Brushstroke

- [Announcer] Funding for "Brushstroke" was provided in part by the following sponsors.

(charming musicbox music) (charming musicbox music continues) (charming musicbox music) - [Tony] This is the story of a remarkable artist who suddenly one day lost her ability to paint even a single stroke.

(gentle music) The artist was my mother, and this is her story.

(gentle music continues) I began filming my mother and her paintings back in 2003.

I didn't know then that I'd spent the next 13 years filming her.

Seeing her on camera for the first time, I no longer saw my mother.

I saw her as her true self, a very talented artist.

(city life bustling) Are you a great painter?

- Oh my goodness, no.

I'm not a great, I'm not even a good painter, come to that.

I'm just an amateur struggling along.

In fact, I've never really considered myself an artist, more of a recorder, recording Fulham and other places are going to be no more.

And I know a lot of people would say that my paintings are far too tight and far too photographic, but I like to depict buildings the way they really look rather than just give an impression of them.

My name is Mary Cane-Honeysett.

I'm 74 years old.

I'm an amateur artist, and I live in Fulham, which is in West London.

And that's it really.

That's all there is to say about me, you know?

- [Tony] How old are you now?

- I'm 82, 83 later on in the year.

- [Tony] So you're 82 and a half?

- And a half, yes.

- [Tony] How tall are you?

- 4'6".

- [Tony] You used to be taller.

- [Mary] Oh, I used to be 4'11" when I was a young woman, but I've shrunk since then due to osteoporosis.

- [Tony] We are a typical English working-class family growing up in the 1960s.

My dad worked in a post office, while Mum stayed home and raised us.

But when she could find the time, she would set up her easel and paint whatever she saw out of our windows.

Us kids hated it.

We would all complain about the smell of those oil paints.

That didn't stop her.

From her bedroom window, she painted us kids playing out in the street.

There are the neighbors gossiping.

(light music) That's the view out of our kitchen window.

(light music continues) And that's the view out of our bathroom window.

(light music continues) She painted my dad watching the telly.

That's our cat Polly asleep on top of it.

And on the wall, she even painted her own painting.

Her attention to detail was impressive.

Then she ventured outside and painted the front of our house.

Then she painted the back of our house.

She even painted the view over our garden wall.

That's the smoke house where the local fish monger smoked herring, which we call kippers.

Mary was born in London in 1928.

Her father, Albert Morgan, was a bus conductor, and her mother, Florence, was a cleaning lady.

- It was always my ambition when I left school to go to art college.

But because we were quite poor, my father wanted me to leave school as soon as possible, which was when I was 14 in 1949.

And so I had to abandon that idea.

My father didn't see fit to educate a girl, and I wanted to learn.

I went to evening classes to keep up the drawing practice and, you know, things like that.

And I did a bit of watercolor, but I didn't start painting in oils until my boyfriend bought me a box full of paints for my 21st birthday.

- [Tony] But her lack of any formal art training did not stop her burning desire to put oil paint on canvas.

She would teach herself to paint.

- I did a little picture.

I can't remember what it was.

That was such a long time ago, I mean, 1949.

- [Tony] But Mary had a steep learning curve as she was visually impaired due to contracting toxoplasmosis as a child and could only see clearly out of one eye.

- Well, I can't see anything in the only thing definite.

The immediate vision in front is just a big black patch.

And just colors.

- [Tony] It was a disability she found a way to overcome.

- [Mary] Before I start to paint, before I start anything, I'm faced with a blank canvas.

I make a grid, four-inch grid, three or four-inch.

This is necessary for me because I have poor vision.

In fact, hardly any vision in my right eye, only peripheral vision.

And if I don't line up those straight lines and just draw freehand, the whole thing is lopsided.

It's because you do need two eyes to focus on an object to see it absolutely straight.

I don't know why this is, well, if it's like it for everybody, but it's certainly like it for me.

Because in the past, I've been so disappointed when I finish something, and I look at it, and it's all over to one side.

So I draw the grid to save me that, having to do it all over again, it's easier.

I'm inspired to paint by old buildings, I suppose.

When I see something falling down, I immediately have the urge to paint it for some reason.

I don't know why.

It's the quirk of my nature, I suppose.

I don't like chocolate boxy things.

You know, I like really ramshackle buildings.

I think there's a lot of beauty in places that have fall into pieces with their peeling paint and crumbling brick work.

Picturesque, I think they are.

There used to be a lot of places like that in Fulham, but they're being replaced now by modern buildings.

Some of them are okay, but others are not very attractive.

But whatever they are, they're all new.

So they don't hold in any interests for me.

I have no wish to paint them.

I like to depict buildings the way they are, rather than just give an impression of them.

And I could go out with a camera and just take the pictures to record places in Fulham.

But I like to put a bit of myself into these things.

And you can do that in a painting.

You can do your own interpretation of what you're looking at, which is always different for everybody.

Everybody sees things in a different way.

- [Tony] Looking back, she wasn't just an artist, she was an architectural historian for our changing neighborhood.

That was where our doctor had his surgery.

There was the wicker and lamp store.

That's my dad looking in the window.

This was our local wood store next to an old charity shop.

This was an old building that had been demolished.

Mary still wanted to paint it.

- [Mary] This is Nellie Warner, a florist in Fulham.

It's no longer a florist.

It's nothing, it's just empty place now.

I like this, I like the contrast between the top, which is all falling to pieces, and the flowers beneath, and the old man that's sitting there waiting for a customer.

He was very sad when the shop closed.

I don't know what happened, whether the lease ran out or what.

Bought our funeral wreaths, wedding bouquets, everything there through the years.

I'm never pleased with my painting.

I always look at it afterwards.

I say, "Oh, dear, I should have done this," or "That's not so good," and all the rest of it.

(bright piano music) - [Tony] Mum would sit for hours painting what us kids considered boring old buildings.

- Because buildings are what I like to paint.

I mean, that is what I like to do.

- [Tony] She would always say that every brick had its own individual identity.

Each one was different, just like people.

So she would paint each individual brick, one by one.

(bright music continues) We just couldn't understand her fascination with bricks.

But she loved them.

- Bricks are beautiful.

I mean, they've all, everyone is a is different from the one next to it.

And they've got lovely colors, if you look at them, really beautiful.

I love bricks.

I think people ignore them to their peril.

Because if you really look at bricks, they are beautiful, especially old ones.

The yellow bricks, red bricks and blue bricks from different parts of the country.

Staffordshire blues, Lester reds and London yellows.

And sometimes you get them mixed all up on one wall.

And then there's these very old crumbly rose-colored bricks that you find, especially in places like Hampstead.

There's beautiful buildings there.

- [Tony] Most people wouldn't have given these structures a second glance, let alone spend weeks painting them.

But she saw only beauty in their fading glory, where others might only have seen ugliness.

She would charge all over London looking for more old places to paint.

- [Mary] I've never had a car.

I've never learned to drive, and I'm certainly not gonna learn now.

So I go everywhere by bus or tube, that's the underground.

And that suits me fine.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (magical chiming music) (crowds chattering) (city life bustling) I never sold my Fulham paintings because I want to give those to my children.

They are records of how Fulham used to be and how they remember it as children.

I have sold other paintings, but not the Fulham ones.

I wasn't influenced by anybody when I started painting.

Nobody.

I just, I really didn't go to exhibitions, and I didn't.

It's just that I looked at these bricks across the road and the houses, and I thought I'd like to paint them.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (light jazzy music) I am just an amateur, struggling along.

I'm just, I'm really just a recorder.

That's how I consider myself rather than an artist.

(light jazzy music continues) I grew up, I went into the post office as a counter clerk.

When I had children, I became a teacher.

Then I went to college.

When my youngest child was six, I went to college for three years and trained to be a teacher.

It didn't gimme a lot of time to paint because the holidays and weekends were all I had left.

So that's why I couldn't give as much time to it as I would've liked.

And there was a family.

I mean, it's cooking and cleaning.

This is why men are so lucky, men painters, all the men I know who paint.

They do so much more work than women painters because they haven't gotta go up around in the shopping or the ironing or the cleaning or the looking after the children.

They just leave that to their wives, and they get on with their paintings.

It's very unfair, but still, nevermind.

(classic rock music) - [Tony] I have moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1993, and when mom came to visit me, she brought her love of bricks across the pond.

- String Fellows in Nashville, yes.

Now that was a place falling to pieces.

Absolutely perfect, perfect.

When I went to visit my son there, I saw it, and I thought, "I've gotta paint that."

But that is another place.

It used to be an old car wrecker's place.

I don't know what they did there.

Something to do with automobiles, I don't know.

But it was no longer in use.

It was just empty.

And then somebody bought it up, and turned it into a Swiss restaurant.

The lovely Nashville building.

You see, I think I'm gonna have to move to Nashville.

I'm gonna have to inflict myself on my son because they've got some fantastic buildings there.

Especially, they're probably, they are rebuilding up there too.

So probably all the lovely old buildings will ago.

But this warehouse was very interesting.

I loved the water with the light, with the reflection in it.

So that's what inspired me to do that.

- [Tony] Mum had lived alone in our house since my father died from a stroke in 1987.

US three kids had moved away.

Now the place had a permanent smell of oil paint, whether she was painting or not.

But in April, 2006, at the age of 78, the world changed forever when she also suffered a stroke.

At first, she was totally paralyzed, except for minimal movement in just one finger.

She lost the ability to walk.

She lost the ability to talk.

But slowly, after several months in hospital and many more months in physical therapy, she started to recover.

She learned to talk again.

She learned to walk again.

- Well, for about a week after the stroke, I couldn't say the words I wanted to say.

They wouldn't come out right.

Then after a while, I got better.

And I could say the words.

Some people, if they have a clot on their right side of their brain, that affects their speech.

Aphasia goes on perhaps all their life, and they can never say the words they want to say.

So I was lucky.

- [Tony] But while she had done well to get back on her feet again, she was no longer her old self.

Mary could no longer paint.

The stroke had left her with tremors in her hands.

It was impossible for her to paint with the same intricate detail that was a feature of all her paintings, from little cups and saucers in shop windows to books and dresses in thrift stores.

(gentle music) (feet rustling) - Waiting for the toast.

Putting some butter on there.

Life has changed absolutely because my hand shakes now.

So I can't hold a brush, and I haven't got the ability to do what I used to do because one thing, I can't get out with a camera or go and sketch on the spot.

I can't do those things.

And I'm hoping I will be able to eventually, you know, when I gradually get back.

But at the moment, I'm better than I was.

I can walk now, and I can speak.

But stroke is a devastating thing for anybody to have.

Well, there's nothing much you can do about a central tremor.

You've got it, or you haven't got it, and I've got it, which makes my hand very shaky.

I can control it by holding into my body like that.

But you can't paint like that.

You have to have a freedom of movement, and dipping it in the paint, and then that's where I would fall down, trying to get the paint onto the canvas.

I mean, I could try again, but I have tried so much in the past and failed.

So I can't do what I used to do.

So I'd rather not do any of it, you know?

(Mary sighs) - [Reporter] Between Chatham and Touker, it's certainly been a happy day so far for the home side because they are now two-nil up.

- I've been left with a very, very weak right leg, and it stops me from walking properly.

So I'm all together, not the woman I used to be.

I mean, I used to dash everywhere.

And now I walk at snail's pace, and I have to have support.

I have to have a three wheeler or a trolley, anything to get me along.

I can't walk on my own.

So that in itself is frustrating because I'm so completely different from what I used to be.

So I'm a different person.

All the bricks have to be in the right place and all that.

And because I can't do that, that I'd rather not do.

I wouldn't like to do a wishy-washy watercolor, which people have suggested.

Even if I could, I wouldn't wanna do it because that's, this is my style.

And so for the time being, I can't do anything.

But I'm hoping, hoping that I'll get over this time.

They say it takes five years sometimes before you get back to normal.

So I've got another two years to go.

So I might get back, and then I'll start again.

But in the meantime, I have to be content with just looking at the places I would like to paint and wishing I could.

- [Tony] How much do you weigh?

Because you seem to have put on a few pounds.

- I have because I don't get the exercise that I should because I go out once a day up to the way trains of the shop, I like groceries, and that's it, that's it.

I mean, I used to walk and run everywhere at one point, and I was slim then.

- [Tony] Yes.

- But now I just did this bit of exercise.

The physio has given me some exercise to do, but obviously it's not enough because I have put on weight.

I weigh 136 pounds now, which a woman of 4'6" shouldn't weigh.

- [Tony] No.

- I think my ideal weight should be seven stone.

- [Tony] What is that in pounds?

- 14, 14 by 7.

Hang on, is 98 pounds, I think.

- [Tony] I think you're correct.

- Yeah.

- [Tony] Yeah, so you're about 38 pounds overweight.

- That's right, yeah.

- [Tony] Huh.

(Mary laughs) - [Mary] Yes.

- [Tony] No, but you are still living in your house.

- [Mary] Yep, and I still look after myself.

My daughter comes over and cleans up for me.

You know, I say once a week.

- [Tony] Yeah.

- [Mary] But I do everything else myself.

I even do ironing myself, and I put the wash on and all that.

- [Tony] You've got a new cat now.

- [Mary] I've got a new cat called Pixie, yes.

- [Tony] So Pinky is gone.

- Yeah, she died just before I had the stroke, which she was very old, so it was just as well she died before I went into hospital.

'Cause nobody would've looked after her.

- [Tony] So now you've got Pixie.

- [Mary] I've got Pixie.

- [Tony] So we are gonna try and get you to paint again.

- [Mary] Yeah, I'll try, just for your sake.

- [Tony] Aren't you gonna paint for your sake?

- Yeah, but mainly for your sake.

- [Tony] No, you're painting for your sake because you wanna paint again.

You're just, you just, you can't be bothered to try 'cause you've got a tremor.

But you know, I haven't even seen you hold a brush yet.

I've seen you hold other things and shake and wobble, but a paint brush is very light.

- That's true, that's true.

I'll give it a go.

And you can see the finished result.

- [Tony] Okay.

- It'll probably make you laugh, but.

- [Tony] Let's see.

Let's see if it turns out to be a Mary Cane-Honeysett or a Jackson Pollock.

- Yes, could be either.

In 1966, I joined the Fulham artists group that met the local school, and I learned to do still-life portraits, all those things.

And got a good grounding in painting.

And then it was from there, I decided to experiment in painting buildings.

I never learned how to paint buildings.

But doing that other work, the still-life and the portraits, gave me the tools and everything to paint other things.

I painted buildings.

(city life bustling) (people chatting indistinctly) The doctor at the hospital, he said if you have an alcoholic drink and then tried to paint, you have much more control because it stops the tremor.

Well, it doesn't stop it altogether, but it lessens it.

So the trouble is if you drink in the, I couldn't possibly drink during the day.

I don't really drink at all.

But if you drink in the evening, it's too dark, especially this weather to paint.

But I could do it in the summer I suppose, but not in the artificial light.

- [Tony] Right, what are you drinking?

- It's called Malvic or something.

Malbric, that doesn't matter what I'm drinking.

Is it Malbec?

As long as it's a bit intoxicating.

Oh.

- [Tony] What do you think?

- How people could drink this stuff and enjoy it.

I'll see what my drawing is like.

- [Tony] Right.

- We're going to (coughs).

- [Tony] When was the last time you painted?

- 19, no, not 19, (laughs) 2006.

Difficult to draw a straight line, goes all over the place.

Now that is a square.

I'll put some windows in it.

Oh, dear, that's a bit small, isn't it?

It's not like the brick walls I used to do with a little bit of mortar.

- [Tony] What do you think?

- What did I think of that?

- [Tony] Yeah.

- I dunno, rubbish, isn't it?

(laughs) (gentle music) I don't think it makes much difference, having a drink.

I can't do it, so I don't try.

But I must try, I must be more positive, not so defeatist.

- [Tony] I had to encourage her to try and paint again, but she was in no hurry to try.

- This is all I do, this rubbish.

You know, I just do rubbishy little drawings that are of nothing, and I don't get any better.

So I've given up.

I mean, I did that just for you to do it today.

But normally, I don't waste time on these things.

(city life bustling) I'm hoping to be making some sort of a painting here.

I don't know what the results are going to be.

Not very good, I don't think.

But anyway, it's grand to be sitting in front of an easel again with a canvas waiting to be painted on.

(gentle music) - [Tony] So what you gonna do before you start painting?

- I'm gonna put my apron on first.

- [Tony] All right, put your apron on.

- Okay.

Probably mess it up, this apron.

- [Tony] Nice apron, that is.

- Very nice.

Hope I don't cover it in paint.

- [Tony] I don't think you could tell on that apron.

- (laughs) That's why I chose it.

God, this in that, just a tick.

I'm not very good with my hands, as you know.

- [Tony] Does it have to be done uptight?

- Well, it has to be done up in a bow 'cause it come undone again.

Right.

Right.

Put my apron on.

Right.

- [Tony] So now what you gonna do?

- I'm gonna touch my hair to see if it's got all over the place, which it is, but I can't help it.

- [Tony] I think it looks pretty good.

- Right, okay.

- [Tony] So now what you gonna do?

- Now I'm gonna start painting.

First, I'm gonna put colors on the palette.

- [Tony] What you gonna paint?

- I'm gonna paint this bowl of fruit for its sins.

- [Tony] Okay, this bowl of fruit here?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

All right then, so you have you arranged it?

- I've arranged it, yes, after, for a fashion.

Right.

I'll start with the greens.

I've got some of the colors out here that I'm going to use, the old favorites, sap green, which I used to use a lot.

cadmium yellow, that's a green gold, which comes in handy, and brown ochre, and burnt amber.

I don't know that I use brown burnt amber.

But anyway, I've got it out just in case.

And this sort of a yellowy color.

This is a much more expensive make, which I used to use occasionally, but I might not use it.

No, I might.

I'm gonna have a look in here, see what's in here.

Might be something else.

It'd be better if I stood up, actually.

- [Tony] Go on then.

- Right, what have I got?

I'm not gonna put a lot out for now because I'm gonna see how I get on with it.

What is that (indistinct)?

Can't open this tube.

It's so stiff.

It's impossible.

Do you think you could do it for me, Tony?

- [Tony] Yeah, I'll do it.

- Thanks.

- [Tony] All right, hang on a sec.

- I don't know if you can actually.

It's so crusted in.

- [Tony] When was the last time it was open?

- Oh, 2000, probably 2005, (laughs) I suppose.

- [Tony] I mean, you haven't even wanted to paint, have you?

- [Mary] Because I knew I couldn't.

That's why.

(gentle music) Or I might do something completely different from bricks.

Once I get used to the feel of paint and everything, I might decide to change direction.

I might change to really rough painting.

That'd be a good idea, wouldn't it?

Really rough, rough painting.

(gentle music) It is not as enjoyable as painting bricks.

I'll tell you that.

I love painting bricks.

- [Tony] I mean, let's be honest, you've never painted a bowl of fruit in your life.

- Never.

Well, if I could paint properly, it'd be lovely.

But this frustration of my inability to hold the brush properly is rather, it's soul-destroying, to be honest.

I want to get one of those things that, you know, you can hold your hand still.

You know what your old mast or what even people using today, don't they?

There's a sort of stick with a thing on the end, and that would help me a lot.

So perhaps I'd go up there and get there, get one.

I don't know what they're called even.

I mean, that is supposed to be an apple, and it also had a piece of rotten old fruit that is stuck in the bowl.

(gentle music) Right, I'm gonna call this a day now because I can't do what I want to do.

So I'm gonna wipe it all off.

- [Tony] Okay.

Okay, don't drop it.

- Oh, I'll try not.

(Mary laughing) Piece of art is falling over everywhere.

- [Tony] Okay.

Oh.

(gentle music) - [Mary] You know, it's all hit and miss at the moment, but hopefully in the future, I should be getting better.

I feel confident that I will.

- [Tony] We set off to find this mysterious thing called a mall.

I felt a sense of determination this time.

(gentle music) (city life bustling) (gentle music continues) (city life bustling continues) - [Employee] Yes, that's so what you want?

- Yes.

And that's sort of fixed to canvas.

Can't have anything like that.

Fixed to the canvas or the side of easel.

- [Employee] Yes, probably (indistinct).

- No.

- [Employee] Friday or today, you can take that.

- All right.

- And you just, 24.50, (indistinct).

- I think that's more useful, the one that unscrews.

(both chatting indistinctly) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) Brick walls are like this if you look at old brick walls.

So I'm not so upset that it's not very nice.

This is only a practice, don't forget.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) I mean, it is not that tiny bricks I used to do, but perhaps the more I use them all, who knows?

I might be to go back to that sort of painting, which I hope, it's what I hope.

(gentle music) It is just a matter of time.

I've got to use this more to the best of its ability.

And I fear I'm not doing that at the moment.

I think I'm not.

I've still got the shakes.

(gentle music continues) - [Tony] You haven't painted now for six years.

- Yeah.

- [Tony] How do you feel about not being able to paint?

What is your general?

- Frustration, really, that's the main thing because I know I can't do it as good as I used to do it.

I mean, I used to do it very accurately, and that's how I like to paint.

However, fashionable or unfashionable it is, it doesn't matter, that's how I'd like to paint.

And because I can't do it the way I used to do it, I'd rather not try.

I'd rather not do it and produce a trashy child's drawing instead of a proper painting.

So I'd rather sort of bow out gracefully from the art scene.

- [Tony] The stroke had also affected Mary's balance.

Her recovery had seemed to be going well, but a couple of bad falls had taken away a lot of her confidence.

It had made her increasingly nervous about moving around, both outside and inside her home.

This was made worse when she suffered a TIA, a mini-stroke in 2012.

(Mary coughs) Her days of dashing around London were over.

In fact, her days living alone in a three-story terrace house were also becoming increasingly problematic.

Stairs especially became an obstacle.

She couldn't even get down to her little garden.

The effort to get there was simply too arduous.

It was time to do the unthinkable, sell the house she'd lived in all her life and move into something somewhere more manageable.

Her emotional attachment to the house was much greater than I'd ever realized.

Mary's parents and grandparents had all lived in the house.

The place was as much a part of the family as I was.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - The house I live in was built in 1877.

My grandparents moved here in 1912.

So as I've lived here for 74 years, and I can't imagine that I'll ever live anywhere else.

- [Tony] As a child, Mary had lived through the blitz of World War II when Nazi bombs destroyed many homes, killing thousands of Londoners.

- This is what Hitler did to my house on June 26th, 1944, when a bomb hit across the road, and the blast blew our windows out, took the doors off of the hinges, and made general chaos in the house, as you can imagine.

It took a long time to clear up.

And even though it was 59 years ago, it is 59, isn't it?

Yeah, 59 years ago, we've never been able to replace these little fancy bits at the top.

So they've stayed like it.

Right, during the blitz when the bombs were dropping, eight people used to hide under here.

Six adults and two children, my brother and I. I mean, if there had been a direct hit, we wouldn't have stood ghost of a chance.

But as luck would have it, there wasn't a direct hit, and we survived.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - [Tony] You're not willing to adapt?

- No, I'm certainly not going to do things that have been suggested to me, doing modern art, where you, it's all hit and miss, where you do a lot of patterns, doesn't appeal to me at all.

I mean, it's lovely if you can do it properly and produce a work of art, but I don't, that isn't my scene.

You know, I don't go up with it.

So I don't bother.

And I live my life.

I'm quite happy.

I don't have to, I mean, I'm frustrated about the painting, and also I'm frustrated about not doing anything.

Not only painting, but I can't knit, sew, do DIY.

Any of the things I used to do, I can't do.

And I find that very frustrating.

(gentle music) - [Tony] It was finally time to admit that she simply couldn't handle living alone in her home any longer.

- So put in this part here.

I've got to sell the house because I cannot manage here.

I've got, I'm waiting for an operation on my knee.

I put it off because I've got so much going on.

And I've got back trouble.

I've got a lot of pain here and there, you know, really.

And so I can't manage this house.

There are so many stairs going down to the basement and upstairs to the bedroom, and even go to loo, I have to go upstairs.

(feet thudding) - [Tony] She didn't want to move.

She loved her house.

(gentle music) - I'd like you to come and see it, even if you don't want to.

- I'll check.

- It's really lovely.

I paid 15 pounds for it, and I don't want anything for it.

I bought it just, what, three years ago?

- Oh my god, Mother.

You can't take it with you?

- No, it's too big for my house.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - I am very sad to be leaving this house.

I've lived in it for so many years, you know?

The actual process of moving is very, very painful.

It's like a bereavement really.

You know, when you lose somebody, you can't bear it in the beginning.

And then gradually you come to terms with it, and that's what I come, what I'll be doing here.

It's very hard to leave a place when you've been here so long.

But I haven't got a choice because I've become disabled.

I can't get around as I used to.

(gentle music) (tape stripping) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Tony] The neighbors came to say their goodbyes.

- It's not as good as yours (laughs).

- [Tony] That's nice.

- We have our tea party Wednesday afternoon.

- Yes, I should miss those tea parties.

- Well, there have to be your where we're go for tea.

Oh, but shoe shops, there had to be shoe shops.

- [Mary] Dozens of shoe shops.

- Yes, lovely proper shoe shops.

- [Mary] Dolce's.

- Dolce's.

- I've got pay them.

And I have, yes.

I'll have to come over, yeah.

(furniture scuffling) (helpers chatting indistinctly) (furniture scuffling) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Tony] I'll give you a hand.

- [Mary] I'll get in the van.

- [Tony] I'll give you a hand.

Sorry, pardon me.

- [Helper] Go ahead, go ahead, help her.

- [Tony] I'll help you in the car.

(Mary speaking indistinctly) I put one in the car.

- [Mary] Oh, did you?

- [Tony] Yes.

(Mary speaking indistinctly) Selling the house seemed far more distressing to her than not being able to paint.

It was time to leave her home forever.

My brother and I transported her paintings safely.

They were her babies.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (water sloshing) (people chatting indistinctly) - [Tony] Oh, great, thank you very much, that's great.

Selling her house in Fulham where she'd lived all her life was very hard for Mum emotionally.

But fortunately, she could now live much closer to my brother, and that meant more days out.

(bright music) (children playing indistinctly) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) - This is my new house.

I've been living here for almost two years.

It was a bit of a wrench leaving Fulham, but I'm getting used to it.

It's much nicer here.

I'm all on a level.

I've got no steps except going up to bed.

Then I've got a stair lift, so I don't need to worry about that.

So I'm very fortunate to have found this place.

I planned to buy a Quingo, which I did buy it, but it didn't work out as I planned because I've got a bad shoulder, and I couldn't reach the other side to turn it.

So that sort of stopped me using it.

It would've been a good way of showing my dependence by going out on my own down to the shops.

But then if I got off the Quingo, I can't walk without holding onto something.

So it wouldn't have worked from that angle.

I mean, you can't have everything you want.

And I thought it would solve something, but it didn't solve anything for me.

It's a shame.

(gentle music) - [Tony] Her paintings adorn the walls in every room of her new home.

(gentle music continues) She finally had the garden she'd always wanted.

But I knew she'd longed to be back in her old home in Fulham.

- If I hadn't of developed all these medical problems, I needn't have left, but I did.

So I had to leave and move to a more, well, what can I say?

A more acceptable place, and this place is acceptable.

This stroke left me with a lot of disabilities.

The most upsetting of all is not being able to paint because my hands shake now, and I can't hold the brush properly.

I see places that are calling out to be painted in the way that I used to paint.

And I captured a lot of things in Fulham.

All the places that I've painted there have now don't exist.

But I do get frustrated of not being able to paint because that was my whole life.

That's all I ever did.

But, well, some people are far worse off than me.

I can't complain.

At least I can see.

And I can hear with a hearing aid (laughs).

And that's about it really.

This is my new life going forward, not looking back.

I mustn't look back, just forward.

- [Tony] Leaving Fulham for the last time, I decided to look around my old neighborhood and see which of the old buildings Mum had painted over the years were still standing.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) Mary never did paint again, but she created a legacy with an impressive body of work.

She was most proud of one thing, getting her paintings accepted into the Royal Academy of Art.

I was proud of her too, just for being the woman she was and that her last painting to hang in the Royal Academy galleries wasn't a brick building at all.

It was a portrait of me.

(gentle music continues) (charming musicbox music) (charming musicbox music continues) For more information on Mary and her paintings, visit marycanehoneysett.com.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Brushstroke" was provided in part by the following sponsors.

(light music) (bright music)