By this time I was teaching fairly regularly at Kingston Poly, and a slog it was driving from East Road to Kingston, but it was really interesting. Ainslie had taken over a Sculpture department little better than a Surrey girls finishing school and was trying to make it into a proper London Art School.

It would be easy to claim some right-on political position for City Artists, with miners strike stuff and Black Women In View, but that wasn't the case. Everyone who had a brain was socialist and anti-racist then. Our policy was one of open house. There was no selection process someone would get talking to someone who wanted a show we would say okay and try and fit them in. Of course if they were arseholes the calender would be full. This was a good show involving paintings and textiles. I haven't any decent images of any of the shows because I was usually running round doing other stuff.

I organised this show as a PR exercise for Jeremy Scott. He had refurbished a building near Hoxton Square, state of the art designer stuff and saw the exhibition as a way of getting clients in, architects, designers, people with gelt. I phoned round every one I knew, told them to bring a picture, free drinks, maybe even sales. It looked good, classy and the hanging went fairly well. Its amazing how many artists will tell you 'I think my piece would look very well on that wall, all on its own.'

In the local, The Bricklayers, I think, I bumped into Tony Robinson, that's how trendy the area was becoming, Baldric drank there. I invited him to the show which was on that evening about four doors down; he looked as interested as if I had asked him to read my amazing script. I think he saw through my cunning plan, artists are as susceptible to celebrity as anyone else and having a TV guy at the opening would have gone down well.

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