I have always wanted to paint and draw but never was brave enough to try until a few years ago. I admired a drawing being done by a lady in a churchyard when we were on holiday.

When I asked if I might look, and remarked that I wished I could draw, she said " I am sorry for people who can’t write " Naturally I told her I can write, but said I can’t draw. She asked whether I had been able to write since I was born, or had someone shown me how to hold a pencil and make the marks and shapes that we call letters.

Obviously I said someone had taught me to write, and she went on to say "If you want to draw go and get to a teacher and learn, and stop regretting you can’t do it" I thought at the time she was being quite brutal, but it inspired me to start. That was when I was 67, 8 years ago, and I have been drawing and painting ever since.

My preferred medium is watercolour, but I also use soft pastel and pastel pencils, and have just recently started to paint with oils. I go to a class on Monday mornings to improve my drawing, and am a member of a self help painting group on Tuesdays. We just paint what we like, and have occasional visiting demonstrators who either just demonstrate of hold workshops.

I have had paintings exhibited in the New Art Gallery at Walsall, as a member of the Walsall Society of Artists, and have paintings hanging on walls in America and Australia as well as in England