He attended the Laird School of Art briefly and also had some theological training, but worked as a skilled cutter in the printing industry, in retail in Liverpool, and as a factory control officer for a white goods manufacturer in Bromborough.

He was a talented musician, singing in church when a boy and later "a brilliant Buddy Holly impersonator", and also performed with local amateur dramatic groups.

When Gittins was 35, the Liverpool Echo featured his decoration of his then home at Beta Close, Bebington, in a story headlined "Pictures of Pompeii Help Put Ron to Sleep" with a photograph of the walls and ceiling of his bedroom, painted with Roman scenes and emperors.

[1] It has been said that:He was a familiar sight in Oxton Village, where he would walk along the streets dressed in a series of homemade military costumes, pushing an old-fashioned pram filled with the bags of cement he used to build his gigantic fireplaces.

[15][16][14] Writing in the journal Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, Lisa Slominski says that "Oscillating between an idiosyncratic subjectivity and universal offering, the power held in Ron's Place is undeniable.