A whole thrupney bit!

Like all of my friends I held no one responsible for my entertainment.

We played marbles – creating pitches by establishing a series of dimples in the ground, chucks - where small stones were thrown into the air and caught on the back of your hand. And, of course football, cricket, hot rice, British bulldog and many other games were played in the front street outside our houses.

I particularly liked playing on the railway line! And I can't remember anyone ever chasing me off or even telling me I shouldn't be doing it. One of the great things you could do was to put things on the line, wait for the train to pass over, then retrieve your project to see how it had fared. Copper coins were a favourite (copper is particularly malleable) and I remember one day my dad inspecting my work – a ha'pney squashed to about twice its normal size – with some interest and calmly advising me that I "should be careful" when I was doing that!

     I always liked trains, and one day my dad brought home four excellent 20" x 16"prints of famous steel trains: The Mallard, The Golden Arrow, The Flying Scotsman and The Bon Accord. They were really great canvas textured prints of original oil paintings. I loved getting them out and studying them. So, one day, wanting to share them with my schoolteacher, I took them into school and proudly unrolled them on her desk. "Oh, oh Douglas, are these for me! Thank you, thank you very, very much"!

And that was that! I couldn't say no!

     On the main road by our house there was a level crossing with great big white gates that closed to stop the traffic at the appropriate times. The line was known as 'Bowles Incline' where coal was loaded into trucks attached to a thick steel cable and they freewheeled about five miles down to the River Tyne and at the same time pulled up fresh empty trucks.

An old man in a cloth cap and smoking a pipe controlled everything from his little box set up about fifteen feet above the gates. He was lovely and would encourage us to climb up on the gates so that we could enjoy the ride as he opened them.

     The crossing was also to be responsible for my first commercial success, when, after painting it from what I imagined the old man's perspective would have been, I took it into school to finish off. It looked pretty good, especially since I'd replaced the old coal wagons with The Flying Scotsman! And when Billy Goff asked if he could buy it, I didn't haggle over the price but just took the thruppenny bit that was on offer. Fantastic! This transaction meant so much more to me than Billy's thru pence.

At around this time, I became very frustrated with my Jack the Giant Killer watercolours and the school's horrible Tempera blocks and yearned to get my hands on some proper paints… oil paints.

But there were two problems, I knew nothing about oil paints and, even if I had, I had no money.

However, following a conversation I had with my mother after she had explained to me the meaning of the expression "Necessity is the mother of invention", I worked out a plan. The plan involved knocking on neighbour's doors and asking if they had any odd jobs they wanted doing, Then, I'd use the money to catch the bus into Newcastle where I would buy an excellent set of professional oil paints.

Well, what can I say, after a whole days' work, I raised a grand total of 1s 9d (one and ninepence) or in today's money about 8 pence. It wasn't as much as I had hoped for, but, adjusting my plan, I worked out that my one and ninepence was just enough to get me to Gateshead where I could buy a tiny tin of black enamel paint from Woolworths. It was made by Humbrol and cost one shilling. I knew that with the black, and some of the white paint my dad used to paint the skirting boards, I could do my first oil painting… in black and white!

And so I did. From a large book on sailing ships, I cut out the first page which was thick and totally black. And on it, I painted two hands reaching out for each other in black and white shining enamel!

At that point I'd not seen the Sistine Chapel, but my painting did turn out to be quite similar to the famous detail of God creating Adam.

Anyway, it turned out to be my biggest success yet as the following week Mr Pringle, our Prudential Insurance man (who always took an interest in me and my sketches), asked if he could buy it. And, although my mam insisted it was "too much" he insisted on giving me two whole shillings.

Again, the money was not the important thing but his appreciation. And when he said he would have it framed, well…wow!