Right I think my feet are firmly back on terra firma after buzzing around these last couple of days like a bee on Prozac. It’s been really exciting and not that I wish myself ill but my lofty 51 year old body can only take so much buzz before it starts to show signs of physical strain.                   

(c) Anne Blankson-Hemans, inspiration for the Elmina paintings

So now that I am back down to earth, I am ready to deal with the practicalities of what’s required for my face to face meeting with the production team in Birmingham on Thursday. They need me to bring my passport so I can identify myself and prove that I am UK resident; that’s all ok but they also require me to prove I am the author of the aforementioned painting which although understandable is proving slightly more challenging. I don’t think at any time in my studio whilst painting I’d be required to prove authorship of my work and so haven’t really kept an audit trail of me sketching, drawing painting etc. I mean how was I supposed to know I might nearly become famous one day?

However, it’s a reasonable request. I have a very imaginative mind and one of my imaginations albeit fleetingly (these thoughts are not allowed to dwell for too long) was of someone turning up with an exquisite forgery formed in China claiming also to be the author of my work.

So when my feet finally hit the ground last night, I was hit by the sobering thought that I really ought to try and prove my authorship and started to search frantically through a number of computers (yes I do have more computers here than PC World -long story) and portable hard disk drives for any photographs I had taken during my trip to Ghana over the the Christmas break of 2005/2006.

Through a cruel twist of fate none of this material was readily available. Here is how it happened: Lorraine had come along with us to Ghana for that memorable trip. (us being me and the kids). She had brought her camera with which the pictures were taken and her laptop onto which the pictures were stored. With me so far? When we returned to England as a further precautionary backup I transferred the images both to my own laptop and a personal data stick. You can’t back up more than that can you? Now listen to what happened and see if any judge would believe it easily.  Both my  laptop and Lorraine’s laptop failed within days of each other. Not to worry, the data stick was still available so I took it into work and asked Alix (an employee at the time) to transfer the images onto one of the computers in the office which he happily agreed to do. So he plugged the stick into the USB port and at that moment his mobile phone went off. So (listen to this carefully and visualise it in slow motion if you can), he stood up instinctively, pushed his chair back and then nightmare of all nightmares, the datastick flew out of the USB port with such a force the protective case snapped right open and out flew the little green motherboard. The ribbon on the stick had tangled itself round his chair and there it was, my data stick in pieces!

So there we are m’lud, the case of the missing evidential data.

This tale has a happy ending. During my frantic search I came across yet another external drive labelled January 2008 and with pounding heart I plugged it in. My obssession with backing up data (albeit in a haphazzard way) had finally paid off! There in a folder named ‘Pics’ were my beloved photos, and amongst them the photo of the scene at the harbour at Elmina that had inspired Harbour Markets Elmina I and II.