David Armour: a life in art

Early Days

Born in Penicuik in 1930, the only child of Robert and Beatrice Armour (née Cairns), he grew up from the age of two in nearby Loanhead where his father worked in St Cuthbert’s, or Scotmid as it’s now known. Robert was the manager of the store: one of the most important jobs in the town: St Cuthbert’s was the baker, butcher, dairy, fishmonger, drapery, tailor, furniture shop and undertaker as well as the grocery and coal merchant.

Like several Armours in Loanhead, Robert served in the Royal Scots during the first World War, and got his Blighty Ticket on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, along with three machine gun bullets in his left arm. I remember him as a grumpy man who was irritated when his "bunnet" wasn't warmed on the mantelpiece above the coal fire which heated the house. He was a talented craftsman in his own way: his hobby was making violins – good ones, according to an Edinburgh luthier. Beattie as his mother was known was a great baker and cook: I remember her high teas, scones, jams and pancakes with huge affection. During the Second World War they both did great work keeping the town fed, he from St Cuthbert’s and she in the Women’s Rural Institute. I was in my teens when they died, he in 1969 and Beattie in 1976.

The Armours and Cairns before them were mainly miners, and in the Armours' case not well suited to it: five brothers including my great-grandfather were all six feet five or taller – giants in those days. One was a national quoits champion, and another won a considerable amount of money in a bet cycling from Loanhead to Lasswade playing a fiddle on a penny-farthing: no price is high enough for that!

Perhaps this partly accounted for David being described as "an awfie wild laddie", according to the Loanhead ladies I remember from the Sixties. One thing which must have caused everyone a great deal of distress was him losing the sight in his right eye at age six – a horrendous accident with a bamboo cane which came close to killing him but thankfully stopped at the optic nerve. His right eye subsequently became atrophied, which always attracted attention whenever he went into hospital – it’s rare, apparently.

Since childhood he was interested in animals and birds. James (Jimmy) Garrow lived across the road, a striking figure in black, complete with fedora. He was also known as actor AWB Kingston, and had a lot to do with the introduction of the Basenji dog to Britain, Cruft’s and the Kennel Club, and had many pets, and so did my Dad. He owned a pet crow, which caused problems at school – perhaps deliberately on his part – it followed him, kept tapping at windows to try to get in to his classrooms, so that he then would have to take it home. He also had a Staffordshire bull terrier called Bunty which liked to hop on the bus into Edinburgh. The conductors all knew it, and made sure it got back to Loanhead.

Ever since I remember he kept budgerigars, first in a small aviary when we lived in Brightons (a small village near Falkirk in central Scotland), then in a much larger one he built in South Queensferry where we moved in 1968 before my Mum took up a new post there. He was highly regarded in the “Budgie” world – becoming a life president of the Scottish Budgerigar Society and winning many regional and national shows. He kept budgies until 1978, by which time he'd become allergic to the dust they produce when they eat seed. It's funny looking back on the regular deliveries of hundredweight sacks of finest Moroccan hemp seed which used to arrive. If I knew then what I know now ...

He had many other interests: cycling; climbing; fly fishing, fly tying and collecting rods and reels; stamp collecting; Alpine plants; Muscovy ducks (which finished off the Alpine rockery). That just leaves beekeeping; fantail pigeons (budgie replacement therapy, perhaps); shooting (rough, clay and target); photography; collecting and dealing in antiques; wine and whisky, clothes - he was always rather dapper - and good living in general.

As a child and youth growing up during the War there must have been difficulties and tragedies, but it undoubtedly moulded the multi-talented man he became. His parents were just as resourceful and, if you can't buy something, why not just make it instead? I know they were both skilled at leatherwork and granny knitted all the time. Dad cycled all over the Scottish Borders, fishing and visiting aging relatives near Peebles and Stobo amongst others, taking part in hundred mile road races in Musselburgh Cycling Club and also cycling with his friend to visit his aunt and uncle in Ilford just after the War - an eight hundred mile trip.

Edinburgh College of Art

He went to the College around 1950, studying under Philipson, Redpath, Gillies, Horsman and MacTaggart and alongside the likes of artists Elizabeth Blackadder, Richard Demarco, Frances Walker, and musicians Sandy Brown, Al Fairweather and Norrie Anderson, the last three of whom played tremendous jazz (clarinet, trumpet and banjo respectively). I know he went to their concerts and was pally with them all, especially Norrie. Sandy Brown's premature death in 1975 was a shock and a huge loss. Someone else he knew from those days was of course, Big Tam (later Sean) Connery - like most of Edinburgh allegedly. They shared a liking for beer, drinking in nearby pubs after evening sessions in the Art College. For years I thought we had a portrait of the great man tucked away at the back of the garage - alas, no. There was another equally handsome and well-built model posing at the same time. It appears that Sean Connery used a white thong, whereas this man's is black. Ah well ...

Another friendship arose - with teacher William MacTaggart - due to them both hailing from Loanhead. He lived in Queen Street in Edinburgh in what would have been one of the city's poshest addresses. He missed his hometown life and gossip apparently, and got my Dad to keep him regularly updated with happenings in the town. There's a scroll dating from 1965, which then Sir William must have given to my Dad - possibly because he created it: my Dad was a skilful calligrapher. That's just a guess, and any record of who was given the commission would be hard to find after all this time.

While he was at the Art College he also mingled with the Scottish Renaissance in and around Milnes Bar in Edinburgh, some of whom used to come out to Brightons to "cadge" lunch. Sadly this was before my time, but since my parents were both teachers they were relatively well off. They also benefited from my Grandpa Gray's gardening skills: during the War he'd turned a huge garden (kailyard?!) over to growing vegetables and would donate large bagfuls of them to all his family. Drinking has never been a cheap hobby, and after my parents married the impecunious Sidney Goodsir Smith and Norman McCaig amongst others would come for lunch and then go with dad to the Black Bull in Polmont to spend their short-lived savings. Sidney Goodsir Smith was the nicest of men apparently and died, also too young, on my Mum's 46th birthday. I wish I'd asked more questions about these people when I had the chance: it's too late now. Norman MacCaig's poem below could have been written expressly for my father.

Teaching and Married Life

My parents married in July 1957 in Linlithgow - David Robert Armour and Margaret Mabel Helen Gray, in the St Ninians Craigmailen Parish Church. They met in 1955 at the Graeme High School in Falkirk where they each started work after teacher training. In April of 1957 my Dad featured in a story my Mum still loved telling fifty years later. Falkirk FC (the Bairns) were in the Scottish Cup Final, at Hampden, and my father, as a baby Art teacher was given the job of making flags, banners and other items for the day. All was well until a yell from an upstairs window of the English Department. "Stop child: you're not leaving here with a badly punctuated hat!". Nessie Brown, head English teacher, had spotted my Dad's apostrophe in "Bairn's for the Cup". It turned out to be a fifty year sentence.

Dad had aspirations of selling art professionally in the early Sixties. He rented a studio near the house in Brightons, and acquired a wonderful Victorian mahogany easel with six inch handles and long metal threaded shafts to lift and tilt the frame and canvas. Sadly business was not successful, and as far as I recall he only had the studio for a few years. More sadly, there wasn't room to keep the easel. It was massive and would be worth a king's ransom nowadays.

I suppose I was the reason a lot of things changed in the Sixties. My Mum's family had a lot of teachers in it: my Mum's two sisters and parents were all teachers, along with formidable great-aunt Mary who used to give her nieces malt extract and woollen combinations at Christmas: "Auntie Mary had a canary" was a song I learned at an early age. My parents both left the Graeme High, my Mum looking after me until summer 1963 and Dad moving to Bathgate under Sandy Paris, who merits a website all of his own (colleague and friend of Grandpa Gray; successful Scotland demon fast bowler). Mum took a job teaching Primary Six in the West Port Primary in Linlithgow, where my Granny Gray also taught Primary Two - confusing for a five year old, so I called her Mrs Granny. This lasted a couple of years before Mum returned to secondary teaching (French and German) at Whitburn Academy, where my parents reunited for a few years. She eventually became assistant head at Queensferry High school and later Dad became head of the Art Department in Blackburn Academy, their final teaching posts.

The ducks deserve more mention: at some time in the mid-Seventies Dad acquired four ducks and a drake: Muscovy or Barbary ducks - both misnomers, since they come from the Americas. We lived near Margaret and Ian Duncan who ran the wonderful local Wheatsheaf Bakery, who bagged and threw out unsold bread and cakes, but which turned into perfect duck food. During the first year the four ducks all disappeared and returned later with large numbers of ducklings, despite our efforts to find where they'd gone. In the second year we had ten drakes and fifty ducks and our beautiful garden and Dad's Alpine rockery turned into a slippery slimy slurry pit with not one green leaf less than three feet off the ground. Although they all returned at teatime, ducks were flying all over Queensferry and neighbouring Dalmeny village (including the Police Station car park) and it became apparent that something had to be done, since the supply of bread and cake was not infinite and we could do the arithmetic. Squeamishly, we dispatched one, plucked and gutted it and tried it out. The "something" became apparent - it was truly delicious. As the ducks had finished off the rockery, we in turn finished off the Muscovy ducks, although in fact most of them got to live happily ever after on one of the local estates.

Whitburn and Blackburn

Dad started developing his pottery skills at Whitburn Academy, with help from Edinburgh Art College and Katie Horsman in particular, around the mid-Sixties. He managed to persuade Whitburn Academy to buy a kiln and wheels, and it was there that his (largely self-taught) skill in pottery took off. Towards the end of his time at Whitburn Jim McKinnell visited Edinburgh Art College for a year - 1970 I believe, and my Dad spent a lot of time with him and Katie while he was over here. He made Dad a stunning studio pot before he left which sat in pride of place ever after. I have fond memories of the Whitburn Art staffroom - when I finished at primary school I'd walk down to the Academy and wait for my parents there and talk and listen to the cheerful chat. They were and are the loveliest people and I was lucky to be there, as I now look backwards to those happy days.

When Blackburn opened in 1972 he took a term out from teaching to set up the Art Department there before the school opened - it was one of the first open-plan Art Departments in Scotland, and the equipment they had included bandsaws, photographic equipment, darkroom, jewellery and lapidary gear as well as a fine pottery section. The joy of pottery when the dull-looking piece emerges in its full glory was something that gave pupils and him pleasure in equal measure and gave the children a sense of achievement: a rare sensation in some cases. My Dad's wide interests, craftmanship and skill led enthusiastic staff and pupils to great results in the twenty years the school was open. In one of the craziest planning decisions in West Lothian history (and there is strong competition) the newest school in the county was closed in 1992 and subsequently demolished.

Retirement - not really

Now sixty-two, this was a good time to put in for early retirement, and given the circumstances and a friendly ear in West Lothian Education Department it was approved. It always galled my mother, whose health hadn't been great, that Dad's early exit was granted before hers, despite him being younger and fitter. He didn't mind a bit, while she had an extra year or so to wait. I've inherited both of their Lochgelly belts, the Scottish teaching "aids" which were also finally retired around the same time.

As usual, Dad threw himself into a new hobby and career: antique dealer - which he really enjoyed, making many new friends and travelling the length of the country to antique fairs. Newark was the big trip: boxes and boxes taken down and traded and new stock purchased. Edinburgh auctions were also a fruitful source of stock with the bonus of the excitement of the win - he was always competitive! The biggest chore was bookkeeping and year-end accounts - we share that antipathy. Many of the best ones didn't leave the house: Dad was a bit of a squirrel and always enjoyed having lovely things around him.

Mum's health became gradually worse, and a broken hip made her largely housebound sometime around the new millennium. Dad became a carer, a job he did well too, although it did tend to fit around his social diary. She died very suddenly one night in 2007, not long after their Golden Anniversary. We muddled through and his antique dealer, teaching, pigeon, beekeeping, shooting and fishing friends all helped to keep him going.

Dad was extremely vigorous into his eighties and things were fine for another five years or so: he took friend John and me to Rosslyn Chapel and then on a long walk from Rosslyn Castle along the Esk, past Hawthornden House and eventually back to the Chapel. We couldn't keep up. Those cycling and climbing muscles were still working well until 2012 when it all started to go wrong and the horror of Alzheimer's became manifest. This slowly robbed him of all his skills and genius: the most tragic of outcomes to those who knew him. He died in November 2017 and was buried in a beautiful spot near Rosslyn Chapel beside Mum, exactly ten years after her.

He has left an extraordinary memorial in his art - it keeps him fresh in my mind every time I see his paintings or use his bowls and furniture. I could and should have caught a sea trout using a salmon rod he made, which is something I'm going to attempt again.

People who knew them speak kindly of my parents, and that is surely the best memorial of all. My father inspired by means of his skills and his enthusiasm in starting from scratch in a subject and becoming a master of it, and infecting others with that spirit. The following sums him up perfectly and is especially appropriate given their connection: