Childhood memories inspire scenes from Derby’s steam era

Jump to: navigation, search

A Derby-born artist who now lives in Las Vegas has used his childhood memories to paint favourite views of his birthplace.

David Porter was born in Derby City Hospital in 1943 but spent most of his life on the move as a child and during his career in RAF aerial reconnaissance.

Despite settling in Las Vegas, he still describes Derby as his spiritual home and has completed two paintings of his favourite scenes from the city using his memory and photographs.

The pictures, using water colours, acrylics and fibre pens, are of a view from London Road bridge overlooking the engine sheds and a scene of the railway tracks running through Pear Tree, close to Arkwright Street.

“Those two particular scenes are what I remember most about Derby,” said Mr Porter. “I spent many happy hours looking over that bridge. They’re some of my fondest memories.”

He recreated the view over the bridge using old photographs but modified it to create scene as he remembers it from 1958.

The picture has now taken pride of place above his computer and is not for sale – despite being valued at 3,000 dollars.

Mr Porter says his best memories of Derby are the three years he spent living with his grandmother in Gresham Road, right next to Rolls-Royce in the 1950s.

Another of David's paintings inspired by his memories of Derby

His love of art started in earnest when he would sit on his grandmother’s kitchen floor scribbling on scraps of wallpaper from a nearby factory.

It continued unabated into his teens, when the only O-Level he passed at Derby Grammar School was in art.

But he says it was steam engines, aeroplanes and ships which truly captured his imagination.

“I love anything mechanical,” said the 64-year-old. “Trains were there around me all the time in Derby – it’s a traditional railway town. I just like the way they work. Everything is so precise and the smell of the smoke and the steam, it’s got a charisma to it.”

David, left, with two friends during his time in the RAF in Turkey

He married his first wife, Pat, in 1966, by which time he had been in the RAF for five years, working on the ground servicing cameras and developing the films of photographs taken from the air.

They moved to Lincoln in the 1970s with the air force and he began sketching engines before he was commissioned to paint people’s houses in Holbrook, where Pat was born.

During his 15 years in the RAF, he and his family travelled to many locations across the world, spending time in Malta, Turkey, Germany, Norway and Cyprus.

After Pat, with whom he had two daughters, died in 1994 of pancreatic cancer, Mr Porter became close to her high-school penpal, Dr Jane McCarthy, who he married and now lives with in Las Vegas.

[edit]

FEEDBACK

Did you enjoy this article? If so, why not comment on it? Perhaps you disagree with something in it, or you know something the writer doesn't and can add some extra facts. You may want to ask a question about this article. Making a contribution is easy - either click 'edit' to insert more information or 'discussion' and then 'add comment.' This is your site. Please feel free to use it to the full and share your memories, thoughts and knowledge about Derbyshire with others.

If there is no 'edit' link showing it means the article has either previously been published in the Derby Evening Telegraph, or it has been protected by the site administrator and cannot be edited.'

Other tags that are relevant to Childhood memories inspire scenes from Derby’s steam era

Help us to improve You&Yesterday by adding more tags to this article. Simply edit this page, find this area and add the words in a list separated by commas next to the *.

To find out more about tagging please click here.

County: Derbyshire

Return to Major_Ley_and_his_office_staff_in_the_1950s

Retrieved from "http://www.youandyesterday.co.uk/articles/Childhood_memories_inspire_scenes_from_Derby%E2%80%99s_steam_era"

You can edit or add to this article.