Ann Ortman

D. Evans & D. Minns, This was the Real Life - The Tale of Freddie Mercury, 2001.

Including: Miko Playing; Miko Relaxing; Goliath with Tulips; Goliath Relaxing; Tiffany in the Conservatory; Tiffany with Bougainvillea; Delilah with Freesias; Delilah with Flowers; Oscar in the Garden; Oscar with Azaleas

Ortman writes (as recorded by Evans & Minns, op. cit.) 'The very first impression I have of meeting Freddie was going through that little door in Logan Place and walking into that beautiful garden surrounding that equally lovely house. It was such a surprise to find that set-up, in London, although I didn't really know what I had been expecting. Then I remember Freddie meeting us at the door. He was much smaller than I had previously thought of him from seeing him on television screens and concert stages. He struck me as extremely shy but on the other hand he was very considerate and a very, very good host. I'd been asked to go to have lunch with him because he'd seen a couple of paintings I'd done of a friend's cats and, having then five of his own, he wanted immediately for his darlings to be similarly immortalised. It was Sunday lunch that had eventually been decided on for our meeting and the lunch was traditional lamb, roast potatoes and all the trimmings. I remember the dining room was painted an extraordinarily intense yellow; not a usual, decorator's yellow. The colour made the room light up. As well as myself at lunch, there was David Evans, Peter Straker, Mary Austin as well as Jim Hutton and Peter and Joe, the guys who lived at the house. I think there was another guest that day, a musician but my memory of him is a bit hazy. I remember that day Freddie had been both picking flowers from his garden and also choosing from a load of delivered blooms, making selections of shapes and colours and sizes and trying them out in the huge range of his collection of porcelain and glass. He was taking enormous trouble over each arrangement, studying each one sufficiently to put the arrangement out on display. I thought he had the most wonderful skin. I remember it as being peach-like, pinky brown. What I would call perfect skin. Of course, cats were all around and I was, after all, there to work with them rather than their owner. The only way I can work with cats is from photographs and so I spent a couple of hours taking photos of them in all sorts of different situations and attitudes. Inevitably though, their anxious owner, almost like a proud parent, crept into the pictures and I'm pleased to say that I have some wonderful photographs of that day to remind me of Freddie, especially ones of him sitting with his cats on his lap. Every surface in that drawing room including the grand piano seemed to be covered with silver photographs frames, most of them containing pictures of his cats. I came away at the end of that day, after tea, thinking how much I'd enjoyed it and how much I would like to get to know Freddie more. He was the kind of person you can't forget... I can't describe it, really'.