Venture into Tudor Square and glance at the glorious buildings that make this town. Shops change but the architectural format does not.

Pop into Cobb Lane and excite at the 1770s cottages but suddenly stop at the corner of the Square to experience an up-to-date reality experience of paintings and prints of Tenby in Naomi Tydeman’s Gallery.

We ought to applaud the talent we have in this town now. I have always researched our local history but I now know that history is in the making!

The work of Naomi was chosen to feature in an exhibition in Northern Italy by the world’s finest watercolourists. Opened in Vicenzu, which is located in the Veneto region in April, 2014, the exhibition toured several cities including Milan. Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet of America, Mark Strand, composed a piece for Naomi’s painting ‘Moonrise’ which was included in the catalogue, along with work by other poets around the world.

Naomi is alive and kicking, producing beautiful works. She takes time off to travel the world and learn about new experiences, colours, feelings and love of the planet. She also uses a great deal of light and texture in her works. Naomi has also written articles for books and magazines. How about contributing to Tenby Times, Naomi?

Here are examples of Naomi’s work. It is right to celebrate local talent. Why? Just look at Naomi’s Curriculum Vitae:

1987 - B.Ed (Hons), Trinity College.

1998 - Opened Naomi Tydeman Gallery, Tenby

2004 - Elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour (R.I.).

2005 - Frank Herring Prize and Watercolour Prize, Welsh Artist of the Year Competition.

2008 - Windsor and Newton Prize.

2012 - Elected to the Council of R.I. which was set up almost 200 years ago to celebrate the tradition of watercolour painting and represents the best of the genre in Britain today.

2013 - Winner of the Turner Watercolour Prize at the R.I. Annual Exhibition thus obtaining a Turner medal.

2016 - Still painting glorious images!

This month my thanks go to Lynne and Charles Crockford for loaning me a photocopy of The Tenby Observer, Friday, September 10, 1858.

We were all drawn to the articles regarding the intended development of Bridge Street.

“It has been suggested to us that it would be a great improvement if Bridge Street were continued over a few arches, so as to join Quay Hill, the narrow part of the street below the Fish Market widened, and the awkward rise opposite lowered. This would then be the best approach to the harbour and South Sands from the Norton end of Tenby. The cost need not exceed £200.” The equivalent of over £18,000 now!

Further on in the newspaper we read, “Tenby, May 17, 1871. Ordered by the Mayor and Common Council of the said borough, this Seventeenth day of December, 1813: First, that whereas it is desirable that a new circular wall should be erected on the south side of the road, leading from the Pier as far as the point where it enters St. Julian’s Street, and it being also equally desirable that Bridge Street should be inclined at the end near to Sergeant’s Lane, from the widow Griffith’s property to Saint Julian’s Street.”

These extracts were taken from the Corporation Minute Book. Sir William Paxton volunteered to pay for any work carried out in this development. Tenby owes a lot to this man for many changes made for the better locally.

Thank you Lynne and Charles.

I have pleasure in sharing with you another poem from our resident poet Rody Vanrijkel.

Naomi Tydeman

By Rody Vanrijkel

Predictable, yet unpredictable

What I suspect lingers on.

The translucency of the watercolour

allows light to bounce off the paper.

Though colours are dark,

the effect is vibrant,

with tantalizing tonalities

and repetitive graduations,

the night illuminating the sensitive waves

never craving for better memories.

Soaked into the surface

I am aware of the sparkles

created by white specks

as if tiny hollows in the paper

were left unpainted.