Walter Kershaw campaigning for a brighter Britain at Fulledge Community Centre, with his mural in the background.

An outside wall of the Fulledge Community Centre, Brunshaw, is merely a miniature canvas for Rochdale artist Walter Kershaw, but for local residents his arrival in Burnley is something of a major event. The wall, an area of 350 sq. ft. presents few problems for a painter who has only just finished a massive 2,000 sq. ft. mural in Oldham. "Compared to that, this one's a miniature," he said. With a mass of paint pots and brushes he has brought to Burnley his enthusiasm for brightness and colour, which will remain long after he has left.

The wall was plain and dreary before he started work on it at the beginning of the week. When it is finished it will present a lively picture of the community the centre serves. "When I came to look at the wall it had a lot of graffiti scrawled across it - some of it very good. So I thought since it was a community centre I'd paint the community. The youngsters have been helping as models, and maybe when it's finished they won't go back and scribble over themselves," he said.

He has been painting murals in and around his native Rochdale since 1972, and estimates that he has covered 10,000 sq. ft. of walls with his work. "The whole country looks so seedy - even places like Brighton and Guildford. When you see through the facade, the whole place is going to ruin. My paintings are a statement against that," he said. Already his enthusiasm has rubbed off on many of his youthful audience at the community centre, some of whom may have been responsible for the graffiti he found on the wall. Inside the centre they have been busy with paintings of their own, portraits of themselves and their friends. The mural has been commissioned by the Mid-Pennine Association for the Arts, and Walter Kershaw's work coincides with a school holiday arts workshop run at the centre this week. This has been organised by two local teachers, Philip Parnell and David Hardman, who said that they had been "snowed under" by children interested in the various activities arranged. Mr Parnell said: "We have had an average of about 50 children here each day, and word seems to be spreading rapidly. The children have been involved in drama and sculpture as well as painting."