This sculpture is looked at in Links and families as an example of a 'link'. I began to think about the relationships that exist between friends as part of the UNIVERSE SERIES of Symbolic Sculptures.

Perhaps, because I was the youngest by 5 years in a family of three boys, I was raised as an `only child'. My mother and I spent the holidays alone together in the country where I entertained myself. I believe this was the cause of my being a `loner' throughout the years spent at an all male boarding school, and why I always found it difficult to mix with children of my own age.

When I was fifteen my mother took me to the island of Madeira for the summer holidays, and I was forcibly made to join in the games of the children of a Belgium family who were staying in the same hotel. The eldest sister of this close knit, two boy, two girl, family took me under her wing, and we became close friends. It was a new and marvelous experience for me to be able to talk to a girl of my own age, with whom I was totally at ease.

A few months later I left England to work my passage to Australia on a tramp steamer, and Anne Francoise and I sadly lost touch with each other, but the feeling of the joy of having a close friend, which she had introduced into my life, awoke me to the understanding of what a great gift it is to share `trust' between friends.

These are the feelings I wanted to express with a Symbol. I found it by creating the strongest chain possible. The BONDS OF FRIENDSHIP is a chain with only two links, locked so tightly together it is inseparable, thus able to withstand all the pressures of life.

For instance in these pages it can symbolise the `Bonds' between Mathematics and the Visual Arts.

It symbolises the `Trust' between Nations that forms the `basis of peace', without which there is little possibilty of the survival of the human race.

This led to it being used by the Britain Australia Society to mark the site from which the first settlers left Portsmouth in England, and their landing at Sydney Cove in Australia. The photograph above shows the 1980 unveiling ceremony at Circular Quay, Sydney, for the Bicentenary of that country. A similar sculpture was unveiled by H.M.Queen Elizabeth II at the Sally Port in Portsmouth in 1979,from where the settlers embarked for this long voyage to a new world.

Here is another version:

It symbolises the `Friendship' that exists between my patrons and myself, which has enriched my life beyond measure and made the Symbolic Sculptures possible. The Venetian author, Sperone Speroni, born 1500, said "the key to civilisation is the creation of wealth and the patronage of the arts". Think of the Medici family.

It symbolises the links between atoms that make life possible (see CHAIN OF LIFE ). It is looked at in Links and Families as an example of a link.

But most importantly it symbolises the friendship between people: BONDS OF FRIENDSHIP.