit up the entire seascape.

(EXPLOSIONS)

Certainly, an extraordinary ship for Ravilious to paint.

TIRZAH: "Dear Eric, the news reels are full of the fighting in Norway.

It's very alarming for us, thinking of you

on the flotilla with bombs dropping all around you.

(EXPLOSIONS)

(PLANE DRONING)

The situation is a waking nightmare.

France has fallen,

the other war artists have been evacuated.

It is terrifying to know you are witness to a real war now,

under fire from the Germans."

(PLANES DRONING)

ROBERT: Glorious was equipped to handle

the Royal Air Force aircraft being evacuated

from Marvik at the beginning of June 1940,

once the German forces were close to victory in the north.

A couple of days after he was sketching there,

HMS Glorious was actually sank

and so, you know, these are grave situations,

these unbelievably dangerous environments.

TIRZAH: "Dear Eric, I hear the news

that HMS Glorious was destroyed by German battleships,

with over 1,500 British sailors drowned.

So many ships are going down,

and I think of you working at sea under attack.

John and James were nearly hit by a bomb

while playing in the sandpit.

It landed in the farmer's field.

I'll be so relieved to have you back on leave.

All my love, Tirzah."

ERIC: "My darling Tush,

we've been in the Arctic as high as 70/30,

which I looked up and was delighted to see how far north it was.

It was so nice, working on deck,

long past midnight in bright sunshine.

It never fell below the horizon.

I do like this life, and the people.

It's so remote and lovely in these parts,

and the excitements from above and below don't interrupt much.

The seas in the Arctic Circle are the finest blue you can imagine,

an intense cerulean

and sometimes almost black but, of course, no icebergs."

JAMES: Ravilious saw himself as being

in the tradition of the old watercolour painters,

you think the most famous being Turner.

But he wanted to move it forward.

He wanted to make it fit for the 20th century.

Develop a new kind of language that was more modern and fit the times.

ERIC: "I've done such a beautiful sun at 12:15 am.

If they were to allow women on board, all would be perfect.

Goodbye, Tush, I'll come back as soon as I can,

but it is all out of my hands, as you see."

ROBERT MACFARLANE: In the painting, Midnight Sun, in the centre-ground

there's a death charge. There's death.

The drum is held, lashed into place,

ready to be ejected in pursuit of a U-boat.

But nothing's happening again. It's that classic Ravilious.

Everything is in potentia,

violence is held in place.

Could be about to spring, but that will only happen

just before or just after the painting is made.

So it's profoundly serene and profoundly disturbing.

(EXPLOSION)

(AIR RAID SIRENS BLARE)

PARIS AGAR: Eric Ravilious was exhibited at The National Gallery

in 1940, very soon after the scheme

of War Artists Advisory Committee started, actually,

so the first exhibition was in July 1940,

and because Eric Ravilious was one of the first artists

to be commissioned, there was a lot of his work on display.

It is rather remarkable to think it's only a year,

less than a year after the war had begun,

that the paintings were put up in the National Gallery,

still fresh,

and people were able to see them.

ERIC RAVILIOUS: "Dear Mr Clarke,

I very much enjoyed the exhibition

at The National Gallery, and it was good to see

all those people after such a long time away

painting on the front line.

However, I feel rather embarrassed

at the number of my paintings there seemed to be,

and if you can, and would like to replace some

for new ones that may come along, I shall feel better about it.

Yours sincerely, Eric Ravilious."

CHARLES SAUMAREZ SMITH: They were not regarded as part

of the mainstream, but now I think people look back

on the quality of the work and the fact that

it's such a wonderful pictorial documentary record.

Imperial War Museum carries on the tradition of war artists,

which provide a documentary, physical record of war.

(MELLOW MUSIC)

(PLANES DRONING)

WOMAN: Yes, absolutely.

GRAYSON PERRY: All artists have a kind of mood that they're drawn to.

If you look to find yourself reflected in the situation

that you're thrust into.

And so, you know, Ravilious was only ever gonna do Ravilious war art,

he wasn't gonna do some sort of screaming propaganda campaign

fizzing with fear and anxiety.

ALAN BENNETT: He doesn't brutalize his style, as it were.

He's still so delicate, and...

well, you couldn't be cosy about Scapa Flow.

It's still so recognizably him.

NEWSREEL READER: They know how important their job is,

and that the safety of the boat

and the whole crew depends on their keenness.

We're ready to dive and the CO gives the order.

Dive, dive, dive.

ERIC: HMS Dolphin, Portsmouth, 1940.

"My dear Tush, I still pursue my job with the Navy and enjoy the life.

I now draw submarine interiors exclusively

and hope to have something to show you when you come.

It's very uphill work, one can only make notes and scribble at sea.

Interiors are not easy.

I must get them dark enough and I feel I've drawn enough sea.

The variety here is overwhelming.

I wish someone would give me orders sometimes

about painting, to lessen the responsibility.

My love to John and James.

Tell me if a third child is on the way.

Kisses, Eric."

War is horrible but, on the other hand,

for people who have been at home all their lives,

it opens life up to them.

They see things they wouldn't otherwise have seen

and for an artist, of course, that's wonderful

and many of his wartime pictures would never have...

Well, obviously they would never have been painted.

He'd never have gone to those places probably

if it hadn't been for the war.

The submarine series was particularly interesting to me

because I was in submarines.

It's a submarine dream, his lithographs.

Absolutely wonderful.

It sounds as though I'm praising war, I'm not.

(LAUGHS)

I'm praising the artist.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

TIRZAH: Essex, August 1940.

"My dear Eric,

I hope you're getting good drawings for the exhibition.

Working in the submarines must be very hot indeed.

Perhaps there are plans to go to a fresh place."

ERIC: "My dear Tush,

there are some small coloured lights about the place,

and the complexity of a Swiss clock.

There is hardly room to move, of course,

so drawings have to be hasty.

There is something awfully good about them if only I can manage it,

and everyone in shirts and braces.

People go to sleep in odd positions over tables,

but now there are half a dozen drawings on the way,

of interiors, with people, whether good or not.

JULIAN: Interestingly, he almost gives nobody proper full faces.

He draws them as if they were classic figures, as it were.

TIRZAH: "Eric, a letter has arrived from the Ministry

to say that, instead of purchasing the set of your submarine prints,

they'd much prefer to have the original drawings.

They ask if you'd be prepared to sell them

for two pounds ten shillings each, that is to say £25 for the ten.

What do you think? All my love, Tirzah."

(AIR RAID SIRENS BLARE)

(PLANES DRONING)

NEWSREEL READER: German bombers rain fire and high explosive bombs

in their most savage attack on London.

(PLANE DRONING)

Here again is the blood and the sweat and tears

that Nazi warfare brings to the men,

women and children of city, town, and village.

EVA M HUBBACK: The Principal of Morley College to Ravilious,

5th November 1940.

"Dear Mr Ravilious,

I am most distressed to have to tell you

that recently the main building

of the College was completely destroyed by bombing,

and your paintings have perished in the ruins.

When they were painted we hoped, of course,

that they would remain to delight many generations,

and I should like you to know

how many people have expressed regret that they have gone.

Yours sincerely, Eva M Hubback."

NEWSREEL READER: Hitler starts the battle for Britain

on women and children. For many areas it's the same story,

military objectives missed, bombs and destruction

on homes and schools.

This is the mark of the Hun on Britain.

ERIC: "My darling Tush, I've just arrived here in Eastbourne.

This is a bad dream.

It's like the ruins of Pompeii, the town all but empty.

The art school is bombed, your maternity home is bombed,

and the pier is sawn in half.

I have a haunted feeling and could have run from the spot.

The Germans are rumbling overhead at the moment, do be careful.

I think you should sleep downstairs. Kisses, Eric."

PARIS: So over September and October in 1940,

Ravilious was based in Newhaven in East Sussex

where he is looking at the coastal defences.

This is still very early on in the conflict

and Hitler's intention is very much to invade Britain.

(INTENSE MUSIC)

ERIC: "My darling Tush, I'm going up to the cliffs

twice a day like a man to the office.

We're bombed in the afternoons about 3:30, just as you want tea,

but there are raids all day

and I find the tin hat lies heavy on the head.

It seems to cram my neck into my coat like a tortoise.

Thank you for the £3, now I shall be alright

for money, so don't send more.

My love and kisses to John and James.

It is time he walked.

I shall have to teach him. Eric."

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

With the threat of German invasion still a serious danger,

the Royal Navy would have been particularly keen

for their secrets to be kept safe and secure.

ERIC: "I was rather sorry to hear about the censor's decision,

and I wish I'd known about him earlier on.

They seem to have come down rather heavily on those Newhaven drawings,

not to mention the magnetic mine.

I shall have quite a lot

by the end of the war in their vaults and archives.

Yours sincerely, Eric Ravilious."

TIRZAH: "Darling Eric, there's another letter here

from the War Artists Advisory Committee.

They've proposed a new subject to paint.

It's about the camouflage of the chalk figures

on hillsides with turf to prevent them being used as navigation aids

by Luftwaffe bombers."

ERIC: "The chalk figures I know something of,

having painted some of them before the war.

There do seem to be rich possibilities in that field.

I do hope Paul Nash hasn't painted them."

(JET ROARING)

"I'm now in Dover. It's a good place.

Except for shelling, all the bombardment takes place

on the other side and is an extraordinary sight.

I get up in the night and look at the shelling from the cliff.

It's far from good weather for painting,

with high winds that lift the paper off the board.

I like definite shapes, like fireworks,

and this is just one big flash on one side

followed by a lesser flash here and an appalling noise.

The ack-ack and the flack, magic words

are pretty across the channel.

(WAVES CRASHING)

Last night, when there was more shelling as well as wind and rain,

it was pandemonium for a short time.

There is 84 seconds between the flash on the French coast

and the arrival in Dover,

or rather just not in Dover, in the sea.

It seems rather a long time.

I thought shells got to places at once.

(LOUD BANG)

The beaches are fuller than ever of curious flotsam.

There was a parachute, and lobster pot with three crabs inside

and a capital rowing boat by G Renier of Guernsey,

bright red and banana yellow.

I wonder if somebody landed in it.

It was so irresistible I made a tolerably good drawing of it.

Under the big cliffs there is driftwood and logs

and bits of plane, floats and rope-ladders.

I feel a stir in me that it is possible

to really like drawing war activities.

It interests me to the bone and marrow.

Eric."

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

TIRZAH: "Essex. March, 1941.

I've been to see Iron Bridge Farm.

The landlord has agreed that half the yearly rent be paid in cash,

and the other half with your watercolours.

I wonder what you were doing while they were shelling Dover.

I hope you're still intact.

The new baby is on the way

and I feel just about ready to burst.

I do hope it's a girl this time.

Best love, Tirzah."

Here's my birth.

"Sage Femme hurrying to the scene, midwife's kettle."

WOMAN: Exciting!

It's a girl, isn't that nice?

She was born in the small hours

before the doctor could administer the anaesthetic,

which is lucky really, and they're both well.

The daughter weighs 7 lbs and has a round head like a nut.

(SEAGULLS SQUAWKING)

ERIC RAVILIOUS: May Island, somewhere off the coast of Scotland.

"My dear Tush,

I've landed here by way of a destroyer and an RAF launch,

and am now living with a small naval mess,

five officers and a few ratings.

This is a nice island. It's rocky and wild.

It rolls in great folds for about a mile and a half,

with a tumbledown monastery

on the leeward side, and the monks... (CHUCKLES)

..have built an enormous cross in walls for their sheep like this.

Not, alas, a war subject and not naval either.

I work hard in the bitter cold, and get very hungry.

The wind is so penetrating, even with a waistcoat

and the General's leather coat on too.

I wish you could see the island. You'd love it.

My love and a kiss for Anne.

I hope her hair grows nicely.

Love to you all, Eric."

TIRZAH RAVILIOUS: "Eric, we just got some very bad news.

The ship carrying all those Ministry of Information paintings

to South America for the propaganda exhibition

has been sunk by enemy action.

(EXPLOSION)

It seems over a hundred paintings were lost

by Paul Nash, Henry Moore, plus yours.

Now only the photograph remains of the beautiful lightship

you painted at Grimsby."

ERIC: Dundee, Fife, 1941.

"I work hard every day in the Scotch mists drawing planes

and live in this naval air station mess.

These planes and pilots are the best thing I've come across

since the job began.

However, I am deeply disturbed by something which happened

while I was painting a training session of new young pilots.

One of their sea planes nose-dived into the sea

and the others were not allowed to stop.

The exercise had to go on.

The young man suddenly drowned before my eyes.

I can't forget the shock of it.

I hate the idea of death."

(LOW HUM OF AEROPLANE)

TIRZAH: Iron Bridge Farm, Essex.

"Dear Eric, the Battle of Britain may be over,

but the papers say there's still a threat

of Germans invading elsewhere by plane,

so do take care with the RAF.

It's freezing here.

To help make ends meet, I'm doing my marbling on the hoof.

The shops are making them into lampshades.

The children send their love, Tirzah."

(PLANE DRONING)

ERIC: "I do very much enjoy drawing these queer flying machines,

and I hope to produce a set of aircraft paintings.

I didn't feel too sure about being able to draw giant bombers,

they're such repellent things.

I hope Paul Nash hasn't already painted walruses. (CHUCKLES)

What I like about them

is that they're comic things with a strong personality,

like a duck, and designed to go slow.

You put your head out of the window

and it's no more windy than a train."

MARK MILLER: Ravilious picture of the De Havilland Dominie

in situ in wartime. It's quite interesting.

These are aeroplanes of great character themselves,

they've a huge history.

They have lived a lot, they have done a lot.

There was a feature I'd never seen before,

which is that each engine appears to be adjacent

to a little tent, which is presumably intended

to keep snow off the engines

because these are not gonna be easy engines to start

after a night of sub-zero temperatures.

Posterity knows that now because of that painting.

ERIC: "How I've been working these last few weeks.

Successful drawings being in the usual proportion of

one out of two or three, but it's been fun."

(PLANE HUMMING)

"The Tiger Moth is the perfect plane for drawing from. Eric."

ELLA RAVILIOUS: He's talking to the pilot.

He knows all the names of the planes,

and he's just so inspired by flight in general.

So he's really having a positive, creative time

at that period, whereas Tirzah is...

you know, she's got three kids,

she didn't have time to do the wood engravings

that she had made a name for herself doing before.

The house that they're in

is really challenging to live in,

so she's having a very different war, shall we say.

TIRZAH: Iron Bridge Farm, Shalford, Essex.

"Dear Eric, one disaster follows another.

John has gone into hospital to have his tonsils removed

but, worse still, a shattering blow for me,

I've discovered a lump in my left breast,

which the doctor recommends should be removed.

It is alarming and out of the blue,

as they said I was alright a week ago."

ANNE ULLMAN: He was up in Yorkshire,

but then my mother got ill, so he asked

to be transferred back to Essex,

to Debden I think it was,

drawing aircraft there, so that he could be at hand

while she had her mastectomy operation,

and after that she had to have an abortion

because she got pregnant again and they thought,

because of her mastectomy, she was too weak to have a baby

so she went through an awful lot.

TIRZAH: "The smell of May wafting over the orchard wall

from the outside lane is so strong and lovely.

The pony munching the sweet clover has collected around her the bees

which might otherwise be irritating me.

Eric is here finishing off drawings of aeroplanes at Sawbridgeworth.

Sitting here, I find it very difficult to write at all,

but I want to write my life while I still can."

ELLA: I hope that you may be one of my descendants,

but I have only three children

and, as I write, a German aeroplane has circled around my head

taking photographs of the damage that yesterday's raiders have done,

reminding me that there is no certainty of our survival.

TIRZAH: Eric had a great affection

for the watercolours of Francis Towne,

and he was planning, before the war,

to also paint snow and mountain landscape.

It was this wish to paint similar scenes in his war pictures,

which drew Eric to Iceland.

DAVID HEPHER: The kind of ice and snow,

dissected landscape that you find in the mountains up there

is absolutely tailor-made for him, you know, it really is.

And that's slightly stark, sort of stark landscape too

being absolutely ideal.

When Ravilious went to Iceland in 1942,

this was the second year

of the Arctic convoys to Soviet Russia.

(GUNS FIRING)

NEWSREEL READER: This is the roof of the world route

which saw an Arctic sea battle rage with Nazi bombers,

mine layers, torpedo droppers, and German U-boats.

(EXPLOSION)

TIRZAH: I struggled down to breakfast

on the last morning and Eric felt wretched,

and kissed me goodbye with his face all wet and said,

"I love you, Tazza."

And I said, "I do you."

He said, "Shall I not go to Iceland?"

I knew that he desperately wanted to go, so I said,

"No, I shall be alright."

I knew that he might never come back,

but there was nothing I could do,

but just remember what he looked like.

And with an effort I lifted Anne up to wave a final goodbye.

ANNE ULLMAN: Anyway, this is his letter to my mother Tirzah,

written on Sunday, August 30th.

"Yesterday was spent making the usual visits

and they were all very helpful and nice people.

I was taken to lunch in the town

to eat Icelandic food and the spread was unbelievable,

like Fortnum's at its best, caviar and pate,

cheese, goodness knows what."

(AEROPLANE ROARING)

ERIC: "We flew over that mountain country

that looks like craters on the moon,

and it looked just like those photographs

the Ministry of Information gave me.

With shadows very dark and striped like leaves.

It a surprising place.

Would you like a pair of gloves?

Seal skin with fur on the back?

But what size shall I buy?

Draw around your hand on the writing paper.

Goodbye, darling.

I do hope you feel well again.

Take care of yourself. Eric."

(PLANE ENGINE SPUTTERING)

PILOT: Mayday, mayday. Are you reading me?

We're losing altitude. I repeat, we're losing altitude. Over.

(CONTINUOUS ELECTRONIC BEEPING)

(HUMMING INTENSIFIES)

(THUD)

(BEES BUZZING)

DAVID: When the news came through that Eric had gone missing,

we were staying with them in Iron Bridge, I think it was,

and, indeed, it was my mother who had to tell Tirzah the news.

TIRZAH: After lunch, I went up to rest on my bed

and Evelyn followed me upstairs presently and said,

"Poor Tirzah, there's still more bad luck.

Eric is missing now."

And she handed me a letter.

MAN: "Madam, your husband, Captain Eric Ravilious,

war artist Royal Marines,

has been reported missing since Wednesday

when the aircraft in which he was a passenger

failed to return from an air sea rescue patrol.

After an exhaustive four-day search, we now give up all hope.

I'm sorry that the visit of Captain Ravilious to Iceland

has ended so tragically.

From the artistic side, his loss is really deplorable

and he will be quite impossible to replace."

(SEAGULLS SQUAWKING) (WAVES CRASHING)

May Holmes, who was the lady down the lane

who looked after me a lot because my mother had had this operation,

she can remember the parcel coming back from Iceland

with all his effects in it,

and my mother taking out all his red spotty handkerchiefs

and weeping her eyes out.

TIRZAH: Eric once told me he didn't want to live till he was old.

This I suppose was rather false comfort

because he can't have wanted to die in Iceland.

DAVID: During his lifetime was actually quite successful,

but after he died, things went very quiet.

Certainly, when I was a student and for many years afterwards

nobody would have really known who Eric was.

I think it was in the 1970s we sorted out Ravilious belongings.

All my father's pictures had been

under Edward Bawden's bed for 40 years

and, quite honestly, when we grew up

we didn't know it was there.

JAMES: The loss of him as an artist meant that

a potential avenue of art, I think, was cut off.

And we've only really been rediscovering him this century.

Well, it's fantastic. I mean, it's marvellous that it's happening.

ALAN: Being a war artist for him wasn't a soft option.

On the deck, in the submarine, on the plane,

painting was his active service and he gave his life for it.

This was a brave man.

It's not quite a martyr's death but it preserved him,

I mean, that's what you remember,

that this man died doing this

and that elevates it.

(MELLOW MUSIC)

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