Nine months ago, on a brisk bright-skied Tuesday in May, your favourite Knumpty happened to be travelling north from Lichfield to a scheduled stop at Wilf’s Cafe in the Mill Yard at Staveley, Cumbria so as to self-indulge in a greatly anticipated all-day full-English, taken on their open-air rear-deck in crisp spring sunshine overlooking the picturesque River Kent.

Following which I then spent the rest of the morning buzzing from imbibing too many of their coffees, as I waited two unscheduled hours for the AA to arrive and resolve a frustrating automotive electrical failure, which chose to manifest itself as I attempted to restart my journey. (It may also be timely to advise that the eponymous Aston Martin was – sadly – not involved in this breakdown.)

You’ll be environmentally pleased to learn, dear reader, that this was not just a 300-mile round trip for a damn fine breakfast – but a mere interim stop on a rendezvous with one of my two brothers at Portinscale, a quaint village of grey Lakeland slate and sunny disposition on the northwestern shore of Derwentwater, for a few days of leisure and gentle celebration of a recent, somewhat unplanned retirement. 

Thanks to the intervention of the AA, I resume the journey onwards to Grasmere for a pilgrimage to Sarah Nelson’s celebratedly tiny gingerbread shop. And a compulsive mooch along the bowing shelves of Sam Read’s inviting bookshop. And then, a heart-leaping and slightly incredulous pause outside the renowned Heaton Cooper Studio, home to the combined works of Alfred (1863 -1929) and his son William (1903 – 1995) as well as works of art by other members of a fascinatingly talented HC dynasty. Here, a striking window-displayed canvas not only caught my eye but  imprinted itself onto my amazed visual cortex, where that passingly-glimpsed image has remained – like a snapshot viewed beneath flowing water – ever since.

And now I rush you forward to present-gloomy-day January 2026, by which time I had determined that I had to revisit and quite possibly acquire the piece – untitled and unknown – and had expressed my enthusiasm for doing so to my wife (and former Chief Navigating Officer) as well as several compliant friends. Amongst which we’re pleased to include one Andy Chapman, author of a fascinating biography of his career as an Aston Martin specialist engineer of some considerable repute. Between him and his wife Pennie (who enjoyed the enviable task of typing Andy’s long-hand first draft manuscript) they countered my enthusiastic orations on the Heaton Cooper Studio with their own dilemma of not knowing how to get Andy’s pictorial life-story published as a finished and printed coffee-table book.

Having previously self-published ‘The Knumptywagen Journals’, I was able to apply my garnered experience to their challenge. Between us and several draft designs, we created “My AUTO Biography” by Andy Chapman, which was self-published just prior to Christmas and distributed to his impressed family and friends. And in over-generous acknowledgment of both my involvement and my orations, I am gifted a voucher – to be redeemed at only one possible location. 

Thus, thankfully without any automotive mishap this time, the Chief Navigating Officer and her tame author retrace a route north to a short break in Ambleside, narrowly avoiding (by sheer chance and Pennie’s timely intervention) a week-long refurbishment closure of the Heaton Cooper Studio in nearby Grasmere. Here, at least one of us is excitedly reunited and enthralled anew with the same artwork previously espied and coveted nine months previously.

And, with the unexpected bonus of our gifted voucher, we extend our browse and select a second complementary piece – a watercolour print of the pale-green limpid water of the Cumbrian Esk flowing through a beautifully rendered rocky ravine.

Thus, after a cold and incessantly wet visit to the English Lake District, the Aston Martin book is extant and the art is hung – on an unassuming wall 160 miles away in Lichfield, to provide pleasing repercussions for all involved – and a warming uplift of the spirits – while a damp, grey-skied January plays itself out beyond our very own gallery walls.