11 Oct George Melly and Gallery for Channel 4

In 1984 South West Television for Channel 4, produced a quiz show called Gallery, hosted by George Melly.  They had two regular team captains , Maggi Hambling and Frank Whitford and each week invited  two celebrities from the art world and two art students. They’d invited Jill Bennett to take part and she agreed on condition they asked her friend, painter Patrick Procktor. I was living at Patricks’s house at the time and he got me invited as the student. The idea of the quiz was  to identify various paintings by only a tiny detail shown on screen. I was on Maggi’s team with Patrick and Maggi referred to me as ‘our brilliant student’ because I kept getting all the answers right including some very obscure ones. I also got some fan mail from some saucy old gentlemen and Richard Buckle a friend of Patrick’s, wrote to him asking who is that genius boy?  This lead to our meeting and the subsequent photograph which can be seen in the 80’s section. It was also the occasion when  I took the picture of Jill with Patrick (also in the 80’s section) when we were waiting for the car to take us home. I have the tape of the show and it is hysterical. it was produced by Daniel Farson, who was a great friend of Francis Bacon.