We were at the Theatre by the Lake. We had been meeting the technician Karl to sort out final arrangements for my exhibition there. We were also due to pick up in Keswick the remaining works that had been framed and additional prints for the show. The printers said if we called after one o’clock the prints would be ready for collection. We decided to visit the cafe and have a drink so the timings would work out. Bob found a table and I took my place in the queue to collect some refreshments.

As I waited someone from the box office came to speak with me. She said there was a Mr Rigby who wanted to meet me and would it be okay for her to send him in to say hello. I said that would be fine and that I knew Phil Rigby from a recent photo shoot for Cumbria Life. Imagine my surprise when a man found me in the queue and asked me, “Am I speaking to Lord Ullin’s daughter?”

It took a little time for me to realise the connection. This was TONY Rigby – someone I had been at college with some 50 years previously and had not seen since. He was researching previous students from Bretton and had come across my website. He and his wife had decided that day to try and find me. He had a photo of me looking outside the door of my Studio on Catbells – and had read I was about to have an exhibition at Theatre by the Lake so had decided that was the best place to start a search for me. It was a lucky happenstance that Bob and I were indeed at the Theatre at that moment.

We went on to have a very lively and animated discussion with all kinds of revelations. Tony reminisced about the first time he had gone to an English lecture which Bob used to give to the whole year group. Bob had begun by reading directly from Iris Murdoch’s book Flight from the Enchanter. This baptism had given Tony a lifelong love of reading! He also told me that Bob was the most charismatic and popular tutor.
I asked Tony how he had met Linda (who was an American). The story that unravelled was remarkable. Linda recounted the tale: she had been in the Souq in Aleppo and needed to borrow $100. She spotted Tony and thought he looked as though he might be English. She went up to him and asked him if he could lend her $100. This he did. And that was the beginning of their relationship!
We invited them to join us at home for tea later that afternoon. There was so much more to be shared! Tony and Linda arrived with goodies and a laptop. They showed us some fascinating archive photographs from Bretton Hall – the former seat of the Allendale family before it became a College. Tony, researching past history of place and people had made some intriguing discoveries. He had managed to make a film from still photos of an early student production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas set in the Bretton gardens below the terrace.
It was time to take Linda and Tony down to the Studio to show them some of my paintings stacked around ready to go to the Theatre. Linda wanted particularly to see Boy from Aleppo. We had discussed the picture of Omran back at the Theatre ( I had told them that the only thing I felt I could do was to paint Omran, whose image seemed to sum up movingly the Syrian conflict.) Linda loved the painting. Later, when we were on our own, she whispered “Consider the painting sold, but don’t tell Tony yet”…. I confirmed she could buy the painting – but not have it until the exhibition came down.
Thus October 14th had turned into a remarkable day for Bob and me! The strange thing was that earlier that day over breakfast Bob and I had been talking about days that turn out to be special. We had remarked that the auguries were good – that the 14th was Rose’s birthday (Rose Wylie – a very dear painter friend), the sky was blue, it was the first preview night of The Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer at The National in which Hal (our son) was performing. Little did we know that Aleppo, the Theatre and Bretton Hall (where Bob and I had met) encountering Linda and Tony, all would combine to make a day to remember and record.
On the mystery of Lord Ullin’s daughter: Bob and I married in Borrowdale Church and after the wedding breakfast sailed away across Lake Derwentwater into the setting sun. The wedding guests had followed us down from the reception to the lake. As we were carried away by motor-boat we heard the Principal of Bretton, gesticulating at the end of the Lodore landing stage, declaiming “Come back Lord Ullin’s daughter”.* Tony Rigby had read about this on my web site – hence ‘Are you Lord Ullin’s daughter?’ – fifty years since we had last met
*Lord Ullin’s Daughter : A poem by Thomas Campbell which has the line ‘Oh! I’m the chief of Ulva’s isle. And this is Lord Ullin’s daughter…Boatman do not tarry! And I’ll give thee a silver pound, To row us o’er the ferry’.

Boy from Aleppo