Anybody resolving to take in a little local culture this new year can’t afford to miss a celebration of one of Barton upon Humber’s cultural icons coming to the Wilderspin National School on January 7.

Ted Lewis’s life and work will be celebrated in his home-town over the new year. Lewis wrote nine novels, mostly in the noir genre, including the much-celebrated Jack’s Return Home, on which the genre-defining film Get Carter is based. He is known for the gritty realism in his books, which present an accurate and dramatic view of the criminal underworld in northern Britain and especially around North Lincolnshire in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

The free exhibition dedicated to Lewis will open at the Wilderspin National School Museum on Queen Street in Barton on January 7. It’s not just noir novels and crime dramas that will be filling the school-house though: Lewis was a prodigious and multi-talented man who worked successfully in a range of areas after his family moved to Barton in 1947. Before he hit on literary fame, Lewis’s teacher at Barton Grammar School, Henry Treece, had to persuade his parents to allow him to pursue his artistic and literary ambitions at art school. This led to a successful career as a graphic designer, which saw him help to create the famously psychedelic graphics for the video to Yellow Submarine by the Beatles.

As if literary fame and artistic success weren’t enough to lodge Lewis firmly in the British cultural firmament, he even found time to bring a little music to the local area with the help of the Unity Jazz Band.

All of this is celebrated in the exhibition with the help of research and memorabilia on the man and his work. It has been organised by the Ted Lewis Group, a voluntary local group of avid fans who work to spread the word about the local author’s work.

Mayor of North Lincolnshire, Councillor Trevor Foster tells the Scunthorpe Telegraph: “This is a very comprehensive interesting exhibition from Ted Lewis Group … I have seen Get Carter and I have been inspired to read more of Ted Lewis’s work ”

If you want to ‘get Ted’ this new year, the exhibition dedicated to him can be viewed for free from noon on January 7, 2017 at the Wilderspin National School, Barton upon Humber, then every Thursday to Sunday, from 11 am to 4 pm until 4th February 2017.