RINGO Johns certainly turns heads. Walking through Swindon town centre, with multiple facial piercings and hands glittering with silver jewellery, it is not surprising he attracts plenty of attention.

We have agreed to meet at the Brunel Centre, writes SARAH SINGLETON, and I have no worries about recognising the man who was the subject of the dramatic photographic portrait by Terry Winter that won the Swindon Camera Club’s Picture of the Month for July.

At first glance, this pensioner might seem intimidating, with a face full of metal, flesh tunnels in his ears and a minor Mohican.

Yet as soon as he smiles and speaks, it is apparent this is a thoughtful, friendly person – one who has taken the idea of body modification to quite an extreme.

While tattoos and piercings may be mainstream these days, Ringo, who lives in Walcot, is in a different league.

Although he is not often approached by strangers in Swindon – perhaps they are more used to him after 15 years in the town – he tells me tourists from all over the world stop him in the street when he visits Oxford.

“Lots of foreign visitors talk to me and want to take my photo, or to be in a photo with me,” he says.

“Once I was asked 14 times in one day. I don’t mind though – I enjoy it.”

Ringo’s story begins far away from Swindon, in an old mining community near Redruth in Cornwall. He was born into an old mine-owning family and was privately educated.

He worked for a builders’ merchants and then developed an interest in photography. He was a wedding photographer for a time, and then started doing some photographic assignments for a tattooist in Falmouth.

This marked the start of his life-long interest in body modification. He trained in the art of body piercing and started work at the studio.

“The training was different then than now, but we had to study anatomy," he says.

"You have to learn where the major veins are, and where the muscles and ligaments lie near the surface of the skin. I had to study parts of Gray’s Anatomy."

Ringo, who could not be persuaded to tell me his age, started out as a Teddy Boy, but embraced the punk scene when it emerged in the 1970s.

He continued working at the piercing studio, alongside work in gardening and horticulture.

Eventually life in Cornwall started wearing him down.

“At that time, parts of Cornwall were like Victorian times,” he says.

“I went into pubs that refused to serve me because of how I looked. So one day, when I was going on holiday to Wales I stopped off in Swindon – and I liked it.”

Ringo still does some horticultural work and sells plants at markets in Swindon, Highworth, Fairford and Lechlade.

His body modifications began when he was 25. While most people might choose their ears for a first piercing experience, Ringo jumped in at the deep end and had his nipples pierced.

He admitted it was painful but he wanted a modification his family could not see since they would not approve of it. Since then, he has not looked back and now has, he reckons, a total of 170 piercings.

His facial piercings include multiple eyebrow bars, nose and septum rings, the tops of his cheek and – of course – his ears. His most recent piercings – just eight months ago – were in his hand, at the base of his thumb. He also has tattoos over his arms, legs, shoulders and one on his chest.

“It is addictive,” he admits. “It does hurt having the tattoos done, but how much depends on where it is. I had a tattoo on the base of my spine and that hurt, and on my elbows, where the skin is on the bone. You feel the outline being done but when it’s filled in it’s not so bad.

“On my arms I have mostly flowers and birds. On my legs it’s biker stuff.”

He did many of his own piercings, though Ringo enrolled another body piercer to do his eyebrows and tragus.

“Occasionally people say they think I look scary,” he says.

“Sometimes people say they have seen me around but they didn’t want to speak to me in case I was nasty.

“Once a woman came up and said, ‘are you crazy’? and I told her it was my body and I could do what I liked with it,” he recalls.

“A couple of people have been rude. Somebody said to me, ‘do you know what your face looks like?’ and someone suggested I could never work, looking like this.

“I told them I worked in gardening, and I had been employed by a lot of posh people.”

Most people react positively, however, and although he is currently single, Ringo tells me his distinctive style has not proved a problem when it came to romance.

Ringo, who still enjoys photography and tending his plants in his spare time, admits he is unlikely to ever stop adding to his collection of piercings.

“I would like another one across the bridge of my nose,” he muses.