THERE is nothing too unremarkable about the sitting room - chairs, table, TV and stereo are standard, except they have been "paid for" by paintings.

Bargaining artist Ron Caygill is not into cash purchases, he uses his brushes to buy.

Even the bed came courtesy of a bird watercolour.

"See those candlesticks?" he asks, pointing to fine brass works of art.

They and the ornate mantlepiece glass goblets needed fine-tuned trading.

Art has dominated the Burneside barterer's life.

He pulled out of the village 39 years ago to hit a swinging sixties metropolis.

He was befriended by the Queen of Tonga, sold countless works, copied Victorian treasures for a dubious dealer, but always failed to find real recognition.

Seriously ill in the spring, he decided to return home to die.

"I got gangrene, as a result of my diabetes.

I had a toe removed and felt terrible.

I thought if this is it, I want to be back in Burneside.

"When I got here, bright, fresh leaves were bursting through.

It was like a new beginning.

I was surrounded by beauty and all I wanted to do was paint."

Gradually, his precarious health started to improve.

A businessman took an interest in his work, paying for prints to be made, and, at 63, Ron Caygill thinks he's on the brink of a breakthough.

"The sad thing is, I should never have gone to London.

Others have made it in the art world by staying here."

His dad was the village plumber who liked to dabble with paints and encouraged his lad to have a go.

"It was what you would expect from a plumber, all straight lines, so I carried on and taught myself," said Ron.

"I went to night school once, but could paint better than the teacher, who told me I did everything wrong.

I do things very much my own way."

He ditched his job operating a paper machine at Croppers Mill and headed south in search of artistic opportunities.

"I wanted recognition, to make a name for myself.

I used to drag my portfolio around but, without any formal training, I didn't stand a chance.

"It was 1961, sex, rock and roll, and abstract art were everywhere.

There seemed no place for serious painters."

Ron toiled in restaurants and met a girl who worked at the Tongan Embassy, who invited him round.

"I met the ambassador, the King and Queen.

I even cooked for Queen Matahoa.

She has one of my paintings in the palace.

"I was invited to a royal wedding once and the Queen wanted me to teach art in a school.

I didn't go to the wedding because I couldn't afford the air fare and was fazed by the prospect of learning Tongan to run a class."

Instead, Ron busied himself with painting two-and-a-half-inch miniatures, after seeing a wanted advertisement in the London Evening Standard.

"I could do up to 20 an hour and figured it would be better to sell them myself and took a stall on Covent Garden market."

His talent was seized on by a dealer, who got Roy to copy Victorian classics by the likes of Myles Birket Foster and Rose Maynard Barton.

"I got about £50 apiece, and used to spray the paper with coffee, crinkle it up and iron it out, to make it look old.

I didn't ask questions, but have been told my work went all over the world.

"Artists get cheated all the time.

I have been, because I'm stupid and too soft."

But a New Year and a new era has begun.

A series of six paintings have become a limited edition of 2,000 prints.

There will be landscapes to join incredibly detailed pictures of birds.

"I've lost so many opportunities.

This time I'm staying put.

I will not even go away on a holiday.

My surroundings are going to be my inspiration."

As for bartering, Roy says there are still some things he might buy with a canvass, but it will be top market stuff.

"I've been told my paintings might be worth something one day.

I'm certainly not going to pay for the groceries with them."