Playground Theatre London – my daily art display

Cyril and Renske Mann. Part 3.

Love at first sight.

“…The very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone…”

– Jane Austen

Bread and Knife by Cyril Mann (c.1955)

Still Life of Bottle and Jug by Cyril Mann (c.1955)

In the mid-1950s Cyril Mann’s painting style changed and he entered what was known as his solid shadow period. This was a complete change of style for him in comparison to his earlier works which had concentrated on the effects of direct sunlight and yet light came into play with these “shadow” works. They concentrated on shadows that were seen below objects when viewed under an overhead light source. In 2018 the Piano Nobile Gallery in London put on an exhibition of Cyril Mann’s work entitled The Solid Shadow Paintings. The gallery wrote about the works on display:

“…Undertaken between 1951 and 1957, Mann’s solid shadow paintings were a dazzling interjection in the subdued art world of fifties Britain. This was his most original period and it stands as his lasting contribution to the history of twentieth-century painting. It is an explosive programme of work, representing ordinary objects with boldly outlined shadows and bright, sometimes luminous colour. A dazzling interjection in the subdued art world of fifties Britain, these works have never been displayed together and the exhibition offers an exciting insight into the artist’s radiant formal language…”

After Mary walked out on Cyril in the middle of the night with her their daughter Sylvia, he had to fend for himself. Fortunately for Cyril, his daughter maintained contact with him and visited him regularly. Sylvia, who was a year younger than Renske, won a scholarship to the City of London School for Girls . After successfully completed her schooling she left London, aged eighteen, and went to Keele University to read English Literature and French. Whilst there, Sylvia also took on some temping work to supplement her student grant. Cyril was very proud of his daughter and what she had achieved although he had to admit they had, at times, a tempestuous relationship and he found her quite difficult at times. On occasions, it would appear that Sylvia also found her relationship with her father equally problematic. Renske got to know Sylvia and often said that she was everything she should have loved to have been herself: tall, a head taller than Cyril and Renske, blonde and beautiful. She also had Cyril’s violet-blue eyes and sensitive mouth and in some ways, Renske often felt pangs of jealousy.

Self portrait by Cyril Mann (1956)

Cyril struggled to survive financially as the sale of his paintings were not going well although this could have been more down to his obstinacy and the cantankerous ways he treated dealers and galleries, rather than the quality of his paintings.

Ma, Just before she died by Cyril Mann

The years 1958 and 1959 proved to be a distressing time for Cyril Mann. He had been suffering a great deal of pain and was seriously ill with stomach ulcers. The discomfort had made him stop painting and teaching and the final straw to this misery was the death of his mother whom he had visited whilst she was in a Nottingham nursing home. He had made a number of facial sketches of his mother in 1959 during her last days. She had outlived her husband, her daughter and two of her three sons.

Cyril and Renske

Things changed for Cyril at the end of 1959 when on the evening of December 18th Renske van Slooten came into his life. Renske first met Cyril Mann at the Kingsway Day College in Holborn, London, where he was teaching students. Her “boyfriend” and dancing partner at the time, who knew she was interested in art, took her to meet his former art teacher. Renske remembers the moment well and, in her book, The Girl in the Green Jumper, she recalls that first sight of the artist:

“…As I stood on tiptoe peering through the window, I could see Cyril with his back to me, slumped at his desk in front of his students with their easels and drawing boards. His hair, what there was of it was long and unkempt. He wore a crumpled tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. He wasn’t tall a bit over five foot at most. To me, barely out of my teens and recently arrived from Holland, he looked old, at least fifty. Yet before I’d even seen his face, I felt drawn to him…”

She also distinctly remembered the park warden’s prediction of meeting and marrying an “old” artist. At that first sighting of Cyril in his art class she was totally captivated by him. Renske says of her first impression of Cyril:

“…A strange feeling came over me. This was it! I remembered the park warden’s prediction. I was mesmerised. I saw his hair was too long, his tweed jacket with leather elbow patches was tatty, he looked worn out, depressed. Didn’t take any notice of me. I couldn’t care less what he looked like and how scruffy he was. I was attracted to him, not because he was older, but because I’m always attracted to people who are unusually gifted. And I sensed that he was…”

Cyril Mann painting in a small room in Bevin Court

After that first meeting, Cyril and Renske set up a date for the following evening. She was buoyed by the thought of being in the company of a professional artist. Cyril was almost half an hour late at the rendezvous admitting he had fallen asleep whilst reading a book. Fortunately for him Renske had waited patiently for him. Cyril invited her back to his flat to look at some of his artwork. At this time, he was renting a top-floor flat in a council housing block at Bevin Court in Islington. Totally captivated by both Cyril and his painting, Renske admits she paid little attention to the flat itself, which was overflowing with his paintings, books and sculptures. Renske remembers the artwork as being quite small, dark and gloomy and yet she says that they were among the most beautiful she had ever seen. She told him that some reminded her of works by Turner. He was delighted at that assertion as he looked upon the English artists as one of his great heroes.

St Paul’s from Bankside by Cyril Mann (c.1952)

One of the paintings which she really liked was his work entitled St Paul’s from Bankside. It depicted the dome of St Paul’s looming above the rooftops from across the River Thames. Nowadays at this point on the Thames, the Millenium Bridge spans the river besides the Tate Modern. Renske said that at first glance at the work, she thought it was a monochrome depiction but on closer inspection she could see that the greys were shot through with blue, yellow and warm pink. Cyril told her that the city should be viewed on a grey day. He went on to assert:

“…One day people will recognise my qualities as an artist purely on the strength of my ability to perceive greys in their infinite variety…”

It was this assertion that one day he would be acclaimed a great artist that would haunt him all his life as he never felt recognised as a truly great painter.

St Paul’s by Cyril Mann (1948)

It is interesting to compare the 1952 painting with the one he completed in 1948. The latter was painted in his favoured style at the time that of facing the sun and concentrating on the effect of direct sunlight. The view is from Moor Lane which dominates the foreground in which we see four people walking along the pavement, to the side of which is a low wall. A fifth figure crosses the road. Over the other side of the wall is a vast empty space, the result of heavy wartime bombings. In the midground we see multi storey buildings, churches and to the right, the familiar outline of St Paul’s Cathedral.

St Paul’s from Bevin Court by Cyril Mann (1961)

Another of Cyril Mann’s cityscapes featuring St Paul’s cathedral was his painting entitled St Paul’s from Bevin Court.

A month had passed since their first meeting and Renske and Cyril were happy about how things were progressing. Renske, however, was not happy with her communal living at the YWCA and told Cyril she needed another place to live. He made a few suggestions, including sharing a flat with his ex-girlfriend, but Renske came straight out and asked if she could live with Cyril in his flat ! The problem was that Cyril’s home was a one-bed flat and he slept on a single bed in a room that was full of paintings, easels and other artistic paraphernalia. Renske was not put off by this and said that as they were both small, they could both sleep in the bed. For Renske, it was nothing to be ashamed of, although her work colleagues at the Dutch-owned company, when they were told, were scandalised, Scandalised that she was living with a man, scandalised that she was living with a married man twenty-eight years older than her and that his daughter, Sylvia, was only a year younger than her, and scandalised that she was living in a poor and rough council estate.

Renske and Cyril Mann in the mid 1960s

However, Renske was passionately in love with “her” artist and was not going to listen to subtle and not-so-subtle warnings about what she had done. News of Renske’s situation of living with a married man got back to her boss who contacted the Dutch embassy in London and asked that her parents be informed about their daughter’s living and romantic situation. Her father and mother were horrified and she was summoned home. She was still not twenty-one and therefore, by Dutch law, she remained under their control. Despite their protestations Renske declared that she would marry Cyril with or without their permission. One can just imagine the thoughts that were going through the parents’ heads having been told that she intended to marry a man who was a year older than Renske’s own mother. What her parents failed to realise that it was not the older man who was grooming their young daughter, it was their young daughter who was the prime mover in forging this relationship. Renske returned to London and moved in with Cyril. She wanted to marry him but could not as he was still married to his first wife, Mary !

Having lived apart for ten years, the marriage between Cyril and his first wife Mary ended in divorce on August 24th 1960 and eight days later, on September 1st, one week after Renske’s twenty-first birthday, Cyril and Renske were married.

Mixed Flowers by Cyril Mann (1961)

Cyril had suffered stomach ulcers for years and had had to endure constant stomach pains after every meal which had weakened him and caused bouts of ill temper. One day in April 1960, whilst out walking alone, he collapsed in the street and was rushed to the Royal Free Hospital where he underwent an emergency operation for a perforated stomach ulcer. Following the operation and probably due to the pressures of having to earn a living from his teaching and the need to sell his artwork, both of which he was unable to do due to his physical illness, he suffered a serious mental breakdown. Renske was upset by Cyril’s physical and mental decline and set about remedying the situation by putting Cyril’s life back on an even keel. She believed that Cyril was not able to cope with having to teach, which he hated, and paint and so she maintained her job and became the breadwinner. For Cyril this financial support from Renske liberated him from the drudgery of having to teach and the necessity of providing money to put food on the table. After release from hospital Cyril went to convalesce at the Artists’ Rest Home in Rickmansworth, a town in south-west Hertfordshire, where he was allocated a comfortable room, painting facilities and three good meals a day.

Studio Corner by Cyril Mann (1961)

His operation had left Cyril pain-free and he went back to his painting with a noted added gusto, but all was not well. Renske remembers one horrendous evening when a hyped-up Cyril had decided he was going to design, what he termed, “the greatest mural the world had ever seen”. She had been sleeping badly and was desperate to go to bed but Cyril refused to let her sleep and demanded that she helped him plan this great mural, an extensive paper plan of which had been tacked to the carpeted floor of their bedroom/living room. He flew into a rage when Renske just wanted to lay down and sleep and demanded she helped him. It finally got too much for her and she, determined to have an uninterrupted sleep, took some tranquilizers and sleeping pills and collapsed on the bed. The next thing she remembered was waking up in hospital. When she had collapsed, Cyril couldn’t shake her awake, and so he called an ambulance.

Cyril with black eye

The ambulance arrived along with some police. Cyril demanded that he should accompany her to the hospital in the ambulance but they refused him. He was furious and lost control, attacking both the ambulance staff and the police and for his troubles received a black eye but worse still another ambulance was summoned and after consultation with a psychiatric nurse, he ordered him to be sectioned, taken to a mental unit, placed in a straitjacket, and then taken to a padded cell. His passport photograph taken days after the incident shows Cyril with a black eye after his altercation with the ambulance men.

Interior with Red Chair by Cyril Mann (c.1961)

After a fortnight’s detention at the psychiatric hospital, Cyril was allowed home, heavily sedated, and having had to promise to take his medication every day. Cyril was unhappy with the terms of his release as he believed the medication would threaten his libido. Besides doing that, he asserted that the pills would also affect his creative artistic thoughts and to counteract this he unilaterally began to reduce the amount of medication he had been prescribed. As often is the case, to raise spirits Renske decided to perform a deep-clean of the flat and buy some new furniture, including a garishly bright red upholstered chairs which Cyril loved and said that the new additions inspired him.

………..to be continued.

It would not have been possible for me to put together this and following blogs about the artist, Cyril Mann, without information gleaned from a number of sources:

The comprehensive biography of Cyril Mann, The Sun is God by John Russell Taylor

Renske Mann with her book The Girl in the Green Jumper, My life with the artist Cyril Mann

The intimate autobiography of Cyril Mann’s life by his second wife Renske, entitled The Girl in the Green Jumper.

This autobiography has now been turned into a play which receives its World Premiere on Wednesday March 13th at the Playground Theatre, London, 8 Latimer Rd, London W10 6RQ.

Finally, and most importantly I owe many thanks to Renske Mann herself who provided me with information and photographs appertaining to her late husband Cyril.

Piano Nobile Gallery London for information and pictures.

Cyril and Renske Mann. Part 1.

Cyril Mann – the early years and Canada.

No man succeeds without a good woman behind him. Wife or mother, if it is both, he is twice blessed indeed.

Harold MacMillan

In many of my blogs I have related the story of a husband and wife who had both been artists but after the marriage and after the birth of the children one has had to give up their career as an artist to look after their spouse and children and that caring role always seems to land at the feet of the wife, who then dedicates her life to her artist husband or partner. The next few blogs are going to look at the lives of a great British artist and the support and love he received from his young wife which allowed him to become a well-known painter. This is not simply a tale about an artist, it is about the resilience of his young wife and how she battled his moods and supported him through times of his severe depression. Please settle back and join me as I explore the lives of the English artist Cyril Mann and his beautiful young wife, Renske.

My earliest self-portrait by Cyril Mann (1937)

To start this journey, one must look at Cyril’s upbringing and, as one knows, a person is often affected or moulded by their early life experiences. Cyril’s father was William Aloysius Mann who was brought up in a reputable middle-class Nottingham family environment. He was the third child of four, having an elder sister and brother, Annie and Will and a younger brother Austen. Like most parents Cyril’s grandparents were hopeful that their four children would make good in life. Their aspirations for Cyril’s father turned to despair when the only job he could secure was one of a bricklayer, which they considered to be a menial profession and somewhat below the family’s social status. If that was not bad enough, Cyril’s father became romantically entangled with a local working-class woman, Gertrude Nellie Burrows, whom his parents believed was not good enough for their son. In a pointed slight to her, they would refer to her as Gertie, when she was better known as Nellie.

William and Gertrude Mann’s circumstances became worse when he became unemployed and so, to seek work, the family left Nottingham and moved to London. Their son Cyril was born in Paddington, London on May 28^th 1911. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 William Mann was conscripted into the army and was shipped off to fight on the Western Front. In 1918, after many years of witnessing the horrors of war, he was honourably discharged as “shell shocked”.

Saxondale Psychiatric Hospital

The war had taken the toll on William’s mental health and he would never be the same again. On returning to civilian life, the family returned to Nottingham and William was committed to the Saxondale Hospital in Sneiton, the city’s psychiatric hospital. Cyril’s father would remain there until his death in 1938 but during his twenty years of incarceration he would make a number of escapes !

Times were hard for Gertrude who had to try and survive on her husband’s small war pension and bring up four children. Unlike her husband who had been lazy, untrustworthy and very often easily distracted, his wife was the total opposite. She was resilient, down-to-earth and strongminded when it came to bringing up her young family. One does not know for sure how the children were affected by the family circumstances but going on public transport to collect their father from the asylum for his home leave on public holidays must have affected them psychologically.

The children did survive their early childhood. Cyril’s brothers Austen and Will proved to be musical with Austen winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Music but never got to go there as he was diagnosed as being partially deaf. Cyril’s father, before going off to war, was also musical and had been an accomplished violinist. Cyril’s paternal grandfather had been a talented amateur artist who had had his work exhibited at the Nottingham Castle Art Museum. Cyril developed his own artistic flair when young and was always top in his art class at school. He was so talented that at the age of twelve, he won an art scholarship to Nottingham School of Art and his mother had to get special dispensation to take him out of regular school as he was under fourteen years of age.

One of Constant Troyon’s paintings featuring cattle (Pastoral Scene c.1860)

In later years Cyril talked about his early interest in art and how he had been impressed at seeing one of Constant Troyon’s paintings of cattle.

Dark Satanic Mills by Cyril Mann (1925)

One of Cyril’s early paintings that still exists is entitled Dark Satanic Mills which he completed in 1925, when he was just fourteen years of age. The painting depicts a park in the foreground and a dark threatening-looking factory in the background with thick black smoke issuing from its chimneys. In the midground we see figures enjoying park life. It is an extraordinary landscape work for someone so young. Cyril’s mother needed financial support from her children to supplement her husband’s pension and so she had to withdraw Cyril from the Art College and install him in a paying-job that would bolster the household finances. Cyril must have been upset at being taken away from the art school but took an exam to join Boots the Chemist as a clerk. He failed and this must have come as a surprise to his mother as her son had always excelled at regular school and one has to wonder whether Cyril had deliberately failed as he hated the thought of a job as a clerk when he wanted to continue with his art. However, and probably much to his annoyance, he did eventually work as a clerk until he was sixteen.

Sixteen-year-old Cyril Mann prior to moving to Canada (c.1927)

In 1927, aged sixteen, Cyril’s life changed. His mother Nellie had always been a religious person and had insisted that her children attended the High Anglican Church and Cyril, for a time, was an altar boy. In a way, and in the mind of his mother, this churchgoing brought to the family an air of respectability and sophistication and, in her mind, it was a way to gain social progression and an elevated status. Cyril at this time became very friendly with a local priest who offered to accompany him to Canada, all expenses paid, so that he may “enter” the church and become a young missionary.

Fishermen, Canada by Cyril Mann (1929)

It took little time for young Cyril to acquiesce to the priest’s request. It was probably a combination of the thought of adventure similar to what he had seen in the Boy’s Own Paper, youthful religious zeal and the thought of freeing himself from his controlling mother. Having reached Canada, it was not long before Cyril began to question his decision about serving God as a missionary and he and the priest parted company.

Eighteen-year-old Cyril Mann in Canada (Winter 1929)

Cyril then tried out many jobs – a miner, a logger, a travelling salesman and ended up as a printer in British Columbia on the Canadian side of the Alaskan border.

Cyril Mann, artist at work in Canada (c.1930)

He was now living in the midst of beautifully spectacular landscapes – a landscape artist’s paradise, and soon he began to sketch and paint the breathtaking views.

Canada- Mountainscape by Cyril Mann (c.1931)

Panning for Gold by Cyril Mann (c.1929)

In Canada at that time, the prevailing influence in Canadian art was the artwork of the Group of Seven. The Group of Seven also known as the Algonquin School was a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920 to 1933. The original members were Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley. They believed that a distinct Canadian art could be developed through direct contact with nature, the Group is best known for its paintings inspired by the Canadian landscape and they initiated the first major Canadian national art movement. Their artwork was highly colourful and often depicted Autumn and Winter scenes, and they believed that the power of the light from the sun was to be recorded in their work.

Six of the Group of Seven, plus their friend Barker Fairley, in 1920. From left to right: Frederick Varley, A. Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris, Barker Fairley, Frank Johnston, Arthur Lismer, and J. E. H. MacDonald. It was taken at The Arts and Letters Club of Toronto.

Cyril Mann was impressed and influenced by the work of the Group of Seven along wth one of their associates, Tom Thomson and in 1932 he visited a Group of Seven exhibition in Vancouver and met one of the group, Arthur Lismer who was then working as a lecturer.

Old Pine, McGregor Bay by Arthur Lismer (c.1929)

Arthur Lismer had been born in Sheffield, England in 1885 and had emigrated to Canada in 1911. Lismer advised Cyril that if he wanted to become a professional artist he should return to England and access the best artistic tuition available, Cyril saw the sense in the advice and in early 1933 he returned to his homeland.

A Mann family outing in Skegness. Cyril on the far right whilst his mother Gertrude is in the middle, Cyril’s older sister Annie is second from the left next to her husband. The other two men are thought to be Gertrude’s brother Austen on her left and Cyril’s younger brother Austen wearing the white clothes. on her right.

Nottingham Houses by Cyril Mann (c.1933) Cyril has depicted his mother tending the garden

After landing in England, he travelled to the family home in Nottingham. To his surprise he wasn’t greeted with a hearty welcome from his mother, instead she was very critical about his physical appearance. Cyril was both upset and very annoyed by his mother’s authoritarian manner which he had had to endure through childhood and, there and then, decided his future home would not be with his family in Nottingham but instead he would head south to the English capital.

Maida Vale Canal by Cyril Mann (c.1934)

Arriving in London in 1933, during the Great Depression, Cyril the young aspiring artist, despite finding it impossible to find a job carried on with his watercolour painting depicting various loacations around Paddington and around the Little Venice canal in Maida Vale, while he he took time off from his paintingnto to join the ever-lengthening dole queues. He found and rented a cheap apartment in Paddington, close to where he was born, and endured the degradation of poor living standards and little money for sustenance. With not having employment he had plenty of free time which he partly filled with painting local scenes using watercolours. Having left school at the age of twelve he realised he had missed a lot and he now developed an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He was a regular visitor at the local libraries and was always willing to engage in conversation with those he encountered so that his knowledge of the world would be broadened and because of his current circumstances, he soon gained an interest in left-wing politics.

Mountain Landscape by Cyril Mann

Having said this, Cyril never joined any official political group but a group he did join was the Toc H Group. The Toc H Group was an international Christian movement whose name was derived from Talbot House, a soldiers’ rest and recreation centre at Poperinghe, Belgium. Its aim was to promote Christianity and look after young soldiers who were returning to civilian life. Each branch of the Toc H had a chaplain to look after the spiritual needs of its members. During the Depression Toc H looked after the many civilians hit by unemployment and, as one of the many people without a job, Cyril came to be one of those who regularly met at the Paddington Toc H in a canal boatmen’s’ club room. Here he could talk to people, which must have been a Godsend for the young man who was out of work and lived alone. The new young chaplain who arrived at the Paddington Toc H in 1935 was Oliver Fielding Clarke, known to everybody as “Bernie”. The chairman of the association asked Clarke to keep a close eye on Cyril, whom he described as “out of work, practically a communist and sometimes pretty blunt with others”. Shortly after receiving that “task” Clarke met Cyril and was completely captivated by the young aspiring painter. In Clarke’s 1970 autobiography Unfinished Conflict, he remembers his conversations with Cyril Mann:

“…I have had many friends and a good deal of the first part of my ministry was given to young men, but few if any of them did more for me than Cyril. We would spend hours and hours together in the evenings and he never spared himself for me. In the early days he had been a [alter] server so that he was not in the least awed by parsons and he also knew how to challenge, or perhaps blister is a more accurate word, a parson’s conscience. I used to get back to Liddon House in the small hours of the morning feeling almost as if we had been engaged in physical combat. Cyril pulverised capitalism and the Church for being its running- dog. He tore to shreds any suggestions that milk-and-water Christian Socialism was the answer and we argued hotly about the existence of God and the nature of morality… All this was interspersed by talk about his art, when he would show me what he had been drawing or painting and what he was looking for as an artist….Both of us thoroughly enjoyed those long evenings; but they did not work in the way that had been expected. Cyril did not move further away from Communism nor nearer to the Church. Instead, I became more and more critical of the Church and increasingly convinced of the truth contained in the teachings of Karl Marx…”

St Pauls by Cyril Mann

It is quite clear from this description that Cyril Mann was an outspoken person with strongly held views which he stuck to notwithstanding the views of others. It is also obvious he had a great self-belief but it could be levied against him that he was aggressively antagonistic to those who did not share his views and it was this latter characteristic which would become a problem for him in later life.

Despite their fiery discussions and the intransigence of Cyril, Bernie Clarke did not give up on him and decided to call in favours from friends in order to get Cyril into employment. The chairman of the Paddington branch of the Toc H arranged for a place at the Royal Academy Schools be made available to Cyril and a friend of Clarke, the twenty-five-year-old daughter of a rich German businessman, Erica Marx, who was a poet, philanthropist and loved art saw the artistic potential of Cyril and set up a trust fund for him to finance his time at the art school. She would remain a lifelong friend and supporter of his and would often buy his paintings.

Dahlias by Cyril Mann

The first half of the 1930s had been a rollercoaster ride for Cyril Mann. Out of work unable to feed himself and yet came through it all and entered the Royal Academy Schools in the Autumn of 1935. The lives of his family back in Nottingham had also been a rollercoaster ride caused by tragedy. Cyril’s elder brother Will died in a lift accident in the Midland hotel in Nottingham where he worked and his younger brother Austen drowned in a river whilst out swimming. His death was witnessed by his wife and two young children who thought his violent thrashing in the water was him playing.

In 1935, now at the Royal Academy Schools, Cyril Mann had taken the first step in becoming a professional artist.

……….to be continued

It would not have been possible for me to put together this and following blogs about the artist, Cyril Mann, without information gleaned from a number of sources:

The comprehensive biography of Cyril Mann, The Sun is God by John Russell Taylor

Renske Mann with her book The Girl in the Green Jumper, My life with the artist Cyril Mann.

This intimate autobiography of her life with Cyril Mann by his second wife Renske, entitled The Girl in the Green Jumpe was a beautifully written story of her life and love for her husnband.

This autobiography has now been turned into a play which receives its World Premiere on Wednesday March 13th at the Playground Theatre, London, 8 Latimer Rd, London W10 6RQU.

The Piano Nobile, a London art gallery which was established by Dr Robert Travers in 1985. The gallery plays an active role in the market for twentieth-century British and international art and has held exhibitions of Cyril Mann’s art.

Finally, and most importantly, I owe many thanks to Renske Mann herself who provided me with information and photographs appertaining to herself and her late husband Cyril.