FOR a small town, Silsden has produced quite a range of artists over the years.

In his impressive book Past Silsden Artists, Colin Neville celebrates seven of them - Stan Boardman, Jack Clarkson, Hildred Harpin, Doris Schrecker, Augustus Spencer, Dorothy Wade and Joseph West. They are, says Colin, all now largely forgotten.

“The remarkable thing about most is their rise from relatively humble backgrounds,” says Colin. “Stan Boardman, Jack Clarkson, Augustus Spencer and Joseph West all came from working-class households, and the others were from families that, in terms of income, were comfortable, but certainly not affluent.”

The styles of each artist reflect the age they lived in, as well as their personalities and experiences. “If a single characteristic can be found among them, it is in their determination to use their art abilities to best advantage, not just for themselves but for others too,” says Colin, an art enthusiast who features the life and work of artists from the district, past and present, on his website Not Just Hockney.

Colin’s book begins with a profile of Stan Boardman, a self-taught signwriter who, in his late 50s, over a 12-month burst of creativity, produced a series of striking cartoon-style paintings based on his 1920s childhood in the Fell lane area of Keighley.

The poverty of his childhood was forever etched on his memory - one of the first scenes he painted was the local pawn shop where he was sent with family clothing tied in a bundle.

Stan showed an early talent for art but played it down at school after he was teased by the other boys. He left school aged 14 and worked at Ingrow Mill, then in his late teens he began to utilise his art skills by drawing portraits of local people and designing business cards for shopkeepers. He went round pubs in the town, sketching regulars and selling his work to them, and he visited Keighley Library, studying text books on graphic design and lettering. In the mid-1930s he met a Bradford pub licensee who rented out fairground machinery; Stan helped to restore and decorate it, leaving to other casual jobs, and quickly gained a reputation for his signwriting and lettering skills. He went on to work on projects for businesses and taught himself glass gliding and wood carving. In the 1970s, encouraged by friends, he began to paint scenes from childhood. It was, he said, as if he “suddenly understood what he really wanted to do”.

One of the paintings included in Colin’s book is of a solder with no legs, holding a sign saying ‘I am not begging’. Another shows a row of children with shaven heads, in grey uniforms, being herded into an orphanage. Others show lads in flat caps and ragged shorts playing out.

Says Colin: “Although most of his paintings were lighthearted, there was often a serious or ironic edge to them, as if reminding people that the ‘good old days’ were not so good for some.”

In 1974 an exhibition of Stan’s paintings at Keighley’s Cliffe Castle Museum attracted over 7,000 people. The following year London’s Foyle Gallery hosted the exhibition, leading to interest from the national Press, and Stan became the focus of a TV series.

Using different techniques - oils, cartoons, signwriting and the style he’d used to paint fairground equipment - Stan developed an art form he described as “theatrical”.

In later years he and his wife lived in Silsden and, after his death, in 1996, Silsden Town Hall held an exhibition of his work. Profits from Past Silsden Artists will support the community-run town hall.

l To order Past Silsden Artists by Colin Neville visit notjusthockney.info