The cure for Huntington's my art teacher inspired me to dream of

My art teacher has stayed with me a whole lifetime.

- Dr Ali A Smith

She was remarkable. I remember her specifically. I’m confident she died a long time ago. We used to talk about her. Her arms would flail and she was unstable.

Her speech was sometimes unclear. Given we were a group of adolescent boys, you might now expect that we all made fun of her, but that’s not really true. What was more remarkable about her was her love of what she did and her exuberance for life. Art had few boundaries and lots of creative madness. She was less interested in rules and perfection. More interested in allowing us to grow and learn.

At the time she was my teacher she was a young woman. Whilst your average 13-year-old has little ability to determine the age of an adult, I remember that I could construct a ladder of ages. The youngest to the oldest of my teachers. She was on the bottom rung. The youngest.