My Museum: The Life Gallery

My father was away in the RAF, so these drawings were sent to him, sometimes annotated, by my mother. From the hat, I guess that this was a female, perhaps my mother.

"Dat" My father smoked a pipe. Not sure about the cap, and my spelling was somewhat approximate!

A locomotive ("puller kind") complete with engine driver (minimalist, head and legs only) and coal. Only four wheels, but smokestack and steam dome in the correct positions! Not sure why my mother differentiated between locomotives that pulled and pushed (see below),

Another steam locomotive ("pusher kind"), with even more minimal engine driver but with smoke stack and steam dome and whistle on the top of the boiler.

A "big car." Not much else to say about this!

I managed the mane of the horrible lion, and the ears aren't bad, but the lack of a leg and the length of the animal's tongue leave something to be desired. The victim leaks a little blood? Another pipe-smoking representation of my father stands on the right, with a dog on a lead.

Lots going on in this image! Some kind of vehicle (a caravan?) riding along a bumpy surface with a driver in the cab and an animal in the back. Another animal balances precariously on a pile of something in the foreground.

I bet I copied that writing! Dad, complete with pipe as usual, leaps over a rock in order to avoid me, who is about to run him over as I speed downhill on my bicycle, which in turn is about to hit a large bump and presumably hurl me into the air! Exciting! A not-bad car and caravan at the base of the hill.

I especially like the millipede (left) and the three birds wearing hats, plus the mysterious creature, also wearing a hat, that has apparently landed behind them. The largest bird has a walking stick. Note my economical way of depicting leaves. There's a bird's nest in the tree.

My representation of a ship sailing though the Suez Canal. Note the palm trees and a small pyramid. I travelled though the canal in 1954 and 1955, to and from Aden.

Colour! A saw fish as well as a sword fish!

One of my favourite drawings. A portrait of a schoolgirl drawn while I was at Wilshere Dacre Primary School, Hitchin, Hertfordshire, in 1955.There is an atte,mpt at perspective, with distant figures much smaller than the main subject. There is also the earliest known representation of someone in England on a skate board (just left of centre)! And I like the boy at the drinking fountain (right).