Ted More is one of Euroa's hidden talents

YOU may have noticed 90-year-old Euroa resident Ted More’s letters in The Euroa Gazette: they are often short dispatches from his daily life, like last week’s letter about his desire to talk reason to swooping magpies, or one in which he urged chatting, coffee-drinking Binney Street patrons to avoid gathering on the street to make way for mobility scooter users like himself. I certainly have noticed and enjoyed these letters, so when I spotted a lovely panda bear bookmark on the counter at Euroa store Mi Creations & Gems, and learnt the artist was the very same Mr More, I was intrigued and decided to learn more. The Euroa Gazette invited the amenable man to our Railway Street office, where he explained he had been making art since he was a schoolkid. “I just scribbled, just to please myself,” he said. “I didn't have any schoolmates because they were kicking footballs around or hitting cricket balls – I was never into that sort of stuff. “I used to sit by myself and do a bit of artwork. “I'm an individual, I suppose – a strange kid.” Mr More said he was born in Warrnambool and later lived in Coffs Harbour and Melbourne before moving to Euroa in 2005 at the encouragement of his cousins, Euroa’s Joan and Natalie Moffat. “It's the best thing I ever did – I loved the place, loved people here,” he said. He had worked in textile manufacturing, including as a factory shift manager, before a car accident reduced his mobility in 1982. For about three or four years, he said he had been supplying the Euroa Library with bookmarks bearing his artwork, free of charge. “Some I'll do for the children, but their mothers like them more than what the children do,” Mr More said. “I love the librarians – they're lovely people; they're like my family.” He said he does not particularly like his own artworks, but he is grateful other people like them. “Ted's a very, very generous man giving away his artworks,” librarian Marg Machonachie said. She said library patrons love his bookmarks – “in fact, they're all gone at the moment; he's busily doing some more”. Mr More also recently won a popular GV Libraries competition for miniature artworks created by seniors, after he submitted what Ms Machonachie called “lovely, whimsical little pieces”. Another fan of Mr More’s work is Mi Creations & Gems owner Tanya Boyd, who sells small paintings by the artist. “He just came in for a watch battery and he was displaying some work I happened to see on his little trolley, and basically the rest is history – I love his stuff,” Ms Boyd said. “I don't think he gets enough credit – I think he's one of those little closeted finds you happen to stumble across when you're looking through another box.” As for Mr More’s letters to the editor, he said he has been writing these since his days in Coffs Harbour. “One day I got a bit quiet on them and the editor rang me up and asked me where's my letters,” he said. “In my younger days when I was a bit fitter, I used to do a lot of letter writing.” Older now he may be, if Mr More goes quiet on The Euroa Gazette, he can expect a phone call from us.

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