PICKET LINE PAINTER

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: february 2023 :: RMTnews 12 W atercolour artist Inga Bystram has become well known to RMT members on picket lines at Seven Sisters depot in Tottenham this year, as well as at Euston, Kings Cross, and further afield. Her colour-coordinated outfits fit right in alongside striking RMT members’ colourful hi-vis, flags and banners. Inga sketches and paints striking rail workers (RMT, ASLEF and TSSA) as well as CWU postal workers, UCU university lecturers, and even striking barristers outside the Old Bailey. Inga lives on Tottenham’s Broadwater Farm Estate and describes herself as ‘a relative newcomer’, having moved there in 2005 when she married her late husband, Terry Burton, the long-serving Secretary of Haringey Trades Union Council from 1986 to 2008. Inga has been drawing since her schooldays. She first learnt to draw at her sixth Form at Broxbourne School in Hertfordshire and she then went on to study art at London’s Royal Academy. This summer she decided to paint striking RMT members, attracted by the colour and vibrancy of the picket lines as well as the friendliness of the pickets. Of her first picket line painting she says: “I went down to Euston Station and got introduced to lovely Uncle Paul who took me under his wing. My sister Yolanda who was active on picket lines in the 1970s and 80s said to me “Don’t be nervous, Inga. It might be their first picket line too!” Inga has become something of a picket line celebrity and will be exhibiting her watercolour sketches at trade union offices in 2023, as well as a possible exhibition at Somerstown’s prestigious Cock Tavern Art Gallery in Chalton Street. On exhibiting her work to readers of RMT News, Inga says: “It means more to me than a show at the Tate”. PICKET LINE PAINTER