Description
Toni Knights is one of Brixham’s local characters and an acclaimed nautical artist. Toni has been a fisherman since the age of 16 and got his Skippers ticket at the age of 19. In the late eighties he worked as a Fisheries Officer on the Drumbeat of Devon which earned him a Fishing News headline ‘Poacher Turns Game Keeper’, and crewed on the Torbay Lifeboat, ‘The Edward Bridges’ when Arthur Curnow was Coxswain. Toni’s life is still water based and when he’s not sailing heritage boats for Trinity Sailing or fishing on a beam trawler, he can be found renovating beautiful ‘Iris’ his 75ft Cornish Lugger built in 1921 that nestles alongside the inner harbour in Brixham.
In his early nautical paintings, Toni worked in oils, but more recently, his artistic flair can be seen around the pubs and cafes of Brixham where he uses a felt-tip pen and watercolours to bring to life the boats.
This set of twelve postcards have been specially commissioned by The Fishermen’s Mission with Toni Knights to celebrate our British fishing industry and in particular Brixham’s maritime history. The annotations are by retired local fisherman John Friend. In each set there are four colour illustrations of different fishing methods, four of his famous pen drawings of boats and their labelled parts that can be coloured in and four copies of some of his original paintings. They can also be purchased from Brixham Fishermen’s Mission.
Each purchase helps support fishermen, women, and their families across the UK; through everything from mental health problems, bereavement, and financial stress.
