Norman Thelwell |
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| Norman Thelwell
is most famous for his humorous cartoons of little girls
and their ponies. This however only scratches the surface
of his life long passion for cartoons. He has had more that
30 cartoon books published on everything from Sailing to
Dogs. |
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Thelwell was born in Birkenhead
on May 3rd 1923, one of two sons of his parents Christopher
and Emily Thelwell. The family lived in a terraced house
which his mother kept spotless, Thelwell recalled that his
mother thought "anyone who didn't move the wardrobes
once a week was a bit suspect" When the young Thelwell
could afford it he would always take the penny bus rides
out to the country. |
| Thelwell could not remember ever
being without his sketch book, even though his school, Rock
Ferry High School, did not have an art room. His earliest
surviving drawing is a pencil self-portrait done at the age
of 10, on which his teacher had written in red ink: "V.
good indeed". He left school aged 16 to become a junior
clerk in an office. The second world war had already started
by this time and he joined the army aged 18 in 1941, where
he happily carried the extra weight of his sketch pad and
paints. |
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"Keep well clear of rock
when leaving harbour"
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It was whilst he was in the
army that he had his only experience of riding a horse.
He was serving in India and the horse bolted, leaving Thelwell
clinging on around its neck. It was towards the end of the
war while he was recovering in hospital that the idea of
selling his cartoons came to him after he saw a cartoon
in an army magazine. He was soon making a small but regular
income. |
| After the war he returned to his
clerking job in Birkenhead which had been held open for him.
One day he decided he had had enough and handed in his notice.
He obtained a government grant and went off to Liverpool College
of Art where he completed his degree in 3 years instead of
the more normal 5 years. He married Rhona Ladbury, who was
also a painter and they moved to a village near Wolverhampton
where he taught at the art college. He continued his cartoons
in his spare time, selling his first cartoon to Punch in 1950.
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"The milk's on the step"
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In a field next to his house
were two hairy fat ponies, with attitude! Their owners were
two girls about 3 feet tall and a bit on the round side.
Thelwell recalled "As the children got near, the ponies
would swing round and present their hindquarters and give
a few lightning kicks which the children would sidestep
calmly, and they had the head-collars on those animals before
they knew what was happening. I was astonished at how meekly
they were led away; but they were planning vengeance - you
could tell by their eyes." - and so were born Thelwell's
characters Penelope and her pony Kipper! |
| After 5 years of teaching, he final
realized that he was making more money from his cartoons than
he was from teaching, so in 1956 he became a cartoonist for
The Sunday Express. His first book, a collection of his cartoons
entitled Angels on Horseback, was published in 1957. Since
then he has published 32 books which have sold over two million
copies in the UK. He also produced more than 1500 cartoons
for the Punch Magazine.His books saw and capitalised on the
comic possibilities in the field of sports, |
"and willful destruction
of growing vegetation is against the rules"
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and in the class stereotypes
and social repositioning that occurred after the war. He
was never afraid to tackle the serious issues, including
factory farming and the damaged caused to the countryside
by the ripping out of hedges.
Norman Thelwell died on 7th February 2004 aged 80, leaving
his wife Rhona and two children.
The main source for this article was his obituary published
in the Daily Telegraph on Monday February 9th 2004.
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| Contributed by Adam Parker
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