Ruth Parkinson

I was Steve Philbey’s partner for the last 13 years of his life. I’m not an artist or a native Bristolian (Go Yorkshire!) but was chief look-out and ladder-holder for the St Just Mob for much of that time. When we met I was the sort of person who stood in front of Malevich’s Black Square and opined ‘I could have done that’ (to which Steve always sagely responded ‘but you didn’t’). By the time he died I was a more than passable expert in the detournement of the commercial and institutional face of Bristol.