He only done it to pass away the time because, I mean to say he didn’t want no worldly goods because he had his pension. He lived in his little house on his own out there.
And we used to wonder at the artists going in there so much you know, they would go in, and they were carrying wood, you know, for him to paint on, pictures. We used to say, well what do they see in that picture? Well of course we’ve known since that he was the cleverest artist around.
And we used to go in there and my mother used to cook for the old man. And when we used to leave the plates out there and the little basins with his dinner, he used to you know, draw and them and paint, on the little basins, you see, with the gravy and things in them.
He used to live in Back Row just by where Harry’s Court is now.
A little tiny man with blue eyes, I don’t suppose he is more than five foot tall.
Very often when you went in there he was painting on something. Sometimes he would let you watch him a bit.
He used to say “here you are my dear, carry this home” we used to get the marmalade in those days with stone jars, well I used to carry them home, mother used to say to me: “Well don’t for heaven’s sake, Emily, bring any more of them in”.
He never took up painting until the latter years of his life, after his wife deceased. Then he started doing little bits of sketches of boats and vessels and steamboats and landscapes, and some were drawn on bits of cardboard. Then he would put them outside, and if you went there, he would explain to you, in his way, the detail of every part of the sail and what it was used for.
Alfred always had his door open. And Ben Nicholson and this friend was going by and they sort of stood and looked and had a chat about them, and then they decided they would like to go inside and have look if Alfred didn’t mind, and of course nothing pleased Alfred better than that for anybody to come and see his paintings, you know. So he was really thrilled to bits when these people came in and had a look around, and from then, well, Alfred started to be noticed.
He said to father one day, “Jacob”, he said, “I wonder what they artist fellows can thing of us here and my bits of cardboard.” He said “They must think something about them Alfred” he said, “to buy them!”
He used to paint all day, ships, the last one that I remember that he painted, my husband come in here he said “come here and see Mr Wallis’s latest”. On the screen he had painted a boat and a lighthouse, but the waves were putting the boat above the lighthouse. It was amusing!
So I said to Mr Burleigh “why is it you took so much interest in these pictures being of an unqualified man?” he said “Mrs Ward” he said “I’ll tell you. Although we are” he said “supposed professional artists, we seemly can’t get the sea so real as he did.”
