Marley was my first figurative ice work, named after a Country House in Devon. Marley House (previously Syon Abbey) can be seen across green fields, a grey façade holding long semi-shuttered windows, eyelids closed against the aftermath of horror and waste. There was a sense of overwhelming loss and acute sadness. I asked a local man about the history of Marley House. He said "No men came back, nuns live there now" The idea of a closed orders living their lives in quiet contemplation much as the woman who had been left in 1914 fascinated me. Many Country Houses across England were to loose all their male staff, the volunteers who went to fight in the 1914-18 war.

Near my home there is a House, one day I was talking with a man who, as a boy, had worked there as a groom. He told me that one morning on his way to work through the woods, he heard gun shots. Their were tears in his eyes as he told me the lady had ordered all her horses shot; she could not bare to be parted from them, but this was the second world war. The lady's memory could not cope with a possible repeat experience and loss.

Marley House continued haunting me; it wanted to be heard a memory revisited. Some time after I viewed an exhibition of photographs in Totnes; `Yesterdays Village` was a publication by Dartington Rural Archive; "A first- hand experience of ordinary people, the quality of their lives and view of the world around them" and there I found Marley House (Syon Abbey) with references to the staff and the party held in the servants hall, they all announced their long standing engagements but it was too late, only one survived the war. Gardeners, Grooms and Footmen all killed. So In Memoriam Marley came to be, representing the hopes of those young men and women their lost dreams and innocence. Marley a 1914-18 single foot soldier stood on the Tilt Yard at Dartington Hall.

The symbolic life giving force of water, purity cleansing the sins of the world from all the battlefields of the past to the present day. The same water irrigating the fields beginning a memory of things past, in order to understand our earthly duration and as a celebration of the eternal elemental sprit against the odds.

I chose to model a man as they have often been portrayed as tough bastions of the establishment, however looking closer that rugged façade of flaws and cracks enfold a vulnerable human, made of water much as any other creature and at times just as scared.

The story of Marley is true, although his name is unknown as with so many war dead throughout history. This work was made possible through Dartington College of Arts and the generosity of spirit and expertise of Allan Callister. Steve Lane who was my model for Marley, Sergeant Galagher for advice + Mr Murphy of Devon & Dorset Regiment's Museum, Neal Dyer, Mr Hodges of "The Igloo, Paignton and not least Yon for earthing me.

Foot note; since then Marley House has been restored, …Families live there now.