As an artist, travelling has always interested me and began gently in Europe in Paris and the rest of France, then Italy and Spain and onwards until travelling overland to Afghanistan in 1968. I made my first trip to India in 1970.

I started my art school training relatively late at the age of 22, in the heady days of political sit-ins at Hornsey College of Art. I completed my three year BA course in 1967 and was then awarded a place at the Royal College of Art where I changed departments to textiles in the newly created woven tapestry department. I graduated with an MA in 1973. I wrote my thesis on the modernist city of Chandigarh in the Punjab, India designed by the French/Swiss architect, Le Corbusier, together with two British architects, Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry.

On graduating, I was fortunate enough to immediately be commissioned by several companies in Britain and Europe to weave tapestries for public buildings including Gatwick Airport, The Tower Hotel, The National Motor Museum and the Central Electricity Generating Board. This meant that I had to quickly find a studio to work in and equip myself with a loom and materials – linen yarn supplies and bobbins to weave with… the tools of my trade!