How It All Began

Monkey Retro Art began with a simple love of the British countryside and the memories attached to it.

The old tractors, farmyards, village lanes, harvest fields and characters that many of us remember are slowly disappearing. But for the people who lived through those times, the memories can still be incredibly vivid.

I originally set out to create nostalgic countryside artwork — scenes that might remind someone of a place, a time or a way of life they once knew.

Then I started to realise something.

What if these pictures could encourage people to tell us their own stories?

Someone might see one of our pictures and think, “That reminds me of my Grandad's farm…” or “We had a tractor just like that…”

Perhaps what they remember is the farmhouse. Perhaps it's a favourite dog, a particular tractor, harvest with the family, or simply an ordinary moment from childhood that has stayed with them for decades.

And very often, there may be no photograph of that moment at all.

That was when I realised Monkey Retro Art could become about something much bigger than simply creating countryside pictures.


Something Bigger Began to Happen

As I started creating more artwork, I began to notice something.

So many little details in the pictures were reminding me of moments from my own past, or of stories that friends and family had told me over the years.

But there was something else those memories had in common.

Nobody had a photograph of them.

That was my lightbulb moment.

I realised that everyone must have memories like these — moments they can still picture clearly, stories they would love to share with their family, but memories that were simply never caught on camera.

So I began to wonder: why couldn't I create them?

I'd discovered a real love for creating digital art, and suddenly there seemed to be a much more meaningful reason for doing it.

Using modern ways of creating art to preserve the historic memories of everyday people.

And that idea would eventually become The Countryside Memory Project.

A Little Bit About Me

I grew up in the Fens, in a small village just west of Ely, and the countryside has been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

Apparently, I had an interest in farming before I could even walk. As I grew up, I spent as much time as I possibly could around farms, exploring the countryside and enjoying the freedom of rural life.

When I left school, there was really only one place I wanted to be. I found a job on a farm in a neighbouring village and spent the next 15 years working there. They were years that gave me an enormous number of memories — the people, the machinery, the animals, the changing seasons and all those ordinary moments that don't seem particularly important at the time.

Eventually, I moved from farming into a conservation project. That opened up another side of the countryside to me. I learned much more about wildlife, habitats and the environment, and was fortunate enough to be involved in work that improved habitats for a number of species of birds, wildlife and insects.

After that, I returned home to the Fens and managed a free-range chicken farm. I was able to bring those two parts of my experience together — farming and conservation — using what I'd learned about natural habitats to make the ranges more attractive to the chickens. By encouraging more wildlife and insects onto the ranges, the birds were encouraged to explore further and spend more time outside.

My career eventually took another turn and led me into renewable energy, where I still work today. It might sound like quite a journey from the farm where I started, but I've found myself using things I've learned from every stage of my working life along the way.

But I've never forgotten where I came from.

I still love the countryside. I still love the old stories. And I especially love those moments when somebody starts with “Do you remember when…” and suddenly a memory that hasn't been thought about for years comes flooding back.

Monkey Retro Art grew from that.

I began experimenting with new technology and digital art to recreate moments that had never been photographed — not to replace the memories, but to give people something they could actually see, share and keep.

And perhaps, in our own small way, preserve some of those memories before they disappear.