My Love of Yorkshire
This is me and my mum, Dulcie, looking very like Rita Hayworth. She was only a child herself when she gave birth to me in Penang, Malaya.With the fall of Singapore in the Second World War my life was to change significantly. My father was to be shot in to his own grave by the Japanese and my mother remarried a Yorkshire man. Huddersfield was to be my first home in England before we moved to Barnsley. It was here that my love of art was recognised by my school teacher and headmaster - they were to provide a security that I did not find at home. Barnsley was also to provide me with two main people in my life - My wife Anne and Ron Darwent my old signwriting boss who was to become a father figure to me ( sadly he has recently passed away)
As a young boy I would take the bus from Barnsley over Langsett to find peace and solitude but not isolation, you can feel that in a room full of people you do not have to be alone to feel that.
The moorland provided me with a passion and a mission - from that age I knew what I wanted to be and for that I am lucky.
The sun will burn you
The wind will chill you
But only people will make you cry…
That is why I am so in love with the
moorland uplands of Yorkshire – God’s County
You can read more about my life in the biography "An Artist's Life" by Chris Bond
http://www.ashley-jackson.co.uk/collections/books/products/ashley-jacksons-biography