My father, Len Bower, who has died aged 100, was an art lecturer and artist who had a striking ability to draw and paint anything, from slick cartoons to stylised landscape. He also showed equal ease in words and music.
Born in Leeds to Hettie (nee Berry) and Herbert Bower, a tailor, as a six year old Len could play hymns by ear and improvise on the piano. He also showed early ability in art and music at Leeds Central school.
His training in illustration at Leeds College of Art was interrupted in 1940 by six years in the RAF, as an aircraftsman at Mildenhall, Suffolk, Binbrook, Lincolnshire, and St Athan in Wales, latterly as an instructor. There he also picked up live bookings as a dexterous jazz clarinettist and pianist.
After the war he became an art teacher at Batley grammar school and then, in the early 1950s, a senior lecturer at Leeds College of Art. He always found inspiring ways of engendering learning, wonder and understanding.
Later he used his wealth of talent modestly, writing sketches and stories for friends, drawing humorous greetings cards and church visual aids of the highest quality, and playing music only at home. He turned down opportunities for musical contracts and exhibitions in London, and preferred to remain a hands-on teacher.
Aside from his RAF years, he stayed in Leeds for a century, enjoying his art and his music, and sharing with his children his imaginative ideas and his passion for local history – particularly of Leeds and of Whitby, his annual holiday destination. He never owned a car, and had no interest in the expensive or pretentious.
He retired in 1974, still working for the same employer, although Leeds College of Art had in 1970 become Leeds Polytechnic. In his 90s, registered blind, he walked daily to a small Headingley centre where adults with learning difficulties gathered. He loved them; they loved him.
He provided illustrations for my book, Thread and Thrum, published in 2020, in aid of the Macular Society.
Underpinning all that Len did was his Christian faith. As he aged and lost people close to him, he never stopped finding new friends. He had the great gift of judging the exact level and topic to make others feel relaxed. “Tell me something you’re looking forward to,” he would say, always ready with suggestions.
In 1950 he married Sadie Espie. She died in 2009. He is survived by their daughters, Sarah and me, and grandson, Ted. Their son, Andrew, died in 1995.
