The Start

Munnings's first experience of a large race meeting was at Bungay Races in 1899. From that moment he developed a life-long passion for racing. 'This was a plunge into the most vividly coloured phase of life I had so far seen. I had known horse sales in Norwich, local races and regattas; but what were they compared to this vast fair and meeting combined on Bungay Common?'. The music and noise of the surrounding fair 'died away and dwindled to nothing when I saw the thoroughbred horses and jockeys - professional and gentleman riders (riding with a proper length, and not with the short leathers of to-day) - in bright silk colours, going off down the course. So imagine me, gaping at the scene now thrown at me all at once. The peaceful School of Art, the smelly artists' room faded away, and I began to live! I had never imagined such a sight, although my imagination went as far as prairie fires. And so race followed race, steeple-chase or hurdle, while I stood either at the open ditch or water-jump seeing such colour and action as I had never dreamed of' (An Artist's Life, Bungay, 1950, p. 65).