MOZER lost his appetite for illegal art after police seized his collection of paints and photographs – cancer gave him it back.

In the 1980s, Mozer’s colourful work adorned walls across Darlington, his vibrant art brightening up the town’s dull streets.

One wall captured his attention and as a youth, he would decorate it repeatedly, working with a friend to depict his ‘crew’, the Midnight Bombers.

Eventually, he was caught and police took away the tools of his trade, along with precious photographs of his creations.

After that, Mozer kept his hand in, decorating canvases instead of walls and staying on the right side of the law.

His return to the world of graffiti came after a shock bowel cancer diagnosis saw his health rapidly decline, leaving him in a life-threatening coma at the age of 45.

Soon after he emerged from the coma, the friend who had once helped him decorate his favourite wall urged him to get well again, promising to help him transform the wall again with him if he recovered.

A bold mural depicting a boxer and a logo for Ward Degnan’s Boxing Gym now adorns that wall on Burnside Road, showcasing a hard-won return to form for the artist who painted it while undergoing a course of chemotherapy.

He said: “My friend kept saying I needed to get better, to get back out there and paint that wall again.

“I grew up round there and it’s my wall, I’ve changed it loads of times over the years, illegally back in the 80s and legally now.

“I’ve been painting since 1984, the only thing I liked in school was art and when I saw the trains covered in graffiti in New York, I started going out and painting my name.

“I lost a bit of history when the police took everything when I was a teenager – it was like they took my left arm.

“Doing this made me feel like myself again, chemo can make you very depressed and I felt like I had nothing to live for.

“After I painted it, I couldn’t move for three days after but I managed to get it done.

“Rather than paint my name, I wanted to do something to support a local business and when I paint it again, I’ll support another one, or a charity.

“The kids from the gym love it.”