Croydon Connection

There are beautiful drawings of fairies that are very popular.   Once you see them, you can begin to recognize the same hand must have drawn them.  They were done by an artist named Cicely Mary Barker and she is from the same town where my husband was born, which is Croydon, England.

 There is another artist who is very popular in Europe but is almost unknown in the U.S.A. and he also is from Croydon.  (He was born in Kent, but spent most of his childhood in Croydon.)  He is a musical artist and his name is Ralph McTell.   I will try to have a song by him from YouTube here called "From Clare To Here".  It is a beautiful song which he wrote, but you sometimes can see it listed as "Irish Traditional", when he fact it was written by Ralph McTell.  One of his biggest hits has been "Streets of London" and our family very much enjoys a children's album which he did in the 80's called "Alphabet Zoo".   He is an excellent guitarist and songwriter and it is surprising that more people are not familar with him.  Strangely enough, he and his brother actually posed as children for Miss Barker for one of her fairy pictures. Ralph McTell has written two books.  "Angel Laughter" and "Summer Lightning".  The first one is about his childhood and the second one about his adult life and musical career.  I highly recommend both of these books, as I also recommend his music. 

Just listen for yourself... and also remember, the beautiful artwork of Cicely Mary Barker and please note how wonderfully she captured the images of all the flowers that she painted.  They are perfect.