Visit to Lowry Centre 17/05/07

We arrived safely in a slightly wind blown condition and were introduced to the curator responsible for the exhibition of Lowry paintings and photographs by Ian Berry callled "The Water Project"

We were comfortably seated, like an elementary class in front of a number of paintings. One five foot by five foot painting depicted terraced houses, what appeared to be the river Irwell with industrial buildings which looked like mills with an odd church thrown in.

Lowry attended Art College and one of the paintings had been done by his art teacher and next to it was a copy of the statue which Lowry had painted as a student. A lot of his paintings have a very light almost white background. This was the result of his art teacher telling him that his work did not stand out from his backgrounds. He enjoyed depicting the industrial scenes because this was what life was like at that time.

We saw a photograph of Lowry in his three piece suit and tie with his china cup and saucer in his hand. He was a tall man, worked as an estate agent, collecting rents. He started painting seriously in the 1970's whilst looking after his mother, who was very close to him.

After Lowry's painting, we looked at photographs by Ian Berry. These were opportunist photos taken by him world wide whilst on his journalistic assignments.

One photo shows a white couple walking on a beach and two young black boys running in the opposite direction. This was a white only beach in South Africa, not a pretty happy holiday snap.

Another photo showed a group of women beside a water pump which was painted red. This was an indication that the water was polluted by arsenic. The women were holding out their hand and arms to show the black patches on their skin which indicated arsenic poisening. It was their only source of water.

Another photo showed many many people pulling on hawsers attached to a large cargo vessel which would then be broken up by hand. There also appeared to be a body being pulled from the water.

After a very enjoyable exhibition with information from Lindsay and descriptions from Ann, we adjourned to the bar for very welcome tea and scrummy biscuits. Also thanks to the other Lowry staff on hand to help and point us in the right direction.

This missive has been a joint effort by Ken and Elaine.

Insight Radio

Insight radio is the new name for Vip on air, a radio station specifically for blind and partially sighted listeners. Its new web address is:
www.insightradio.co.uk

It recently won the silver award for best internet programme in the 2007 Sony Radio Academy Awards. However, the station is not without its problems. For example, this morning the Early Edition programme ran short of material and resorted to phoning a tiger in Manchester to ask about some fairly dubious software guides. Hopefully, only a temporary lapse.

An old and special friend

Little Tommy, Eileen, Jimmy nd Michael at Stavangar

John, the admiral,Tom and Jimmy when we went to Bergen to selebrate with our Norwegian shipmates

Back from the battle with a trophy

Alf or to all of us Dicky

Alf, myself and Jack

Arthur Nugent, me,Arthur and Woody some of the boys of 6mess

I would like to dedicate this blog to my long time and special friend Jimmy.
I have known Jimmy for some 66 years, when we joined our first ship and went off into the Atlantic to fight the u-boat menace. We were the youth at that time. What we endured then are our memories and we still remember. For the past 20 years or so at this time of the year we have met together with old shipmates and their familees to attend the Commemorative Service held at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral to remember the Battle of the Atlantic , the longest battle of WW2, it lasted from da y one through to the last day.
We were unable to meet this year but we still remember old shipmates. I was looking through some photos the other day and decided to put just a few of them to think on.

It now appears that the photos are now not in the order that I intended,and nowthe third picture shows, from right to left, Jimmy, lettle Tommy, the Admiral and John, it was taken in Bergen when we went over to celebrate with our Norwegian shipmates. The destroyer that we served on was the senior officer ship of a mid ocean escort group which included 5 Norwegian corvettes.
Some of the old black and white pictures were taken on a little kodak camera that I bought well before the war, paid two shillings and sixpence for it, or 25p in todays money.

In the next few days a few of the local boys will be meeting up and swining the lamp over lunch and a few drinks . I am sure that they will all want to send you, Jean and the family thir very best wishes.

Ken.