They hired Banksy for £50 then painted over his mural

For years people have tried – and failed – to uncover details about Bristol’s most famous, yet anonymous, graffiti artist Banksy.

Photos of him and stories of people who have met him are incredibly rare. But now a man who got the secretive artist to work with children at a youth club in the late 1990s has given the BBC an exclusive insight into the man behind the murals, just as he was about to become famous.

Banksy is one of the world’s most famous graffiti artists. His work has sold for millions of pounds and his exhibitions seen by hundreds of thousands of people.
But behind layers of paint, lost in time at a Bristol youth club, there’s a Banksy very few people know about.
On the cusp of international fame, the artist was leaving his mark – not only on the streets of his city, but on young people in Lawrence Weston.
Here, Banksy helped groups of teens in art classes, just as he was about to paint his famous Mild, Mild West mural.
“If you look at the photos, you can see the way he was working with the young people,” said Peter de Boer, the man responsible for getting Banksy in the building.
“They were engaged, having fun and sharing ideas. It was a true collaboration.”