EXTRACTS: The Art of Denis McLoughlin © 2013 The Book Palace (272 PAGES in Full edition)

35 O n June, 1946, I got demobbed and started to settle down. Had been courting Dorothy Bain of Bolton for a few years whilst on short and long leaves and we were married in 1948. I got the attics in the family home at 292 Derby Street, Bolton, converted into one large sitting and bedroom and another room, with a north skylight, was made into a super studio. I thought Mother could have started a mail order business with Dad’s hair prescriptions, as clients were ringing up all the wretched time, so one of the first things I did when I got out of the Army was to draw two ads which I thought suitable for magazines, but Mother wasn’t interested, so we let it go. For years then I went to London every week to Boardman’s, for Miss Weir had said she would give me work. 12.40 pm from Man- chester andbackon the 12.40 amfromEuston.WhenT.V.Boardman Snr. returned from the Argentine things got busier and I was given a three-year contract to do covers. On quite a few of these visits to London, Miss Weir asked me to have dinner with her at her favourite eating place, the Station Hotel at Paddington - Audrey lived just across the street from the hotel. Pretty high living - if you put a smoke between your lips, a fist with a lighted match appeared from no place and lit it for you. This meant a tip after each drink was delivered and Audrey sug- gested two bob was about right. Miss Weir liked double gins all night without ought else and when she had had enough, around 10.30 pm, I’d give her housekeeper a ring to come and collect her boss. This left me with quite a spell supping alone and I may have overdone it on occasions, although I was always sober enough to walk all the way to Euston. One of these nights, however, I got back to Euston and boarded the train, throwing my brief case down as usual for a pillow and crashed out. In the early hours of the following morning, I was wide awake as we pulled into the northern terminus but, upon looking out from the train window, I thought, “Where has the Durex advert gone?” (At this period Durex merely advertised those rubber bras for cows.) On passing through the ticket bar- rier, the ticket clipper suggested I go into a waiting room and remove my mac and replace it right side outward. This I did and then realised I was at illustrator at large colt 45 to commando FACING PAGE: Denis McLoughlin in London’s Haymarket in the early 1950’s ABOVE: Denis and Dorothy out on the town. Bolton late 1940’s.