John Lane

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Towards the end of his life, John suffered a catastrophic stroke, leaving him physically paralysed, but with his mind as active as ever, as I was to discover when visiting. Following his death in 2012, there was a major memorial gathering at Dartington, when much was said about his work down there, but it seemed to me that his seminal contribution to the cultural life of North Devon was being forgotten.

I wrote a piece for Beaford’s website, recording that his setting of a pattern for rural arts centres had been “a stroke of genius, conducted with imagination, energy and a sense of joy”. I then discussed with Truda, her sons and others close to John how his work at Beaford and thereabouts might best be celebrated. There followed several memorial events at the Plough, for which I was able to find some funding from the Foundation: a piano recital by Allan Schiller, whom early adherents remembered playing Schubert’s Wanderer-Fantasie long ago in Greenwarren House; a conversation between Satish Kumar and James Lovelock, which drew a packed house; an exhibition of John’s own paintings linked to a lecture on Samuel Palmer by Professor Sam Smiles; and a talk by Robin Ravilious about James’s work. 

I believe justice was reasonably served in the end and cling firmly to the view that it is in North Devon and not Dartington where John’s true legacy lies.