Ludij Peden

For umpteen decades, Ludij Peden has enjoyed painting images of interest, or importance, with a brush, but now is using words as well, to convey her love of people and places in the wonderful country which adopted her.

With her formative years during World War 2, Ludij Peden’s childhood in Nazi occupied Holland was anything but boring. Likewise the subsequent years of emigration to, and life in tropical Australia, was to prove very challenging. These tumultuous times and events impacted on her life and lifestyle as she progressed from infancy to adulthood.

In her books, she recounts a period in her life, and the times in which it was set—things that were, and never will be again. As an artist, in the books, she has used some of her paintings to illustrate the sorts of activities and locations for which resource material is scarce or non-existent.

“I vividly remember the amazing differences of the life and lifestyles in bustling Amsterdam, from the laid-back approaches of lifestyle and culture in tropical North Queensland of those immediate post-war times. I grew up and was schooled in the vast open spaces, the warmth and the rambling freedom of Cairns which was then only a small country town. These impressions, I’m sure, impacted on my young consciousness leading me to express my love for these, through painting and lately through writing. I wanted to record my experiences—some amusing, some not—with paint and pen.

Beginning my working life as a teacher, eventually my passion for art drew me into a career as a full-time professional artist. As a late starter with writing, it has been fun opening the doors to memory and researching to clarify and confirm what I’ve remembered. Earlier my family often asked for me to tell the stories of ‘the good old days’ but in later years the phones and computers took their interest away. For me, there seemed to be a logical extension into writing about these for them to read the stories again, eventually, as a book or online. One book about my paintings was through a publishing company and three memoirs were self-published, one of which received the ‘Ernie Stephens History Award’ from the Far North Queensland Historical Society.

There are many more ideas germinating in my mind and currently I have three books on which I’m working, to keep the muse flowing—moving from one to the other, much like how I paint. So I happily indulge in painting and writing…as I want and how I want!”