Painted Memories - A 60's childhood in St Andrews, Scotland - done at last!

My first book. Done at last. In the photo here, the slightly shiny cover is reflecting the camera flash, making it look washed out. Really, it's quite rich colours with psychadelic 60's flower-power flowers.

I have shown the book to a lot of people and everyone is amazed at the quality. The layout software was a pleasure to use and has enabled me to create pages that support the paintings effectively. The colours are really very good and the binding feels and looks beautiful. Best of all, I like the personal handwriting font - it really 'makes' the book. 

You don't have to buy a copy to see it - you can view the whole book on-line (click on the link in the side bar at right) though of course it's not the same as musing over a personal copy while enjoying a cuppa in the sun or by the fire.

Blurb does not seem to recognise fluctuating exchange rates so purchasers should check which currency would be cheapest for them to purchase in - for Australian purchasers, it would definately be $US.

Also - I recommend a hardcover copy as the binding is stitched as well as glued. The softback binding is only glued. The hardback with dustjacket version will have no title on the linen cover itself - so all in all, I recommend the hardback, wrap-around cover. Copies arrive within two to three weeks.

I have been delayed by extra care duties but now I'm nearly finished the draft of my book, Painted Memories. There were also more pictures insisting they be painted than I thought there would be. I'm just hoping that the colours will print true enough but will have to wait to get a proof copy before I know. In the book, the text will not be in a 'box' like this - I had to scan this sample as Blogger won't (yet) do personal fonts.
Anyway, for now, I can only say Happy Christmas all.

Back at last

Well, it months since I've done any blogging - or painting. I have been distracted with gardening mainly, and I'm not sorry as we have had the best Spring for a decade and everything is looking marvellous. Recently I have been inspired to do some more upholstery. This 30's chair has been in a wretched state in our kitchen for the last 15 years but now she is in her glad rags and has announced herself to be Ruby. I had to learn  respringing and repadding techniques.

And below is Estelle. Yesterday, I went to drop off some garden waste at the recycling depot and popped in to the shed  'just to have a quick look.' Immediately, I heard Estelle calling, "Hey, over here - I'm Estelle - come and get me! Quick!" She'll have to wait for a new outfit because...

 

I have am now very busy getting my memory paintings into a book format to publish, initially at least, through Blurb. Above is the title part of the front cover. There are over 120 pictures with text, including quite a few new ones - I have about 8 pictures to finish, but hope to get a proof draft off in a few weeks. It's a very exciting project, watching the book structure appear, arranging all the pictures into a narrative of sorts, making my own 'handwriting' font, designing the cover - I think it's going to be pretty good. Watch this space!

I stubbed my toe quite often but it was worth it to feel the world beneath my feet. Maybe, if I had been allowed sneakers...

EDM Challenge #199 Draw a toe

Some Sundays, Daddy got up early and shot rats foraging in the compost heap. Other Sundays, he refused to get up, saying he was feeling bilious - something in the water. Hmmn - tainted water only on Sundays?










After Church, we were allowed to choose something at the sweetie shop. If Granny was with us, she forbad bubblegum and gobstoppers. "All that masticating makes you look vulgar," she said. 'Masticating' is a very vulgar-sounding word, I
thought.





When we got home, the paper and comics had arrived. "Do your jobs and then you can have it"... I sometimes took mine up in the loft and cosied into the pirate chest. I had Wonderland, then Treasure, then Look and Learn. My brother got Beano and then Mad.

St Andrews was divided into 'town' - butcher, baker, candlestick-maker, tinker, tailor... and 'gown' - university people - which included us. Some 'town' people were sort of honourary 'gown' but I knew very few 'town' people. Sometimes, the 'town-school' boys spat on me as I passed by on the way to my school. Us and them...



Grouse - pheasant - peasant - I thought they all referred to poor Scots in the highlands whom the English tried endlessly to exterminate. So when I heard ... I wondered... Just as well we are 'university'.













Then one day, while reading, I noticed on a page that one 'pheasant' had an 'h' and another, not. I looked it up in my dictionary and reality dawned! What relief that I never asked - everyone would have laughed at me.

Once or twice, Mummy went to hospital. Children were not allowed to visit so we stood outside and she blew kisses and threw down a bag of sweeties. She must have bought them before she went to hospital.

At meal times, we had to have some of everything and eat all that was on our plates! This rule was most horrid when we had deep fried cod roe - grey balls with a gluey, granuley paste inside. The Rule versus the gagging throat... Fortunately, Dad loved cod roe balls so if he was hungry, he would suddenly say, "if you're not going to eat that, I'll have it," and swiftly spike it away. Relief, until next time.
That's the Assisi jug with the plaited handle.

Once a week, we all lined up for the "don't complain - you're so lucky to get it" spoonful of cod liver oil. "Open! Wider! Quickly!" - Oh, fishy-flavoured slime, most foul - shivers rippled down my spine. My Dad always wore Fair Isle pattern jumpers.

Auntie S sometimes came for Christmas. She always gave us the best books. She wrote our names in with a fountain pen even though she could have used a Biro. Sometimes, Auntie S read just to me.

Auntie S was a bit of a puzzle. She wasn't married and had her own house. She was a headmistress - I couldn't imagine her strapping a queue of children or even confiscating someone's marbles. Her eyes were too twinkly and she was too smiley.

Auntie S - 80 years young today - happy birthday to you. Thank you for all the fond memories.

This is not my own memory - as so often happens, when I am showing my memory paintings to someone, their memories are jiggled and they recount them to me. I was particularly struck by my friend Judith's memory of going into her father's private space after he died and seeing a lot of war memorial poppies hanging up. She knew his best friend was killed in the war - perhaps her Dad bought a poppy every year for his mate and remembered him in his quiet moments. With Judith's permission, I painted my mental image - I'm sure many details are not correct but as Judith said, the picture would represent many men of her father's generation who remembered in private.
Now in Judith's collection.

My mother loved to sing. Sometimes she would give a rendering at breakfast time. Some of her favourite songs were:

Just once, on a visit to us, Grandpa said he was going to swim. What a surprise - only children and lunatics swim in the freezing, sewage-soupy sea! Even stranger - when he appeared from behind the sand dunes - his bathing suit! My suit had rows of shirring elastic so was all bubbly-bobbly - and never dried once wet. Actually, Grandpa only paddled.

At school , we copied history from the board for hours. In Scottish history, there are only two women - Mary Queen of Scots and Flora MacDonald. Apart from them, it's all about Englishmen killing Scots over religion and power.

In St Andrews, history seeps from every corner. Sometimes, I stood outside the castle at the spot where George Wishart was burned at the stake for preaching protestant reform, and imagined the scene. His clothes were stuffed with gunpowder but he still took a long time to die.

At home, Sindy was found guilty of the crime of impersonating Barbie. We couldn't be seen owning such an imposter! We made a guillotine with meccano, filled her head with tomato sauce and set the teddies round to watch... of course, the axe wouldn't chop so we had to finish her off with a saw. We didn't like dolls anyway.

One evening, just before my seventh birthday, I couldn't find Mummy anywhere. Then I saw her, through a crack in the garage door, painting a small bike crimson. I know it will be for me - my first bike.

Once the trainer wheels were off, I could go adventuring anywhere, all about, to see the world...

"Hey, Girlie!"

What's happening here? I never forget to pull up my pants! Haven't their mothers taught them anything? I always just cycle quickly away and of course, I don't tell. It would probably be me that gets in trouble. I think it's something to do with girls having to keep their legs together when they sit.

Blogger protocol seems to require that I black the 'essentials' out. I'd rather do that than change the composition as these are the pictures that fall from my memory onto the page. I want to include this image as it seems such an intrinsic part of small town life in the days when children were allowed to roam free.

Every day, the nappies had to be boiled in the boiler, then put through the wringer. I had to stand well back as the water was very hot, and children sometimes got mashed flat in wringers. My mother got a washing machine when the third child came along.

We also used the boiler for bottling fruit. Granny did a lot of that and I often helped her. We topped and tailed the gooseberries, cored and sliced the apples, and stoned plums and apricots before packing them into jars and pouring over the sugar syrup.

Sometimes, we went on holiday to the west coast of Scotland where the islands are called Rum, Muck and 'Egg'! Once, Daddy took me fishing. I had never been fishing before.


Just when I was sure that there would be no fish, there was a tugging on my line and Daddy was shouting and laughing at me to pull it in. Huge, ugly, flopping and flipping - I just wanted a goldfish. "Get it away. Put it out." But I did catch it. Me, not Daddy.

On the way home, something was not right. Daddy was worried and rowing as hard as he could. I didn't have a turn of the oars. I sat, silent and small in the bottom of the boat. When we got back, Mummy was on the beach, packing up the baby and the green rug.

Once, I was invited to attend the youth group that my aunt and uncle ran for their church. We made viking boats from cardboard and then painted and varnished them.
The next week, we took the boats to the outdoor Steprock swimming pool. At the base of the masts, we stuffed balls of cottonwool soaked in meths and set light to them. It was a magical sight as they drifted away, beneath the flood-lit walls of the ancient, ruined castle.

Thirty years later, this activity was the inspiration for the equally magical 'viking-style' funeral of our beautiful, but profoundly handicapped, 3 year old daughter, Hermione Rose. See here.

'I wish I lived in a caravan,

With a horse to drive, like a pedlar-man.

Where he comes from, nobody knows,

Or where he goes to, but on he goes!...'

That was my favourite poem. When the gypsies came, I loved to see the accordion man pump the bellows and breathe his joy and sorrow into the music. Oh, to be a gypsy child - no shoes, no school, no Sunday best...

I asked my parents if I could play an accordion. They said I had to learn the piano first. I bet the gypsies never played piano - they couldn't have fitted one in their caravan. They didn't need music or lessons either. The children joined in as best they could and I think they had such fun they just got better and better.

Inspired by Illustration Friday 'Poem'

Muma and Dada lived next door to us in Boarhills. They weren't really relatives - we just called them that. Muma had the most musical laugh. She cleaned at the school and did the lunches. She always wore an apron and made the best cakes and cocka-leeky soup. They actually displayed the photos of their children, who they named after themselves.


Dada was always smiling. He was Polish and once walked home from Siberia. He was the ploughman and had to get up very early to feed the cart-horses so they would be ready for work. I think Muma and Dada believed they were the luckiest people in the world.



Dada kept racing pigeons in a loft in his back garden. He was so proud of his winners.


Late in the Autumn, when we heard the wild ducks flying over, Daddy and Dada would set off at dawn to go duck shooting. Once, I crept out of bed and followed them a while.




EDM challenge # 125 Draw some birds