Four years later when Hungary engaged in peace negotiations with the United States and the United Kingdom, Hitler ordered the invasion and occupation of his country and Victor, almost certainly, would have seen German troops and tanks on the streets of Budapest.
He was in Budapest during 'The Siege', the 50-day-long encirclement by Soviet Russian and Romanian forces in which about 38,000 civilians died through starvation or military action, before it unconditionally surrendered in. He later recalled "the smoke and the rubble" he had seen and would have then witnessed Russian soldiers and tanks on the streets of Budapest.
His reading, however, was patently non-violent and at home there were many English books translated into Hungarian which led him to later claim : "I was bought up on things like Winnie the Pooh'” with their illustrations by E. H. Shepard and he enjoyed Tenniel's illustrations in Lewis Carroll's 'Alice' books Many of the books were given to him as presents and Ursula Moray Williams’ 'Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse’ was one of his favourites with its story of Uncle Peder the toymaker who fell on hard times and his little wooden horse which had to go out into the world and seek its fortune. Then, whether it was either working in a coal-mine, sailing the seven seas with a band of pirates, or walking the tightrope in a circus, the loyal little horse only had one wish : to return to his beloved master.
It was, however, the books of Arthur Rackham with their distinctive and extensive illustrations for a wide range of stories like 'Peter Pan' which most inspired his drawing and led him to claim, at the age of 80, that : “He was a huge influence on me and he meant that I’ve been drawing ever since I could hold a pencil”. Already he had an attraction to the narrative power of pictures and that "something about drawings appearing in books together with the stories that appeals to me".
No one in Victor's family had displayed artistic talent except one uncle who had died 17 years before he was born, during the 1918 Influenza Epidemic which swept Hungary after the First World War. Despite this, the family, supported his passion for drawing and he said his father, in particular : "was convinced I was going to be an artist when I grew up”.
That passion was satisfied in the Hungarian summers when spent many childhood holidays in the countryside outside Budapest, on the Hungarian Plains, where he started his lifelong passion for horses and drew the wild ones he saw grazing there.
When he was 10 in 1945 and at the end of the Second World War, Victor started his secondary education at the St Imre Cistercian College, Budapest. It was in these teenage years that he became an admirer of the 19th century Hungarian illustrator, Mihály Zichy and would have been familiar with his illustrations for the Georgian epic poem, 'The Knight in the Panther's skin'. He also took an interest in the large historical paintings which he saw when he visited the public art galleries in the city. 
He applied for a place at the Academy of Fine Art in Budapest and at the age of 18 in 1953, started his 4 year degree course at, what he later called : "A very fine, traditional school offering a classical training in drawing, including anatomy and all sorts of things you don’t often get these days. But illustration 'per se' didn’t come into my training actually. It was all terribly straight-laced. Illustration was just something I did for myself ”. 
When the State Security Police fired on the students, disorder and violence erupted throughout the capital and on 4 November, a large Soviet Russian Army force invaded Budapest and other regions of the country. As a member of the National Guard, who had trained before the invasion, as seen in the photo, he was asked to guard the Principal's Office in the Academy. He recalled : "It had lovely padded seats and I fell deeply asleep. There was a hammering at the door and when I pulled the curtains aside, literally, I looked down at the cannon barrel of a tank which seemed to be cranked straight at my head". As the situation developed : "They had a list of people who were attempting to hold the Academy building against the Russian tanks. I was one of these people. It was terribly frightening. Eventually they cornered us in the basement of the building and they executed eight of us on the spot, four students and four regular army soldiers. I was lucky to survive it”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihS_D0Btaz8&t=18m18s
Speaking no English, he landed at Blackbushe Airport in Surrey where he was met by social workers and then taken on a twenty minute drive to Crookham Army Camp near the Surrey town of Farnham, which he recalled : "Was a very good place in which to recuperate from my depression about Hungary. In a way the whole thing was terribly unreal. I arrived in December, just before Christmas, at this little town, and there were twinkly lights and Christmas trees and I just couldn't put the two together. I came out of the smoke and rubble and a whole town smashed up systematically. I just couldn't get over the contrast". Victor managed to discover that there was an art college just over the hill from his refugee camp and after presenting himself at Farnham School of Art and with three year's study in Budapest under his belt, was taken on as a student, not to follow any particular course, since he spoke no English, but to work at his drawing. At the age of 21, he was already an accomplished artist and had specialised in graphics, concentrating largely on engraving and lithography which, as he said, was an excellent training for line illustration.
In 1958, Victor's talent and promise were recognised when he was fêted at the College as a 'Royal Scholar'. In the same year he married fellow student, Glenys Chapman, who would also go on to make a career as an illustrator of children's books. Two years later he took some samples of his work to the publishers. 'Blackie', who gave him his first commission. In those days, the Royal College took a dim view of students drawing for money. It was not, as Victor said, "The done thing" and he may well have been reprimanded. The book 'White Horses and Black Bulls' by Alan C Jenkins, published in 1960 and set among wild horses in the Camargue, it was tailor-made for Victor. Its review in the Times Literary Supplement, included two of his illustration and led to a number of horse-related commissions coming his way. In these early years, Victor's work was still focused on creating lithographs and etchings. 
After graduation in 1963, he worked for an advertising agency and freelanced for Oxford University Press where he had met its Children's Editor, Mabel George who gave him Hester Burton's historical novel, 'Time of Trail' to illustrate. With its themes of social reform and freedom of speech at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, Hester received the 1963 Carnegie Medal for that year. 
After two years at the agency he returned to the Farnham School of Art to teach, while continuing illustration part-time and in the same year he won the 'Kate Greenaway Medal' from the British Library Association, recognising the year's 'Best Children's Book Illustration' by a British subject for his 'The Three Poor Tailors'.
This was the time that Victor was forced to change his modus operandi. When he looked back he said : “Etchings have played a big influence in my life because they produce fine quality lines and nice deep tones which appeal to me". The problem was they "need quite sophisticated machinery, making it hard to do at home" and so because he "was almost addicted to using very fine lines", he switched his technique and said that his : "early illustrations are very like etchings except that they were not actually printed etched into glass plates, rather, I just used a very fine nib”.
In 1967, 'Miss George', as he called Mabel, gave him K M Peyton's first 'Flambards' novel to illustrate, followed by 'Flambards in Summer' two years later. Both authors, Hester Burton and Kathleen Peyton, used his talent for drawing horses and with both, he built up a strong working relationship. In his public life, Victor now moved on to work an art lecturer at the Farnham and Guildford Colleges of Art and would finally teach at the Epsom School of Art and Design. With his freelance work, as he started to get more commissions for historical scenes, he concentrated on historical accuracy and said : “I really enjoy the research. It’s important as otherwise the illustrations don’t feel convincing. It’s got to be right” and "All illustration is an extension of yourself. You have to feel what your characters are feeling and understand about their lives which is why research is also so vital". Working on a book about slaves in Egypt building the Pyramids he said : "I had to understand the heat, the terribly hard work, and the importance of the thing they were building'.
With more commissions involving riders on horseback, Victor felt it was important for him to accurately capture how people sit when they are riding and subsequently he took lessons and mastered the art himself. It was then he realised he didn’t know how horse soldiers had used a sword while in combat and that being the case, he said : "Now I happened to have a sword and so I took it out and practiced with it. I rode in the local forest where there were a lot of pine trees and I would take aim at a branch, swipe at it and see what was the best way of cutting it. Oh, I enjoyed it. But then I had to stop because one day a swipe revealed a white-faced mushroom picker who was scared out of his skin. I hadn't realised he was there and at that point I thought I’d better not do this any more and so I put the sword away”.
His efforts were rewarded in 1975 when he won the Kate Greenaway Medal for the year's 'Best Children's Book Illustration' for 'Horses in Battle'. He later admitted : “ I love drawing horses. Why? Because they are so complicated. So impressive." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAIdU8uILek&t=3m05s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?UAIdU8uILek&t=26m13s
Victor was also fastidious when it came to accuracy in historical costume and clothing, something he had studied looking at the exhibits in the Victoria and Albert Museum where he had spent many hours just down the road from the Royal College of Art, when he was a student in the late 1950s. His verdict was that contemporary clothes were boring : "There’s no colour. Whereas the 17th, 18th century, they are fabulous”.
In addition to historical illustrations, Victor enjoyed drawing animals and spent a lot of time observing them in zoos. He recalled : "One of my favourite drawings I did in London Zoo, of a fantastic male gorilla. He sat there and stared at me for a long time and when I finished the drawing and walked away he came up to the fence, right up to the edge. And other people nearby said, ‘Show him, show him your picture of him,’ and so I turned around and showed the picture to him and it was quite amazing. He took it all in, with his eyes wide open. I don’t know what he thought of it but he was definitely puzzled”.
The sheer range of the historical illustration Victor undertook is indicated by : 
In 2012 the discovery of the skeleton of King Richard III under a car park in Leicester led to the University commissioning Victor to capture his combat in the 1485 Battle of Bosworth.
"A great tree in the park has fallen, a tree many took for granted. He was just always there, drawing and painting our history for us. For so many young people, the first Viking they ever saw, the first castle or king, was drawn by Victor. He also happened to be always most kind and generous".
Victor's advice to would-be artists was :
“Draw and draw and draw. And it’s important not just to do the drawing you have to do, but to draw for yourself, just to please yourself”.***********
In acknowledgement to Zoe Toft, whose 2015 interview with Victor provided substance and insight into his work and thinking.
