My husband, Eric Birchall, who has died aged 80, spent much of his life working in adult education before switching to run a design business that allowed him to use the full range of his artistic talents.
Eric was born in Wigan to Doris (nee Martlew), who worked in a cotton mill, and her husband, Ernest Birchall, a lorry driver. At the age of five Eric was selling flowers and vegetables from a wheelbarrow. Five years later some local communists persuaded him to hand out leaflets in the street – until his parents found out.
He was a keen cyclist, winning local competitions, and went to Wigan grammar school, followed by Wigan Art College, where one of his teachers was LS Lowry and where he won a national life drawing competition at the age of 17.
After gaining a national diploma in design, a certificate in education and an art teacher’s diploma at West of England College of Art in Bristol, he taught at Bolton College of Art, eventually heading the adult education section there and spending six months running a department for profoundly deaf adults who had been violent, using art and sand-tray therapy to help them.
Eric also used to run poetry-heavy “happenings” at Chorley College, at one of which he gave John Cooper Clarke his first gig. They became good friends and John bought one of Eric’s sculptures.
He moved to Bideford, Devon, in 1979 to be head of adult education at Pilton school in Barnstaple, a post he held until 1991. He then bought a gardening design and maintenance business called Labour Saving Landscapes, for which, among other projects, he designed the permaculture garden at Tapeley Park in Westleigh, north Devon.
He knew the Latin names of most plants and his skill in art and design covered many areas – a wonderful wooden kitchen with curved edges, unusual sculptures and, later, model steam engines. His workshop was an engineer’s dream, complete with blackened cobwebs and a multitude of machines.
We married in 2003. Eric is survived by me, his daughters Julia and Paulina from his first marriage, to Solveig Oppstedt, which ended in divorce, and two granddaughters, Rachel and Anita. Another daughter from his first marriage, Susanna, died 10 years ago.
