Would anyone like to buy me a present?

**squidge** · 09-Aug-13, 08:44

A picture that LS Lowry painted of the Black Stairs in Wick in 1936 is to come up for Auction and is expected to fetch around £800 000.

You can see it here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...lands-23620168

When I was a girl I grew up in a Mill Town near Manchester and I worked Saturdays on Salford Market. LS Lowry was one of the first painters I really knew about - I did a school project on him when I was in primary school and we were taken on a school trip to see an exhibition of his work. I ended up with a real affection for his work. I also have a love of pictures - watercolours mainly - and I have a number of lovely pictures - none of them particularly valuable or expensive in my home. Paintings and pictures have always been important to me.

When I lived in Caithness I had a really bad time - my marriage ended and I had to leave the marital home with nothing - well clothes and duvets thats all. I ended up living in a furnished flat in Wick with my boys and I had no idea how I was going to cope. I had nothing of my own, I was skint and it was AWFUL!!!! Fortunately people I knew - some very well and some not so well at all, helped me enormously and gave me so much stuff - including a three piece suite and ironing boards, pots and pans, plates and bedding. All of it a massive surprise and all of it so gratefully received. It made a huge difference and is the reason that Wick always feels like home to me.

What I didnt have were pictures. I rummaged around for cheap posters and pictures at car boot sales and the Auctions in Watten and whilst looking on the internet I came across this picture. The flat I was living in is visible in this picture and it might sound really nuts but i was delighted. Here was a picture painted by an artist that I loved which reminded me of my happy childhood and it was a picture of where I was living now. I couldn't even find let alone afford a print or poster of the picture so I ran off a black and white copy from the computer, cos the only printer I had access to was my works one, and pinned it on the wall in my office, I bought a cheap frame from the More store and stuck another on my wall at home. It became a sort of symbol of overcoming the madness that my life was at that time and I loved it.

Life remained very difficult for a considerable time but when I moved a couple of years later I took the copy of this painting with me and put it on the wall in my new office, I still have it - no longer on the wall at home - my ex husband relented and gave me the pictures that I was very fond of, my lovely Wick friend gave me some of the pictures she had done and my darling husband has bought me lovely pictures for the walls of the home we now share. The frame broke and I took it down. But I still have that Black and white copy - its folded up and its in my box of "precious things" and sometimes when I'm tidying up or putting something in that box I will take it out and think of how I grew to love that flat, of how wonderful all those people were that helped me when I was at the worst point of my life and who I will never forget for their kindness, and It reminds me that no matter how bad stuff is - it will get better.

So.... Im fifty in January.... anyone like to buy me a present?

**joxville** · 09-Aug-13, 09:49

If I win the lotto Squidge I'll buy you the original picture :-)

**squidge** · 09-Aug-13, 10:47

Thanks Jox

I have already bought a ticket too!

**Kenn** · 09-Aug-13, 23:39

Shucks why did n't you say squidge would have been on the net bidding at the auction but sadly my liquid assets are currently in the glass on the desk.

**Kevin Milkins** · 10-Aug-13, 06:14

I am no authority on paintings, but Lowry's work has always captured me and I'm not sure why. It's only in the last few weeks that I discovered that he did a few paintings of my home town in the valleys of South Wales.

Nice story squidge.