Once upon a time, back when I was a child and teenager, I spent all my spare time drawing, painting and writing. I married as a teenager – and very soon discovered wifedom and motherhood didn’t allow me the time to be a renaissance woman – able to do all things. By the time I had my third child I was back at study and the paint box was coming out less and less. Then I entered my 30’s knowing I had a novel within me, demanding to be written. Realising that I was far better at writing than painting, I decided at that point it was better to aspire to grow in one artistic area rather than spread myself too thin and not grow at all. I also wanted to ensure my family wasn’t too neglected in the meantime. Thus, the paint box was put away while I focused on writing.

Those years of attempting visual art enriched me as a writer. Painting and drawing teaches you to use your eyes – really use your eyes. Landscapes and seascapes become more than matter of green hills and blue seas. You see it as a skilled observer of the world around you. The surf pounds the rocks in fury, its white froth tossed into the air by power and wind. Skies evoke the change of time and season, and emotion.

On the table beside me is a book with the painting by Ford Maddox Brown, The last of England (1855) on its cover. In the painting, a young, married couple huddles close together. Pensively, the man gazes seemingly unseeingly ahead and not at the woman beside him, as if unable to turn to her and witness her face. She holds his hand, nursing their baby, hidden under her heavy grey cloak. Nothing is seen of the child but a tiny hand, held in comfort by the mother. The faces of the man and woman are pinched with cold and unspoken grief – the grief of those who will soon be exiled.

I close my eyes and instantly my imagination conjures up a girl of about sixteen. She sits in a window-seat in her long, white shift. If I was to draw her, I would show her with her back against the stone and hugging her legs to her. The growing light behind her comes from the break of dawn; as yet there is not much colour in the scene. She hears a sound and lifts her face. We come closer to her and her eyes look straight at us. At first, she seems frightened, but then she breaks into a welcoming smile. By seeing the picture in your mind, you can paint, like they say, a thousand words.