Caretaker paints mural of Sheffield school depicting its place within the city

Ray Phillips, 71, has worked at Mansel Primary School, in Parson Cross, for nearly 25 years firstly as a building supervisor before moving to a part-time role as a caretaker.

He has seen the school grow and change throughout his career and over the years has witnessed many students pass through the doors.

Ray, who paints as a hobby, was asked by school leaders to create the mural to feature alongside students’ own portrait paintings – displayed as part of an art exhibition – in an effort to show them that Mansel Primary is somewhere they should be proud to belong to.

He said: “I’m not an artist, I mess about with paints so we chucked ideas around I thought what I could do is paint Mansel school in the foreground surrounded by, not so much the iconic buildings, but recognisable buildings for the kids.

“Obviously there are also things like the Tinsley Towers, which were torn down, and the viaduct but I wanted to incorporate something from the city’s history, and the Blitz in Sheffield were part of that history. So, I did the steelworks and the Heinkel bombers flying above it – that’s just one part of Sheffield’s history – and then I painted other buildings that I thought were important.”

The mural – which began as an idea in September and features other places such as The Crucible Theatre and Weston Park Museum – was completed using acrylic paint and will eventually take pride of place in the school corridor once it has been framed.

Danielle Sapsed-Byrne, business support manager at Mansel Primary, said: “We wanted a mural of Sheffield for our children to be proud of where they came from and really associate themselves with being from Sheffield, knowing the key, iconic landmarks and being able to identify them and we wanted Mansel at the heart.

“We also wanted to see that Ray, who they know as the caretaker, has art as a passion too. The children came and asked Ray questions – the painting features the Old Queens Head pub and the children instantly recognised that it was from the Tudor times because of the black and white markings. They’re already relating their learning that they’re doing now to what is in the painting.

“It is to inspire the children and to let them know you can have hobbies and do anything you want to do, it’s hard for some of the kids and they need a lot of support to channel their aspirations so to have something like this is nice for them to see.”