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In 1961 I was at primary school in north London when our teacher asked everyone in the class to paint a galleon. Without thinking much about it I made a 10-year-old’s attempt, with uninspiring results. When I arrived at school the next day I was surprised to see it hanging on the wall – but not nearly as surprised as I was by what was hanging next to it.
Beside my shoddy rendering was a Spanish galleon – in brilliant detail – sailing into a sunset. Its masts were perfect and its sails hung limp in the air on the calm sea. It was incredible and I couldn’t believe one of my classmates had done it. I asked the boy standing beside me who had painted it. “Little Brownie”, he told me and pointed at a blond girl.
I’d never noticed Lynne before and at that moment I should have walked across the room and told her just how amazing I thought her painting was. But I was just a little boy, so of course I didn’t. I went back to my seat and never said a word to her.
We were in school together for five more years. I’d see her around but we never chatted. Then one day she was gone. Lynne left school at 15 and I wouldn’t see her again for 55 years.
I finished school, did a fitting and turning apprenticeship and moved to Australia in 1973 but I never forgot about her. I’ve kept a journal all my life and every now and again I’d find my thoughts drifting back to my “galleon girl” – what happened to her and what she did with her talent. We were both from working-class families and I hoped she hadn’t had to forsake her talent just to pay the bills – I was saddened to think a gift like hers might have gone to waste.
I settled on the Sunshine Coast, married and had a family but went back to the UK regularly. I’d catch up with old schoolfriends and always ask if anyone knew what had become of her but it seemed as though she’d disappeared off the face of the Earth.
In 2016 my wife died and I took myself on a worldwide wander. I wound up back in England for a wedding where I sat with some people Lynne and I had been at school with. Again, I couldn’t help myself: “Does anyone know whatever happened to Lynne Brown?” One of the women at the table said she thought she knew someone who would know, and soon I was on the phone to them trying to explain that I was so enraptured by this painting of Lynne’s from more than half a century ago that I still thought about it. She gave me Lynne’s email address.
Back in Australia, I got in touch explaining who I was and asking if she remembered the picture. It turned out she did and she’d kept it for years. We became pen pals and towards the end of 2019. Then I flew to England just to have a drink with her.
We met on the corner outside her local pub in Sonning. Lynne still laughs at my showing up in tailored black slacks and blood-red dress shirt to her local boozer. The conversation flowed and we discovered we were born four miles apart in Greenwich before both our families were moved into new housing estates in Boreham Wood. Our accents were similar, as was our humour. I learned that Lynne had married young. Her mother wouldn’t let her go to art school but she did go on to a career in graphic design and eventually became an art teacher.
As the sun was going down we wandered back to her charming 17th-century stone cottage on the Thames. Our first date lasted 31 days. We barely left the house.
Covid happened, and there were worse places I could have found myself marooned. We had plenty in common; both widowed with two grown daughters each and a clutch of grandkids between us.
I had to return to Australia and border closures kept us apart for some long stretches but somehow that only brought us closer. We travelled throughout Europe when we could and our shared love of Scotland, and the Isle of Mull in particular, bonded us.
Eventually I decided to move to the UK permanently to be with her. Right now we are looking for a house to settle in in Cornwall where we can continue our creative pursuits together into the sunset. I still write every day and Lynne can still do a portrait in minutes. She is so very talented and it impresses me as much today as it did the first time I saw her work more than 60 years ago.
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