water n.
a colourless, odourless liquid
Yet water, particularly a water surface, has so many wonderful effects which are often taken for granted, or not even noticed, by those whose very existence depends on it in everyday life...
For enquiries (including prices and availability) please contact Bill Pike
Bill Pike lives and works in Berkshire, England.
The images on this site have been produced by scanning 35mm transparencies using a slide scanner. The colours and quality of the images may not therefore be representative of the original paintings.
Size: 1.22m x 0.81m Medium: Oils on canvas
Jun-Jul 2013
It must have been along this or a nearby stretch of the Old Bedford River outside his home at Low Bank, Welney, in Norfolk that William 'Turkey' Smart (1816-1895) learned, as a pioneering speed-skater, how to go faster in the head-down, stooping style (which gave him his nickname) when Welney Washes froze in Nineteenth Century Winters.
Claimed to have done the 'flying mile' in 2 mins 2 secs, when I visited this long-straight stretch of water running through the flat Fenland here it seemed to me that for a speed of nearly 30 m.p.h. (50 k.p.h.) to have been achieved, it must have been at least partly 'wind-assisted'.
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