Brothers’ Bury garage remembered as a jigsaw

A nostalgic painting of a landmark Bury St Edmunds town centre garage has now been published as a jigsaw.

Artist Steven Brinks, from Bures, was brought up in Bury and passed his driving test in the town in a Mini, so he combined his nostalgia for the two by painting Roger’s Garage in Whiting Street with Mini Coopers in the workshop.

The white Mini on the ramp in the painting still exists and was the model for the other two.

Steven said: “I wanted to capture something of Bury St Edmunds that wasn’t going to be there much longer.”

So in 2010 he took a series of photographs of the garage owned by brothers Pat and Neville Rogers to work from.

But when they were printed, he realised that the rafters were so dark in the photos that he could not see what was lurking up there.

The answer was to paint it from life and he set his easel up on the pavement, looking into the workshop.

He recalls Pat being a little baffled that he wanted to paint what was, to the brothers, their everyday workplace.

But Pat kept popping out to see how the painting was progressing and became more enthusiastic as the picture developed.

He ended up buying the finished canvas, which still hangs in his home.

But that was not the end of the picture’s story for Steven.

The painting was subsequently published both as a fine art print and as a greetings card.

Then one of the cards was seen by Falcon Jigsaws who asked to use it.

Steven said: “I had to tweak it for the jigsaw because they needed more colour in the roof.

“If you think of a jigsaw, all the pieces have to look different.

“Using a fine art print, I added bunting and signs poked into the rafters, wall heaters –which it didn’t have– and God knows what.”

The jigsaw, called Workshop Dream, was published by Falcon in the summer and has just reached the shops, including Starlings toy shop just round the corner from the garage’s location.

When Pat decided to retire, the garage was redeveloped into two houses which bear the brother’s names.

As each brother used one side of the workshop, the two houses in Whiting Street are the same way round.