Here, there and everywhere…

Well, I hope the start of 2023 started off in a very nice and peaceful way. 

The new year started off in a very busy way for me, as I had quite a number of talks to do in and around the region, which although they kept me incredibly busy, were also very enjoyable.  I think it’s such an honour to meet so many different and unique people from different walks of life and be able to share your work and life with them.  Thank you to all of the village halls and literary and historical societies that I have been to, which have made me most welcome.  I particularly enjoyed meeting a very lively and very welcoming history group in Blaydon.  I can’t remember when I have had such a wonderful evening of fun and nostalgia!

One of the most amazing and enjoyable places I have been to visit has got to be Villa Real School in Consett – a mixed day school for pupils aged 2 to 19 years who have severe, profound, medical and complex learning difficulties.  In total, I made two-day trips to this school and I really have to say how impressed I was at the talent and ability of the pupils there.  They made the start of my new year incredibly special for me, as they listened and talked to me about my art and my stories.  Not only that, but the artistic talent in the classroom just totally amazed me.  The question and answer session really showed how much the learners had taken in about my characters from The Tale of the Vampire Rabbit and The Tale of Sybil the Squirrel.  It was such a joy to spend time with you all…

Thank you to the teachers: Alan, Angela, Rachael, Paris and the headteacher, Jill Bowe, for making it all possible.  I can’t wait until my next visit…

To find out more visit https:

http://www.villarealschool.co.uk/news-and-events

Thoughts on Dame Angela Lansbury…

Angela Lansbury b: 16 October 1925 – d: 11 October 2022

Well, it seems, I am having a couple of months of ‘loss’, having lost two ladies that I have admired for many years in just two months.  Both ladies were British; the first was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the second was Dame Angela Lansbury.

To commemorate this special lady of stage and screen, I have done a very quick pen drawing of her, as she was in her later life.  She seemingly was a lady who disliked attempts at flattery, so I have drawn her just as she was.  I have added in Mrs Potts and Chip, as I am a bit of a romantic and love Disney movies (I also like gallons of hot tea and teapots too 🙂 ).  I think, she did such a great voice-over for this kindly and caring ceramic teapot in ‘Beauty and the Beast’. This quick drawing/sketch took me just under 90 minutes, as I had a target to get it done before a little magazine interview this afternoon!

As a child, I saw the Walt Disney movie ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’, starring Angela Lansbury as the trainee-witch – Miss Eglantine Price (so, I guess, this is an appropriate day to upload this post, it being Hallowe’en) and loved it.  I was singing the song for months…  I was later told, whilst interviewing the manager at Stanley Civic Hall, that ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’ has been the most popular movie that they had ever shown at that venue, with queues right around the block and down the street! 

It was many years later, with my oversized drawing board consuming my living-room table, that I had the television programme ‘Murder, She Wrote’ playing in the background as I did my commission work. It was an ideal programme to keep me company, whilst I was being creative, as it wasn’t too bloodthirsty. After many years of drawing, with this programme running every evening in the background, I got to know every line of dialogue, every murder victim, every culprit, plus the screams never made me jump when I was so familiar with all the 264 episodes!

So, I want to thank Dame Angela Lansbury, officially, for being my unofficial companion whist drawing all of those commissions.

I also want to say ‘thank you’ for another special occasion…  In March 2014, I went to see Noel Coward’s ‘Blithe Spirit’, starring the 89-year-old, Miss Lansbury, as the dotty medium Madame Arcati at The Gielgud Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue.  Sitting within spitting distance of her (not that I would do that, of course) I couldn’t believe I was watching Angela Lansbury with my very own eyes!  After the show, my friends wanted to go to the stage door and see the lady herself, but it was so crowded and I had seen her in the show, so I decided to let them wait and see her, and I would head off. 

There was a tiny back street/alley that would take me back to the hotel and I headed off down that dark passage.  Only a few minutes later, a great car came down the alley and I had no choice but to flatten myself to the wall as the car went by, (hoping the wheels would not go over my toes!).  In the back seat, there was no other passenger but Angela Lansbury, who gave me the most dazzling smile and genteel wave as she passed.  The image is ingrained in my memory. 

Thank you, Dame Angela, I am delighted that I DID have my very own private and special moment with you after all – far away from the madding crowds…

Autograph received on the 20th August 2022