My mother, Freda Hayes, who has died aged 88, was an artist and teacher. She spent most of her life in Cumbria, where she was an active member of the community in Keswick.
She was a talented painter, though she never wanted to sell her work, but did occasionally give pieces away to friends. In the mid-1950s she had trained at Barrow Art School, where she became part of a small group of painters and potters who stayed connected well into their 80s and beyond.
Freda was born in Kendal, to Laura Brand, but never knew her father, and was brought up by her single mother with practical and financial help from her uncle, William Brand, in Barrow-in-Furness, where she went to Barrow grammar school. It was William, a fitter at the local shipyard, who helped to nurture Freda’s artistic skills. Beginning at Barrow Art School in 1955, she met Geoff Hayes, a fellow student, and they married in 1959, moving to Hampshire, where they both then worked as art teachers.
When their two daughters, Sophie and me, were born in the mid-60s, Freda left teaching to look after the family, and they moved back north to the town of Brampton in Cumbria, where Geoff taught at Harraby school in Carlisle.
In 1968 the family moved to Keswick, and Freda and Geoff found a community in which they would spend the next 60 years of their lives. She worked at various Keswick schools as a teaching assistant and also ran private drawing classes in her house.
In the mid-70s Freda and a friend, Lyn Denny, opened an Oxfam shop in Keswick after taking a course. Later, for a year or so, she ran a weekly market stall in the town selling her own screenprinted tote bags.
A socialist, Guardian reader, and member of CND and Cumbrians for Peace, she was also was active in the Keswick theatre club for more than 40 years.
She was was an incredibly creative individual, always sewing, painting, holding art classes and encouraging others to learn to draw and paint.
Geoff died in 2024. Freda is survived by Sophie and me, and six grandchildren, Harry, Flora, Milo, Anna, Finn and Jerry.
