Art documentary- Why This 78-Year-Old turns Beach Rubbish Into Art - Sid Burnard - Goldmark

Everything I make has a story. I don't know whether I can give you an idea. This isn't how it will be, but this is just to give you an idea. That's the wedding bell. When Joe and I got married on Jersey, the boat came from the bottom of Goree Harbour. So that was made to commemorate our getting married. Talk about one man's meat and another man's poison. But this is the end of a hoover, and I just immediately saw an elephant. When I work with natural material, organic material, they're my songs and poems. When I work with what some people would call rubbish, they're my limericks and my riddles. So I take this very seriously. When I was about six, we were in Morvan, living in Morvan. The bottom of the road, there was a big green, and there were about half a dozen Romany wagons pulled up on it, and families and dogs playing. I said to my grandmother, you see that girl? She goes to my school. The girl was about my age, six years old, nut brown skin, fantastic clothes, real little gypsy girl. My grandmother said, what's her name? I said, it's Tilly Loveridge. My grandmother said, do you like her? I said, I think she's wonderful. My grandmother said, I'm pleased because she's a relation of yours. That's how I found out about my Romany background. My other grandmother came from Russia. Her family came end of the 19th century. So had these very strong characters, personalities, and you start to realise why. You've just got to keep wandering. You've just got to try different things. And our little dog now, 72 years later, is named after Tilly, the little girl I went to school with. Tilly and Joe unearthed that. It's still very, very wet. That is going to make a wonderful bird's body. Okay, well, if everybody's feeling brave, here we are. The Curious Kingdom. It's alive and well. Everything I make has a story. And when I write a little piece to accompany the item, the person that ends up living with it has a little bit of background information. Now this, I was always intrigued with. I can remember picking it up on Borth Beach. It has a very, very faint trademark. Mora, M-O-R-A, Sweden. I contacted Mora saying, I hope you won't mind me troubling you, but I found this piece of plastic and I'd love to know what it is. Could you help me? And I had a lovely warm letter back. Hello, Sid. There have been several knife manufacturers in the small Swedish town of Mora. Today there is only one. Mora Knife, started by my grandfather in 1912. You have found the sheath of one of his hunting knives, Thomas Eriksson. I'm still over the moon. I was encouraged to write letters as a little boy because we moved so much. I still enjoy writing. Why did you move around so much, Sid? Jewish gypsy. Keep moving. My father would say he was looking for promotion and for security. You know, his father was from Poland. You know, it was tough. He became the head of the family at 15 years old. He had, there were nine boys, no girls. The two oldest boys had left. But my father, at 15 years old, was putting food on the table for his mother and his four, himself and his four younger brothers. 15 bob a week for 45 hour week, pushing a handcart. That's the stern of the boat that we found that I always thought was a message from my grandmother, Persevere. It was from Abu Dhabi and we got that after a storm. And that's my grandmother. That taught me. And there's a few bits of pencil for her. This is my shrine. I just always used to go back to see her. And she used to say, I'd say, maybe go down the beach, Nan. And she'd say, look for a piece of pencil, ducky. So yes, I would always, I still do look for little bits of pencil. So I got that quite a nice little variety of colors. But my father, tough. I never, he never, ever said to me, well done. When I showed Louis the joys of beachcombing and finding things and seeing what they could be, look what he made. So Louis, he went off in that direction and I started making boats, arcs for his creatures. He was perfectly happy. He then did more drawing, having gotten the bug for making the boats. I then made mythical beasts and then pictures and then birds because I could suggest emotions or interpret the pieces of wood and see them emotionally. Vulnerability, defiance, persecution, joy, or every emotion. So Louis, thank you, Louis. You kickstarted my career. Louis, I did him egg and chips one evening when he got in. He said, Sid, Sid, this looks, this chip looks like a bird head. So, so I made him that. It's called chip off the old block. Is that a chip? Yeah, I gave it 10 coats of PVA and it's hung together. Previous to that, I had put work in our shop to go alongside Louis' pictures and I had a little piece of information saying they were made by a man at the coast who didn't alter what he found. He just put things together and people would look at my work and some would say, when you next see him, tell him if he sanded that bit or he cut that bit or he painted it, it will be so much better. And I would say, I'll pass the message on, make sure he hears that. That way I got an honest opinion and it also confirmed to me that is not how I wanted to work. And it's a good example of how things fit one way, but not another. Now, one of my early guides might have said, you should cut that so it fits perfectly. But no, see and fire. Look at that wing. The next major player, of course, being introduced to Mike Goldmark at the gallery and I just happened to have a few photographs with me and I showed Mike and he said, keep at it. Don't change how you work and keep in contact. And I remember walking out of Goldmark gallery on air. I couldn't believe it. And I was on cloud nine. That is just a pebble. How could I interfere with that? But I'll give it a leg, I'll give it a leg up. I recycle our elderly neighbours papers. I have to be very careful because she doesn't like immigrants and she doesn't like gypsies, but she graciously allows me to clear her rubbish. I don't dare tell my heritage. I draw around it and then I've got templates. I can make a foot like that with a rod or even that, you know, that might come into play. It's very simple and cut this one out so you could see this would be that way. So I've got to decide. You see how I arrive at a decision. I don't whether it's the right decision. I don't know. To my mind, there is no right way and no wrong way. This just happens to be Sid's way. So I've lived in 20 different places, 50 jobs. I got my first job. I was hitchhiking. I was 14, 15 and a guy stopped, gave me a lift. And he said, what do you do for a living? I said, I have absolutely no idea. And he said, well, why don't you apply to the BBC? They employ 22,000 people and I work there and it's, you know, various things. You can get into TV, radio. So I wrote a letter. I was good at letters and I got an interview. Anyway, I got the job, six pounds, five and six a week. Fantastic. And they did send me on film study and English and typing. Then they gave me a job doing the wages and I got terribly mixed up. So these wonderful, big, jolly black cleaning women went home with the foreman's wages and the commissionaires went home with the porter's wages. And I met a guy at film study. He said, apparently you can write to the American embassy and get a job. This is named after or inspired by a great American actor. It's called Flint Westwood. That's two little flints. So I wrote to the American embassy and offered my services. I got a job writing what we called trade contact service surveys. I was then, you know, in the same room as Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Bobby Kennedy the year before he was assassinated, Richard Nixon when he won presidency. That was incredible. The embassy was fantastic. What a piece of wood. How has that survived on the beach? People tramping over it, dogs, waves, pebbles, rock. So I've lived in 20 different places. I'm in one place, there were nine of us in a flat for four. So when the landlord came out on a Friday night, you know, five would have to hide. I remember moving to somewhere that would be more sane because it was just such a crazy life. So I moved. I moved to number nine on court. Anyway, got up in the morning to go walk across Hyde Park to the embassy. I went out the front door and there was Spike Milligan. And he said, who are you? I said, my name's Sid and I've just moved into the flat. How much they charge you for that? It was the basement. It was damp. It was awful. I think I said nine guineas a week. Then he said, dirty rotten bastards. And Spike, we must have kept in contact. It was very interesting times. OK, my first Goldmark show. I couldn't tell my father over the telephone how successful the show had been. I had to get Joe to do it. He said, why didn't you do it before? I never, ever got. Is that because of his own health? Is it much? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. His father left his mother with, well, one boy had died. They weren't eating. Left his mother with eight boys. My mother used to say they were like wild animals. I don't know what this is from, but it's the pelvis of some creature. But look at this face. You start to see the end of the hoover that I found in the summer house. See, I can't make anything too extraordinary. You know, this is, nature's doing this sort of thing all the time. This is about the same time as I met Mike. A man called Werner Gutmann, he and his wife, Natasha. They encouraged me to sign and date my work. I hadn't done it before that. Werner Gutmann introduced me to a man called John Catlew. He told John Catlew about my work. He became an avid collector and we wrote to each other monthly. I still have the letters. It turned out that John Catlew and his wife, Kate, ran the De Morgan Foundation in London. In 1941, when the Nazis occupied Paris, Picasso wrote a play called Desire Caught by the Tail. It was broadcast in Paris, I think post-war, with all literary giants involved. In 1951, it came to London and John Catlew painted the sets for Picasso's play that was put on at the Watergate Theatre. Not only that, he exhibited with Edoardo Palazzi, Victor Passmore, people of that standing. He left me even more belief. He died in 2009 and he was still wanting to buy my work. He had 15. And I phoned his wife and said, look, Kate, I know John is so seriously ill. I would like to send him a bird but I don't want him to buy it. She put it by his bedside. It was a Wednesday. It arrived on a Wednesday morning and he loved the bird and he died that afternoon. I went to see Kate some years later and she gave it back to me. But Kate came to my show and met Mike in 2012, as did Werner Gutmann. He'd been 40 years with Thames & Hudson and he had proposed that Thames & Hudson do a book on me. And I'm so pleased that they didn't, but Mike Goldmark did. The words that John Catlew wrote for me in 2009 became the foreword to Sid's book and Kate didn't know that he'd done it for me. Not only that, I'll show you the measure of the man. He bought this from a photograph. So this was a thousand. I can't remember what the others were. And I got home a few days later and there was a telephone message. Sid, John Catlew here. I don't want you to phone me as soon as possible. I thought, oh, blimey. It broke. He doesn't like it. Whatever. So anyway, I phoned. Hello, John. Sid here. Returning your call. No, you listen to me. I've got your work. It's better than you think it is. And I'm sending you another 500 pounds. You listen to me. I bought Lowry's. I bought all sorts of things. Miro. I'm sending you another 500 pounds. And that's it. The guy left me so much. And yeah, he would have loved it. The fact that this is now my fourth show at Goldmark. I mean, yeah, I'm so overwhelmed. It's very moving. 78. And I've got this very exciting life and share it, share it with people. And people are so kind. I've made such wonderful friendships through the work and especially through Goldmark. The builder said to me the other day, you know, are you real? And I said, I don't know. Do any of us? It's just a dream come true. And I pinch myself and I can't quite believe it. I honestly can't believe it. I mean, there are so many more deserving people to be shown, have their work shown. And yeah, I can't believe it. You know, I'm just very honored and grateful. And thank you from the bottom of my heart. Sid, come on down. All is forgiven. Thank you, sir. I'll show you this piece because this is an example of how disparate items can become a lesson in humanity and life affirming. In 2010, Joe and I saw a film about a young man called Christopher McCandless, who he dropped out and went to live in Alaska. And he lived in a wrecked bus, which had been used by construction workers. You know, he was living rough and he was only 24 and he died. And I took some scraps into the shop and on the counter, I was making this wreck of a bus. And a woman came in the shop and she said, what are you doing? What's that? I'd said my wife and I saw this film and we were very moved by it. And she said, that's the last book I saw my son reading before he left for Alaska to construct a pottery workshop for his ceramics professor. On completion, Christ, that was the name of her son, and two friends set out on a camping weekend. Their spirit of adventure took them whitewater rafting. Christ was not wearing a life jacket. He was thrown overboard and tragically never found. He was 24. I was shocked and I muttered inadequate words of condolence. I discovered the lady would be in the area for another week before returning to America. We arranged that she would call back. And over the following days, I completed the assemblage. And I signed it for Christ Ronan Anderson. And I gave it to her. Ronan was the name of the First Nation tribe that lived in that area. In 2024, 14 years on, Goldmark Gallery email to say, Carol Anderson would like to make contact. She's had my piece of work on the wall and always thought of me. And 14 years on, they visited our home. And she and her partner, Michael Turner, brought me this piece of wood from Glacier National Park. So this is from Montana. This head is from West Wales, as is the base. She knows that it's going to be in the show. And I'm in contact with her in Montana. And I find that very moving. I'm reminded of Coleridge, isn't it? Who talks about the willing suspension of disbelief, which constitutes poetic faith. And what I find extraordinary when I look at your work is that if I, in my mind, I dissemble these three bits of wood, or two bits of wood, or whatever, and I look at them, they are nothing. When I put them back together again, in my mind, as you have, and I actually stop thinking and just let the image that you've created for us come at me, I absolutely see the bird, the animal, the boat. I can't think of anybody anywhere that can do what you do, that does it in this unbelievable, remarkable, imaginative way, and presents us with so much pleasure from them. I think it really is quite extraordinary. All I can do, Sid, is thank you for what you bring us. Thank you very much. Within eight minutes, Cardiff were on the attack, with Thomas sending Rowlands away on the wing. A kick ahead was followed up strongly, and from a scramble near the line... You know, if you see the end of a fantastic cup final or rugby, you know, when the coach is carried aloft by the team and the supporters are cheering, I feel like that. I honestly do. It's very emotional for me. It's very emotional.