KEIGHLEY artist Stanley R Boardman passed away 20 years ago.

He had a long working relationship with Keighley youth theatre HYT, and allowed them to print four cards of his pictures.

Stan’s book 1920s Boy, a recollection of his youth in Fell Lane and featuring his own drawings and reminiscences, was published in 1973 by the Ridings Publishing Company in Driffield.

HYT’s 1976 musical 'Stan' dramatised Stan's one-man exhibition 1920s Boy, after he spent a year of work producing the paintings.

I purchased the four cards at Airedale Hospital’s car boot sale. The hoops in one of the pictures are decidedly wobbly and other minor touches alter Stanley’s original images.

I once saw some of Stan’s drawings in a Keighley office run by a man who played board games with him.

Stanley suffered from TB and malaria during World War Two and he had long bouts of illness, so he turned self-taught hobbies such as art, textile design, toy making and signwriting into a successful business.

Keighley’s Ron Broadbent made 1920s Boy, a film for Yorkshire Film Archive which achieved the Best Amateur Movie award in 1978. No one could understand Stan’s broad Keighley accent.

Painting stage scenery was another of Stan’s talents, and Rose Bartlett of Long Lee recalls that on the recommendation of some boys, Stan painted Cinderella, her coach and trees for St James’s Church in Cross Roads.

When painting scenery at Cross Roads, Stan entertained everyone with stories of local characters. He provided the colourful Spud Mick scene for the cover of the booklet Fowk We Remember, which was produced at Hillwood Lodge by Keighley Community History Group.

Stan donated a signed painting to Airedale Hospital, which was used to raise funds. A bigger one-man exhibition was at Cliffe Castle in 1973 and was extremely popular. It then moved to London and was featured on BBC’s programme Pebble Mill At One, where Stan was given regular slots.

Stan’s name appears on the front cover of Silsden, A Way Of Life, produced jointly with Roy Mason and published by Silsden Chamber of Trade.

The four cards for HYT can be seen on Keighley Art Club’s Facebook page. Other images will be welcomed –please call 01535 669914 and provide photographs of the paintings.

Stan’s paintings appeared in the magazine Down Your Way in September 2008, if anyone has a spare copy.

Local historian Ian Dewhirst sometimes features Stan’s paintings from 1920s Boy, such as Band Of Hope, which include sStan’s sisters, The Workhouse, and more. Ian wrote Stan’s obituary on November 15, 1996.

The boy in a flat cap in the pictures is Stan. Ian wrote that Stan was showing the poverty and humour of his childhood.

Brian Moses of Keighley Art Club recalls Stan running a selling-out shop in Oxenhope.

At Long Lee Art Club, Christine McNally says the husband knew stand and described him as ‘just an ordinary bloke’.

Keighley Art Club’s Facebook page continues to grow under Jeanette Bray’s leadership. The members page is the latest addition, plus a Stan Boardman page.

We hope you enjoy looking at the page, and also at our new display in the Picture House cinema lounge where viewing is during opening times, even if you’re not seeing a film.