MY FIRST CAR
Artist Pete McKee started motoring later in life. He was 25 or 26 when he paid £250 for his first car, a Ford Fiesta.
“I had made do with public transport which was OK,” he said. But he realised he needed to learn to drive so he could travel quicker.
“It took three buses to get to my wife’s family in Rotherham so I realised I had to get a car. “I passed my test first time, which was good.” Pete, 57, is a painter of some renown, having being a cartoonist for The Yorkshire Post’s sister title the Sheffield Telegraph.
He has exhibited widely with his work – using bright colours and characters who tend to inhabit a world of working men’s clubs and bingo halls – popular in Sheffield and beyond.
Football is also heavily featured in his work although he regularly depicts fans from both halves of the footballing divide in Sheffield: Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday, the team he himself supports. He says he became a BMW fan with an X1, which he said was a good car. “I have had a few BMWs and they have always been good cars,” he said.
He has considered moving to electric vehicles but fears they would not cope with his demands.
“I drive up to Seahouses quite a bit to a caravan and I’m not sure there would be enough charging points,” he said. “I am always thinking about it but the range is the killer.
“They are so expensive, too. But eventually when the charging structure is there we will all have them, I’m sure.”
This month Pete will be opening the pages of his sketchbooks and making them available to view and purchase from the gallery in Sheffield.
This will be a rare insight into the artist's craft and thought process.
Picture This at the McKee Gallery in Sharrow Vale Road until March 31.