Julian Usborne obituary

My younger brother, Julian Usborne, who has died aged 76, was an extraordinary mixture; engineer, shopkeeper, builder, prankster, painter, farmer, conservationist and furniture-maker all in one.

The son of Thomas, a civil servant at the Ministry of Transport, and his German wife, Gerda (nee Just), Julian spent his childhood, and the second world war, in a house in Weybridge, Surrey, that our parents bought as a bargain because it was often under the flight path of enemy bombers returning after a run over London. After prep school in Oxford, Julian went to Charterhouse, Godalming, where he discovered a talent for painting. National service was unexpectedly abolished just when Julian was expecting to have to do it. He was accepted to spend those two years (rather than the usual four) at the Slade School of Art: two years, as he put it, that changed his life forever.