Well actually just an afternoon, but what an afternoon! Collected by my good friend Mike we headed down to the River Severn at Purton. By way of a change no walk was planned but I’d determined that we should go and take some photos of the boats down there. These ships, to be more exact were rammed into the banks of the Severn there to help counteract the erosion of the banks by the river back in the 1930s. Now these hulks are a venue for people like Mike and I who consider them to be major works of natural … Continue reading A grand day out.

I’ve moved house a few times since doing this drawing, and the kids are grown up, or so they claim to be. I did this for a lady in the States who convinced me that it was a good idea. The company, her company, wanted to make some of my drawings into usable signs, which meant they would make the files ‘traceable’ by sign making equipment of the time. This is probably the reason the guy is driving on the left. I used to post off the drawings to her in California, and then wait and see if I got … Continue reading From years ago…

This does not involve music or sound, it’s a band of people who have a liking for what is termed CI. That’s corrugated iron. The Corrugated Iron Appreciation Society on Facebook to be exact. I’m not alone, there are thousands of us out there. We post pictures of ‘finds’ and over the years I’ve found loads. What qualities does the CI have to make it so attractive? It rusts beautifully for a start. In fact that may be the end as well. It’s usually but not exclusively in the country side. I love it so much I make drawings of … Continue reading I’ve joined a band…

It’s not something that one necessarily tells people, what you might like to have been if you started again. My early ambition was to work in advertising and I did, in a way. People were generally just great and I worked among people who had lot of talent and a sense of humour. It was the ‘right time’ in many ways : the 1970s. After a brief time working in an ad agency, I then went ‘freelance’ and started diverting towards just drawing for a living, for the people, unlike me, who had hung on to their jobs within agencies. … Continue reading A big thank you to people I don’t know, and some I do.

The last of the series about why one should always back up one’s files on your computer. A small mouse in the office might make inadvertent mayhem. This done for my good friend Robina Burton when he was Marketing Director of Christie Electronics in Stroud. They built back up systems for companies so that no company need lose their data, come what may. The computer and the fountain pen sort of date it. Linework on acetate and then painted on the back for those bright punchy colours by Linda, office background done in magic marker by me. Fun to do, … Continue reading Eeeek!

It’s all the fault of Christmas. The bin men are in a right old tizzy, and the neighbours are, like us, looking out of the front window to see who has got it wrong. We have the bonus of Sharon across the road who has never to our knowledge got it wrong. So it’s in ‘Sharon we trust’. The council put the new collection dates out on the web, but some of our number prefer to go against the grain and complicate the issue by putting out the wrong bin on the wrong day. These are the natural anarchists in … Continue reading The tyranny of disrupted bin day.

Perhaps I’m in need of additional Ram! ( My Goodness a computer geek joke, give that man a dig in the digitals ) Or perhaps I’m in need of back up. Here’s another in the series of cartoon type illustrations I did back in the 80s for my good friend Robin, then my client at Christie Electronics down in wonderful downtown Stonehouse, just outside of Stroud. He was, and is still, a man of just impeccable taste and judgement, choosing moi for his advertising campaign. What’s happening here…He’s been out to get a file leaving the window open and a … Continue reading Your memory is quite different to mine.

On these dark January days it might cheer you to take a good look at this, it’s not that long away before this sort of thing is all the rage again. This was taken in May last year Continue reading Just around the corner

Promises Auctions are fun events used to raise money for schools and the like. They can be fun, and the one I went to way back when my son was around 10 years old was no exception. One of the items on offer came about, as the father of another pupil at the small village school where Joe went, was the Marketing Director of Endsleigh Insurance, a locally based national insurance company that was doing exceptionally well. The company sponsored the UK football league at the time. The item on offer was two tickets to a top game almost anywhere … Continue reading “He dunt run…

In days of yore if you worked in a large office then there might have been a tea lady. These fine servants of the company would wheel around a huge tea urn on a trolley and dispense much needed cuppas to the work force, sensible really as the workforce did not need to leave their desks. Urn brewed tea and a solid digestive made for great productivity. The introduction of computers, those beige blocks with electronics everywhere were also coming into view. This drawing, done for a campaign to encourage people to back up their data, was for Christie Electronics, … Continue reading Expect the unexpected.

I’d no idea of the meaning of the phrase when I was commissioned by Radio Rentals to produce a calendar for them back in the 70s when I was really just starting on my career as a cartoonist. The artwork does not exist as far as I know, any more, nor does Radio Rentals. They would hire a TV to you for a few quid per month. Those tellies were generally walnut encased monsters that sat in the corner of many sitting rooms with their 3 channels ready to leap into colourful action at the press of a button. Remote … Continue reading Politically incorrect?

I’m a big fan. There are some cakes that benefit from the introduction of industry to their production and to my mind fruitcake is one of them. It’s the sort of thing that one ponders at this time of year. The weight and substance of a decent industrially made fruit cake must be dense enough to make the feet warm and keep a draught from creeping under the door, in this sort of weather. When I left college I did for a while deliver slabs of this stuff to various bakeries in the North West from a very large factory … Continue reading Industrial Fruitcake