Mary Denton,Heraldic Artist, and Heraldic Illustrator.

Mary Denton.

Mary Denton, born in Arnhem in the Netherlands, moved to the UK when her father retired from the Netherlands Royal Air Force and continued her education in Wales, country of her mother's birth. Following the completion of her education she joined the PMRAFNS, was posted to Cosford, but soon realised that this was not the career for her, left and returned to College to improve her academic qualifications before settling on a career in Animal Nursing.

In 1978 she married John, an ex-Fleet Air Arm Aircrewman, went on to have 4 children and built a house on the side of a mountain in Mid-Wales. Throughout all this time, the art continued and in 1988, Mary formed her own business producing "Elite Editions" of the Monopoly game which were sold exclusively in the UK by Asprey's of London and New York simultaneously.

However, when these became too expensive to produce, she developed the "Heraldic Record of service" which traced a person/aircraft type/station's Forces career through unit badges served with.

After finding out there was a need for the RAF's heraldry to be properly recorded in 1991, she tried to raise funding from various sources for this project to go ahead, all efforts sadly to no avail. Following an article on her work in Flypast magazine, which featured a photograph of the complete heraldic history of the English Electric Lightning, she was contacted by Charles Ross who commissioned her to paint another version featuring his own aircraft and two of the other "Binbrook Lightnings."

Recognising a historic need for the project to be done, Charles soon became involved in trying to raise funding and awareness. Enlisting the additional support of Mr John Brooke-Little, then Norroy & Ulster King of Arms (sadly now passed away), David Lee, then Deputy Director at the IWM Duxford, and AVM Peter Latham CB, the RAF Heraldry Trust was established in 1996.

Having learned her lessons from the Monopoly experience, however, Mary has not settled for just the one subject and has continued to produce other art as well. She has illustrated several books and was also the first artist to be featured on the "Fan-Art" page of the official Queen rock group's website when it was launched in November 1996, taking Freddie Mercury's original (heraldically inspired) logo and adding a few alterations of her own. She also mastered the world of computer generated art and using this in conjunction with the traditional moved into the world of commemorative coin design where she has established a reputation as a renowned numismatic design artist. (see: www.commonwealthmint.com)

David in his racing car.

A lifelong fan of motor racing, (although today's F1 has lost all its appeal for her!) Mary has now also entered this world herself by becoming a member of Hagley & District Light Car Club, regularly marshals at speed hill climb events (mainly at Loton Park, Shropshire) and has passed on her love of motor sport to her son, David. He, naturally in order to get one over on Mum, took it one step further by acquiring his own single seater car and actually competed, although work commitments have temporarily put a stop to this.

Mary was his first official sponsor and also created his helmet design, which attracted quite a lot of interest around the paddocks.