[3] He attended Workington's Central Secondary School and worked for the General Post Office as a telegraph messenger boy from 1932 to 1939 before serving in the Royal Corps of Signals from 1939 to 1946.

[1] Although he did not attend art school until he was in his forties,[2] Kelly gained recognition alongside other artists such as L. S. Lowry and Sheila Fell, and was known to King George VI and admired by Princess Margaret.

[5] That same year, he showed his work to Bill Hamilton, chief designer at West Cumberland Silk Mills, and offered to paint for the company.

[1] Sekers subsequently put on two more exhibitions at his show rooms at Sloane Street, London in 1968, and at Lady Fermoy's gallery in King's Lynn in 1969.

[2] Whereas his early work as Percy or Bob focused on machinery and industrial landscapes, while painting as Roberta, Kelly explored more "feminine" themes, including flowers and self-portraits.

[2] In 1983, Kelly gave some of his charcoal drawings to Mary Burkett, but later asked her to return them, because he worried that her successor as director of Abbott Hall Art Gallery would not appreciate his work.

[1] Convinced of his own greatness, Kelly wrote that someday his cottage, which had become cluttered with paintings, would become like a shrine that would "upstage Beatrix Potter's home".

[3] He married Christine Griffith in 1972 and lived with her at Levens Park Cottage in Kendal where they became friends with Mary Burkett, director of Abbott Hall Art Gallery.