Saddleworth Voices have recorded almost 70 interviews to preserve fond memories and anecdotes of all things local.
With the support of Saddleworth Parish Council, Delph Community Association, Delph library, Saddleworth Museum, and the North West Sound Archive in Clitheroe, the team of volunteers has created an oral record of our times, with the added advantage of capturing accent and dialect.
Here, Terry Richmond looks at the life of john McCombs (part 2).
John McCombs is a well-known locally based artist with a studio in Delph and has been painting scenes in Saddleworth for nearly 50 years (read more in Part 1).
He is a member of The Royal Institute of Oil Painters, The Royal Society of British Artists, The Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, and The Saddleworth Group of Artists.
His wife, Sheila Dewsbury, is also an artist and is the archivist for Manchester Academy of Fine Arts.
John graduated from St Martin’s School of Art in London, in 1967. His final exam marks were the highest on record for 25 years and the Head of Painting offered him a job there. However, on a day trip with a friend, looking for somewhere to walk, and going wherever the bus took them, the bus topped the rise at the Star Inn and, “Suddenly, Saddleworth opened out in front of us covered in glistening white snow under winter morning sunshine. I was enchanted.
“We arrived at Delph. The name reminded me of Delft and the Dutch painter Vermeer. I looked down the street with snow on the ground and thought this is where I want to paint: the hills and houses and dry stone walls rather than scenes of London, paintings of the Tame rather than the Thames.”
His first studio was in Dobcross, a result of helpful advice from the writer and playwright Henry Livings, who had bought John a pint on his first visit to The Swan.
John began to discover Saddleworth, painting landscapes of bleak beauty, Morris dancers, garland dancers, and brass bands.
He also taught classes at Saddleworth School and at Counthill School in Oldham “so I wasn’t stuck in the studio all the time”.
However, too much time away from painting meant he gave up teaching, except for one evening class he has had for 49 years.
John found a studio in Delph when the late Revd Edward Lewis offered him a room in the Independent Church Sunday School building. One winter afternoon, John recalls “It was snowing; it was twilight; I could see lights coming on and smoke curling from the chimneys.
“I had a marvellous feeling and decided to do an oil painting. I had come back to the medium I loved and my intention was to make a total visual record of Delph and the surrounding landscape in all of the seasons.”
In 1970, John delivered an invitation for his first exhibition to L.S.Lowry at his home in Mottram. John knocked at his door. “You’d better come in,” said the great man, and John stayed and talked with him all afternoon.
Lowry advised John to join a Royal Art Society to enable exhibiting in London “where the country will get to know you”.
John can be found at his present studio and gallery in The Craft Cooperative, Main Street, Delph and also visit his website: www.johnmccombs.co.uk
