Rhubarb 2019

58 ST EDWARD’S r h u b a r b

He was in the Royal Marine Reserves for 11 years. He started his career with Bowaters as a packaging engineer. He rowed for the Thames Rowing Club from the age of 15 and competed in the second eight at Henley Royal Regatta. His two main interests in retirement were trees and bats. He was tree warden in Ferring, West Sussex, and Chairman of the Ilex Group helping to maintain oak trees along Ilex Avenue. He surveyed the local bat population with his bat detector and supported Sally’s work with animal charities. He was involved in parish duties at St Andrew’s Church, Ferring, where his funeral was held on Saturday March 2nd. The collection was in aid of ‘Help for Heroes’. TIMINGS – On 20th June 2017, Christopher James Timings (D, 1941-1945). Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry 1945-8. Royal College of Art 1951-4. Associate of the Royal College of Art. Industrial designer. TORLESSE – On 25th September 2018, Anthony John Torlesse (B, 1952-1956). Brother of Charles (B, 1950-1954). This obituary was provided by Anthony’s brother, Charles:

Anthony was the son of Rear Admiral A D Torlesse and was born in Singapore where his father was serving as a Commander in the dockyard and as Naval Attaché to Siam, which involved spending three months of the year in Bangkok, leaving the children in the care of their English nanny. The family returned to England early in 1939. In 1946 Anthony went to Amesbury, a prep school in Hindhead, where the headmaster, Major Reynolds, was a close friend of General Montgomery. The General’s wife had died and he used to spend his leaves at the school. During the war communications were installed to keep him in touch with the front and his three war caravans were parked at the school after the war. After leaving St Edward’s, Anthony joined Ransome & Marles in Newark as an engineering apprentice. His home at that time was near Nottingham and he much enjoyed rowing on the Trent, collecting a considerable number of prizes. Upon leaving Ransome & Marles he joined the MOD Naval Ordnance Service, working at Plymouth, Helensborough and Bath. His great interest was in computers and he taught himself programming which he used in his work on the Polaris maintenance program. He also collected a vast array of gadgets for his computers. 1955-1960). The following obituary was written by Julie Lindahl, an author and educator who holds an MPhil in International Relations from Oxford University (see www. julielindahl.com ) and sent to us by Peter’s son, Noa Tucker: Peter was a modern renaissance man—a painter, an architect, a philosopher, an TUCKER – On 18th February 2019, Peter John Tucker (C,

author, a political activist, a graffiti artist, a theatre producer, a scenographer, a visionary, a radical and a conservative—who was well known for his long commitment to cultivating and protecting the World Heritage site of Drottningholm on the island of Lovön, the current home of the King and Queen of Sweden. He was featured in the Swedish media on several occasions in his role as one of the founders of the Friends of Drottningholm Park. For over a decade he sat with his easel in the majestic park—either in the 19th-century romantic English garden or in the more stylized 18th-century part—and poured his love of it onto canvases, portraying everything from landscapes to the grooves and irregularities in tree trunks. He took the unusual step of painting the aluminium electrical boxes on the palace grounds and in the neighbourhood across the road so that they became art works harmonized with their surroundings. When the heritage and eco-systems in the area were threatened by plans for Sweden’s largest-ever road project, he threw his energy into imagining and illustrating innovative environment-friendly alternatives, incorporating bold ideas to meet the transport needs of the future. Peter was born in Oxford in 1942 and attended the

Oxford School of Architecture. Never one to be confined to a profession, he soon broke out of architecture and in the late ’60s followed his heart to Sweden where he remained for the rest of his life. After further education at the Swedish Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Swedish Dramatic Institute he set up a number of groundbreaking theatre performances with the group Jordcirkus (Earth Circus), drawing on the global trend of political activism through street theatre. Fascinated by the nature of change, Peter created paintings of Sweden from the Stone Age onwards, portraying its natural evolution before a gripped audience in one six- hour sitting. The home he eventually came to share with his partner of nearly 40 years, Cilla Ericson, became their art workshop, and together, sometimes with their young son, Noa, they ran painting courses for children and young people in schools and town squares and made wall paintings in Alby where they worked every summer for many years. Among the participants in their projects were traumatized children from the Balkan war. Young people who participated in the project MegaArt dubbed Peter ‘the graffiti king’ for enthusiastically helping them to explore this art form within legal bounds. As Greta Thunberg began her Friday school strikes outside the Swedish Parliament, Peter sat at the only place he cared to be during his last phase of life, at the kitchen table of his fantastic old fairytale-like artist’s home, and honed a piece he had written based on feedback from scientists and other luminaries: A Declaration of Planetary Rights and Responsibilities ( http:// planetaryrights.org/ ), which he saw as a necessary expansion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He would have

V A L E T E O B I T U A R I E S

Anthony John Torlesse

Peter John Tucker