Lifelines: The LS Lowry Lecture by Jeanette Winterson CBE

Lowry’s 25th anniversary saw the return of the LS Lowry Lecture and for 2025 renowned writer Jeanette Winterson CBE provided a very personal perspective on Lowry’s way into his world and ours, which he described as having ‘a private beauty that haunted me’.

Born in Manchester, Winterson’s birth mother was a factory machinist, making overcoats for Marks & Spencer in the days when Lancashire was still a textile giant. She was later adopted and moved to Accrington. Her father worked in a factory from the age of 14 until he was 65 and fought in the Second World War. As Winterson has said:

‘He was scarred, fit, misshapen, proud. He was a working man. Who was going to paint the likes of him in his machine-stamped life? … Lowry.’