What do lobsters,Minis and James Bond have in common? Electrician turned gallery owner Peter Restorick,discovers SALLY KING

James Bond hurtles up the Thames, his craft skids past the Millennium Dome and through Billingsgate fish market, where Leigh art gallery owner Peter Restorick is balancing a crate of fish.

Fish, crabs and lobsters fly in all directions and Peter's moment of glory, dressed in kit borrowed from Mattack's fish monger, just along Elm Road, has passed.

Peter, artist, gallery owner, drama club member and electrician is also a film extra and the latest Bond epic is just one of a number of high-profile shoots he has appeared in.

"I've been in the Broker's Man and the Midsommer Murders. I've seen myself on telly several times," he grins. "I haven't seen the new Bond movie yet, so I don't know if I even ended up in shot. I understand it is the opening sequence though."

A year ago in November Peter opened his own premises, Harlequin Gallery, in Elm Road, Leigh: "There was nowhere in Leigh, except Old Leigh, where people could just go and wander round looking at local artists' work and scenes of Leigh.

"I took over this building, which was the dry rot office, and have turned it into a gallery with help from a friend, Francis Garrard, who owns the Alexander Gallery in Chalkwell."

It was a bit of a gamble for Peter, wh had stopped working as an electrician when he became a single parent several years ago. His sons are now grown up and Peter wanted to return to work.

"Lets face it. When you get to my age who's going to employ you?" says Peter, now in his mid-40s. "The only way I am going to get back on my feet is doing it for myself."

He was pleased to find that soon after he opened the new gallery local people came in to look, and local artists came in to place work with him.

"I have work by a lot of local artists, especially of local Leigh scenes and I now have the resources to place commissions for people. Whatever they want I have an artist who can provide it.

"I do framing, sell limited editions and I have a gallery upstairs for one-off exhibitions. At the moment I have an exhibition of work by Steve Whittle there."

Peter, who has an A-level in art but otherwise has had no other formal art training, has a fascination for Minis - the motoring kind - and has painted a whole series of Mini-mania pictures which are also displayed in the gallery.

"I hope to display them in the Odeon, Southend when they show the Italian Job," says Peter.

He is finding that there are a lot of talented artists in Leigh, and he is delighted that the standard of the work he offers for sale is very high indeed, although he has his own favourites.

"There are works by Joel Kirk and Andrew Hall, who is a teacher as well as photographs by Ian James and Jerry Helman who teaches at Denes School," he said.

The first year of the gallery has gone well, and Peter feels he is building up a regular clientele, and that people enjoy having somewhere to come just to browse through local work.

"I have to thank everyone for their enthusiasm and support," he says.

Now he has to clear out the window display. "I have some Japanese and Oriental work coming in for people who are interested in feng shui," he explains.

I wonder what the stiff British upper lip of 007 would make of that?

Tickled pink - Film extra Peter played a Billingsgate porter in the latest James Bond film, The World Is Not Enough, and he's equally at home in the his art gallery in Leigh, where he own paintings of Minis are currently on display

Picture: STEVE O'CONNELL

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.