 He lived mainly in Brussels, but had houses in Hay-on-Wye and France.After World War II, engineer Bernard Ashley met Welsh secretary Laura Mountney at a youth club in Wallington, London.While working as a secretary and raising her first two children, part-time she designed napkins, table mats, tea-towels which Bernard printed on a machine he had designed in an attic flat in Pimlico, London The couple had invested £10 in wood for the screen frame, dyes and a few yards of linen.