DEERE, Brenda Gwendoline
As Brenda Gwendoline Bowman, she was born at Ipswich on 13 May 1922, daughter of Maurice Percival Bowman (24 August 1897-14 December 1973), a master tailor and manager, and his wife Gwendoline Louise née Drew (25 January 1899-28 May 1978), who married at Ipswich in 1921. In 1932 the family moved to Norwich. Brenda was a talented tailor and, in her earlier days, worked for her father and later on her own account from her home, initially sketching outfits for customers as an indication of what they would look like. In 1939, the family lived at 66 School Lane, Sprowston, Norwich and Brenda married in Norwich Outer in 1942, Martyn Harcourt Deere (1921-30 December 2008). Brenda later took up painting and was a member of the Norfolk Art Group in Ormesby St Margaret 1987-2007, and displayed her work from Hemsby and from Jasmine, The Green, Ormesby, Great Yarmouth, at small exhibitions in Norfolk and North Suffolk. Most of her paintings, both watercolour and acrylics, were of rural scenes around Norfolk and the Norfolk Broads, also in Spain where the family had an apartment, but her forté was painting still life fruit and flowers. In 2021 Brenda Gwendoline Deere was living in the West Midlands and she died on 24 April 2023.