My mother was a lost painter and I am a lost writer. After finishing the last book of my autobiographical trilogy, I stopped writing and watched and waited for the New Age, for the creation of new arts and sciences, new thinking, systems and beliefs - for the release of new energies. And now, in my old age, campaigning for my mother's work and sure of a sighting, I write again, for I want to tell what I have seen and done and finish her story.

She had a studio only at the end of her painting life. She could never afford one and we travelled or moved our homes so much. She painted her portraits in makeshift rooms, in those of her sitters and her own. The only thing she had to have was a north light.

One of the things that we travelled with was an American Saratoga trunk, an enormous wooden chest, with straps fitted round it, of the kind into which the pioneers stowed all their belongings when they trekked across the prairies in their covered wagons. When we returned to England, we brought this trunk with us and went on lugging it about, and when she died in 1971, it was the only thing she had to leave me.

I was homeless and it was not until 1976, when I found the money and set up as London management and produced my play, 'The Journey' in the Round House that, when it failed and I was given a cottage in the country in return for housework - I opened it.

It was full of her work. Unframed watercolours, drawings and rolled up canvases dating back to her youth, to her art school days, her early life in Africa and the struggling years that followed. Mostly portraits painted for her own pleasure or rejects of commissions. If a sitter criticised a picture, she would never finick about with it, but throw it away and start again. And usually the first was best.

As I looked upon this cache, I knew that here was the lost treasure of a great painter who had scattered her work about the world, sacrificed herself for me and died, living on charity - unknown.

I framed some watercolours and took them, with the six surviving miniatures, to the National Portrait Gallery and was told that they could not accept them because the subjects were not celebrities and, because my mother was born in Kensington, they sent me to the Leighton Gallery.

I could see at once that the small delicate work would be lost in the gloom and over-powered by the archaic clutter of Holland Park House and when, after telling me that it was beautiful work, they sent me up to Bond Street - I ran hurriedly away.

I went in and out of the art galleries, invariably told that the way to get a lost artist known was to sell and get the pictures onto people's walls.

None were interested until Henry Ford, of the Maas Gallery, advised me to mount an exhibition myself. I framed a lot more and he booked the National Book League Art Gallery in Albemarle Street for a week, taught me how to catalogue them and, when I had hung them, came and valued them. And I sold and launched the first book of my autobiography, 'The Golden Thread'.

Before the exhibition closed, the Director of the Art Centre in Solihull invited me to bring the Collection there and, searching my records and my memory, I asked the Dowager Viscountess Davidson to open an exhibition on December 3rd 1979, in the Central Library.

I sat in the gallery every day, next to the open noisy restaurant, watching the mothers march in with there push-chairs and screaming babies, not looking at the pictures. And at the children, sliding on the polished floor and chasing each other round the showcases, and tried to believe and be pleased that I was taking 'art to the people'.

And I sold as before. Not to the 'people' but to the Solihull gentry who came for 'culture' and to buy pictures to cover the walls of their opulent Midland homes. And, suddenly, I woke up to the wrongness of what I was doing.

'Getting the pictures up onto peoples' walls', allowing them to disappear into peoples' houses would not establish my mother, but ensure that she was lost altogether. I stopped selling and put 'sold' stickers onto every picture. After that, I only sold to pay the exhibition expenses.

Learning that the greatest miniature collection in the world was in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, I offered my little collection to John Murdoch, the Keeper of Paintings. He chose 'The Red Haired Girl', painted at the Herkomer Art School in Bushey, and displayed it permanently in the 20th Century Section of the Miniatures Gallery.

In recognition of this gift, Jim Murrell, Head of Conservation and a world authority on the miniature, restored one that was damaged and, falling in love with my mother's work, became my supporter.

Having no next-of-kin and worried about the future of the pictures, in 1981, I drew up a rough will leaving them to Henry Ford of the Maas Gallery. Then, given a personal introduction to a firm of solicitors in Sheffield, Kershaw Tudor, I drew up another in favour of an art friend.

When I told the solicitors that, while possessing a valuable collection of pictures I was living on social security, they queried the situation with the DHSS and were told that the pictures were, indeed, capital assets - which meant that I must sell them or lose my benefits.

My situation was desperate. I could not live without the benefits - and I would not sell the pictures. I went to John Murdoch for advice. He could only suggest placing them in locations where they would be displayed but separated from me and I went to the offices of  'Country Life' where my proposal was sympathetically received and an excellent article came out in the next issue.

I received two possible responses. A Manor House in Buckinghamshire and a castle in Scotland. Both open to the public. I sent information and reproductions and would have considered the castle if the factor of the ducal pile had not decided that as the pictures had no Scottish associations, they were not suitable.

I then loaded my luggage trolley and went to the Manor House where security was my first concern. It was crowded with objects and the only hanging space was in a room with glass doors leading out into the garden. When I asked what alarm system was in place, I was told - two dogs! They did not tell me that a valuable collection of dolls had recently been stolen. I learnt this later. I continued my campaign.

In 1982, at the Watford Museum & Art Gallery, the work was given a fine showing and a year later, after frequent journeys to Graves Gallery, in Sheffield, with trolley-loads of pictures, and after months of waiting, the Curator retired and Anne Goodchild, asserting her new powers, rushed a selection into the Mappin Gallery in the University Park and then engaged in a massive publicity campaign.

It was a prestigious Midland event with posters of the portrait of Mrs Stanley Baldwin in every library and college and on every hoarding - and an opening by the Lord Mayor. But no critics came. No interest was shown anywhere - not even by the DHSS! I resumed work on 'The Horses and The Charioteer', sequel to 'The Golden Thread' and went on writing to art galleries, asking for exhibition space.

Most were fully booked or not interested until the Oliver Swann Gallery, an exclusive little venue in Walton Street, London, offered me a shared exhibition at which I had to sell. And because the situation still seemed so hopeless, I did. And at John Murdoch's suggestion, I sold two miniatures and a watercolour, to the National Gallery of Canada.

In 1985, after several exploratory visits to Bristol, I was able to arrange for an exhibition in the Royal West of England Academy, a magnificent building with a marble staircase rising beneath Burne-Jones frescoes. I was given three splendid galleries and took over 100 pictures.

A friend, working in the BBC, arranged for them to be televised, with a 3-minute showing on Bristol Points 4. I was sure that the critics would come this time and the national press would report and my mother's work would receive national acclaim.

Record numbers viewed the pictures but no critics came and only the local press reported. I sold three pictures to cover the cost of the transport, the printing of catalogues and my journeys and for a fortnight, although again disappointed, I counted the exhibition as a success.

Then, the weather changed. The grey cloudy days gave way to sunshine which flooded through the glass roof, and looking up for the first time I saw that the filtering material covering the glass was everywhere torn, exposing the pictures to the ultra violet rays.

I rushed to an attendant and was told that the building had been requisitioned during the war, and afterwards everything had been repaired or renewed - except the glass roof.

The pictures were screwed to the walls and I could only move them by taking them away altogether and cancelling the rest of the exhibition. I went out and bought a load of newspapers and inserted a sheet over every picture and, at 11 o'clock every day, when the sun came in, I carried out this terrible exercise. To see a picture, the people had to lift the newspaper.

In 1986, a new lawyer, James Skerrett, took over the probate department of Kershaw Tudor and, after examining my affairs, came up with the wonderful news that the pictures were not personal assets subject to governmental decree, but heirlooms which I was entitled to hold and exhibit for the benefit of the nation. The pictures were safe! Free from anxiety I went about rejoicing, with my energy renewed.

I loaded my trolley once again, the miniatures and small pictures in a rucksack on my back and a copy of 'The Golden Thread' and set off by bus and train for Cumbria with an introduction from John Murdoch to Daphne Foskett.

She met me at Grange-over-Sands and drove me to her house which was a private museum and art gallery crowded with antique furniture and bric-a-brac, with pictures covering the walls and hundreds of miniatures in cases - one of the finest collections in the country.

She was a leading authority on the miniature, a consultant to the auction houses and she had spent ten years compiling the official dictionary.

I unpacked and arranged my pictures before her, told her my mother's story and stayed talking for several hours, before strapping them onto the trolley again and, leaving the book behind, set off on my return journey.

She read the book and, deciding to write an article on my mother, invited me to come again and talk about her life and work - and stay the night.

A year later, in 1987, the article came out in the 'Antique Collector' under the title 'Louie Burrell - Rediscovered'. And again in 'The Complete Antique Collector'. I was pleased even if, after providing the research material, the reproductions and travelling at my own expense, I had to beg the publisher for a free copy - then fetch it to save him postage.

My mother's work had reached the centre of the art world and I was sure now that illustrious galleries would clamour to exhibit it. But not a word or sign came from anywhere. The article was ignored and she was still lost - still 'undiscovered'.

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