Retired Essex head's lockdown art book for good causes

Retired head teacher Mike Riches hopes his lockdown project will raise money for good causes locally

A hobby artist has produced a book of sketches he has drawn on his travels over the last 25 years as a lockdown project.

Mike Riches, 81, from Essex, said he would ordinarily be kept busy with various groups, hobbies and outings.

But with Covid-19 restrictions in place, he had a "void" to fill and decided to collate drawings from his sketchbooks to create a book.

He has self-published the 60-page title to raise funds for local causes.

Mr Riches started his first sketchbook in 1996

Mr Riches, a former head teacher at Hamford Primary School, now Hamford Primary Academy, at Walton-on-the-Naze, said he started his first sketchbook in 1996 and has produced 27 of them since he retired in 1997.

He said he first had to catalogue them before deciding which drawings to use in his book, called Sketchbook Memories.

Mr Riches said he also had to "get to grips" with IT skills, with help from one of his three grandchildren, to put not only images of his drawings on the pages but also accompanying text, giving a "sense of time and place".

The lockdown project includes this lively picture of Harwich

The father-of-two, who is involved in the Harwich Peninsula U3A group and Dovercourt Art Club, said his winter lockdown project had brought back "many happy memories".

"This winter the furthest I was going was to Dovercourt promenade which is about 100 yards from my front door," he said.

"Going through the sketchbooks made me appreciate all of the travelling we have done and how lucky we have been."

This sketch is from a trip to Flatford in Suffolk

Mr Riches said when on trips or outings, when his "knees have had enough" he would sit on a bench and sketch.

Drawing was "therapeutic" and "I lose myself with sketching", said Mr Riches, who learned to draw as a teenager.

He said passers-by would stop and chat and when he opens his sketchbooks he can recall individual conversations - memories brought back when producing the book, which features drawings from his home county, places across Britain and in Europe.

Some of the pages in the book, which is raising funds for organisations in Harwich, also feature his wife's Jill's sketches.