North East Hidden Paintings

# Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Hitler?

# If you think we're on the run. # We are the boys who will stop

your little game! We are the boys who will make you think again!

# Cos who do you think you are kidding, Mr Hitler?

# If you think old England's done? Mr Brown goes off to town on the

8:21... # The Imperial War Museum, London.

I had a call from a man who wants me to meet him here. I have no idea

why. Mr Culshaw! Great to see you. Is it

you I am meeting here? Indeed it is, and this is the

reason why. Now, I cannot think of anybody better to take a look at

this particular painting. I have a great fondness for Dad's Army. My

dad was in the Royal Engineers, and I watched it with him and my

brother in the '70s and '80s. This is of the Grasmere Home Guard,

painted by Gilbert Spencer in 1943. Guard, painted by Gilbert Spencer

in 1943. It is a painting of us on location!

It is hard to believe this was painted in 1943. The likenesses to

the Dad's Army characters are amazing. Talking to Sergeant Wilson

there, it would appear. Bit of a big chain!

It might be Bruce Forsyth. Marvellous!

I have just found myself. Which one do you think's you? This one..

Yes, with a reassuring, wise hand on his shoulder there. Where was I

up to? I think we were discussing what to do with Pike.? So it's the

Grasmere Guard, for some reason. Ian, we thought, if you choose to

accept your mission, who better than to take a trip to Grasmere and

try and uncover the Enigma code of this painting, how would you feel

about a trip to investigate? You want me to go to the Lake

District. It's a hard decision. Cab's outside. I will do it, I will

do it! I was lying about the taxi, though. Oh, yes? So, how do I get

there? Maybe if we unchain that Spitfire off the ceiling, you could

go in that. I think I'd rather have something with four wheels! # You

can take the high road or you can take the low road.

Go the way the wind is blowing. Take the main road, the side road.

The cross road, the rail road. As long as you keep going

John's fascination with the Dad's Army painting at the Imperial War

Museum has sparked my journey of discovery. I have a hunch the pic

is hiding a number of secrets and has an intriguing tale to tell. So,

I'm going in search of the stories the Grasmere Home Guard painting

will uncover. What will it reveal? Where will it take me? A good place

to begin is right in the middle of the Lake District.

At the heart of Grasmere is a studio and gallery owned by the

Heaton Cooper family, who are renowned Lakeland landscape artists.

I thought the best way to find out about one painter would be to talk

to another one, so I've come to meet the youngest in this long line

of Lakeland artists, and find out what she can tell me about the

painting. Rebecca. Hello. Nice to meet you.

Right, so, the Grasmere Guard. This painting, what can you tell me?

I've had a look at it and we're often asked to identify landscape

pics, because we have lots of landscape paintings here in our

gallery. You mean the location? Yeah. We know the area quite well,

because our background are painters and we paint the landscape. I've

got a good idea where this is. I think it's quite close to here and

I think it's Rydal Water. You can tell that from this? It's just a

bit of water and two trees and you can tell the location from that?

Yeah, it has a feel of Rydal Water, I'm sure of it. I'll take you there

if you want to see it. Really? That'd be great. Thank you.

Rebecca, where are we? We're coming over the river, and we'll go down

to Rydal Water. Hopefully if we get further along the path, we'll be

able to find the possible location where it was painted. Is that OK?

It depends how far! It's not too far. OK, good!

# Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me. Anyone

else but me. Anyone else but me. No no no #! Hang on. This is it, isn't

it? Yeah, I think this is the spot. That's incredible! Yeah. You can

see the way that the lake fits perfectly. That's the tree. It just

feels right. Yeah. It doesn't look exactly like the painting. It just

has that feeling of this area. If you look at some of the trees,

especially on the right, the way the rocks are jutting out, the end

of the lake here goes into the river, so the direction of the

water... I mean, it's not an exact representation of what you can see

here, but I do think there's a feeling of this place. Sorry to go

back to Dad's Army, but this reminds me of being on location,

waiting! Are they just waiting around? I think so. I have talked

to a few people that can remember that period, older people, and they

would have used this as a training area. It's uncanny!

# Why do you whisper green grass? Why tell the trees what ain't so?

Whispering grass... #. So, I know who painted the picture,

and I think I can say where it was painted. The question I have now is

why was it painted here? Rebecca has sent me to the Armitt Museum in

Ambleside in search of further clues, but this time I'm looking

for a different painting of a Lakeland Dad's Army. It seems

there's another one! Beatrix Potter, certainly not Home

Guard! It's through here. This is stuff from the war. We're getting

Ambleside Home Guard. Not Grasmere, Deborah, this journey started for

me at the IMperial War Museum with Gilbert Spencer's painting of the

Grasmere Home Guard. 350 miles away, I find this painting of the

Ambleside Home Guard. Very popular subject here. Why? Well, in

Ambleside, largely because the Royal College of Art were evacuated

here during the war. The Royal... The Royal College of Art. In fact,

they were evacuated from South Kensington to Ambleside. They took

over two of the big hotels, the Salutation and the Queens. The men

lived in the Queens, and the women lived in the Salutation. They used

sheds and barns and everything they could find to use as studios.

These hidden paintings have led to the biggest revelation of my

journey so far! The Royal College of Art, regarded by many as the

world's most influential art institution evacutated to the Lake

District during war-time! 150 men and women sent away from the threat

of World War Two to Cumbria. A number of students and a member

of staff joined the Home Guard, so it was a popular subject. Amongst

all the things I can imagine a student wanting to do in his spare

time, joining the Home Guard doesn't seem an obvious one to me.

These were young people. Why the Home Guard? I think, like most

people, they wanted to do their bit. I think they found elements of it

rather fun. Why this as a subject? Well, it appears to be the case

that the Home Guard Hall in Ambleside was one of the few

buildings which was heated. They obviously had a fairly

reliable source of paraffin heaters and paraffin. Anybody with a source

of heat might be a source of painting. Absolutely. Yes! So, was

Fred Brill, the artist, in the Home Guard? He was indeed. He joined

immediately he came to Ambleside in 1942. He was a sergeant. He was a

sergeant? He was, he became a sergeant and he was very active.

Do we know other people in this painting? The chap sat at the back

with horn-rimmed spectacles, we think is Percy Horton, the drawing

master. It certainly looks like him. And there's a dog in there as well.

There's a dog in there, yeah. Brought their pets along. We had

the painting cleaned recently, and the dog appeared!

We didn't have any art students in the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard.

We just had the regular turnout of The Dad's Army artists were very

different indeed. I wonder what these bohemian creative types made

of living in rural Cumbria? Percy Horton, a Royal College tutor,

artist and member of the Lakeland Home Guard, wrote about his time as

an evacuee. I've been told his letters reveal what he thought

about Cumbria. "To my brother Ronald, the Royal

College of Art has chosen a superb spot. The country has fine

landscapes and magnificent vistas abound on all sides. I wish I had

visited this kind of country before, as it is inspiring in a big way.

Here, the people don't know there is a war on, and the presence of

well-to-do evacuees give an air of security and prosperity. It's a

relief to see an absence of broken glass and rubble. I had a pleasant

walk yesterday to Rydal Water, passing landscape after landscape."

The beautiful Cumbrian countryside inspired the artists, gave them

food for thought. Though it was the local people who really made an

impression on Percy Horton. "To Walter Strachan. What with one

thing and another, I have been very distressed. I'm struggling to

finish two canvases, one snowscape and the other a portrait of

character study, which is one of the best things of this kind I have

done for some time. It is of an old woman in a blue-grey coat with a

sort of chequered scarf around her neck." So, where can I find this

hidden gem, this portrait of a lady that Percy Horton was so proud of?

The search has led me to Ambleside, where I have been offered a peek

behind the scenes at the museum. it a surprise? A bit! We are two

floors down. You would not expect it. Not at all. There are about

65,000 things in here. 65,000? Books, manuscripts, pictures,

mostly stored in a here. How many pictures? About 2.500. There are

two Percy Hortons? There are two we are going to look at. Do you know

where they are? I know where they are. I am glad you said that!

you. Where are they? Well, here's the

first one. That's the shepherd. He is a man deep in thought. These

truly are hidden paintings. We are lucky we get to see them. What

about the public? They are hidden simply for protection, but also

because we can only show so many at any given time. And where is she?

She is just next to you. Just one step behind. Mrs Simpson.

Simpson. She's lovely. Do we know who she was? I think I remember

reading she was the lady who took in washing for the students. I

think so. I could be wrong but I think she was. It's a wonderful

Mrs Simpson was a local housewife who did in fact help the students

with their washing, but she was not a washer woman. Her family got a

bit indignant about that. The shepherd was in fact a road mender,

but Percy Horton took a bit of artistic licence. It was more

romantic to have a washerwoman and a shepherd. The shepherd was very

popular among students, because he had this great ability to sit still.

It says here, the shepherd sat as still as the roads he used to mend,

and wouldn't budge when the students got restless and in need

of a break, finding it easier to carry on sitting them to shift his

painful limbs from his restful So, the Lakeland Home Guard was

made up on one side of the Royal College academics and artists, and

on the other side by local men. Rugged, outdoors types, no doubt

with grit under their fingernails. And familiar with the great

outdoors. These were chaps like Joss Hardistry, a local soldier who

served alongside the artists. His son Richard wants to share some

stories. This was their stamping ground, was it? This was their

stamping ground during the war. As a member of Grasmere's Home

Guard. My Dad's Army, if you like. Dare I say your dad's Dad's Army!

Being a farmer, he didn't go off to fight the war and he was

automatically part of the local Home Guard. He spent a lot of time

in that platoon with the tutors and their teachers. Yes, not so much

their students', but the tutors, and in particular Gilbert Spencer,

who served with Dad in Grasmere Home Guard. Gilbert and his

entourage were in a house at the bottom end of Grasmere. He found

Why are we in this particular spot? Well, we are at Raisbeck on the

side of Dunmail Raise, here, and we're heading over to the flank of

Steel Fell, and I will show you where the pill box is, where Dad

would spend many hours, often during the night, guiding the

Is it against the law to have a bridge here, then? I think it be

frowned upon! Come on, you are not that soft!

who was the sergeant? That was Heaton Cooper, whose mannerisms

very much were like John Le Mesurier. A quiet, gentle man.

Father had funny tales. If they were doing night duty at the drill

hall, frequently, Heaton would drop off to sleep. He would get a bit of

ribbing about that. He'd say he thought he made the Horlicks a bit

strong before he came on night duty!

It's a while since I've been up here. If my memory serves me right,

it was done with a camoflauge painting. You're not going to tell

me the students painted it? Well, perhaps Gilbert Spencer painted it.

You never know! Perhaps it was their student's artwork.

May I ask, did your father ever say what they thought they were

guarding up here? I don't think he quite knew, really. Possibly

against any invasion that might come from the north over Dunmail

Raise here. Were there any scares? One night, they had sharp notice

that the Germans were planning an invasion from the north. I think

there were about six rifles locked under Heaton Cooper's stairs

cupboard, picked up a few pitchforks, axes, chunks of wood

and crowbars, put the wagon across the road and positioned themselves

to halt the Nazis. As it happened, it was an exercise, if you like. It

wasn't the real thing, but they showed their initiative!

Shall we look inside? Yes, please! Look down there, Ian. How about

that for a view? Oh! You wouldn't mind coming up and guarding this,

would you? Just to look at that all day.

It'd make a nice weekend cottage. # You've bitten off much more than

you can chew #. My search to discover wartime

Cumbria through hidden paintings is now taking me in one direction.

Given that we know that some of these part-time students were also

artists, it can only mean one thing. We're off down the pub.

After a pint down the local, I've no doubt the Royal College artists

would soon become familar faces around Ambleside. The art students

during the war, I've learnt that they were very much part of the

local scene, forgive the pun, but this was their local, wasn't it?

certainly was. You're far too young to remember, of course, but you

must have got stories about them? Well, they came lockstock and

barrel from London in 1940. Brought their own barrel? No, I provided

that! The old barn at the back was one of

the student studios that they used and consequently, they were drawn

to the pub here. There used to be a big open fireplace down in that

room and they'd all sit round it, take their shoes off and sing songs

and tell dirty jokes. Oh, no! Absolutely. They would never have

done that. Yes, and they had a great time here. So, how much part

of the pub life were they? Darts teams? They got involved in the

whole village scene. I've been able to get a few pictures here you may

be interested in. This was all about a football match held between

The Golden Rule and The Royal Oak. Oh, look at that! Albert Faulkner's

11. Who's Albert Faulkner? The Royal Oak's the other pub. Albert

and Minnie ran the pub from 1940 to We suspect these were painted in

lieu of beer that was drunk by Mr Thistlethwaite, who painted them.

Look at that! Every one of them with a flat hat. Everyone wore a

hat in those days, of course. I'm quite convinced that it would

be much more entertaining nowadays if you played football with a ball

like that, and dressed like that as well.

Absolutely! That is gorgeous. So these were hung on the wall here in

the pub? Oh, no, these were given to Albert at his time of licensee.

After this period, when the students left, they've never seen

the light of day since. Are you serious? Absolutely. They've been

stored away in the loft. They're very interesting, aren't they?

These once-hidden paintings have now gone on display for the first

time at the Armitt Museum in Ambleside. How marvellous!

Stuart Clarke is a football photographer, and pretty familiar

with looking at every day pictures of the beautiful game. I wondered

what he could see in his two paintings. So this is the ground

where the match took place? sacred turf, this very ground. It's

lovely, isn't it? The match depicted in our painting would have

drawn a crowd of locals see what these Bohemian upstarts were up to

and their prancing ways. They were trying to find their feet in the

Lake District. They were from all over the country, these 150

students. Probably the males thought they would bond further by

having a football team and represent the local pub, and if we

score a goal, we'll get a round of drinks given us.

Yes. John was saying they possibly used them as means of payment, but

of course they'd get rewarded for What do you see in these that

perhaps...well, certainly, I don't? They're the lost treasures to me. I

mean, the first sight of them is just...wow! Here they are, lost to

Found in a box, apparently, and the things I pick up as someone who

looks at crowds and composes all my shots is, you know, there's lot of

little details here. At first sight, maybe you don't see them. There's a

beer element in both pictures. pint there. Yeah, and a bottle

there. The only bit of colour. yes, that's the label!

The only bit of colour through the grey drabness of the men's feet

there. In this one, I love the shadow and the speed of this guy.

This guy is peculiarly dressed. He's got these strange gloves on.

He's got some strange things keeping his socks up. And the

ball's a mixture of the planet Venus and a beach ball. It's a

funny, quick snapshot of the time. What wouldn't we get nowadays?

I take my pictures now, I think, what in 10, 20 years time, what are

the things that are going to be remarkable about my photographs?

Here in the paintings, there's the kind of greyness and the flat caps,

which you won't see. Quite a few moustaches and the big beard on the

football player. And certainly not the suspenders!

And certainly not the rather fancy gloves. Yeah, it was a different,

gentle time. These paintings reveal that the

Royal College of Art would leave a footprint in Cumbria for ever. A

student called Gordon Ransom left a lasting legacy that can be seen

today, and I believe it can be found at St Mary's Church in

Ambleside. So, to help me in my journey, I'm meeting three ladies

who may be able to point out a familiar face or two. This hidden

painting is so big, it hides itself! It's incredible! But what

we need to know is what is the painting of. All I know is it's the

Rushbearing painting. What does that mean? The Rushbearing goes

back to a time where there were no tiles on the church floors, so

people collected rushes and put them on the floor. I see! Once a

year, presumably once a year, these are all changed.

It sort of became a ceremony, celebrating this event. The picture

over there is the beginning of the This bit is when they're in the

marketplace in the middle of Ambleside, where we sang the

Rushbearing hymn. Yes. Then we carried on to the church, then the

church was decorated. I see. Then a service when the Rushbearing hymn

was sung again. It was done, I think, as a thank

you to the people of Ambleside from the college, who'd been evacuated

here during the war. Oh, really? the locals. That's lovely. Take me

round the painting. First, we've got... The very left-hand half

face... The one eye? Yeah. That's Gordon Ransom. The artist? Yes. Yes.

With his girlfriend in front. know all the gossip, don't we?

we do, yes! Can you just point out where you are, Marjorie?

Yes, I'm at the front of the middle group, with the dark-coloured dress

on, carrying the long pole with the ribbon in my hair. Joan? And I'm on

the entrance, in the dark red dress, with the white ribbon in my hair.

Shirley, where are you? I'm the little one at the front there with

the basket of flowers and the orange ribbon. Now, next to you,

Marjorie, do you know who this girl is? I don't. I find her fascinating.

She's got one hand up and nothing in her hand. I think she's asking

to be allowed to leave the room! Well, the procession is quite long!

It is! When strangers come into the church,

what's their reaction to it? I do the flowers in here regularly, and

they come in and they're, oh, can we take picture of it? They're in

awe of it, really. And then, do you know anybody on it, and I say, well,

I'm on it. Do they make you stand next to it and be photographed?

So that's the end of my wonderful voyage. Time to return to London

and reveal what I've discovered. The trip that began with Gilbert's

Spencer Grasmere Home Guards painting at the Imperial War Museum.

Ian, good to see you again. you! How was your voyage of

discovery? It was marvellous! You sent me looking for why, and we

found so much that we weren't expecting. Did you know that the

Royal College of Art were evacuated up there in the war? I had no idea.

They were evacuated at the start of the war, about three to one ladies

to men, cos most young men were in the services, with all the tutors

and teachers, into two hotels in Ambleside. The real prize was that

you sent me off to find out why this painting. I think I was

standing on the spot where he put his easel, and we think it couldn't

It's amazing, the secrets one painting can reveal, and the