Thread: Scouse house ron gittins the bard of birkenheads art

From the Echo, a great final farewell
No one knew what eccentric relative had done to his home until after he died

Ron Gittins' imaginative creations transformed his otherwise normal looking house

liverpoolecho

• Bookmark4INCREDIBLE HOME IN OXTON ,BIRKENHEAD , DECORATED BY ARTIST RON GITTINS

Since her younger brother often walked into his local post office dressed in vintage military uniform, Pat Williams thought she was braced for all examples of his eccentric behaviour.
Ron Gittins used to practice Shakespeare in the outside toilet of his parents' Wirral home and once made the newspapers and local TV news for having painted scenes of Ancient Rome on his bedroom ceiling and walls.

But when he unexpectedly died last September and Pat entered his rented ground floor flat for the first time in years even she was astonished by what she found.



Ron's niece Jan Williams in front of the 3m-tall lion fireplace in her uncle's flat (Image: Andrew Teebay/Liverpool Echo)From the outside, the only sign that Ron's home is any different to the other double-fronted Victorian terraces in Oxton Village is the pile of rubbish in the front yard and the dirty white blinds covering the windows.
Push open the brown wooden door though, and inside you discover an extraordinary collection of rooms with their walls, ceilings and even sometimes floors decorated with vivid murals, Egyptian hieroglyphics, underwater scenes and portraits of historic leaders.



Oxton artist Ron Gittins dressed as 'The Minstrel' (Image: Courtesy of Jan Williams)And if this weren't unusual enough, in one front room a 3m-tall fireplace in the shape of a lion's head seems to roar as you enter. And across the hall, a fierce bull-shaped fireplace scowls at the stack of rubbish piled high in the bay window.

Pat, who is a former Wirral Mayor and was a Liberal Democrat councillor until she retired from politics at the age of 79, said: "When we first went inside after he died I had the shock of my life because it was absolutely full of all sorts of stuff. How he coped in there I just don't know.
"I don't appreciate all his art but what he's done is incredible. The fireplaces are extraordinary."




Ron Gittin's extraordinary Oxton flat (Image: Andrew Teebay/Liverpool Echo)


The 'underwater' bathroom (Image: Andrew Teebay/Liverpool Echo)A boy soprano who later became a brilliant Buddy Holly impersonator, Ron showed promise as an artist from an early age and studied at the Laird School of Art in Birkenhead.
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He was a powerful orator and could quote scenes from Shakespeare in a manner that would, Pat says, "give Richard Burton or Laurence Olivier a run for their money". And although he was involved in various local acting groups, she says he didn't like to take direction.



Ron as a boy, when he showed his first signs of creaivity (Image: Courtesy of Jan Williams)Pat, 82, says: "As a child he was hyperactive and very creative.
"When he was a boy he used to make little soldiers out of plasticine that were from all types of regiments and countries. The details in the uniforms were incredible.
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"He used to get into trouble in school for attention seeking and being what was thought to be mischevious and a little bit naughty but I think he was just bored a lot of the time.
"Today he would be diagnosed on the autism spectrum, I'm sure of it, and be treated with much more acceptance."



The enormous bull-shaped fireplace (Image: Andrew Teebay/Liverpool Echo)A month away from his 80th birthday when he died, Ron always displayed unusual behaviour but became more eccentric in his later years, turning up to Pat's 80th birthday in a thick coat, wellies, a wig and a hat "in case his head got cold".
He was a familiar sight in Oxton Village, where he would walk along the streets dressed in a series of homemade military costumes, pushing an old-fashioned pram filled with the bags of cement he used to build his gigantic fireplaces.



Ron painting when he was younger (Image: Courtesy of Jan Williams)Sometimes, instead of transporting materials for use in his art, he would take another of his creations out for a stroll - a life-sized papier mache model of Egyptian queen Cleopatra. Surely rather more buxom than the original, she now sits in his kitchen next to a large portrait of Greek goddess Athena and an old microwave, oblivious to the loss of her companion.
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After his death, a local family who were fond of her brother told Pat they used to shout "Ron alert" if they spotted him through the window before rushing to see what costume he was wearing.
Instead of flowers on his coffin, his sister placed two of his hats and a wig in a gesture she thought he would have enjoyed.



Cleopatra lounges inside the kitchen of Ron's flat (Image: Andrew Teebay/Liverpool Echo)Pat and Ron stayed in touch until his death, though their relationship was sometimes strained, partially due to his own unfulfilled political ambition.
She says: "He resented the fact that I was the eldest and a woman. He had this view that men are really the ones that should be in charge. But he was a very big supporter of Margaret Thatcher."



Papier mache heads created by the late Oxton artist Ron Gittins (Image: Andrew Teebay/Liverpool Echo)His unpredictable nature made it difficult for Pat to include in her role as Mayor of Wirral and although she invited him into the mayoral chamber and to visit the council chamber, she felt unable to invite him to her inauguration.
When they met in the street he would greet her with arms open wide and a smile on his face, but often their conversations led to disagreements.
However, the last time they met, Ron visited Pat at home with a big bunch of flowers for her birthday - a few months late - and they had a good chat.



Jan Williams and Chris Teasdale outside Ron Gittins' flat in Oxton (Image: Andrew Teebay/Liverpool Echo)Pat says: "I was sad that he died on his own but he didn't want everybody to know he wasn't well and he didn't want to go to hospital.
"He lived life on his own terms."

Who could ask for abetter epitaph, a Merseyside Glitterman, wonder if Candy is in the attic?