Eric Jones was a Tolkien-like, Bohemian figure with lank greying hair and goatee Van Dyke beard sprouting from yellowing parchment-like skin. Always dressed in an old army duffel-coat and open-toe sandals, Eric Jones rejected discipline from every quarter, and that included the college principal, John Harwood.

Eric Jones' sole task in life was to teach the basic skills of anatomy and life-drawing sitting beside us on an artists' donkey and sketching the sitter with great dexterity using both left and right hands with equal skill.

He also taught human physiology and anatomy using a life-size green plaster cast of a male torso with all the muscles and tendons exposed. Well I remember those lessons, their knowledge of the anterior superior illiac spine, the gluteus maximus, and the lattisimus dorsi all learned from Eric Jones' patient explanation of the human form from Dunlop's 'Anatomy'. Finally, he also taught us the history of archtecture introducing his students to the Italianate glories of Andrea Palladio and Inigo Jones - 'No relation', he would add dryly. Eric Jones read and spoke Italian fluently, sometimes reading aloud to the class. He used this command of Italian to good effect when yet another tedious directive was issued from 'the powers above'. In the middle of life class, having been given yet another small brown envelope to open, he studiously read the contents. Furrowing his brow, he addressed the class; 'Una notizia molto importante ...', then proceed to read the entire contents in Italian adding with a wry mischievous smile, 'I'm sure you didn't understand a word of that!' At that, the entire class, including the model, would burst out laughing.

He was a well-known customer at the The Banner Cross Tavern, where, well in his cups, he stood on a table reciting Shakespeare - in Italian! Nearby he had a small sparsely furnished bed-sit. Apart from simple table, chairs and a cot, the only furnishing was a single large print of Picasso's painting, 'Guernica'.