J F Vernon Blog

At school I was drawn less to the subjects that earned praise and more to the ones that set my imagination alight. Art and drama gave me room to express and invent, while geography — especially the maps, diagrams, and the physical patterns of the world — satisfied a deep visual curiosity. I loved biology too, for its sense of connection with living systems. History came later, shaped more by my father’s indirect influence than by my own instinct – it took me to Balliol College, Oxford and later I gained an MA in British History of the First World War, but I also attend an art school of sorts, The School of Communication Arts, and have an MA in Education. Yet I still wish I’d studied fine art or drama instead or a combination of the two: filmmaking.