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The Telegraph

1st November 2011

My space: Horace Panter shows us round the art room in his Coventry home.

Our house, in Coventry, was built as a ribbon factory in the 1830s. There was a tank factory down the road, so the building was damaged during the war, and rebuilt in the Fifties. This room sold me the house – I love the window; it’s unusual to find one like it in an attic. It’s my area, where I paint – I don’t get many visitors up here.

I’m not a hoarder, but I have amassed what people might call junk – my wife frequently calls it junk! I once worked as a furniture remover and got into a bad habit of collecting what other people threw away.

I’m interested in iconography, and art with a purpose. I’ve always loved cartoon superheroes, and my ‘Robots’ reflect how the robot of the futuristic fantasy genre has become iconic. I’m intrigued by how cultures relate to them – in America, they’re always malevolent; in Japan they’re benevolent.

Books
These are mostly art books. I have everything from Andy Warhol to aboriginal art. A lot of them come from exhibitions. I just saw Grayson Perry at the British Museum; it was fabulous – a lot of his work deals with shrines and icons, like mine – so I got the book

Roof
This is a lovely room, but not very practical as a living space, as you do bang your head a lot. It suits me, though. At least I can paint under the velux window where there’s plenty of natural light. I paint during the day and draw at night

Review
This review from 1978, which refers to me as the ‘Crown Prince of Ska Bass’, makes me smile. I used to worry that there would be a better bass player than me – now I know there are lots of them, and it’s fine! It’s wonderful to still be touring with The Specials. I do my own little gigs too, in pubs not too far from home

Guitars
I only have five guitars now. You could call these two my first and second wife! This one, is a Gibson Thunderbird. I bought it for my 50th birthday, and used it on The Specials tour in 2009. I bought the one on the right, an original Fender Precision, in 1975 (for £165) and recorded the first Specials album on it

Paintings
After I got my art degree, art went on the back-burner for a while, but I later spent 10 years teaching it in a special needs school. I have been doing more of it recently

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