Features and Reviews

Birmingham school benefits from Brixham's sailing heritage

This summer, mural artist Bruce Jones contacted Brixham News.com with a plea for help in transforming the interior of a school library in Birmingham. Asked by Head Teacher of Lindens Primary School, Simon Griffiths, to makeover the library and general thoroughfare, the wooden ceiling and beams within the space suggested to them the possibility of turning the place into a ship's deck, and there was plenty of enthusiasm for the project, as the current crop of children were familiar with Pirates of the Caribbean!

Being totally landlocked, Bruce felt his best chance of gaining advice and nautical objects to fulfil his brief was to get to a port!  He said, ‘As I set about designing the room, I soon found the area needed filling with three-dimensional material that couldn't be found in local stores.' Through searching the internet Bruce located brixhamnews.com and four weeks, 3 emails and 5 phone calls later, Bruce came to Brixham.

In response to Bruce's request for help, the team at brixhamnews.com enlisted the support of local heritage sailing expert Bill Wakeham, Director of the Pilgrim Trust, who generously gave his time to take Bruce around the town to collect much needed supplies. Their first port of call was at chandlers Gundry Marine, where John Copik donated various nets and hessian sacks. Next Bill's shed offered up a number of blocks and pulleys, and Bill showed Bruce ‘a fantastic array of items including maps, ropes and a beautiful brass bell from the Pilgrim, which were not for sale', before they went to an enormous barn where more rope and lanterns were unearthed, and masts that proved to be too long for Bruce's car! Bruce also found time in his day trip to visit the Golden Hind, where curator Ed Fox showed him around, and Bruce managed to take many photos which provided inspiration for the final design.

From his trip Bruce succeeded in rigging up blocks with hessian sacks for the children to hoist up and down, as well as hanging furled sails to bring a sailing ship into the heart of the school. In three weeks Bruce completed the project, building small cannons out of discarded drain pipes, changing a square breezeblock post into a circular wooden mast, and positioning ropes from the wooden ceiling. The finishing touch to the heritage sailing experience Bruce wanted to give the children, involved the painting of ships from the Spanish Armada, as they looked out to sea, on the walls of the library.

Originally a graphic designer working on small scale pieces of artwork, Bruce has now transformed interiors in over 30 schools within the Birmingham area, and said, “I love seeing the reaction of the children after I've been in, and how the change can the effect the atmosphere of the school. Often the children want to take more care of something specially created for them.”

Bruce was extremely grateful to Bill for taking the time to show him around and provide him with the resources. He said, “Thanks for finding Bill for me, 'knees' and 'dead eyes' now have a completely different meaning!”

He said, “I'm always available to do talks, and if I can be of any further help to the school project, I'm quite prepared to go up to Birmingham and speak to the children about sailing.” Bill also complimented Bruce on the fine work he had done and hopefully the children of Linden Primary School will be inspired to come to Brixham one day to see first hand for themselves some of British sailing's heritage.