Unearthed Lowry chats reveal a ‘drifter’ who never found love

She explained they would talk at length and though Lowry was a notoriously private man, the 85-year-old opened up to her across more than 20 hours of recording.

The interviews, which were unearthed in their entirety for the first time after her death in 2022, include Lowry’s reflections on life, love and, of course, his art.

In them, he said he had almost stumbled across his distinctive style of painting when his family moved from Manchester to a particularly urban part of Salford.

“I was interested in portrait painting until I went to live in Pendlebury,” he said.

“The industrial scene got me.

“I disliked [painting industrial scenes] at first, then I got used to it.

“I began to think there is something in it… then I began to think there was a lot in it.”