In planning Birmingham’s People I wanted to create a convincing portrait of all aspects of Birmingham’s culture and its social history.

One popular image of the Midlands since the 70s has been its reputation as a centre of long haired heavy metal. As soon as I saw Martin I thought he would be perfect to illustrate this portion of Brummie history.

Of course as soon as I talked to him I realised that you can’t pigeon hole anyone so glibly and easily, Martin was as charming a man as you could hope to meet and his portrait is as much about the extraordinarily serene green eyes as his fabulously wild hair.