Retirement Bliss

- Don Rawding

I knew there was something different about me when my painting of a tree with a red trunk was shown to my class of fellow nine-year-olds. Yes – I was colour blind. Like quite a few men, I was colour deficient in red, green and brown.

I was born in Chesterfield, England, in 1938. I progressed though school and in 1955 passed my GCE Art. It was one of the few subjects that I enjoyed; and that was the only tuition I initially had in art. I left school and became an apprentice draughtsman at Rolls Royce Aero Engines in Chesterfield. The training was very strict and I remember the first few weeks when I spent all day learning to print 0.160 inches high and black (B pencil). The letters and numbers were upright and highly standardised to prevent misreading of the finished drawings. To this day, I still prefer to write in block capitals 0.160 inches high.

In 1970, with my wife Aileen and our two small children, I moved to Johannesburg in South Africa. I remember the incredible sight of the Jacarandas in Pretoria, Table Mountain, Kruger National Park, and Victoria Falls. We were there for five years before returning to England – where I went back to Rolls Royce.

In 1982, we must have still had the travel bug because we all moved to Wellington, New Zealand – where we spent the next 23 years. It was there at the age of 60 that I started my artistic career with a tentative watercolour painting of the council offices where I worked. I remember my embarrassment as I stood in the Civic Square in my lunch break, drawing under the gaze of passers-by. The result was quite good, or so the lady in the framing shop said. Anyway, I was quite encouraged by this and continued to do watercolours in the time remaining after work and golf.