Sculptor and teacher, based in Cheshire, whose work was tinged with a wry humour. Roocroft began carving with an Army dinner knife in World War II. Studied art in Edinburgh and Manchester and at Slade School of Fine Art, where he won prizes for sculpture. In the early 1950s he joined Manchester School of Art, later part of the Polytechnic, teaching there for almost 30 years. Showed with MAFA as a member and elsewhere. Won an Arts Council major award in 1979. Worked mainly in wood and was especially fond of animal subjects as he “liked animals better than humans”. Roocroft believed in truth to his materials, one of his last works, a dead rhinoceros, being chosen “because that’s what the shape of the wood told me”. Sheep, in Manchester’s Castlefield Gardens, is one of his best-known pieces.