CHARLES H. WELCH
52
acquire a knowledge of Greek, the Art classes and the Elocution and Dramatic classes soon captivated my attention,
and all this be it remembered after many hours at a bench and a long walk home. The Art class was under the
direction of Miss Beatrice Budgett, a Slade scholar and a relation of Dr. J. Scott Lidgett. From her kindly
supervision I not only made progress in drawing, but became awakened to the gentler side of life. To this day I can
remember, as she took the pencil from my hand, to correct an error in my attempt at drawing from the cast of the
Lorenzo Monument, that I first saw a manicured hand - no varnish, no staining of the finger nails, but a revelation of
what could be beyond the grime and the struggle of a Bermondsey environment. Miss Budgett not only devoted her
time to come down to Bermondsey, but very graciously invited me to send her specimens of my drawing once a
month for criticism.
One letter reads:
`I have shown your work to Professor Brown. He thinks that very probably it would be better for you not to
attend a school of art - as in the Government Schools you may be obliged to do a great deal of unnecessary and
mechanical work in order to pass examinations ... You would get on quicker if you worked alone and from time
to time sent me your drawings and paintings to be criticised'.
The interest that one and another took in the development of this Bermondsey boy, mitigated the otherwise
frustrating pressure of circumstances and kept him sweet.
For all this care he looks back with amazement yet with gratitude. In the Elocution class I gained the prize for
the paper on Theory, and played such parts as Shylock, Oberon and King Lear, fairly exacting for a youth of
nineteen. Its value however was in the discipline of clear enunciation, appropriate gesture and the overcoming of
`stage fright'.