Classic Stanley Spencer: a scene from painter Lachlan Goudie’s thoroughly absorbing TV documentary about the Clyde shipyard paintings. (You can watch a short clip on the programme’s website.) About 15 years ago, another of Spencer’s famous toilet rolls, from a slightly later period, came up for auction at Christie’s. As well as drafts and doodles, it contained some of his rambling, chatty letters to his first wife, Hilda (who was, I think, dead by that time.) I was tempted to go along and put in a bid – the reserve price was only about £80, as far as I recall. But where would you keep an artifact like that? So I stayed home. In the end, the roll went for three or four times the original estimate.
Clive Davis 