MEMORIES of 1930s Farnworth have been given a "contemporary reality" by artist Lubaina Himid in a new exhibition to be shown later this year at Bolton Art Gallery.
The artist, currently Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Lancaster, explained: "These paintings are the result of many jolly hours chatting with my mother Laura and Aunt Betty about their time as children just before the Second World War, living a carefully protected life in the midst of the dire poverty of the depression and the aftermath of the General Strike.
"They talk about food, music, clothes, wallpaper, the pub, miners, their wives, weddings, the driver who was a coal man and the nanny who was married to a French man. They opened Children's Corner at St George's Church." Their mother used to sing with actors at the British Queen as they waited for the train."
The result is a series of brightly coloured double paintings, which are twinned with images from the Mass Observation archive.
Among the memories on display are the old Bridgewater Arms, the allotments at Moses Gate and the fire which destroyed Boots the chemist.
The exhibition, entitled Double Life, runs from Saturday to December 1.
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