MARK WYNN

​ This is my Granddad. It’s not like, cos my Granddad was a person and this is a picture.  But it is correct that he used to have a bum bag hanging off him quite frequently when we were kids.  Contained within it was all sorts of important business: car keys, his coin tray purse. Debbie: 'Coin tray purse? What is one of them when it's at home.' I asked the internet and it looks exactly correct, so I must be right. Debbie: 'Well done.' I met my Grandad in 1987. He was likely very excited to meet me. At the time he was certainly taller than me, but I managed to make some progress in this, over the coming years, and eventually he lost a yard of pace and then they said he could have a can of John Smiths in the hospital and he remembered who I was immediately, the moment that I walked round the corner.  He was born in Blackpool, possibly, and then his Granny brung him to York cos his Mam was busy doing other stuff. His Granny died in his 20's and he went into lodging...

​ Lets discuss pussy cats. I’ll start.  This is the mistress, a bad behaviour bunny if ever there was one. But she ain’t no rabbits feet. You can be assured of that. We got her out of the Cats Protection. They are very protective of their pussy cats and it was quite some task. I tried to explain, ‘I will be excellent cat father. Please hand me one over.’ But they wouldn’t permit it. ‘Not till you’ve stopped speaking like that,’ they said.  ‘Like how you want me to stop? Is my speech not something supposed to be?’ I said, casually and holding a bottle of Sprite (other drinks are available, but I wasn’t holding one at the time). ‘Exactly,’ they said and sent me home.   That night at the dinner table, I ate my potatoes with great solemnity. ‘They wont accept me be cat papa until I learn to speak cat proper,’ I said. Victoria just looked at us. ‘What?!’ I said, and she rolled her eyes in that way she does when I am trying to get us an animal but I keep cocking it up by speaki...

I painted this tree. This tree is significant to me. When I was a lad I went to join the local football team. I didn’t live in New Earswick, but my Grandparents did. My Granddad walked me down. They were practicing under this tree. I walked towards them. It was a twat to paint this tree. I couldn’t get the light right. I give up and went to work. I came home and painted over it. This is it before I painted over it. When I was on the field recently, a man on a lawnmower drove it over to us and asked if he could help me. I said I was alright ta, but I could tell by the way he used his walk (sat on his lawnmower) that this wasn’t what he meant really. He meant: ‘What are you doing on this playing field? I only opened the gates to the car park because I had to get the lawn mower in.’ So I explained to him about walking my Granddad’s dog here when I was a kid and that I am sentimental about this playing field and love to stand on it and look at the sky, and that I smile, involuntarily, imme...

Is it pensive that look? It has a slight smile to it. A knowing quality. Surrounded by her chaps.  Acrylic Mam is a few little lagers in. Yet to be Acrylic Paul has been riding her about this.  In the family history there are a few amusing anecdotes of alcohol and Acrylic Mam.  She had a cream carpet in the bedroom that was once in the doorway, in the morning, an interesting blue red and black colour.  ‘This is lager and black, children. It is like pop and it has come out of your Mother like pop.’ ‘Like pop?’ ‘Like pop, children.’ ‘Oh…’ Acrylic Mam sort of smiles when she has had a few. It is almost a smirk. Sometimes she gets the words in the wrong order.  ‘Sends the man over,’ she uttered with great vim and personality at the last birthday, referring to the waiter who she wanted to discuss some business with, imminently - likely, and namely, ‘What is the damage on this dinner time, young man?’ ‘Oh, it is quite substantial misses Acrylic Mam. Quite like you hav...