What Noddy Holder Said to Me in Walsall
I spent yesterday morning in Walsall (recently turned blue) in the company of Councillor Eddie Hughes, one of the stars of the Conservative Party in my opinion. We visited the Forest Arts Centre and the New Art Gallery. The Forest Arts Centre continued my education about the role these important institutions play. Compared to the Roundhouse and Stratford Circus, it is the poor relation - it is housed in an old school, it’s quite rough and ready (no gleaming glass atrium) but it has excellent facilities and is widely used. When I was there, there were kids singing and playing. It is also nationally respected for its pioneering work on special needs and it has one of only three only Indonesian something or others - an amazing musical instrument - in use in the country. As usual, as well, it’s there pretty much because of the vision of one man, Mike Parrott, a completely inspiring person to meet, and pretty much evangelical about the Centre. All of this is done on a shoe string, no Lottery money, no Arts Council money, no business support, and they can’t even formally open until they get the electricity upgraded. But despite all the obstacles, making a massive contribution to the economy.
The New Art gallery is at the other end of the spectrum - a gleaming new build, by the Anglo-Canadian duo Caruso and St John it is helping to regenerate Walsall’s town centre. It houses the exquisite Garman Ryan collection, painitings and sculptures given to Walsall by Kathleen Garman and Sally Ryan. Garman was Jacob Epstein’s lover and their daughter married Lucian Freud, her elder sister had an affair with Vita Sackville-West, her brother had an affair with Peggy Guggenheim, her neice married Laurie Lee - all this from a local GP’s family! The Gallery also has very good contemporary exhibitions (Paula Rego and others on at the moment), and Jo Digger, the excellent and long-standing keeper, updates the Garman Ryan collection with appropriate contemporary pieces.
There are some comic elements. The Gallery looks over the canal, specially extended to create a beautiful vista. Unfortunately, someone parked their new BMW in it last week. But the best bit is the lifts. The automatic lift announcer (”Ground Floor - Reception”) is in fact Noddy Holder, who comes from Walsall and was asked - and agreed - to record the lift announcements, which he did perfectly straight. Not a lot of people know that, even in Walsall.