Gordon Mellor (H, 1947)

I was a member of the Manchester Liberal Club, as were many of my friends. There was a huge room within it, where we used to have lunch followed by a game of snooker. There were five full size snooker tables kept in fine condition. On the first floor, were two dining rooms with oblong tables that could seat eight people either side.

One day, I went to lunch and there was Lowry, sitting at a table on his own. I sat opposite him and asked if he minded if I join him, to which he immediately agreed. I sat down and told him that I was an amateur painter and had bought one of his paintings from the George Aird Gallery where I went to get my own pictures framed. Lowry enquired which painting had I bought, to which I replied, ‘The painting of St Luke’s Church at Old Street, London.’ ‘Do you know,’ Lowry said, ‘that I never wanted to paint in London. I didn’t quite agree with the statement made in a novel by Sir Walter Besant that London was not a good place to paint, so I decided to prove it wrong.’ Lowry went on, ‘I stood at the other side of the road in a doorway and sketched the church on the back of an envelope, from which I painted the piece. I would like to see the painting, could you bring it to my house in Mottram?’ I was very pleased with this invitation, so I agreed.

I mounted the painting, 24 by 18 inches, in a traditional gilt frame. So how to carry it? I used an old silk eiderdown to wrap it and put it flat in the car’s boot. I parked the car outside his home and rang the bell at the door, which was answered by Lowry himself. He took me into the drawing room and I laid the package on the table. Opening the package, Lowry said in a loud voice, ‘Eee, what a lovely eiderdown!’ We laughed, then turned our attention to the painting and studied it for a while.

He said to me, ‘Would you like to have 95 prints of your picture?’ The price would be £11 each and to that I agreed. I took the painting to somewhere near Worcester, the people who had the best reputation for this work, and have enjoyed the project over the years.

Lowry died in 1976 and my picture was exhibited at his memorial exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. Lowry had loved red wine and fillet steak, so occasionally I took him to a nearby Italian restaurant run by three Italian brothers. The press portrayed him as a lonely old man, who had lost his sense of humour, but personally I found him full of humour. Before he died, I asked him about this. He said, ‘I am sad because all my friends are dead.’

He was also very helpful to other artists. For instance, there was a well-known artist, Helen Bradley, who invited Lowry to her exhibition in Yorkshire. During the exhibition he told her he liked her style. She replied, ‘Maybe so, Mr Lowry, but I do not sell many.’ He told her, ‘That’s easy: put people in your pictures.’ She followed his advice and became more famous and successful after this period.

With that, I will end my tale of my brush with Lowry.

We are deeply saddened to report that Gordon died peacefully at home in France in July 2024. His obituary will be published on the Cheltonian Society website and in the next edition of The Cheltonian.