Grandad’s art, pictures from overseas in WW2.

I would spend many school holiday’s staying at my grandparents place. If I wasn’t making an Airfix plastic model kit or mucking about with friends in their garden, quite often I’d be pencil in hand drawing imagined tank battles or other such military things at the kitchen table . Quite often Grandad would sometimes sketch me something . It always struck me that his drawings were really good . Much better than my efforts . It shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise though . He had a natural talent for that kind of thing . Although a carpenter by trade his sideline was drafting house plans for the many local builders . He was never formally trained as a draughtsperson but used his skill and attention to detail with pen / pencil and self taught knowledge to good use .

I can’t remember exactly when he gave me the sketch he produced during the war of his half track from 1944 whilst in Italy ? I’d like to think it was after one of my sketching sessions , but that would be fanciful. I do remember him asking me to look after it though , which I have ever since. The sketch is of his M3 ‘ White’ half track , the humble means of transport for many allied service men during the war .

Not until Grandad passed away did I come to find out that his surviving military art work consisted of far more than the one sketch in my keeping . When my father was sorting through Grandad’s possessions he came across a collection of drawings he sent back to family while on active service overseas , each one a kind of ‘postcard’ . I don’t know much about the technical side of how this service was provided , but it looks like each picture was sent back as a photographic negative to be developed once in England? Everyone in the family was impressed with the quality of the pictures. The text in each ‘postcard’ had obvious poignant family significance . Dad took the collection and mounted all the pictures in one frame . This stayed in the family home until I inherited it when both my parents passed away at far too young an age .

Each picture is roughly postcard size . I would assume originally they were drawn on a far larger piece of paper ? They are certainly not the original work . Grandad has left a clue to how the service was provided in a message written to Grandmother on one of the cards , ‘ My dearest Ivy , just an airgraph to let you know I still remember and expect to spend August 1945 with you’ . So each one is something called an ‘airgraph’. I shall do a little more research regards this .

I’ll finish this piece with a sample of some of the above postcards or air-graphs in a little more detail. As can be seen they are really very good. But more than that they are a personal and unique link to the past .