Wokingham Arts trail

I enjoyed the Wokingham Arts trail around the town on Sunday 19 September.

There was an impressive array of paintings, needlework, glass work and jewellery displayed by local artists and available for purchase on the various stalls.

My visit included seeing the new history mural at Montague Park School where I talked to Julia Petrova about some of the great scenes and characters from British history featured in the mural. She has so far painted the story up to the death of Queen Elizabeth 1 in 1603, with the later centuries still to come.

The photos show me with Julia Petrova, and also with Jill Chadwick, a talented local glass maker, in the Methodist building on Rose Street.

I was delighted to see so much local artistic talent on Sunday. I thanked the organisers of the successful Arts trail and wished the artists well with their work and sales.

I was pleased to pick up a couple of early Christmas present purchases of things that are a bit special because they are individually crafted items.

It was great to see the Montague Park school mural and I hope it will be well studied by the children to help them with images of the past. Seeing history on the ground in the buildings that survive and the portraits that are passed down can help bring it to life.