True stories
June 2002
The Boy and the Painter
Scenes from Alfred Wallis's St Ives
by Albert Rowe
The author was a relation of the painter Alfred Wallis and the title story in this collection describes graphically and with humour the boy’s fraught relationship with the old man: “Lovely fish,” I said sincerely. I didn’t think much of the boats, for they were of a kind I’d drawn when I was much younger … “I’ll tell’ee something about them fish”, Alfred said. He lowered his voice, glanced towards the stairs that led up to the bedroom. “I don’t want she to ‘ear. She’s up there, you knaw. They do all think she’s dead but she edn’t” …’
