My gurus – Paddy Masefield OBE

Paddy Masefield OBE names the five most inspirational figures in his professional life.

Jean Bullwinkle
Jean transformed the work of an arts funding administrator into an artform. She was largely responsible for Arts Council funding for my trainee director?s bursary, the three small companies I founded, the two Reps I ran and almost all of my 30 plays. For years I believed her to be my analyst, since she was always available to the artist in crisis, and with solutions. Only on her retirement as Deputy Director of Drama did half the theatre directors in England find out that they were not her only patient!

Liz Crow
Of all the family of disabled people who were there to be my friends, supporters, accomplices in small jokes and new mentors in my world of ignorance when I first found myself as a disabled person in 1986, I have chosen Liz; for she like me had contracted M.E. and had also been unable to break the contract. While Michael Billington in 1984 dubbed me the ?doyen? of arts consultants, Liz, now an increasingly exciting filmmaker, is the best I?ve ever met. Proof of the truth that coping with a dis-abling society prepares you for leadership anywhere.

Avtarjeet Dhanjal
Jeet in 1996 conceptualised the responsibility of the artist to the world in which I live by appointing me Chair of the World Beyond 2000, an international ideal for artists to look back at their failures in the appalling century that had been the twentieth, before determining their role in a new millennium. It was this new sense both of service and freedom of thought that led me to chair the ?Think Tank? of Year of The Artist, and to become the only disabled person within the re-formed UK UNESCO Commission.

Sylvia King
Sylvia, a legend in her lifetime from Scandinavia to South America, in the UK has been condemned to a decade of struggle by arts funders who, unable to think outside their box, have done everything to prevent Europe?s largest Community Arts Centre from becoming the physical and social heart of a reconstructed West Bromwich. Her invitation to join the Board of The Public was a greater honour even than becoming the first honorary life member of the Directors? Guild. As inspiring teacher, she approved and drew together my thoughts on the primacy of community arts over all others.

art + power
The artists with learning difficulties who comprise and lead art + power in Bristol have given me a sense of what I might have made of my life. In 2002, when I was handed the sentence of terminal cancer, it was they, along with Liz and Moya Harris, who created a memorial to my life of artistic un-certainty by setting up The Paddy Masefield Award. Since when we are both in our 3rd year! They have been the proof of how purposefully art leads the way in opposing prejudice and insult in our society. Brenda Cook?s 2004 winning entry has especially inspired the title of my book, ?STRENGTH: Broadsides from Disability, on the Arts?, due out next year.

See NewsReel (p4) for information on The Paddy Masefield Award for people with learning difficulties.