MALCOLM Barrett feels at home with a paint brush in his hand.

But he will have to get used to being without one now he has retired after nearly 50 years in the family firm.

Malcolm, of Silsden, was just 15 years old when he started work for his father, Clifford, and his uncle Brian.

By this time the firm was already 54 years old, having been established by his grandfather, Fred at Cross Hills in 1896.

"I really started a couple of years before I was 15 because my first job was painting Kildwick School in 1948," he recalled.

Malcolm attended Keighley tech and Bradford College part-time to learn the tricks of the trade and the skills needed to become a successful professional painter and decorator.

"There was a lot of graining and distressing work to do in those days, which people think is new, but I was doing it a long time ago," he said.

National service took him away from the business for two years when he joined the Coldstream Guards, based at Wellington Barracks, opposite Buckingham Palace, and got the chance to take part in the famous Trooping of the Colour.

"I tell people that I worked at the Palace, as I once replaced a piece of glass in the guard room," he quipped.

Malcolm still keeps in touch with his past, as chairman of the Bradford branch of the Coldstream Guards Association and its official standard bearer.

During his years as a painter and decorator he helped create an ornate centrepiece for the refurbishment of Bolton Priory.

In the shape of a Yorkshire rose, he coloured and gilded the beech wood creation.

And he discovered 150 year old tiles while helping to decorate St Mary's Parish Church in Oxenhope.

But Malcolm knows the painting and decorating business will be in good hands as he is handing it over to his son, Kevin, the fourth generation of the Barrett family to run it.