A friend quoted by Macfarlane said that he 'always seemed to be slightly somewhere else, as if he lived a private life which did not completely coincide with material existence'.
Very careful, controlled watercolours. So skilled - here the White Horse and the train up to London: how many times have I been on this train? (Are repeated journeys a form of pilgrimage?)
Such a contrast between these and his paintings as an official World War 2 artist - lots are in the Imperial War Museum. Paintings of the inside a submarine are very haunting and watchful.
The story ends tragically. Ravilious left for Iceland for the last time just after his wife, Tirza, had a mastectomy and he never returned to the South Downs.
In August 1942, he was asked to join three planes setting out to find a missing aircraft. They never did - and only two planes returned to base. Ravilious was on the second plane to go down that day.
