The Boxer Clan

    I found a tiny little corner shop in Bonnington Square, in the back streets of Vauxhall. It was called Italo. I stepped inside to order a coffee. As I sat waiting for it to arrive I noticed a large, original Jim Dine etching on the wall of a pair of long-handled pliers. The proprietor was a tall, gregarious man with glasses and a dirty tee shirt. I told him that I had been admiring the Dine on the wall behind him. He seemed surprised that I knew of the artist. 
   "Oh, do you know his work?"
   "Indeed I do! I think he is a great artist!"
   "I'm always amazed that he isn't better known."
   "I agree! I think he is very under-rated."
   "My father knew him very well, of course. As a child, we would have holidays at Dine's place in Vermont. I remember that he had a very big wooden dinner table. Over the years all the artists and writers who had ever eaten around the table had carved their names into the surface. It was amazing to see Jasper Johns' name; Rosenquist's name; Philip Roth's; Kitaj's; Rauschenberg's; Hockney's; Norman Mailer's; Larry Rivers'. All the greats. I was just a little kid, but I got my knife and began to carve my own name. By the time they stopped me, unfortunately, I had half-destroyed one of the names underneath. Yes, I had completely chipped off Robert Motherwell!"
  "Oh no!"
  "It's ok, Dine just laughed. He thought it was funny!... He's still painting, you know. He lives in Paris now. In his eighties and as strong and as sharp as ever."
    A young woman now stepped up to the counter and requested to see one of the cook books on the shelves behind him.
   "It was written by my mother, Arabella Boxer. She's quite a famous food writer, you know... If you'd like to borrow it, I can lend it to you for a few days. Otherwise, I can let you buy it for cost price." With a quiet jolt I now realised who this man was - Charlie Boxer, the son of 1960s genius journalist, satirist and political cartoonist, Mark Boxer (who in 1962 became Founding Editor of the Sunday Times colour supplement. He created a format subsequently copied by all UK Sunday broadsheet newspapers, and was responsible for commissioning such leading artists, photographers and writers of the 1960s as Peter Blake, David Hockney, Cartier-Bresson etc.) Charles' mother, Lady Arabella Stuart, youngest daughter of the eighteenth Earl of Moray has written many books about food and cooking. 
   I stood up to pay for my coffee. Charles beamed at me and handed me my change.
   "And may I shake the hand that obliterated Motherwell in Vermont?", I asked.
   "Certainly," said Charles, proffering his soft, pale hand. "It didn't take very much chipping. I was surprised how easily it came off, frankly."

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