Lee Benson frsa has always been in retail and has always had several creative talents or gifts as he calls it including from an early age in his grandfather’s sweet shop in Dublin. He trained from aged seven on piano and gave his first concert aged 18.
In junior school he was top of art and other creative classes. He passed exams for Moseley Art school and King Edwards, choosing Moseley Grammar instead because more friends went there.
After school, he toured through Europe and the Middle East in a Fiat 500 over a three year period of time .
‘A degree in the university of life’ he states.
He was a sales director for ACRS,
a division of NCR cash registers and then joined a rock band which had a number one single in Ireland.
He co wrote the single for Coventry City who went on to win the FA Cup and was proudly awarded a Blue Peter badge on Blue Peter by performing the song live with the whole football team .
Benson was formerly the owner of a successful Birmingham art gallery called ‘Number Nine’ for 14 years.
He was sales director of a commercial gallery prior for 15 years.
He is a fine watercolourist with two sell out solo exhibitions and many group shows. Since closing the gallery’s doors, he has published eleven children’s illustrated books of which six were recorded for TV. He has visited over one hundred schools, performing his stories and has been guest author for World Book Day from as far as Dubai to Stourbridge.
He has nine books of poetry published with two new collections due for release early summer 2025.
Three novels,a ghost story and seven complete discographies in collaboration with A.Sparke.

During lockdown, Lee hosted for two years, a series of mindful art classes for senior citizens which took hours of prep and had up to forty seniors participating every week.
The success of this led to a contract for one year in real time and a new contract for six months will be starting in the summer 2025.
He has delivered several after dinner speeches on many topics related to art and his novels and has guest lectured at BCU to second year students on presentations and to budding artists.
Lee hosts a spoken word and poetry event once a month in Halesowen with up to fifteen performers at each event and a growing listening audience.
He hosts a radio show every Sunday interviewing authors poets writers and musicians on BlackcountryXtra called Listen With Lee.
He still gives piano recitals both jazz blues and classical, most recently at the 40th anniversary Birmingham Jazz Festival.
Being creative, left handed, dyslexic and dyscalculate has not stopped him from trying to push boundaries and help people along the way.
Having joined the Leaps and Bounds Charity as lead creative artist, he demonstrates sharing what may be done as opposed to what you think you are unable to do or labelled as not being able to do.
‘Creativity is essential to life’ says Lee