KEN White followed his Scarlet Lady around the world – but it might never have happened.

The Old Town artist, famous in Swindon for his massive murals, painted the iconic image that graced the nose of Virgin Atlantic jets.

Now 76, Ken is finally going to have his own retrospective at Swindon Museum and Art Gallery – after almost six decades making art in or inspired by the town. The exhibition will run from September to November.

At a talk organised by the Friends of Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, Ken spilled secrets from his life in the arts world.

Ken, who started his career in the GWR Works before studying at Swindon School of Art, revealed the artwork that took his name around the world might never have happened.

He initially turned down Virgin boss Richard Branson’s offer of work.

Ken revealed: “They phoned me up. I was working full-time at that point and I was meant to be doing another job in Cornwall.”

Ken had already agreed to paint a mural at the Britain in the Blitz exhibition in Helston, Cornwall.

Branson had seen a full colour advert taken out by Bayer, showing Ken standing in front of his 1976 mural of the Golden Lion Bridge painted onto the gable end of a house now opposite Jury’s Inn. The advertisement, featured in a number of major newspapers and magazines, made Ken famous almost overnight.

The Virgin founder wanted Ken to paint murals in his record stores all over the world.

He wouldn’t take no for an answer, agreeing to pay the Old Town artist a retainer of £18,000 a year – a fortune in the late 1970s.

“You work for me now,” Ken was told. “If I phone you have to be there.”

The artist, who appeared before his Swindon audience last month wearing his trademark woollen jumper and milk-bottle spectacles, said: “I went everywhere. All round the world – first class.”

He painted murals in Virgin Record stores from Milan to Scotland, Swindon to the United States.

But perhaps his most famous work came in the early 1980s. The Scarlet Lady, a US Air Force-inspired flame-haired beauty, first flew in 1984 with the launch of Branson’s airline.

Ken said: “I went to a Virgin meeting where they were talking about it. I did five or six drawings and they sat round and picked out what they thought was the best one.

“The directors each took one of the drawings home.”

The Old Town artist, who spent 20 years working with Branson, revealed the Virgin boss owned a number of his works.

Since his stint for Branson, Ken has taken on commissions for investment banker Jacob Rothschild, painting a trompe l’oeil historic 18th century town house façade onto the side of the Royal Opera House.

His famous faces of Swindon mural, which once adorned the gable end of a Prospect Place building, featured some of the town’s notable sons and daughters, including David Murray John and Gilbert O’Sullivan. The mural had to be taken down after it began to be affected by damp.

And in 2015, Ken was himself immortalised in mural form. His face was featured on a massive work painted on Cambria Bridge as part of the 175th anniversary celebrations of the Great Western Railway.