The other day I went down to the Gwili Railway to get some material for paintings. They were a very friendly lot and lent me a reflective jacket and because there were no trains steaming I was allowed to wander around.
The painting above is of a North British Diesel from the Gwili Railway I did today. I took a couple of very large hand forged spanners to donate to their workshop. Two of them were made by my Uncle Jack. They were hand forged by him and were really of no further use to me. Uncle Jack wasn’t my real Uncle but a friend of my father’s. Uncle Jack had been a member of the Royal Flying Corps. He was a mechanic and went out to Egypt with the Corps during the First World War. I remember he had a watercolour picture in his parlour of a Sopwith Camel ( A type of Bi-Plane) with Palm trees around it
I remember going to visit him as a child. He was a bachelor and didn’t have many decorations or much furniture. It was all quite dark in his house but he gave us tinned fruit with evaporated milk, which was quite a treat then. After my father died I went to visit him but found the house empty and a for sale sign up. Other than my memories those spanners were the only things we had of his but they will be put to good use I am sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment