BACKGROUND
I was born in London in 1929. At a very early age I became fascinated with pencils and marks on paper. I know this because I remember asking anyone who had the time "Drawdy?", this was before or at the time I was learning to speak. The next thing was cartoons; Walt Disney "Mickey Mouse" and "Donald Duck".
Then at the age of ten, I was evacuated to Cornwall and was released into landscape, and started drawing realistic views of local scenes. I was lucky that the village schoolmaster was a very good water colourist. I went out with him on several occasions and learned a lot, even by just watching him paint. He introduced me to Whatman paper, whereas up to that time I had been painting on the back of wallpaper off-cuts. I did win prizes while in Cornwall, a Second for the "Wings for Victory" poster and a Local First for a cottage garden with flowers from "Toogoods" the St Austell seed Merchants.
On coming back to London in 1945 I had to find work and I finally settled on the printing industry - as a machine minder. Even so, I continued to paint at the Kensington Men's Institute and went to life classes and portrait classes in oil. I also joined the Paddington Art Society and exhibited with them for several years. I have always painted on a regular basis although now it is mostly watercolours or watercolour pencils, which I use for sketching outdoors. Over the years I have sold one or two paintings, both with the Paddington and the Fulham Art Society, and even from the beginning in Cornwall to farmers and one to Cannon Carr of the local church St Enoder, which he was put in charge of for the duration of the war. But I am really an amateur and have given away quite a number of pictures to friends and relatives.
