At school, they said Ian was a dreamer. His thoughts - "well, somebody has to be.".

Growing up in land-locked Leicester, family holidays at the coast were the highlight of the year. Perhaps in Norfolk or on the Lincolnshire shores fighting back the tide with brooms at Breakwater Bungalows, the draw of the surf hissing through the pebbles. Or if funds would stretch to it, a week or possibly even two, all the way down the Fosse Way to Devon or Cornwall in the Cambridge, Mother at the wheel with three boys in the back eagerly anticipating the sight of the sea.

Back at home he enjoyed painting in the garden or the greenhouse with his Mum, oils (everywhere) on odd bits of hardboard, rough renditions of the shore and ocean. At school, unbeknown to many of his academic teachers, there was much that did inspire him. Works studied in the hope of passing wretched exams did, it would seem, make a mark.

One such was Sea Fever, by John Masefield which still rises in his memories and stirs his imagination. To "go down to the sea..." is an aspiration that never leaves him. He is not alone in this, and yes, "only a few more miles and we will see the sea".