My mother, Janet Stowell, who has died aged 88, was a trained artist. She also worked as a designer before turning to producing linocut designs as a sideline while raising her family. Later came weaving and teaching tai chi.Janet was born in Didsbury, Manchester, as the youngest of the four children of Gordon Medcalf and his wife, Cecilia (nee Bool), but grew up in Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, where her father ran a printing company. Independent and self-reliant from an early age, Janet was 13 when her mother died and her elder siblings left home. She learned to be happy in her own company, drawing and enjoying the freedom of horse riding in the Chiltern hills. Continue reading...