Eight summers ago, Pamela (known as Pam) told me she was holding her last solo exhibition, featuring work inspired by her beloved home, North Norfolk. But happily, this show was no swansong; Pam has continued to paint almost daily, sketches outdoors along the coast, and, has held several more solo exhibitions.

‘I was born in Taurus, a bull at the gate, I don’t give in,’ says Pam. ‘I was born to be a painter and have to paint every day. If I have a day or so of lolling, I feel different and that something is missing. Then I go into my studio, get things laid out and start painting, and I feel good.’

Working mainly in oils, Pam is well known for her large-scale impressionistic sea- and landscapes (often featuring cows), and floral compositions. Nature, North Norfolk and of course, painting, have always been a huge part of her life, which began in the medieval rectory at Elsing near Dereham, where her father was parson. The family moved to Saxlingham when she was six, when her father took over the joint benefice of Saxlingham and Field Dalling.

Pam tells me: ‘It was wonderful being brought up in Norfolk. We were a family of five children – four girls and a boy. We had ponies so we were always out with them. We were outdoor kids; we lived in a lovely Georgian rectory with four acres, where we grew all sorts of things.

‘At three-years-old, I was starting to draw, and my parents used to talk about me always having a pencil and paper. They called me a ‘BA’ – a budding artist – and I’ve been crazy about it ever since. I remember when we moved to Saxlingham that we went to Blakeney on our old bikes. I saw a dead seagull and put it in my bike basket. I propped it up at home between books and sketched it. I was no good at mathematics and that sort of thing, I just wanted to paint.’

Pam’s parents organised private painting lessons for her with ‘Mr Linnell’ at Letheringsett. ‘I used to bike up there after school twice a week and he taught me everything I needed to know,’ she says. ‘I was on the road then. You keep doing it and keep changing the whole life through.’

Her father purchasing St Monica’s Convent in Burnham Overy Staithe, which was a private school, brought about an event which would change her life – meeting her future husband, Murray Noyes.

‘I met Murray when he was going out with my older sister, Pat, and that was that. We married when I was 19 and Murray was 21. I like someone with a bit of verve to them!’

Two children followed – Susie, a nurse, and Gary, now vicar of the Waterside Benefice on the Broads – then grandchildren and great-grandchildren, in a marriage lasting for 65 years. Murray died in 2013. 

North Norfolk, especially Burnham Overy Staithe, was always a big part of their lives and they retired to the area. Pam says: ‘We moved to Ashwell in Hertfordshire when I was 23, and Murray worked for his father in London. We used to come back to Burnham Overy every weekend. Murray and I would be sailing all the time. Murray was in the navy and it was boats, boats, boats; it was just marvellous!’

Pam, meanwhile, continued painting and taught, too: ‘I always painted the whole time, with a baby on my hip and a paintbrush in my hand. But family came first. I used to teach painting from my shed when we lived in Ashwell, and it was during a lesson that I heard my painting of hellebores had been accepted for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition – we danced around for the whole hour!’

Pam’s work has been shown in London, Cambridge and Norwich, and closer to home in local galleries and exhibitions, including regularly showing at St Nicholas Church Hall, Blakeney, every September whilst she lived in Hertfordshire, and latterly, in solo exhibitions at Burnham Overy Boathouse, including last summer. 

Now Pam is opening her studio near the North Norfolk coast year-round, by appointment. She also keeps up to date with the local art scene and admires the work of several local artists, including Sarah Caswell and Tracey Ross, as well as the abstract paintings created by one of her own granddaughters.

Pam’s own output is prolific and at 95, her style is still evolving. ‘My work is looser, it has become impressionistic, but it hasn’t really turned into abstract. I have moved towards abstract, but I have stopped in the middle, halfway there. I would like to be a bit more abstract. I work mainly in oils, but also do a bit of pastel and charcoal. 

‘Mr Linnell used to say: ‘one hour looking, three minutes doing.’ I’ve been known in the summer to go down to my studio at midnight as something was not right [in a painting] and come back in covered in paint. 

‘I have an absolute faith in the teachings of my father and feel I have a gift. I thank God I am still able to work, and I don’t take it for granted. I’ve got a saying I use and which my father used to say, as he worked to the end of his life: ‘I am not giving up, I want to die in harness’. I am going to keep experimenting, to keep painting. The journey’s not over yet.’

Pam Noyes’ garden studio near the North Norfolk coast is open year-round, by appointment, 07798 692352.