Introduction

      Once, when I was a young boy, my father took me to an art exhibition during the school summer holidays. At the time, my dad was a keen amateur painter, one of his many changing hobbies, and a famous artist called David Shepherd had brought his paintings to the local town of Leek where they were on display. What’s more, Mr Shepherd was in town himself, signing books and talking about his pictures.

      Now at the age of eleven, I can’t say I knew much about art, but I went along to humour my dad, who really wanted to meet this great man. When I got there, much to my relief, I found that the pictures were very good. There were lots of paintings of trains, planes and important people, but the ones I liked the most were the pictures of animals. There were tigers, zebras and rhinos – although the paintings that intrigued me the most were the ones of elephants.

      ‘Do you like elephants?’ a voice called out from behind me, as I was staring up at the vast canvas.

      I turned around to be confronted by a scruffy-looking, white-haired man, who appeared to me to be very old. I told him that I had never seen an elephant before in real life, but I’d read about them at school and I’d seen them on the David Attenborough documentaries. ‘Well, one day I’m sure you’ll see them for yourself, in Africa perhaps,’ he said, with a patient smile. He put out his hand and I shook it. It was David Shepherd, the artist himself.

      ‘Ask Mr Shepherd a question,’ my dad insisted. My mind went blank for a moment, before it occurred to me to ask whether or not he had always been a good artist. Mr Shepherd stroked his chin and smiled.

      ‘Young man,’ he said, ‘shall I show you one of my first efforts at painting?’

      I nodded.

      David Shepherd turned around and motioned for me to follow him to the corner of the room, where he had some bags and a large plastic folder, which he picked up and opened. He rustled around and out of it he pulled a yellowed piece of paper, no bigger than a normal A4 sheet. He handed it to me. I looked down and my astonishment must have been quite apparent.

      ‘Not very good is it?’ he said, beaming. I didn’t know what to say. My dad had always taught me to be polite, but there was no hiding the fact that