Ann Fonsweer

 The artist Ann Fonsweer, according to her diary, would often go for walks in the countryside around Apple Limeway. These photos maybe show what she would have seen on those walks. An unusal dip in a road, Cambridgeshire 1930 The generally flat Cambridge countryside A river near Apple Limeway An abandoned house in Apple Limeway, Cambridgeshire 1936 A bare tree, Cambridgeshire Abandoned farm building, 1934, Apple Limeway, Cambridgeshire Horse in field, 1937, Cambridgshire Though Ann's summer diary has a twee title, the contents are less so.   The Summer Diary of a Lady Artist is available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com .

 A gentleman in Bedfordshire was listening to Cambridge105 Radio ,   and heard a mention of a reprint of The Summer Diary of a Lady Artist . He had lived in Apple Limeway briefly (where the events in the diary take place) so he investigated further and found an image on the title page of the book . Summer Diary of a Lady Artist frontispiece. Something struck him about the "logo", presumably of the publishing company: Two Sisters Publishing . Two Sisters Publishing logo It reminded him of something, something his grandfather had, an old black and white photo. He contacted me by email (at ckfonsweer@gmail.com ), with the scanned photo attached: Ann Fonsweer's cabinet?   The photo is old and the photographer was inexpert but it is clear what reminded him of the logo of Two Sisters Publishing. The gentleman thinks the photograph was taken in the 1950s or 1960s. It seems to be a (wooden?) cabinet, but what is inside is impossible to guess. And why his grandfather took a photo ...

 Here are some very old postcards of Apple Limeway, the setting of most events in The Summer Diary of a Lady Artist by Ann Fonsweer. Presumably Ann knew these places well, and though she was an artist her drawings refer to her surroundings only tangentially.     The Summer Diary of a Lady Artist is available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com .

 This photo seems to show the location of the Ann Fonsweer Archive. (Ann Fonsweer wrote what was to become The Summer Diary of a Lady Artist , an account of revenge and cougar love.) The "archive" was actually a drawer in a lawyer's office in Edinburgh. Ann Fonsweer Archive, 195? It is thought that the office was in the rooms above the shops, the ones with the arched windows. It was in this archive that new drawings, unseen for decades were discovered. There was also the strange discovery of a cut-out hand a little smaller than an inch in size:   It could be that Fonsweer used templates for some of her drawings, because there are quite a few figures with hands very similar to the one shown above. Presumably the actual template (the hand shaped hole) has been lost, but she, or someone for her, kept what had been cut out. For example on page 19:   The Summer Diary of a Lady Artist is available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com .   Fonsweer's "Crimes" Doycroft...

 In the Summer Diary of a Lady Artist there is an entry for the 25th August 1935: "There is a river just over a mile away. Sometimes, very very early in the morning, I bathe in that river."    The drawing on the opposite page is incongruous. And there is something wrong with the arms. Maybe a drawing mistake impossible to correct on an ink sketch?  The photo was taken in the 1920s but the fashion in bathing costumes changed slowly one hundred years ago. Presumably the river mentioned on the first page of the diary is the same as the one she "bathes" in. The Summer Diary of a Lady Artist is available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com .

  In Ann's Diary it is called Doycroft Hospita l (by Ann) and Doycroft Daft House (by Mrs. Busyness). Its official name was Doycroft Asylum. It was located just outside of Norwich. Doycroft Asylum, 1937 The Summer Diary of a Lady Artist is available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com .   (An aside: At the same time as Ann's Summer Diary (1935) there was a terrible case of an eleven year old child, Mary Marston. She murdered all her family in their beds with dress making scissors, then burnt the house down. Mary was not considered of sane mind, and was not convicted of murder. She was sent to Doycroft Asylum, and ended her days there.)