For example, at Hatchlands Park in Surrey, William worked with Alec Cobbe, restorer and interiors expert. ‘The experience was something that defined how I wished to work’ he says. ‘Living in a country house amongst historic keyboard instruments, producing hand-painted schemes for some of England’s finest houses and surrounded by hundreds of beautiful paintings allowed me to think upon my own work, quietly and studiously, in an environment that promoted beauty and rigorous thought’.
An example of his poetry reflects this: ‘Some finer tune is /Hereabouts being played/ Where word and fiddle sound of heaven’s /Spheres are made/To form/Or fly with all who dare/A song of wordless tongue’s refrain/A lover’s air.' William has worked with members of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, at another country house, Trafalgar Park near Salisbury, where a number of his compositions for quintet and flute and piano have been played.
William has enjoyed working in private country homes for many years, designing libraries, painting panelled rooms, even laying out knot gardens and parterres. He has worked in varied places such as the NPG and various places of historic importance and has travelled extensively in pursuit of an ever-growing understanding of art and poetry.
William says that both his paintings and poetry are something that ‘cannot change the past nor reinvent it’ but which ideally fashion a new and intelligent interplay of symbols and signs that reflect a promise of man’s continuing achievements. Professor Roger Scruton has written of William how ‘his work offers us, in short, a return to the true and serious tradition’.