Port Talbot has given the world Richard Burton, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Michael Sheen. It has also given the world a man with a baked-bean tin tattooed across his head, painted fluorescent orange from cape to eyebrows, who will greet you at his door in a lilting Welsh accent and show you around a shrine to the humble legume. "I could have studied hard to be the next Michael Sheen," he has said, "but I'm the next best thing. I'm like a full-blown actor - I just couldn't be bothered to read the lines."

He was born Barry Kirk in 1954, and for a good while he was, by his own account, an ordinary computer technician at the BP chemical plant down the road in Baglan. Then, in September 1986, at the Aberavon Beach Hotel, he lowered himself into a bathtub filled with baked beans and remained there for one hundred hours, for charity and for the Guinness Book of Records. Something rose from that tomato sauce that never went back under. It took a few years to complete the transformation - the deed poll came in May 1991, along with the orange face, the golden cape and the birthplace on Planet Beanus - but the die, or rather the bean, was cast.

What followed is one of the more improbable and genuinely lovable careers in British public life: a bean museum run for thirteen years from a council flat, a spell as leader of the New Millennium Bean Party (which once out-polled UKIP by some sixty votes), a shelf of charity records, and, in April 2009, at the Arts Club in Mayfair, the Eccentric Club's Great British Eccentric award. He has, across four decades of beans, raised somewhere close to £200,000 for others. He agreed to answer all our questions, but could not resist a pun in any of them - nor, frankly, would we have wanted him to.

September 1986. A bath. A hundred hours. What was the fourth day like?

It all began, believe it or not, in a charity shop, where I chanced upon the cover of The Who Sell Out, with Roger Daltrey sitting in a bath of Heinz baked beans. Something about it lodged in my imagination and simply would not shift - and I thought, well, why not do it for real, and for a good cause while I'm at it? So into the beans I went, for one hundred hours. That undertaking, exactly forty years ago, changed my whole lifestyle to this present day. Never in a month of Sundays did I reckon this half-baked record would end up leading me towards becoming a full-blown caped crusading superhero from Planet Beanus. The end was a moment of great relief and pure elation - down entirely to my mental and physical presence of mind.Captain Beany, 1986

When did you realise the name wasn't going to be temporary?

Before the bean-bath incident, I was already a busy charity fundraiser, forever changing costumes to show off my madcap personality. Being born Barry Kirk, and with a certain 1970s science-fiction series in the air, I'd been saddled with "Captain Kirk" - so I changed my name by deed poll, or should that be bean poll, to Captain Beany, in May 1991.

You've said you were a shy boy searching for an identity. How much of Captain Beany was escape?

It sounds bizarre now, but even as a young child I felt there was something different about me - as if I wasn't quite part of the human race, as if I'd been ordained to be unique and utterly out of this world. My upbringing cut me off from the outside somewhat, and I remember being enthralled by The Outer Limits and Torchy the Battery Boy, and reading comic strips of Superman, Batman and Robin.

Finding Captain Beany from Planet Beanus gave me my escape from modern life - my bean dream, technically.

Do Captain and Barry get along?

Umm. That's a question I often ask myself. Having created this comic-strip character and become obsessed with turning him into a questionable reality, I did sometimes wonder whether I was a creative genius - or beanies - and whether I ought to seek some medical attention. There were moments I felt on the verge of psychiatric assessment, that perhaps there was some underlying condition I wasn't aware of. I now realise there's a name for all of it, and I'm pleased to say I was fundamentally born to be an eccentric by nature. It's only thanks to the Eccentric Club, and the honour of winning the Great British Eccentric award in 2009, that I now recognise my true self and feel comfortable in it.

Does anyone still call you Barry?

Those of a certain age still call me good ol' Barry, of course. But, bizarrely, the younger generation who've grown up with me call me Captain Beany - especially the ones on the council estate where I still live, here in Port Talbot.

What has Port Talbot needed from you?

Since the early 1990s, this half-baked caped crusading superhero has enlivened the whole town and the areas around it. Some say I'm on a par, as a local 'celebrity', with our great thespians past and present - the late Richard Burton, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Michael Sheen. We've all got murals of us sprinkled around the town, at any rate. I like to think that over these decades Captain Beany has changed people's lives through his fundraising and community work - past, present and future.

Why would a superhero land in Port Talbot?

Well, why not! It was meant to bean, of course. I'm pretty well assured that when I finally reach my sell-by date, people will remember me as one ordinary fellow who lived one extraordinary life. What a legacy to leave behind. Bean there, done that.

Do children recognise you?

It's a case of Beanymania, as opposed to Beatlemania. The moment I step out to do my daily chores, I'm posing for selfies and autographs with the kids. I do love the attention - and it feels so good to be recognised for a bit of community kindness.

The most eccentric thing you've ever done, bean bath aside?

Last year I ticked a bucket-list stunt off with a John O'Groats to Land's End walk, from the 12th of July to the 25th of August, for the British Heart Foundation. That's 927 miles, averaging 21 a day, in a pair of beanjamas, raising £5,000 in memory of my late brother, Peter Kirk, who died of cardiomyopathy aged just 37. I was humbled to receive a trophy from the LEJOG Association. And I currently hold a wacky world record for a bath-of-baked-beans raft, 9.25 miles from Barnstaple to Bideford, with eight great friends, coordinated by my dear friend Andrew Bowers of Peak Online.

Which stunt would you never do?

Crazy as it sounds, I have an aversion to heights - even though I did recently manage a charity skydive. But I'll never do a bungee jump, not anywhere on the entire planet. I have this vision of either the line snapping or my aged back stretched to high hell.

For thirteen years you lived inside your own museum. Where did you sleep?

The Baked Bean Museum of Excellence opened in April 2009 - the ceremony performed by the writer and television personality Danny Wallace, no less. The living room was filled with baked-bean artefacts from around the globe, including the Branston Bathroom and, of course, the Heinz Kitchen. Happily, it was a two-bedroom flat, so I slept in one room and gave the other over to inquisitive tourists.

What was it like packing the collection into boxes - and what did you keep?

Alas, I had to leave the housing association premises in August 2023 due to alterations inside and out. I passed a large consignment to the Heinz facility in Norfolk and the rest to the Museum of Brands in London. I kept most of the American baked-bean tins and converted my keepsake kitchen into a little Heinz gallery. One notable item still with me in my beansuite is my unique baked-bean coffin - which will, of course, be put to use when I finally pass my sell-by date.

Would you open it again, if someone offered you a unit in town?

I did ponder rehousing the whole collection in a unit in my home town. But it would have meant all manner of red tape and insurance, so I reluctantly reneged on the idea.

Is the joke candidate still funny, now that serious politics wears a costume?

We need only hark back to the great Screaming Lord Sutch of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party to see how many fringe candidates are still going strong today. Count Binface of the Binface Party is another lovely spot of light relief in mainstream politics. Personally, I had a wonderful, entirely apolitical time as Captain Beany, leader of the New Millennium Bean Party, back in the early 2000s.

Britain's Greatest Eccentric. What did it feel like to win?

[Ed: Eyebrows were raised at the Eccentric Club when, in 2009, Captain Beany was nominated and accepted into the contest. We had famous poets, artists and members of the aristocracy among the nominees, and one or two members asked whether we were rolling ourselves into a circus. But it is worth remembering that many of the British circus's legends - clowns like Little Tich among them - were members of the old Eccentric Club and the Grand Order of Water Rats, and were often the first to lend themselves to charity fundraising. That social contribution is something the Club has always valued. Beany was admitted not for his extravagant public performances but because, acting in his own original way, he was making a real difference to the world around him: the public at large were the better for it, and he had brought a ray of sun and hope to a grey and downcast Port Talbot - and, being full of beans, went on doing so. And so he was admitted to the Club and to the contest.]

Winning the Great British Eccentric award in 2009 was one truly beantastic blessing. It opened doors for me personally, and I'm ever so indebted to that fundamental institution. Having the engraved award on display for all to see gives me such pleasure - and the knowledge that I've finally found my identity in life.

What does the word "eccentric" mean to you, after forty years inside it?

I shall embellish my entire existence as an 'eccentric' until the end of my days, knowing I'm in the great company of other established eccentrics here in the United Kingdom. I shall raise a toast to us all. Nil nisi bonum.

What should a club like the Eccentric Club be doing - and does modern Britain need one?

The annual Great British Eccentric awards are integral to it, I think. They've brought me so much hapbeaness, and I believe that with today's social media we can embolden others to engage - through podcasts and the like. Let's all rally one another for the rest of the twenty-first century.

A time machine. Would you use it - back to 1986, or forward?

I've always believed our future is written in the stars. What if I hadn't come across that album cover of Roger Daltrey in a bath of baked beans, in a charity shop? From a bath of beans to Great British Eccentric, caped crusader, half-baked record breaker and political candidate - I do sometimes wonder whether it was all meant to bean.

One truth, or piece of wisdom, for your younger self or our readers.

Be true to yourself. Live a life of non-conformity and be who you are. Be emboldened, follow your path, and immerse yourself in your own pursuits and dreams. You may hit setbacks - but believe, with all your heart.

And, finally: what would you like written on the tin?

Bean there. Done that. Got a life.

Captain Beany has raised around £200,000 for charity across four decades. He lives in Port Talbot, just off the Aberavon seafront, keeping his baked-bean coffin, which he is in no hurry to use.