Picture perfect for Alan
A DUNFERMLINE man has finished a drawing of an award-winning photo he took of his children 40 years ago.
Alan Watters grew up in Blacklaw Road, on the corner of Wardlaw Crescent and attended Pitcorthie Primary then Woodmill Hill School until 1965.
In 1983, Alan took a holiday with his then wife Christine, and three children to Dunkeld before the family left for Germany.
While on the trip, Alan managed to capture a picture of his three young children, Liann, Laura, and Michael sitting on the steps between the toll bridge and the old toll house in Dunkeld.
Alan said: “I had a place at art college when I left school but was not able to go for family reasons and I did an apprenticeship in Rosyth Dockyard instead. I left the yard as a leading draughtsman for a three-year tour in Germany in 1983. I was fortunate enough to be retoured three times and so managed a graphic design studio at Rheindahlen supporting all our forces in Germany until 1995.
“On returning from Germany I headed up a publications unit at Andover in Hampshire then later moved to MOD Corsham in Wiltshire as Head of Corporate Communications until finally retiring in 2018 after 52 years in MOD.”
Alan’s original photo was entered into a local photography competition where it won the children’s category and was awarded best image overall. Now Alan has recreated his award-winning photo in a drawing.
He said: “I didn’t really have much interest in art until I started high school. When I was bored in class I used to draw cartoons and caricatures of other pupils and teachers and my school friends seemed to like them.
“So I continued until I was doing proper portraits and landscapes by the time I left school, and with the school art prize and a few art competition wins under my belt including winning the top poster design prize in a UK wide competition!
“After my apprenticeship in the dockyard, I was enticed up to the submarine design office as a draughtsman and as there was no graphics department in the yard, I was given all the graphics related work that came into the drawing offices, and I also did a cartoon strip for the yard’s ‘Spotlight’ newspaper.”
Liann, 46, now lives in New York, while Laura, 44, lives in Devizes, Wiltshire, and Michael, 42, lives in Bristol.
Alan, pictured below, now lives in Rowde, Wiltshire.