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As a young lad growing up in the north Herefordshire village of Leintwardine, Peter Faulkner was never happier than when he was playing with his three brothers on the banks of the River Teme and in the woods nearby. It was a childhood idyll that stayed with him throughout a varied career in the Merchant Navy, insurance and running a special needs unit for children with learning difficulties. Born in 1942, he still works part-time in special education, but his life changed forever after he and his family moved back to the village, and the river, where he grew up. He still had his childhood dream of voyaging along the Teme, but he wasn’t sure quite how to do it. His eureka moment came in 1987 when he went to the River Severn to visit Eustace Rogers who was carrying on the age-old tradition of making coracles, the small saucer-shaped keelless boats made out of waterproof hides stretched over a wicker frame.
Faulkner says that: 'The voyage started as a one-off expedition, but I had caught the bug. The potter John Leach admired my coracle, so I built one for him. Other orders began trickling in, and I must have made well over 100 by now, and a few currachs, or seagoing skin boats. We sailed from Ireland to Scotland in the paddle strokes of Saint Columba, who made the same journey almost 1,500 years ago. I’ve sold coracles in Europe and America – they cost about £500 – and now run river safaris and coracle-making courses. I must have paddled over 400 miles along English rivers using a form of transport which we know our ancestors used at least 5,000 years ago, and I’m still at it.'
Royal Society of Portrait Painters People's Portraits collection at Girton College, University of Cambridge
Cambridge
Title
Peter Faulkner, Coracle-Maker
Date
2000
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 46 x W 44 cm
Accession number
463
Acquisition method
on loan from the Royal Society of Portrait Painters
Work type
Painting
Signature/marks description
signature
Royal Society of Portrait Painters People's Portraits collection at Girton College, University of Cambridge
Huntingdon Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB3 0JG England
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Christopher Adams (b.1939) Pembroke College, Cambridge -
Peter Faulkner, Coracle-Maker Royal Society of Portrait Painters People's Portraits collection at Girton College, University of Cambridge -
Sir Richard Oswald Norman (1932–1993) Exeter College, University of Oxford -
French Farmhouse Royal Watercolour Society -
Newbury Show West Berkshire Museum -
The Birmingham Five Royal Birmingham Society of Artists -
Sir Christopher Bland Imperial Health Charity Art Collection - 2 more