A BLACKPOOL grandfather has made his life-story into a work of art.

For 73-year-old former colliery worker Joe McGinn has become a nationally renowned artist with 250 paintings to his credit.

And this month Mr McGinn, of Walpole Avenue, has a solo exhibition at the Beamish Open Air Museum in County Durham.

The paintings, mainly oil on canvas, are a valuable exercise in social history, depicting scenes remembered from his childhood in County Durham, many showing the joys and privations of life in pit villages in the early part of this century.

Mr McGinn, entirely self-taught, started painting in 1970 before retirement from his work as a building manager.

Since then he has exhibited many times with the Blackpool and Lytham St Annes art societies, winning several prizes with his Fylde scenes.

His crowning achievement was to have two paintings accepted for the summer exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in London.

Some of his work is now achieving substantial prices - around £2,000 - but Mr McGinn says: "I don't really want to bother about that at my age, I just want to enjoy my painting and my games of golf."

He lives with his wife June and they have three grown-up sons, one of whom has taken after his father and become a professional artist.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.