The Lincolnshire museum that built a shrine to Michael Caine
Across England, you can find an array of bizarre or rather unsuspecting museums located in the most unexpected of places.
Go to Derwent in Cumbria, and you can find a pencil museum, while Birmingham has a pen museum, and, a little more curious, there’s a whole building dedicated to Bakelite products in Somerset, but what does Lincolnshire, the biggest county in the country, have to offer?
Well, in terms of museums, you’ve predominantly got to have an interest in aviation and the previous World Wars if you want to get something out of them, to be honest, and since it’s a county rich with RAF history, you can get down to the International Bomber Command Centre or the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, if you so please. But what if you’re into something a bit more specialist, say, Michael Caine?
For that, you need to get to north Lincolnshire, where you can visit a museum that has a room practically dedicated to the iconic British star, in particular, his movie Get Carter, released in 1971, which further helped put the actor on the map as a film legend, following roles in the likes of Zulu, The Ipcress Files, The Italian Job, and the Oscar-nominated Alfie.
Get Carter remains one of his finest gangster flicks, with Caine playing Jack Carter, who returns home following the death of his brother, suspicious that there was more to his passing than meets the eye, and with supporting performances from John Osborne, Ian Hendry, and Britt Ekland, the film was a hit with audiences, although it took slightly longer for it to impress critics.
These days, it’s a pretty beloved entry into the British canon, and Caine is formidable as Carter, a character created by Ted Lewis, whose novel Jack’s Return Home formed the basis of the movie, which remains one of his defining roles.
Lewis was born in Manchester, but as a child, he grew up in North Lincolnshire’s Barton-upon-Humber; it’s not the most illustrious of locations, with its nearby towns being Scunthorpe and Grimsby, but he spent a lot of time here, which was enough to warrant a museum dedicated to him.
The Ted Lewis Centre can be found on a rather unsuspecting road lined by houses, a petrol station, and a car wash, but inside is a place entirely dedicated to the writer, who also contributed to Yellow Submarine, The Beatles’ animated film, and the Get Carter prequel, Jack Carter’s Law, and you can also find here what is essentially a shrine dedicated to Caine, including a life-size cutout of the actor, the chair he used on the set of Get Carter, and plenty of photographs and newspaper clippings.
It might seem like a strange place to find a room dedicated to the gangster film and its star, but it’s places like these that really keep the history of certain movies alive, celebrating their local links and encouraging people to appreciate themselves as well as great works from the big screen, so if you’re ever in North Lincolnshire, you know where to go as a big Michael Caine fan, and maybe you’ll learn a thing or two about an author whose career was short but incredibly impactful.
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