Charles Parry - A Local Yorkshire Artist
I am Charles Parry. As a schoolboy I had a bad accident and spent 3 years in hospital. I fell in a disused mill on the Liverpool waterfront. Smashed up a bit with 22 breaks. The worst was my right leg that had become detached from my pelvis. A stubborn father refused to let the hospital remove the leg. A surgeon on board a troop ship in the River Mersey (war time) saved my leg.
Returning to ‘normal life’ I trained at the Liverpool School of Art before going to a Commercial College. A painting of mine, The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals was entered into the Welsh Eisteddfod and achieved first prize in my age group. I was approached whilst at school by the Principal of an advertising agency who had visited the Eisteddfod and promised that when I finished school, I could join his company as a junior artist. I took up his offer and that was my first job in an advertising agency.
Surprisingly because of my injuries I was called up to do National Service. Only sometime earlier I had stopped using callipers and crutches. After a return from service, I went back to the agency for another two years. I then moved to Liverpool’s largest agency and did well and became an Account Handler – helping clients to develop their marketing to add value through advertising.
Because I was bringing in a lot of new business, I later I asked the MD, when I would be considered for a Board appointment. Laughing he said “never – you don’t have a university degree”. The 3 years in hospital reflected my education. Months later I resigned and went to London where all the big agencies were. I trawled for a job and oddly I was taken on by Thomson Regional Newspapers based in their headquarters in the Sunday Times building. Eventually I was appointed marketing controller for all the UK newspapers that TRN owned. My role was to visit all the newspapers to check that the marketing managers were being efficient. One of these was the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette where I met my wonderful wife Margaret.
I then moved around some terrific London agencies but then was approached by the Manchester Evening News with a Board appointment as Marketing Director.
Leaving MEN, I eventually joined the world-renowned advertising and marketing agency, Saatchi & Saatchi. I first met Maurice and Charles Saatchi in 1970, but that is another wonderful story but no space left to tell it.
In 1986 I opened my own agency and won many contracts including British Telecom, Fred Olsen Lines, Sainsbury’s On-line, Liverpool Echo, Crown Paints, Thwaites Brewery to name a few.
Time moved on and I retired. We had moved many times in my career but eventually settled in beautiful North Yorkshire – Margaret’s birthplace. Many of my Land and Seascapes feature this wonderful area as well as the Lake District. I paint in acrylic, watercolour and oils.
I hope you enjoy looking at my paintings.