Author’s artwork raises funds for civic society

The author was born in Manchester, an only child, but after the Second World War his family moved to Barton-upon-Humber.

His second novel Jack’s Return Home, subsequently retitled Get Carter after the success of the film of the same name, starring Michael Caine, made his name.

Lewis, who died in 1982, donated his artwork to Barton-upon-Humber’s Civic Society and they have now produced notelets of two of his artwork which they are selling to raise funds for the group.

Civic Society chairman Ian Wolseley said: “The notelets feature two drawings and are being sold in packs of eight, including envelopes, for just £5.

“They will be launched at Pam Tatam’s Civic Society talk on April 19 and after that they will available at The Ropewalk, Wilderspin School and other outlets around the town.”

In addition the childhood home of Ted on Westfield Road, where he lived between 1952 and 1960, has been commemorated with a Civic Society plaque.

Lewis continued to live in the town while commuting across the Humber on the ferry to Hull College of Art before leaving to work in advertising, then illustration and animation, and finally as a professional writer, only returning to Barton when his marriage collapsed.

The Civic Society has also moved two more of its plaques to the gatepost of The Old Vicarage on Beck Hill so they can be more easily read. These two plaques commemorate the building as being the birthplace of the founder of The Samaritans, Chad Varah, who died in 2007, and David George Hogarth, the British archaeologist and scholar who was the keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford from 1909 until his death in 1927.

Ted Lewis died prematurely in 1982 having published seven more novels and written several episodes for the television series Z-Cars.