LANCASTRIANS welcome here! says one sign. Art snobbery NOT spoken here! says another.

These notices are posted up between a myriad of pencil and ink sketches of York buildings and landmarks, an open air art gallery courtesy of Andrew Gilmour.

Anyone who shops at York market will have seen his pictures displayed in a corner of King's Court, close to Shambles.

There, he sells 16 of his high quality prints for £2. Could this be York's best value souvenir? "It's got to be," says Andrew, a graduate of Harrogate Art College. "There's no doubt about that one.

"But then, I'm biased."

Added to the low price is an impressive guarantee: accidentally damage one picture and he'll post you a complete new set, free of charge. His phone number is on the envelope.

Andrew settled on £2 after his previous pricing policy had a mixed reception. For a few months, he asked people to pay what they thought the pictures were worth, from a penny up.

"People felt guilty about buying them, whatever they were paying," said Andrew, who is from Long Marston and now lives in Leeds.

The only ones who would pay him a penny were schoolchildren. They would walk off and start discussing if they had been fair, until "they came back and gave me more money. Quite comforting, really".

The lowest payment he received was £1; the highest £7.

Andrew has a new artistic project underway. He is sketching the greylag and Canada geese in York. And he plans to produce a new version of his popular Yorkshire wrapping paper for Christmas.

In the meantime, the set of York sketches is still on sale for a couple of quid.

And, reflecting York's multicultural tourist appeal, Andrew can say thank you in any number of languages (he has them spelt phonetically on the back of his display board: it's blugadaria in Bulgaria and bia dangu in Zulu).

Andrew is self-effacing about his talents. As the Diary was about to go, a tourist handed over £2 for his 16 prints. The artist told him: "Don't frame them all. You will end up hating me."

DAY two of the Diary's Five Days Of Death, and today's epitaphs are a double whammy from Thirsk churchyard.

When the Great Archangel's Trump shall blow,

And souls and bodies join,

What crowds will wish their lives below

Had been as good as thine.

Kind reader stop, be on thy guard,

Censure me not, nor judge me hard;

The time will come when thou must die -

Thou hast thy faults, as well as I;

If from transgression thou art free,

Then take a stone and cast at me.

Updated: 08:48 Tuesday, July 19, 2005