ADHD
Actually, I’ve always thought that I have done the best thing that circumstances have let me, when you consider my trouble was not one you could cure in a few weeks or months. In fact, I so often wished all I had to do was to go into hospital, have an operation and...
REBECCA’S TIRADE
If you’re a regular follower of my social media, you will know that Elva wrote a sixteen page letter to my Grampa which he dubbed Elva’s Tirade. Well, today I am myself super cross with someone, and have a therapeutic need to write my own one. I’m not a ‘namer and...
Battle of Britain Day
However politically incorrect it may be to some, I like many others have felt super proud and thankful today of Britain and her allies triumph during the infamous Battle of Britain. I’m also feeling very proud of Elva and her artistic legacy. 80 years is a long time...
Vegetarian Movers and Shakers
For the food trendy among us, Veganuary is in full swing and again my fathers’ fond assertions of Elva being ‘before her time’ have loomed large in my mind. It might be fashionable now, but the vegans and vegetarians of yesteryear were relentlessly ridiculed, and to...
Rosemary & Time (tick – tock)
One of the many privileges I have experienced through chasing my great aunts story was meeting 88 year old, Dr Rosemary Hill. It was a few weeks ago now but with "time" being the elusive creature it is, it has taken me until now to write about her. As a friend and...
My New Favourite
Until recently, my favourite Elva painting was 'Japanese Monument' which has hung in my home for many years now. Happily however, having learned of my chase, I was contacted by a gentleman called Nicholas, who for thirty-four years has been the custodian of a painting...
NATIONAL SCARF DAY
Well I certainly never expected to be printing a scarf in my Elva chase but it is mini projects like this that make the overall chase such fun; I never know quite what I’ll be doing or investigating next. All it takes is a flick through Elva’s paperwork and something...
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELVA
29TH September 1908; the weather was unusually warm for the time of year and I can’t help but imagine my great grandmother, Clara Blacker, hot, bothered and exhausted by her contractions, probably sick from chloroform, desperately willing Elva’s birth to be over....
A Model Child
Owing to the chosen profession of my Great Grandfather, William Blacker, I am fortunate to own a substantial collection of photographs of Elva during her childhood. As the only girl, and second of three children born to professional photographers, William and Clara,...
Altar Piece – St George’s Chapel Biggin Hill
Not all artists can boast of a legacy as historically important as Elva and although not an official War Artist, she used her spare time as a Motor Transport Driver (MTD) in the WAAF at Biggin Hill to sketch and paint hundreds of service personnel and scenes around...
Middle Child
There's no two ways about it. If alive today, Elva would make a fascinating case study for those in the field of birth order psychology. As the second of three children and also the only girl, her position in the Blacker family led to a life time of emotional...
It all began at 107 Brighton Road
The lock is stiff but my fathers’ thick fingers make light work of our entry. It is spring, 1984 and at six-and-a-half I have never knowingly been to this house before, but for the moment at least, a not quite tangible sense of familiarity and peace contradicts the...