assume that she enjoyed the work as she stayed til the early 60s. Incidentally, both these students have become successful artists themselves. St Michael’s was a private school, part of the Parents’ National Education Union. Member schools synchronized their timetables, so that children of parents who had to move frequently would not be at a disadvantage in a new school. Their policy was to treat children as individuals and to give a broad grounding in education.


In 1953, with Norna Beadle and others, Dorothy founded the Tavistock Group of Artists, still going strong and holding an annual exhibition in June. She donated the Ward Cup, still awarded each year to the artist accumulating most votes from visitors to the exhibition. Between 1958 and 1960, the Group painted a huge mural on a room at Abbotsfield Hall, then a Youth Hostel. It shows walkers, a horse- rider and cyclists surveying Tavistock from a point in the air above Drake’s statue, so looking along Plymouth Road to Bedford Square with Dartmoor in the distance. It seems to me that Dorothy was responsible for the left-hand foreground with Ford Street and the Hospital, and maybe the viaduct, with train. The work was damaged during the years that the house was left empty, 1982-4, but fortunately the new owners had it restored rather than paint it over. The Tavistock Group of Artists also produced at least one folder of black and white prints by their members, in which Dorothy is represented along with artists like Margary Kelly, Victor Gregory, and others, with work dated from the late 60s to the mid 70s.


Claire became very much involved with the Girl Guides in Tavistock, becoming a Guide Leader, and Dorothy went along with her. The sisters were very close. Neither married; they lived almost their whole lives together. Their father died in 1945, aged 77, their mother in 1967, aged 82, and the sisters remained in the family home at Chollacott Park, till forced by ill- health to leave in the early 1990s. They lived quietly and privately in the impressive house, surrounded by the enormous Victorian furniture from their parents’ youth, wardrobes full of antique clothes and elaborate evening dresses, walls covered with paintings, many by Dorothy and Claire, like living in another and more genteel age. But they were in


Sutton Harbour


Michael Ward with Eric and Ernie


1988 Roses


no way stand-offish. On the contrary, everyone I spoke to remembered them as delightful, sweet, warm, generous and good fun. Of their few close relatives one was


1976 Whitchurch


a first cousin, the actor Michael Ward, born just months before Dorothy. He became well-known as a character actor in all those wonderful British films made in the decades after the War: Doctor in Love, the Carry On series, the Norman Wisdom movies, and played Adrian, neighbour of Morecombe and Wise. Dorothy was so well-known as an artist that in 1974 she was asked to design a Coat-of-Arms for the new West Devon Borough Council. This still hangs in the Mayor’s Parlour. The art I’ve seen from the years 1960-1980 consists mainly of very accomplished watercolours of buildings, while after 1980 she seems to have concentrated on flower paintings. The last one I’ve seen is from 1988, an exquisite depiction of roses. By then she was very frail and moved into Chollacott Nursing Home. Claire moved to a smaller


house; the big house was sold with nearly all the contents. Dorothy died in May 1994, aged 84. Claire also spent her last years in Chollacott House, accompanied by her beloved white cat, Tina, and died aged 90 in 2001. They are buried with their parents in the churchyard of St Andrew’s at Whitchurch, having had, I believe, happy and fulfilled lives.


There isn’t space to thank all the people who have so kindly helped me, but I must give a special mention to Patti Frost who succeeded in the difficult task of photographing the pictures.


The Dorothy CP Ward exhibition will take place at Tavistock Town Hall during the annual


Tavistock Group of Artists Exhibition from Wednesday 22nd to Sunday 26th June.


Jane Miller would be delighted to hear from readers who have any information on Dorothy Ward and can be contacted on 01822 614821 or email: elizabeth.miller123@ btinternet.com


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