Peter Anson – författare

A Roving Recluse is the second volume of memoirs by Peter Frederick Anson; the eccentric monk, writer and artist who became Britain's leading authority on 19th and 20th century church décor and religious ritual. Whereas Anson's first memoir, Harbour Head chronicled the lives of fishermen and his abiding interest in the sea, this volume (published in 1946) is concerned with the religious life. In A Roving Recluse twelve of the author's elegant line drawings evoke the world he describes. He first joined the Benedictine order on the Island of Caldey just at the moment when the majority of the monks converted to Roman Catholicism. He next became attached to the Franciscans in Italy when he embarked on his career of connoisseur extraordinaire not just of church furnishings, but also of church characters: Abbot Sir David Oswald Hunter-Blair; Eric Gill at Ditchling pouring scorn on ungodly railway lines and typewriters; the enigmatic couple Raffalovich and Gray. Anson brings unrivaled insights into the strangely exotic world of 20th century monastic communities, most of them now dispersed and their buildings demolished or converted into luxury spa hotels.

The first of two volumes of memoirs by monk, writer and artist Peter Frederick Anson, Harbour Head was published in 1944 and deals with the first part of the author's unsettled life, trying to balance his religious vocation and his love for the sea. Born in Southsea, the son of a rear admiral, islands, ships and sailors always exerted a strong hold on Anson. His memoirs combine his distinctive talents for writing and drawing to create a unique record of the two great loves of his life: the sea and the church. Anson's meticulously observed line drawings (thirteen in this volume) have an inimitable character, informative and touching, gossipy and camp. Many of Anson's drawings of ships are preserved in the National Maritime Museum. Anson lived for some years at Harbour Head on the Baffshire shores, hence the title of this volume of his memoirs, and became involved with burgeoning Scottish Nationalism. In Harbour Head Anson chronicles the constant changes of direction that were the defining feature of his eccentric character, from a peripatetic childhood taking trips to sea with his father, through his early training as an architect and his first foray into the monastic life with the Benedictines on Caldey Island and subsequent trips researching the lives of fisherman in Italy, Canada, France and Scandinavia. Anson himself wryly described his life of extreme vicissitudes as 'a long life on a choppy sea'. The skill of Anson's writing and his draftsmanship make Harbour Head an invaluable portrait of a world of seafaring that all but disappeared in the late twentieth century.