In 1916 the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company began work on the Bristol MR1, the first allmetal aircraft developed on these shores. Among the welding crew was the unlikely person of Sybil Andrews – a teenage girl who really wanted to be an artist.
Her family unfortunately couldn’t afford to send her to art school and, with so many of Britain’s men having been sent overseas to fight in World War One, Andrews found herself being taught how to handle an oxyacetylene torch rather than a paintbrush. She was tenacious, though, and when the war ended she put herself through college and then became associated with the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, where her growing interest in printmaking was encouraged.