Sailor's diaries inspire great-granddaughter's art
BBCAn artist has used her great-grandfather's sea journals to create a tribute to him.
The three diaries, written by John Henry Lowry from St Mawes, Cornwall, offer a unique insight into his career in the 1890s, working on ships sailing to and from South America.
Julia McKenzie, from Somerset, discovered the books at her father’s house while caring for him in 2014.
It has taken her 10 years to create the display called Uncharted: Sea Journals of a Cornish Mariner which are on show in Truro.
Mr Lowry was born into a working class family in St Mawes in 1867 and became a master mariner during his career.
His diaries capture life on the tall ships, taking cargo such as coal and steel to South America, returning with minerals, guano and beef.
They detail how he survived storms, shortage of water, war and disease, plus single-handedly saved the ship's crew from certain death navigating through the sea ice of the South Atlantic.
He died in 1935.
Ms McKenzie, from Ilminster, found the diaries when she was helping to care for her father, also John Henry, who was in the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
She said: "We were sitting with him very peacefully and I just wanted to find something to do.
"I found these diaries and suddenly this other John Henry from the 1890s who I never met just suddenly became really present.
"It was a really beautiful irony that he was becoming really clear to me while my own John Henry, my dad, was just drifting away."
Ms McKenzie's artwork, which she has created from the three journals, together with photographs, postcards and her own drawings and paper-cut paintings, is on display at the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro until 2 November.
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