Although Epsom’s Elke Squibbs is first and foremost a painter, there is little doubt that if the easels run dry there is a career in fireside storytelling in the offing.

A quick scan through her professional CV does little justice to her fascinating life story that before the age of ten saw her fleeing the advancing Russian army as they approached her home of Breslau at the end of the Second World War.

But Squibbs, who has an exhibition at Bourne Hall devoted to her work, remembers the time very well.

She explains: “I remember someone running into the village telling us we had 20 minutes to get out.

“I was eight at the time and it was quite frightening.

“It was just my mother and I and we literally packed up a suitcase and ran.

“We got a train along with lots of other people and travelled from here to there and we eventually ended up as refugees in a hotel in the Bavarian Alps.

“Many years later I found out that not everyone had left, and a lot of the people that stayed were either murdered or raped.”

But out of such turbulent times optimism can often come forth and that was certainly true in Elke’s case.

Squibbs adds: “My mother was a farmer, but she also got together with a carpenter and made these little boxes that they painted and sold to the American occupying troops as souvenirs.

“I used to help a bit so I became quite good at painting flowers.

“From then on I always loved painting.”

Elke’s life took another turn when, after studying in Munich, she met her husband, a teacher at Epsom College, and the couple married and moved to Espom in 1962.

Since then Squibbs has moved her painting to another level, having seen her work exhibited worldwide as a member of both the Leatherhead Art Club and the Epsom & Ewell Art Group.

And the Bourne Hall exhibition will once again focus on her specialities of landscape and plantlife.

She reveals: “I find it very easy to paint - I would not say that it is relaxing exactly but it completely takes you out of your everyday life and you can forget everything for a few hours.

“I feel very lucky to have had my work so well received and I look forward to painting for many years to come.”

Elke Squibbs exhibition, Bourne Hall, Ewell, June 29 - July 11