Meet the mother-in-law

Not mine, Ezra's. Yes, this is Olivia Shakespear, Dorothy's mother and a fine sketch from that much underrated British twentieth century artist: Wyndham Lewis. OK, I know he upset the establishment but really Nick Serota, isn't it time the Tate did the right thing by this artist, writer, poet and all-round genius. Or are you still carrying Roger Fry's flame, Nick?

This is part of the seed change that I was going through, back in the 1970s. The change from adolescent to entrepreneur. I may had stopped creating in the real sense, but in some respects I was taking on more and doing more. Collecting works of art (like this Wyndham Lewis sketch), buying books and making a difference in the business world.

This entry is going to be different from the rest because it will not end-up with a poem. Indeed this marked the end of my writing for some years. You could say I sold out to commerce but, as you will see later, the output afterwards was better than before. It was like my squirrel-time. During that period I was accepted as an Associate Member of the International P.E.N. Club, became a freeman of the City of London and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Not bad for someone that left school with no qualifications.

When I return I would have come out of this commercial conclave and entered a new phase where rejection gave me a mixture of good and bad. I shortened Waiting for Godot for my son, collected early editions of Joyce's Ulysses, welcomed Gilbert & George and returned to Pound with more than a pound of Poundian.