I knew the artist, David Vaughan, in the early 1970s. He was
all well-known figure around Ashton-under-Lyne. Most people who came into
contact with him, found him very strange and rather intimidating. But some of
us, were never quite convinced, how much of his odd behaviour was due to
psychiatric problems, or was simply an affectation. Was he playing the mad
artist? He did bear a resemblance to the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. He'd
also been compared to the Spanish artist Goya because of his harrowing
depictions of war and famine.
His famous daughter, Sadie Frost, has said that he was mad
and suffered from manic depression and psychosis or possibly schizophrenia.
People who knew him said his mental problems stemmed from when his drink was
spiked with LSD, which he was given shortly after an accident when he fell and
injured himself, sustaining a head injury. Given what happened to the rock
legends Peter Green and Syd Barrett, this is very possible, and is called drug
induced psychosis. However, Sadie Frost, said her parents raised her in an
atmosphere of drugs and alcohol.
Most of what he told us about himself - which turned out to
be largely true - we took with a pinch of salt. He had done commissions for the
Beatles, Princess Margaret and the Kinks. I do remember one of David's artistic
works, which impressed many of us. He painted a mural on a living room wall of
a terraced house in Ashton. The picture he painted was the '21st Century
Schizoid Man" from the 1969 debut album 'In the Court of the Crimson King'
by the progressive rock band King Crimson.
Two brothers that I knew from Guide Bridge, in Ashton, had
been at school with David Vaughan. They told me that he'd lived in Denton and
had lived with his grandmother, who often threw water over him while he was in
bed. How much of this is true, I can't say, but the brothers seemed to think
that David's upbringing had a bearing on his later mental illness.
David Vaughan, died in December 2003, aged 58, while awaiting
an operation for a liver transplant. At the time of his death, he had five sons
and two daughters.Memories
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