On Wednesday, September 30, 2009, the Post reported...

A CLYDEBANK artist took part in an exhibition with all the proceeds going to help people in the world’s poorest countries.

Josephine Torrance, 64, took part in the Artists for Mary’s Meals which was held in the Iain McGregor Fine Art Gallery.

Although she considers herself an amateur painter, Josephine managed to hold her own among the professional painters.

The pieces on show at this latest exhibition included a painting of tulips on silk and a small landscape, which she managed to sell for £60, and the exhibition as a whole raised more than £10,000.

This is not Josephine’s first charitable exhibition as she sold 14 paintings at a separate showing in the Backdoor Gallery, managing to raise £1,300 for Mary’s Meals — and she has only been painting for a few years.

Josephine, from Duntocher, told the Post: “I have really taken it up since I retired — before that I didn’t have the time.

“I attended classes in Strathclyde, I joined the Faifley Art Group and then I was in the West Dunbartonshire one.

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“I paint lots of different things. But I do some views from Duntocher and from the Kilpatrick Hills.

“I did a scene looking towards Loch Lomond from the Kilpatricks and of the Roman bridge in Duntocher.”

Josephine is keen to use her talent to support Mary’s Meals, which she considers a very worthy charity.

It was set up by Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow as part of Scottish International Relief and provides meals to children at school in the developing world — thus encouraging them to get an education.

Josephine said: “Mary’s Meals is a great organisation. When Magnus was in Africa he met a young man whose mother was dying of aids and he was going to be the head at the family at only thirteen or fourteen.

“Magnus asked him what was the thing he wanted most in life and he said food and to go to school. They set up a kitchen in the schools and it’s the mothers that do all the cooking.

“It’s a great way for them to get a meal and an education.”