AS a project for her 98th birthday this year Mrs Joy Stalman did a number of paintings celebrating sky and sea as well as the spectacular views to be found in this county.

Mrs Stalman, who has lived in Crediton for some years, is including 10 of this year’s works for an exhibition at Crediton Library from November 2 right through the month.

Painting has come late in life because Mrs Stalman was an international cellist until she was knocked down by a drunken driver, damaged her arm and shoulder so badly that she was unable to play.

"I left the string quartet I played in and retired," she said. But before then she did quite a lot of work with the late George Martin and played on "Strawberry Fields" with the "Beatles".

Paul McCartney called George Martin "the fifth Beatle" because of his involvement on each of their original albums.

Mrs Stalman had begun her solo musical career at the age of seven. When she was 14 she trained at the Royal Academy of Music and then with Pablo Casals, the Spanish cellist, in the South of France.

One of this country’s leading continuo players, she played with and got to know a great many of the top singers, was much tied up with the Aldeburgh Festival and even worked with Stravinsky.

Much of her life was in the classical field and she has been a member of many Chamber ensembles including the Julian Bream Consort, Rasumovsky String Quartet, and is editor of a collection of late 18th century cello repertoire, including the first treatise on solo cello playing, discovered in Southernhay, Exeter.

Mrs Stalman had been painting before the accident, she then met an artist in Lyme Regis, "a very strict teacher" with whom she trained for a while. "Very basic training but very good," she said.

She added: "Being 98 is bliss so far as I am concerned. I have a room upstairs with very good light. If the light isn’t so good one day, then I don’t paint."

Although she prefers oils, all these works are acrylic. "This project has been very important to me," she added. "When I came to the end it was time to go out and do the garden!"

Mrs Stalman has daughters, seven grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.

Sue Read