It’s Roy Strong’s birthday today: 87, although you might not guess it from his biceps. He gave me my first job in 1982. He is still busy writing away, has never stopped. I think a new edition of his book on Coronation comes next and a book on seventeenth-century portraiture – but I find it hard to keep up. This year is the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of the V&A/RCA MA Course in the History of Design (MA in Design and Decorative Arts: History and Technique, as it was originally called).

I have been wondering what photograph to reproduce in honour of him and have chosen one I have not seen before, a collage from 1973, made when he was leaving the National Portrait Gallery to go to the V&A (copyright: NPG):-