L. S. Lowry

**Holly** · 01-11-2012, 02:18 AM

Today in history: 1 November 1887

Born on this date, Laurence Stephen Lowry was an English artist born in Stretford, Lancashire. Many of his drawings and paintings depict nearby Salford and surrounding areas, including Pendlebury, where he lived and worked for over 40 years.

"The Fever Van" shows an ambulance arriving to collect a patient from a small terraced house. The sufferer probably has diptheria or scarlet fever, both highly contagious diseases and widespread in industrial Britain in the 1930s. A lack of vaccinations meant that such diseases were frequently fatal.

Lowry's treatment of the theme avoids excessive sentimentality; he goes for a distant view of the ambulance and the crowd gathered around it rather than a close-up of the drama. He was clearly interested in the effect of accidents on the urban scene and once said: "Accidents interest me - I have a very queer mind you know. What fascinates me is the people they attract. The patterns those people form, and the atmosphere of tension when something has happened… Where there's a quarrel there's always a crowd… It's a great draw. A quarrel or a body."

**5intheface** · 01-11-2012, 07:29 PM

Earlier on this evening, Mrs5 pointed out to me the lowry image on google's homepage. she then went on to tell me about someone who had found Lowry prints in their roof-space but she couldn't remember the right story.

So she googled it and discovered it was Kevin Webster's house in Coronation Street.

*I sent her to the shed for the rest of the evening, she's in there now with this on loop;

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rczfvybq-2g"]Brian & Michael - Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs (HQ) |Christmas TOTP '78| - YouTube[/ame]