My Family - my rock

Family is very important to me. We are not a big family and we don’t get to see each other as much as we would like as we are spread out across the country and the globe.

My family has been the biggest most stable rock in my life.  My parents are amazing and are such an inspiration. They have been though some very tough times in their life but no matter what they have to cope with they are always there for you. I am very lucky.

When I was young I always wanted to either do something artistic: art or music or, work with animals.  It was of an age when neither choice my parents thought were a good career so I went into banking. But as the years have gone by my loves has never left me and now I am lucky enough to spend all day with my animals and be artistic too.  

I have always had animals from birth, never in my life have I been without a pet. Our first dog was Kim here he is in the picture with my two brothers and my beautiful stylish mother. Kim was a great dog he was so full of character.  

Years ago when we were young dogs just seem to wonder about anywhere they pleased. Kim was no exception, he had his daily routine. Went to the neighbours begging for food as if he was never fed. He had a girlfriend a golden Labrador who came to see him a couple of times a week and lay by the fire with him. He would take himself off across the field at the back of the house and always came back covered in cow muck with sticks and twigs stuck in his tail.  In fact I cannot ever remember seeing him without a bit of twig stuck in his tail. I have never seen a dog drool so much as he did, candles that what they looked like as he sat by us at dinner time waiting for a tasty treat sneaked under the table by us children. 

I think my love of the countryside comes from those early years, we lived close to the open fields where my brother and I used to take off across the road, across the fields, down to a valley were we played in the river catching sticklebacks in a hand made net; a bent metal coat hanger and one of mums stockings.  We would take the fish back home in a bucket only to be sent to put it back where we had found them. And a clip around the ear for pinching her stockings yet again. 

School holidays were spent at my nana’s who lived in a little terraced house, but outside the back yard there were just fields which lead down to a canal. It was a little girls heaven. Wood, bluebells, fairy glens.  When my mother was a little girl she fell in that canal and nearly drowned, had it not been for the war. As the London refugees that were staying with her and my nana pulled he out by grabbed her long flowing hair that could still be seen above the water. 

You could say that the 2nd world war is one of the reasons I am alive today, strange thought?

I spent a lot of my younger years singing, with my grandad who was a singer in the clubs. Then in the choir and onto a group before I left a school.  But I was not a solo singer and did not pursue this any further. I can not sing to save my life now. But I have always loved art in every shape and form. I love being creative and being able to combine my love of animals and the countryside with my art is just so satisfying. I can get lost for hours in my studio. I love to experiment with different things too but ultimately I always end up going back to painting animals. 

I would not be who I am today without my family. My family are behind me all the way and the love and emotional support they give me helps me though thick and thin.  They understand me, as all of my family members are also very creative and artistic in different ways.  They are also animal mad too. We are a bit of a crazy bunch really, I am the quiet one?

If you are lucky enough to have a great family no matter how your family is made up, as family is not always blood related. Try to hold them to you. You don't need to be there all the time just as long as you all know you have each other should be enough if your family. 

( pic of Helen Elizabeth and her adored little dog Chester)