UPON reading David Aynesworth's engaging letter about his days working in Middle Row, Skipton, in the late 1960s, an image flashed of my father Frank White.
He is sitting in his green Ford Cortina parked on the setts looking up Sheep Street, creating an ink line drawing and capturing those very features David reflects upon.
I've had the drawing since 1978 when I moved to Skipton and when I glance at it I see Sheep Street through my father' eyes. It features the Chinese restaurant, Boots and Currys. Those with a beady eye will notice he is claiming artistic licence. Holy Trinity looks a bit out of perspective.
The drawing is dated November 1969 and I recall he was recovering from a heart attack. He created a number of other similar drawings which appeared in the Craven Herald, Ilkley Gazette and Keighley News over several months. They were a form of convalescence.
My father died aged 91 in December 2019 just before the Covid plague insidiously emerged.
He was an astonishingly creative man - author, playwright, artist, documentary maker - throughout his life. His first novel "A Morse Code Set" was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1965 and his last "Innocence" this new year. It came only a year after "There Was A Time" a moving tale of how a small community in Lincolnshire survived World War 11.
Clive White
Skipton.
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