A small extract from Chris Burrow's research about his grandfather Ernest Burrows.

Ernest painted and drew with a great passion, sketching local characters, and painting local scenes around Llangollen in both water colours and oils. He eventually took up painting as his profession. Postcards had become very popular after 1902, when the Post Office allowed a postcard, with the whole of one side devoted to a picture, to be sent for a price of ½d. With his love of art and sense of humour Ernest started painting comic postcards, and sending them to postcard publishers around the country. One company which was interested in his work was the Thomas Brothers who had a printing business in Everton Road, Liverpool. They were three brothers who had an interest in Welsh comical postcards, and they liked Ernest's work. They started the Everton Beacon series of postcards, known as the Llythyr Gerdyn ('Post Card' in Welsh) Collection. Ernest painted over 100 different postcards for this collection in his lifetime. By now all Mary Jane's children had grown up. Ernest was building up his business as an artist and illustrator. Elizabeth was now a local school mistress. Meanwhile Lucy moved back to Manchester for a short time, working as a housekeeper in a large house. In 1904 she married Francis Parry a local Llangollen butcher. Francis worked with his brother Edward Knight Parry in a butcher's shop at 22 Bridge Street, which had previously been run by his father, Samuel Parry and later his mother Elizabeth Parry. Lucy and Francis had two daughters, Constance born in 1906 and Freda born in 1909. Lucy and Francis lived in a house in Market Street at number 32, just down the road from her mother's. Her husband Francis died there in 1949 aged 77. As Ernest got older he expanded his artistic field, doing many book illustrations and advertising posters, as well as the lettering on goods wagons for the railways. When Ernest was in his early 30's he met Melinda Jones, a local girl from Glynceiriog, and in 1904 they were married. They moved into a small house in Berwyn Street called Rose Place, where they lived for many years.

Chris has published a beautifully illustrated book about his grandfather's life and works.