A day in the life: When Beatles came to Barnsley

Self-taught painter Terry Brookes was born and bred in Barnsley and is making his exhibition debut at the age of 57.

From a young age he developed a fascination with art and rock music - from some of Britain’s finest bands, The Beatles and The Smiths, to American guitar legend Jimi Hendrix - and he has combined both passions into a lasting hobby.

A keen vinyl records collector, Mr Brookes fondly remembers trawling through the rows of releases at his local independent music store, the now-closed Casa Disco in Barnsley’s Peel Square, as a teenager. At home, meanwhile, he would indulge in artistic forays, starting out by drawing characters copied from cartoons, such as Bugs Bunny, on TV.

Decades later, he is a married computer software tester but continues to pick up his paintbrush and was recently approached by staff at the Experience Barnsley Museum and Discovery Centre who stumbled across his artwork on Twitter and Facebook.

Now his collection of acrylic paintings, which are predominantly music-inspired, are on display at the museum in his very first exhibition entitled When the Beatles came to Barnsley.

“I’ve painted all my life since I was a kid. I’ve followed in my dad’s footsteps, he was an artist and he encouraged me to try different bits and bobs. Over the years I’ve tried different styles and I liked this colourful, cartoon style.”

Some of his most eye-catching paintings place world famous musicians among familiar landmarks in Mr Brookes’s home town - including The Beatles strolling across a zebra crossing alongside the old market place in Market Hill as a nod to the cover of the Liverpudlians’ 11th studio album featuring the Fab Four in the same scenario outside EMI Studios in London’s Abbey Road.

He explains: “A lot of my stuff is music related. I’m a music nutcase.

“A few years ago I did a painting of Casa Disco, this record shop that has been in Barnsley since I was a teenager. A lot of people say they bought their first record in there when they were a kid. The painting is set in 1977 - an iconic year for music - with this punk looking in at the records through the window. I had it hanging in the house, and I did another one with a heavy metal guy coming out of the shop.

“A few years ago I painted The Beatles. There used to be a zebra crossing alongside the old market place and I had been looking for iconic pictures of rock artists to paint so I did The Beatles on the zebra crossing. I hung it up at home and everyone who saw it said they liked it and that I should get the picture on t-shirts and posters.”

Another of his paintings shows the band’s yellow submarine stationed alongside the town hall, to suggest that the foursome arrived in Barnsley by travelling in the yellow submarine from the album of the same name.

The exhibition has come as a bit of a surprise. He says: “I have been busy with family life and I hadn’t had time to paint for a while, but I’d just got round to doing a few bits when a colleague said you need to get them on a website so people can see them.”

With a website up and running, Mr Brookes broadened his horizons further, buying an iPad to use apps to produce artwork. It was this work and his website gallery that got him noticed by Experience Barnsley.

The exhibition runs at the museum until Sunday, February 23 and features artwork depicting Sheffield rockers Arctic Monkeys which Mr Brookes hopes will attract younger visitors.

Barnsley councillor Roy Miller, the local council’s cabinet spokesman for development, environment and culture, expects the exhibition to go down well with locals. “I know that Barnsley is full of music lovers as well as art enthusiasts so I’m sure this will be very popular with many people,” he said.