Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
MY AMAZING ARTWORK & LIFE
Now and then, a remarkable story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things is unearthed when a reader gets in touch.
This is 94-year-old Charles Good and his painting of the beautiful green place inspired by where he now lives with Jay Desai and her family in Harrow, Middlesex.
It soon became clear that Jay and Charles were not related, and the tale of how one family’s humanity saved a lonely, sick man was revealed.
When Charles first got in touch, he said: “I have never painted anything seriously before this pandemic. My two efforts to date are one which I composed myself and another of the back garden.”
I responded and it was Jay who replied this time. “It’s by Charles – we call him Charlie – he’s living with us as an adopted father as he had no one and was going through cancer. In fact he’s had cancer five times, but he’s a fighter.”
I asked how they had met, and Jay told me: “We had a shop in Dagenham in 1990 and Charlie used to come in to buy his Daily Mirror every day. We got chatting and I asked him if his wife would like a small job picking up and dropping my young children to school. Next morning, he came and asked if he could do it as he’d lost his wife last year.
“I said no as he was chainsmoker then, but bless him, he promised not to smoke in front of the children.
“At that time he’d had part of his nose amputated because of cancer, and I asked him to become part of our family life but only if he gave up smoking. He came early next morning and said he’d given up.
“In 1995, we sold our shop and planned to move to a green belt area. He was so upset at having to be lonely again that we decided to take him with us.
“The first picture is Charlie with me last Christmas. And the second picture is Charlie with us all when the children were young. He is part of our family now and very happy.”