By Ian McMillan

Published 27th Aug 2022, 06:00 BST

Red makes me think of my Uncle Charlie’s darkroom in a converted coal shed by the back door of his house on North Street in Darfield. He worked down the pit and he couldn’t read or write but he loved taking photographs and the air in the darkroom glowed red from a light in the corner as he developed them. We sat together in a kind of red shadow-world as the images emerged. Red is meant to be an angry colour, and of course sometimes it can be, but my memory of it in that tiny space is of a kind of contemplative calm.

Blue reminds me of the impossibly blue skies that seemed to hover over my childhood at this time of year. I realise that I’m looking at the past through blue-coloured spectacles but maybe the sky really was that blue. I remember sitting on a bench in Darfield Park with my mam and looking up at the sky and then, right at the edge of my field of vision, seeing an air balloon that was also blue, a slightly different blue so that it stood out like a blue cup on a white tablecloth. You hardly ever saw air balloons in those days and it truly was a thing of wonder. Kids in the park got off swings and pointed at it, as did their parents. Then we all started to wave, hoping that whoever was in the basket would see us and wave back. In my mind, my mam is wearing a blue dress, the same colour as the balloon, but I think I might just be making that up.

Yellow makes me think of custard, that undervalued food of the gods. I say “undervalued” because I know that some people can be snobbish about custard in the same way that they can be snobbish about white bread and Pot Noodles. There’s something about the golden yellow of custard that elevates it to the gold standard though, in my opinion. It’s the glow of school dinners, the gleam of Sunday afternoon teas, the moment when the tin is opened at a child’s party and the yellow waterfall (or should that be custardfall) is poured over the tinned peaches. Let’s face it, there’s something jolly and agreeable about the colour yellow; it doesn’t have red’s drama or blue’s sophistication or nuance but maybe yellow is my favourite of all the primary colours.

My granddaughter Isla will be coming to see us tomorrow and she’ll want to do some painting; I’ll get the primary colours out and maybe we’ll talk about that balloon and that sky and then she’ll paint. I’ll join in; I’ll give my mam that blue dress she may or may not have been wearing all those years ago.

And I’ll tell you what: I’ll give her a bowl of custard as well.

Ian McMillan on the power of primary colours