Series DC 101/6 - Personal papers

Veronica Matthew was a student at The Glasgow School of Art in the 1950s where she graduated with a Diploma in Art. She was close friends with Alasdair Gray and Valerie Bloomfield-Ambrose during this time. She painted watercolours and created textiles including embroidery.

She lived in Glasgow and East London. In 1971, she attended the St Albans School of Art to train in art therapy which was in its third year of inception. By this time, she had acquired 10 years of teaching experience including seven of the years in "Special Schools" in Glasgow. She was the first teacher employed by the Education Department in Glasgow to teach art to children with special needs in various schools. This included teaching children who were deaf, had cerebral palsy, and had learning difficulties. Her training at St Albans consisted of lectures on psychiatry, psychology, and causes and treatments of brain damage. She would also visit hospitals frequently with her classmates to learn more on how to help them. She had two placements in this programme including one in Edinburgh, where she worked with epileptic patients, and in Roehampton in London, where she worked with people with mental illnesses and special needs. After finishing this education as an art therapist, she worked for the Social Work Department in Tower Hamlets in East London. As her employers were unequipped to take on an art therapist, there were various challenges at the start but over time, solutions were found and compromises made.

In 1981, she returned to Glasgow, after her father had had a stroke. In 1982 and 1983, she worked for the Third Eye Centre as a coordinator for an organization called Project Ability. Project Ability was started by Ellie Sinclair-Hall who suffered from multiple sclerosis; her goal was to highlight the talents of people with disabilities and demonstrate their artistic prowess. They hosted a three-week long showcase of performance, exhibitions, films, plays, talks, music, and workshops. People came from all over the United Kingdom and abroad to see this project and take part in it. Veronica was the co-ordinator for the project. Project Ability is now a very successful arts organization providing a creative outlet for many disabled people and fulfilling Ellie’s dream. After this project, Veronica returned to art therapy on a sessional basis at the Glasgow Association for Mental health and at a day centre in Maryhill. She is now retired but fondly remembers her time in London with Jewish people who had escaped persecution in Eastern Europe and Russia. She was happy to have been able to help so many struggling people find light.

Alasdair Gray was born in Riddrie in Glasgow in 1934. He studied at The Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957. As an artist, he specialised in mural, narrative paintings, still life, figurative subjects and portraits and worked in oil and the occasional watercolour. His murals are shown at the Oran Mor venue and in the Hillhead Subway Station, both in Glasgow.

The main themes in his paintings were the Garden of Eden and triumph of death. He published numerous forms of literature including novels, short stories, plays, poetry, essays, and translations. He wrote about politics and the history of British literature including realism, fantasy, and science fiction. As a prolific author and illustrator, his best-known book titled 'Lanark' (1981) is seen as a landmark in Scottish literature. He won various awards for his typography, illustrations, and written works. Since 1979, he exhibited three times at the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) in Edinburgh and the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts 29 times.

Considered a polymath, he suffered from bad eczema and asthma. Politically, he was Left and supported Scottish independence. In 1961, he was married to Inge Sorensen until 1970. In 1991, he married Morag McAlpine who died in May 2014. In 2015, he had a bad fall and was confined to a wheelchair for a time. Gray passed away in 2019 the age of 85; he left his body to science. He is survived by his son, Andrew, and a granddaughter. His work has been exhibited in Glasgow Museums, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Library of Scotland, and the Hunterian Museum.