During the Second World War, he served in the Royal Navy, where he encountered the poet Charles Causley, who was to remain a lifelong friend.

[4] He painted a number of portraits of Causley, and the poet dedicated his 1970 book of poems for children, Figgie Hobbin to Simmonds and his wife.

[3] Among his pupils was Quentin Blake, who has paid tribute to him as a mentor: He was enormously helpful and valuable to me, as I am sure he was to many others, because his commentary on your work was not a question of marks and assessment but an adult exchange about what you had actually done.

Typical of his early work, the luscious strokes of deep greens and bursts of colour capture England’s delicate wilderness beautifully.

The Billingsgate paintings were evidently the fruit of many studies made on site; but it wasn’t, you felt, the detail of everyday life that took the artist’s attention as much as, together with substantial reality, the architecture of forms supplied by the porters and their surroundings.

[7] In 1983 he retired from teaching, and he and Cynthia moved to South Petherwin, near Launceston in Cornwall, home of his friend Charles Causley.