The woman whose striking war paintings are touching peoples' hearts

Her 24-painting oeuvre is pretty impressive by any standards, considering she has 12-year-old twins to look after, but it’s even more remarkable when you realise that Jacqueline only started less than a year ago.

“It was something I felt compelled to do,”she says.

“Both my grandfathers were in the Second World War; one was in the Royal Navy and commissioned as a gunner and was on the Arctic Convoys – there was a lot of talk from him around the dining table.”

Her other grandfather, however, appeared traumatised by his experiences.

“He was in the Royal Engineers and then joined the Royal Signals in Africa,” she says.

“There were certain things he couldn’t eat because it brought back bad memories, I think they curried a lot of the food because it was rotten.”

She knew that her great-grandfathers were a sniper and stretcher-bearer in the First World War and that the bearer was so affected by the soldiers’ mental trauma that he decided to work in mental health after the conflict.

And she also knew Royal Marine Adam Brown, who died in Afghanistan and in whose memory Adam’s Hoofing Hut was established at Mudeford.

“In October a few of us were having a drink in his memory and it occurred to me that fewer people actually know anyone in military life. Even my own children didn’t. Unless you come from a military family it’s easy not to think about it.”

This proved the spark to her imagination and Jacqueline started painting her striking work: We Remember, We Fight On, an image of poppies with soldiers on a monochrome background.

When that was finished she started another, expanding the images to encompass all aspects of military life.

While We Sleep shows Royal Marines yomping, My Knight in Body Armour shows a soldier holding the hands of a child and Afar But Not Forgotten depicts battleships, moored in a bay.

Jacqueline has painted Tornadoes, Chinooks, Apache helicopter gunships rescuing a colleague, military dogs, tanks, and even a submarine.

“The hardware and the people are all painted in silhouette,” she says.

Part of this is the contrast it makes with the red of the poppies but, says Jacqueline, part of the reason is because she paints in the dead of night.

“I do a lot of my paintings during the night,” she says.

“When the house is quiet and the children are asleep, that’s when I’m most inspired; it’s hard to describe what’s in you when you’ve got a painting wanting to come out.”

She initially posted her work on her Facebook page and was stunned by the enthusiastic response.

“I’ve now got more than 2,300 people following me and more than 5,000 Twitter followers,” she says. Jacqueline has had interest from Forces TV, a commercial agreement with the Royal British Legion, and has attended Armed Forces Day at Weymouth.

She has had many requests to buy her paintings and will sell them eventually with donations to the Royal British Legion, but not before they have been exhibited in the entrance lobby of The Royal Albert Hall in London for The Festival of Remembrance, and later, she hopes, at the National Memorial Arboretum.

“I would like them all to be seen together before they are split up,” she says.

In the meantime she is frequently moved to tears by the response to her work, and reads out one letter which arrived.

“Your talent has found me and speaks to a part of me that is never lost but somehow I can’t vocalise, your pictures stir a deep and profound something that only exists inside those who know what it means to see firsthand and their families share their pain... I appreciate what you do and I thank you. I am blessed to live in a world where someone with an amazing talent is able to grasp an emotion and transfer it to a medium that can be understood by many, as words and feelings cannot always be conveyed.”

• poshoriginalart.co.uk