He had a variety of jobs before the war: gas-works stoker; bus conductor; builder's labourer; lamp-lighter; until he was accepted for the famous and exclusive British Army regiment of the Coldstream Guards.
Without telling her husband she wrote to Sir Herbert Read and he paid Lloyd a visit to see his paintings, and bought a couple of them.
The rapidly expanding Lloyd family (eight children, and one who died young) moved to a council house further into the village and Lloyd took a job with the Derwent Plastics Company at Stamford Bridge, the money was better and the hours easier, he did shift work so he could paint by day and work by night.
The result was that the BBC Monitor series made a television documentary film about his life and work, The Dotty World of James Lloyd.
Two years later Lloyd was chosen to play (with no previous acting experience) the part of Henri Rousseau in Ken Russells 'Monitor' film on the great French naive painter, Always on Sunday.
When his book Goodbye Baby and Amen, an album of Bailey's portraits of celebrities of the 1960s was published, Lloyd featured prominently.
He was also noticed by collectors abroad and his work was collected by Museums and Galleries as far apart as Caracas, Venezuela, and Zacreb, Yugoslavia.