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For many years I worked as a freelance journalist. This is a financial high-wire act where you wake up on Monday morning with no money and have a mortgage and private school fees to pay. 


To make it work you need not just a “nose for news” but the antennae of a praying mantis. 


I recall going to visit friends in Barnard Castle one weekend. I hadn't taken the top off my first beer when my pal said. "George, there's been a terrible car crash today and a bloke who was going to get married tomorrow, his best man and another friend have all been killed". 


My reply was: "What's the bride's address?" Cue exclusive page lead in The Mail on Sunday. My friends in Barney still chide me 35 years later every time we meet by knocking on an imaginary door and saying "Is the widow Gaskin at home?" Not my finest hour. 


One other downside is that you can easily lose friends and make enemies of neighbours if you write about them without their full cooperation. So I had a mantra, when someone opened up in the pub with “you’ll never guess what….” I replied “don’t tell me if you don’t want to see it in print”. 


However, some tales fall into the win-win category. None more so than the one involving my old pal John Bellis, pictured, (who sadly died aged 84 in 2023), a farmer and an accomplished watercolour artist. John often holidayed in Greece, and one day found himself looking through the window of a souvenir shop on a Greek island at various paintings of Hellenic vistas. “Do you want to buy something?” asked the moustachioed owner. John said no. He was simply looking at the styles and techniques because he himself painted landscapes, he replied. “Then you can paint some for me,” suggested the entrepreneur. 


He told John to take lots of photos while on holiday, return to Glossop and paint them up in the winter. Stavros would buy them the following summer. “But remember,” he said, looking furtively left and right, you must sign them Iannis. 


The business agreement lasted several years. It even survived after I turned it into a page lead in the Sunday People (with John’s permission). BRIT TOURISTS BUY PAINTINGS FROM DERBYSHIRE. John even later appeared on BBC regional telly.


He also often sold his paintings through local hostelries. In fact, he was the only man I ever met who could come out of a pub with more money than he went in with.  




15 October 2024