I suppose I should have known at the time. It’s not the first time someone has said ” I’ve got this great idea for you, but you’ll have to do the drawings for free”. Perhaps I should have walked then but I took it all on with my usual enthusiasm. Hours of unpaid work. But then drawing cartoons is not really work is it? Aaaaaaargh! I did the drawings and then waited to make my fortune from the entrepreneur who started me down this path to penury. Greetings cards were all that came out of it and I saw not … Continue reading Artists work for no money, but then it’s fun is it not? Scoot!

Continue reading And why not?

My almost 3 year old twin grandsons dislike having their hair cut. I was reminded of this when this drawing popped out of the archives. It’s from the book Some Missing Persons writen by my late friend Gordon Thorburn, with added contributions from myself as the drawer and the provider of inspiration. This particular chapter bewailed the passing of the traditional barber. It’s well worth a re-read from this link. I know I’m not supposed to like my own drawings but this is a favourite, not least as it was done years before the twins popped out, and the small … Continue reading How would you like it Sir?

Little drawing with the poor chap’s foot cut off. I used to do work for a company that specialised in improving signals for mobile phones. Remember when one used to wave the phone in the air to try and get some reception? I do. I recall going on holiday to France with the family and some work to be done, buying a mobile phone on the way to the ferry at Portsmouth, so that I could keep in touch with my clients while on tour of France’s deepest South West. I recall having to do some phone aerobics then too. … Continue reading Phone aerobics

I’ve just been doing some drawings for a client who is the son of a previous client and friend. So it’s good to keep connections. My new young client is in SEO and helps companies increase visits to their websites. He seems to know all about these things and has been heling me to get more visits to another project of mine: looks good on the wall Apparently putting links in like the one above help with generating visits, so feel free to click on it! Anyhow back to the drawing above. It’s simple enough really and it follows the … Continue reading Been there?

My Aunty Winnie was a cakemaker and a true Northerner. Whenever we moved house which was frequent, she’d turn up on the doorstep of the new house with a meat and potato pie. Her meat and potato pies were legendary, and delicious. Her husband, my Uncle Jack was a quiet kind of chap who would utter hardly a word. He’d had a career as a shop manager. Not a supermarket, they did not exist at the time, just a small grocery store. Whenever they came for tea, which was not that often, Jack would sit in the corner sucking on … Continue reading “Oooh! Just like bought”

I’m not sure of the randomness of algorithms but this is the result of shopping online. A simple task of looking and then ordering a doorbell brings up this suggestion and confirms that the computer is not always right. We have, like any self respecting middle class family, a comfortable supply of what we naturally call  “bathroom tissue”. What we do not have is a handy fire extinguisher, the other suggestion, which was the obvious result of checking out the toilet rolls. Continue reading Doorbell required, you’ll be needing a toilet roll then.

This is my late friend Gordon when we were walking the Red Stripe. I went to his wake just the other day and just before I set off I found this image of him taken in the 70s. It’s taken from a 35mm slide found in the corner with a load of other unrelated pictures. I suspect this was taken just before his feet got too blistered to carry on, which in the circumstances was not really surprising as the rucksack in the foreground was what I was carrying and the one next to him was his load. In true … Continue reading The Suitable Candidate

In a crisis everyone knows that the answer is to put the kettle on. I did this drawing in the 70s when we forget that we had loads of crises, and much tea was drunk. So get the kettle on, milk no sugar, industrial strength. Does Teresa want one? Continue reading Put the kettle on!

I’m in this picture, but I’m not telling you which one I am. It was taken in the early 50s when I was a pupil at Bamber Bridge Methodists School, which as the name suggests is in Bamber Bridge, Near Preston in Lancashire. I have almost no memory of the others in the picture, apart from my best friend Roger who’s in the back row and a lad called Scott, Surname I think, but he’s one of the ones wearing the NHS specs. Know the sort? The ones that would not slip down the face as they had curly bits … Continue reading I see my grandsons staring back at me.