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For those of you who have asked (and you both know who you are) here are some personal details.
Full name:
Jill Clark Lawson (nee Rogan). 'Clark'
was my mother's maiden name. The 'Jill' (would you believe) comes from the
nursery rhyme, and was chosen by my Mum because my Dad was known to his friends
as Jack!
Date of birth: 16th February 1935 (yes THIRTY-five!)
Parents: John Rogan and Constance Lilian Rogan (nee Clark). I was their only child. Dad's family came originally from Northern Ireland at the time of the potato famine and settled in North East England. He was born, and spent most of his life, in our village. He had one younger brother, William. Mum's folks were natives of the village, but her mother married a publican, and she was born in Haverthwaite, Nr. Ulverston in Barrow-in-Furness. She had an elder sister Evelyn, and an elder brother Ernest.
Place: I was born at Corbridge Bridge End Maternity Hospital (now a pub!) and spent my first nineteen years in Haydon Bridge, a small village approximately halfway between Newcastle upon Tyne and Carlisle, on the banks of the river Tyne. Back then the population was around 1000 - and I knew everyone. In fact my Dad reckoned we were (sometimes somewhat distantly) related to 90% of the villagers! Now Haydon Bridge has doubled in size.
Childhood: Despite its being wartime, I had a wonderful childhood. Because my Dad was deaf he was not accepted for the Forces so he was around to instil in me an abiding love of the countryside and all aspects of natural history.
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He also passed on to me his enthusiasm for gardening and for scientific experiment. We made our own fireworks, and built crystal radio sets, much to the envy of my friends.
Schools:
Until I was 10 I went to the local Shaftoe
Trust School. My Mum was a hairdresser, and because many of the school staff
were customers, I grew up thinking of teachers as friends. I loved school.
I had poor eyesight so was never much into sport, with the exception
of swimming and cycling, but I read voraciously anything I could lay hands
on, and enjoyed nothing better than drawing and painting.
In 1945 I went to Hexham's Queen Elizabeth Grammar School for Girls (220 pupils), a twenty-minute ride away by 'bus. I was there until a week before my eighteenth birthday, collecting 3 'O' levels and 3'A' levels along the way.
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Work: I started out as a Trainee Draughtswoman with the National Coal Board's Opencast Executive, then moved on to their Deep-mining Laboratory, working on prevention of pneumoconiosis. After I married I worked briefly for Northumberland County Council on plans of footpaths and bridleways.
Fame: At twenty I had my fifteen-minutes-worth when my Dad and I rescued two teenage youths from the river Tyne.
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Family: In 1956 I married Stanley George Bloomfield Lawson, who is two years older than me and was born and brought up in Newcastle. We started our life together in a three-room flat in Wingrove Avenue (alongside Newcastle General Hospital). Our daughter Hilary Gay was born there in 1957. We moved to a semi-detached in Benwell shortly before our twin sons Douglas George and Clifford John were born in 1963.
Hilary married Olliver James Southgate in 1980 and they have a daughter Katherine Helen (born 1983) and a son Daniel George Olliver (born 1987).
Douglas married Deborah Mary Attwood in 1986 and they have a daughter Bryony Veronica (born 1992) and two sons, Frayne George Mitchell (born 1994) and Hadrian William Taylor (born 1997, died 1998).
Clifford married Joan Ryan, from Ennis, Co. Clare, Ireland in May 1998. Stan and I had our first and only holiday abroad to be at their wedding.
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Other places we have lived: Stan was in Banking and after 11 years in Newcastle we moved on to Cheadle Hulme in Cheshire. Three years later we moved again, to South Ruislip on the western edge of Greater London. We came to Romford on the eastern edge of Greater London in 1977, and here we remain. Stan took early retirement at age 58 and now we enjoy a relaxed lifestyle. In 1980, with some money left to us by my Auntie Evelyn, we bought a holiday cottage at Prickwillow, near Ely in Cambridgeshire.
During the years that my children were growing up
I didn't go out to work (both Stan and I sharing the old-fashioned
Northern view that wives
stayed home 'to run the house and raise the kids' while husbands went out
to 'earn the pennies'). From time to time for 'pocket money' I did illuminated
inscriptions in presentation bibles and prayer books; had a go at printing
wedding invitations and business cards on an Adana machine; and made curtains
for other folk. I 'earned my keep' at home doing decorating, making clothes
for the children and looking after the garden.
<(They're meant to be
worms!)
My sons, who were always interested in electronics, sent away for one of the first personal computers, which they built themselves. That one never seemed to do much, but more followed, and then I was talked into buying a Sinclair Spectrum. That was it - I was hooked!
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Life began (again) around 50: Clifford had recently left Newcastle University and started work for Amstrad. We had a CPC 464 and he brought home a program called Screendesigner saying 'Here Mum, have a go with this'. My first effort was a copy of part of a Bruegel painting, followed by a variety of subjects like the Mona Lisa and the Tutankhamen mask. Some ingenuity was needed with only a four-colour palette, but it was a challenge and soon I was being offered work, designing loading and background screens for computer games, and preparing promotional pictures for Amstrad. A couple of my pictures were even used on Blue Peter (yes, I got a Badge!) and Eastenders. I had a wonderful six years going to Computer Shows and meeting up with enthusiastic young men who were designing those early games and utilities on a limited budget, sometimes at home in their own bedrooms. I wonder where they all are now? If you remember that middle-aged lady at the Shows, touting her 'Amstrad pikkies' around the stands, drop me a line. Of course it couldn't last - technology moves on so quickly, and demand for my hand-drawn pictures was soon a thing of the past.
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Hobbies and interests: I have been keen on anything to do with art or craftwork from an early age. During the war, I can recall making our own Christmas cards from wallpaper offcuts, and paint made from ground up sealing wax and methylated spirits. At secondary school I handpainted cards with views of the school, or school badges, for the teachers, and I was the one roped in to add names to the schools honours list or produce charts and diagrams for the biology lab.
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Of necessity my artistic interests were diverted to the purely practical while the children were in school, but I was finally persuaded by a neighbour to join a couple of local Art Societies, and the Townswomen's Guild, where I learned oil-painting, toymaking, basketry, macrame and a host of other crafts. I have dabbled in quilling, leaf-printing, scraperboard, marquetry, rug-making - you name it, I've probably tried it!
One of my more recent interests is in making my own pot pourri. Deterioration of my spine over the last four years or so has limited my mobility, so a home-based hobby where I can grow plants in my own back garden, dry them and add my own choice of aromatic oils has been ideal, and if I produce too much it is always welcomed for a grandchild's school fair.
I also enjoy writing. In the past I had several reviews of Art packages published in computing magazines (paid) and for eleven years I wrote Club and Festival reports for Southern Country Magazine (unpaid).
Pets have also featured largely over the years - everything from stick insects to guinea pigs, including a snake, lizards, gerbils, and three very special cats.
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Country music: Along with Trad Jazz, Country is my favourite style of music, although anything with a good beat and meaningful words is OK, and I'm certainly not averse to Rock and Roll. Stan and I discovered the British Country Music Club Scene about 16 years ago, and we go regularly to two local Clubs on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Almost all our holidays over the past 15 years have been Country-based. We have had some great times and met some wonderful people among both artistes and fans at festivals run by Pontin's or Tony Best Leisure, and in the Clubs. Sadly I am no longer able to dance. Stan does some Western couples dances, and we enjoy watching the Line dancers.
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Present day:
In March 1996 Stan and I celebrated our 40th Wedding
Anniversary. Instead of a party we decided to treat ourselves to a new computer.
It is an Amstrad Integra with built-in modem and TV. Shortly after it arrived
Cliff introduced me to fractals, which
have taken over my life. I can often be found at my computer until the early
hours of the morning. I am also interested in
Organic Art and have William
Latham's Screen Saver and 3D Image Generator. More recently I have tried
my hand at creating animated gifs with Microsoft GIF Animator - as you may
have noticed on this page! If you like anything I've done, feel free to use
it, but please give me a mention, and link to my site.
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| If you've ploughed your way through all the
above, award yourself a gold star for endurance. Seriously, have you got nothing better to do? |
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If you have any comments, criticisms, (polite)
suggestions regarding this page or my
fractal pages please send me E-mail (I
love getting letters), or if you have something very complimentary to say,
please sign my fractal
guestbook.
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