|
|
The Editor Meets...
Vera Waddington
 At the remarkable age of 94, artist Vera Waddington must be one of the Holme Valley’s oldest residents.
A life member of Huddersfield Art Society, she has recently taken up her artist brushes once more and started to create the watercolour landscapes and floral paintings she is so fond of.
“I’d missed my painting while I was ill and it’s nice to get back to it once more. I love painting the scenes of the Holme Valley - it’s wonderful’’, she said.
Vera, who has lived in the same Honley house since she was 10 years old, discovered her love of painting as a young child.
“I would have loved to have gone to art school but the opportunities just weren’t available like they are today. Instead I got an apprenticeship as a mender, working at the Honley mill Josiah France’s in Queen’s Square. I suppose I always felt a bit like a square peg in a round hole, as if I didn’t quite fit. Because of the times, I wasn’t able to follow my dream although I did enjoy the intricate work of mending.’’
|
 Born in nearby Netherthong in 1911, she moved to Honley aged 10 and has always regarded the village as her `home-ground’. A pupil at Honley National School, she was `always painting and drawing’ and at the age of 14 she borrowed a friend’s copy of the Yorkshire Post in order to enter a drawing competition.
While she waited for her apprenticeship, she initially worked in a shop as an assistant at a Huddersfield clothiers shop. The only consolation for the long hours and boring work was the nearness of the local technical college where she enrolled in an evening drawing class.
This connection was soon to be broken after Vera became indentured as an apprentice mender. Although she enjoyed the company of the mill’s other girls, her painting dwindled and after her marriage in 1935 it became even more part-time.
Although she was apprenticed for five years, she didn’t complete this time because of the Great Slump of the 1930s. At the time she was apprentice to the mill, all that was required of her was that her parents would keep her in good food and clothing.
Only after her husband died in the mid-1960s, did she once again take up her brushes and in 1969 she joined Huddersfield Art Society. Since then she never looked back and her paintings - mostly of West Yorkshire but also the Lake District, Wales, Scotland and Cheshire - were bought by people all over the world.
For years she has painted and exhibited her work, mostly in Holmfirth and Huddersfield.
Published Autumn 2005. All information correct at time of print
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
