"Just a tiny bit of discipline in this class," Desmond Turner pleaded. For the first time in his life, he appeared to have lost control of his art students. They abandoned their easels and wandered around the room, shuffling over paint-stained newspapers that had been spread out on the floor. Several disappeared into a makeshift cubicle near the door. Others left the building, writes Sheila Sullivan
"I'm fighting a losing battle," he said, surprised by the gentle mutiny and even more surprised at being ignored.
The Achill Island School of Painting was celebrating its 40th anniversary and the class had planned a surprise party for Turner. "Come home, all is forgiven," he said, when a group emerged bearing champagne and cakes. There would be no more painting that morning.
To mark the 40 years, an exhibition of recent works by Turner and his daughter Patricia was held in the Cyril Gray Memorial Hall in Dugort, Achill Island, between July 28th and August 14th. An exhibition of 52 paintings by father and daughter will be on view at the Petley Fine Art Gallery, Cork Street, London, from next Tusday until September 24th.
Turner, a member of the Royal Ulster Academy who has exhibited in Ireland, England and America, is a dapper man with an upright, almost military bearing; he looks younger than his 82 years. He was born in Newtownards, Co Down, in 1923, one of two sons of Caroline Clarke of Dugort, Achill, and Robert Turner of Gortin, Co Tyrone. Robert Turner served in the RIC; his first posting, in the early 1920s, was in Dugort.
Desmond was educated at Methodist College, Queen's University and Stranmillis College, Belfast. His first teaching appointment was as a specialist in art and music in the Belfast Boys' Model Schools from 1947 to 1950. He spent the next 32 years as senior lecturer in art at Stranmillis, where he was responsible for stage design. He designed sets for Belfast Grand Opera House, and he was organist and choirmaster at St Martin's Church, Ballymacarrett, Belfast, St John's, Malone, Belfast and St Patrick's, Drumbeg.
In the mid-1960s he was persuaded by a few friends to start a painting school on Achill. John Healy, an early pupil, described his experience on Desmond's course. On August 19th, 1967 Healy wrote in the Western People: "Well, here we were below Cissy McHugh's place, all easels and canvas, all huddled like geese in off the road, twelve of us looking at these corners and gables and barns." The fact that John Healy was writing meant "he was in sympathy with all that I was preaching," Turner said.
President Patrick Hillery also took the course. "The painting school in Achill was most enjoyable, and I recall the visit I made with great pleasure," he wrote in a letter of appreciation to mark the 40th anniversary. "I learned about painting and colour and learned to see the landscape. Most of all I believe that I made friends of the Turners, Des and Doreen. They were special people and I loved Achill."
Turner's memories of Achill reach back more than 70 years. On long journeys from Northern Ireland, the family would cross the Border into Donegal and Sligo and he would be "encouraged to look around" at the environment. All the roads in north Mayo were gravel. "After rain the gravel roads sparkled," he said. There were few, if any, signposts and when a car went past - if a car went past - it raised a cloud of dust.
In Achill, his jobs were to get water from the well and to clean the globes of the oil lamps. He recalls the sounds of his childhood: "the sound of bees in the fuchsia bushes, the sound of a man sharpening a scythe, the cry of the curlew, and the crashing of the waves on Dookinella beach under the cliffs." There were a lot of donkeys on the road. There were no streetlights, and very few cottages along Keel lake. Many of the houses were thatched.
The amount of development in Achill in recent years has been "quite incredible", he admits. "One has got to share the beauty of the environment, but I think that one has to be careful, that in the sharing process, the rules might be a little too flexible." He said: "There isn't the same freedom for a painting location. The mountains and the skies and the seas are still there to be enjoyed, but it is getting more difficult to gain access to those beauties with all the building."
He still loves Achill, his mother's home place. He had a cottage in Bunnacurry for 20 years, which he sold when he and Doreen moved to Cumbria. Now the Turners stay for five weeks in summer with Mrs Vi McDowell in Gray's Guest House, Dugort.
He tries to run a "seeing school", rather than a painting school. He expects skill and discipline, visual awareness and emotional content in the performance of his art students. He mentions a painting by Patricia, saying that when he looks at it he can feel the gentle breeze. "This is difficulty territory," he observes.
His Achill paintings reflect the tranquillity, contentment and freedom of the island. "It will be a pity if that disappears."