The Man Behind Get Carter: Ted Lewis
Ted Lewis, the man who wrote so convincingly about London-based gangsters, came of age in the same small North Lincolnshire town where he later went down in flames. Lewis continued to live in Barton-Upon-Humber while attending Hull College of Art, commuting across the Humber estuary via ferry. After years of living in London and other parts of England while working in advertising, then illustration and animation, and finally as a professional writer, he returned to Barton when his marriage collapsed. When Lewis died in 1982, just 42, it seems the only people to attend the funeral - besides his own immediate family members - were friends from Barton.
Many of Lewis's friends from boyhood days (they knew him as Edward, or Lew) got reacquainted with him over the last few years of his life. Their remembrances of Lewis and his time in Barton create a picture of a man whose personal life appears as complicated as his literary work is undervalued.
Even friends who had a rough time being in Lewis's company in his later years remember young Edward fondly. "A lovely looking little boy," one woman recalls, "very angelic with blonde hair in a little quiff. Couldn't help but like him." But the likeable boy also wanted to make sure people understood he was rugged. This same lady recalls young Edward showing a kind of stubborn toughness in the classroom:
"I remember once he caught his finger in a satchel ring, agonizingly, and never uttered a word or groan, even when the ring was prized apart. It must have really, really hurt, but he wouldn't have shown weakness to anyone. Guess that was his trouble." Further proof that Edward wanted to be seen as a tough guy is revealed by his mother's once telling a friend of his, "He always wanted to be James Dean."
One friend remembers a life-changing incident involving Lewis and the headmaster at Barton Grammar School. Just recently back to school after suffering a spell of rheumatic fever, Lewis, who was carrying on in the cafeteria, had his face slapped by the official. If being struck in that way as a public spectacle wasn't humiliation enough, the still weak-bodied boy wet himself for all to see. {Read the full story}