I first met Alexi properly at Southport Art School. It ran a Pre-Diploma Course and was part of a Tech. College. In those days the course was called Pre Dip. because the following three year course was called Diploma in Art and Design, or Dip. A.D. This was a B.A. Hons. equivalent. Most Art Schools became part of Further Education Technical Colleges loosing their independence, Wimbledon was one of the very few that didn’t. Because the Dip. A.D. was equivalent to a degree, the Art School was used as a way of getting Polytechnic status for these Tech. Colleges as in the case of Kingston Poly. ( a rose by any other name) 

Anyway when I met Alexi I felt I had met him somewhere before. Then it came to me, Paddy’s Market. For years my Dad had a stall in the largest open air market in Liverpool, known, for obvious reasons, as Paddy’s Market. Every Saturday, rain or shine, we set up a stall round eight in the morning till four or five. There was also a Marxist-Leninist stall, sometimes, and I bought books from them, particularly about Tibet, and Alexi used to work on that stall, that’s where I had met him before, small world. He was a year or so younger than me and part of the same group that generally hung out together. I went to his house once and his Mum gave us beans on toast, while his Dad sat behind his newspaper saying nothing. The Mum was fantastic, very vibrant and talkative.

Alexi got into Chelsea Art School, which was then, and still is, one of the best colleges in the country. He was signed for painting but quickly moved into video making. I was at Wimbledon so we met up often; I bought his last painting for £5 and was in one of his first movies, sort of about Ned Kelly, the Australian outlaw. I was a straight guy in a suit being chased by Kelly along some model railway line. I never saw the finished thing.

Alexi became part of a small theatre group called ‘Three penny Opera’; they did political sketches, very Berthold Brecht. Gradually the comedy element grew stronger and surprisingly Alexi was very good at it. I say surprisingly because Alexi was quite funny in company, as a lot of people from Liverpool are, very fast, biting wit, but generally his wife Linda was much funnier. By this time I was at the R.C.A. and used to go to every show he was doing as part of a rent a crowd, laughing and clapping loudly to give him support.

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