“What does a DJ do when they can’t DJ? They get creative. Covid-19 has set us all back socially and kept us housebound, but for me it involves more than not being able to go out and let off steam. It has impacted my livelihood.

Since the lockdown I’ve had to find ways of keeping myself entertained as well as maintaining my passion for playing records- and, of course, earning a crust.

One of those ways has been to DJ online every Friday, usually via my Instagram Live (if I don’t get booted off for copyright issues). The idea behind these online DJ sets is that each week I will name two genres for my Instagram followers to vote for. Once a genre has been chosen, I’ll select my records for the set. When Friday evening arrives, my ever-lively girlfriend Rebecca and I will begin to entertain the troops. Rebecca is my hype girl. Basically, she’s the Bez to my Shaun Ryder or the Flava Flav to my Chuck D. We like to keep it fun and interactive so we’ll often respond to comments and openly encourage requests. The third member of the DJ crew is Cleo, our large cat.

The other string to my bow is painting. My art is inspired mostly by the pop-artists – Patrick Caulfield and Duggie Fields particularly.

I take commissions and most of my work so far has been portraits of people who have commissioned them. I’m constantly working through a backlog of commissions, but I’m always open to more. Painting really is so therapeutic, and we’re working on a new collection, inspired by Cleo walking through the wet paint”.

Henry Padgham-Wickett

Instagram: @_henry_wp

Facebook: Henry WP