Augustus John and the art of smoking

Fryern Court, home of my grandfather Augustus John (1878-1961), stood on flat land between the Wiltshire Downs and the New Forest.

At the sound of the bell for lunch or tea, Augustus walks slowly across the grass from his studio to take his place at the long oak table where everyone gathers for meals.

He is very deaf and glares at us through horn-rimmed spectacles as he draws on his pipe to light it.

I watch the flame leap on the match; notice his hands, the fingernails blackened with paint. The smell of tobacco and his voice – low, sonorous – stay with me.

If I am aware that he has lost his way as an artist, it makes no difference to me.

When I felt despondent about my stop-start attempts at drawing, my mother referred me to my great-aunt, Gwen John (1876-1939), remarking that she was ‘very good at drawing cats’.

Cats! I loved cats. But if I were to choose a work to own, it would be one of her early oil paintings of a girl reading by a window – or a watercolour of a street at twilight: her nocturnes. REBECCA JOHN

Thinking the Plant: The Watercolour Drawings of Rebecca John is out now (Pimpernel Press, £30)