Arkivhistorik
Letter, R. C. Coombs to MERL, 20 June 2011 – 'My father-in-law, F. C. Richards, farmed in Cornwall in the late 1920s and 1930s. He then joined the "WarAg" department at the Min of Agriculture for the duration of the war. // He later became a member of the National Agricultural Advisory Service (N. A. A. S.) working in Cornwall, Wolverhampton and then to Coley Park Reading, before retiring to Cornwall. // His main duty in later years was as a machinery advisor; visiting farms and advising on the technicalities of corn drying - temperatures, humidities, power consumption, and economics. // These posters are believed to have been issued in about 1962, and are by the famous cartoonish Norman Thelwell. // If they are of interest to the Museum, you are welcome to keep them. If not, please let me know and I will collect them as I would hate them to be destroyed.', Collecting 20thc Rural Culture blog [Thursday, 25 June 2009] – ‘Norman Thelwell (1923-2004) is best known for his eponymous pony cartoon books, beginning in 1957 with Angels on Horseback, that have been major sellers worldwide. But for more than 25 years he provided a regular stream of cartoons on rural subjects, often topical, for Punch and the national press as well as other published compilations such as The Effluent Society (1971) and Some Damn Fool's Signed the Rubens Again (1982) - following the ups and downs of country house owners opening their doors to the visiting public. // Thelwell was born in Tranmere but his love of the country was ignited by childhood holidays on a farm in North Wales. After War service, during which the military made some use of his natural artistic abilities, Thelwell studied art at Liverpool. This was followed by a short spell in teaching before a new career in freelance cartoon humour began to take off in the early 1950s and enabled him to live the rest of his life in the country, mostly Hampshire. Underlying the light-hearted aspect of his work, was often his own commentary on the changes going on around him. // In his autobiography (Wrestling with a Pencil, 1986) he wrote 'Although my object as a cartoonist was mainly to earn my living by amusing readers, it was also quite possible to express my own feelings on subjects, situations and events about which I felt strongly. Politics I have always found very boring and there was no way in which I could have become a political cartoonist. My interest lies in the minutiae of the human dilemma, the day to day problems of life and the way we are all swept along by events or developments which we feel helpless to influence. I seem to have touched at one time or another on almost every subject under the sun from combine harvesters to computers, rockets to ramblers, paraffin to pigs. But the predominant thread which has always run through my work is my love of and fascination with the countryside: the flesh and bones of these islands'.', Biography of Norman Thelwell, as described on the official Norman Thelwell website, http://www.thelwell.org.uk/biography/biography.html, accessed by MERL on 14/06/2013 - '3 May 1923 - 7 February 2004 // Norman Thelwell was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, on 3 May 1923. His earliest surviving drawing is a pencil self-portrait done at the age of 10, on which his teacher has written in red ink: 'V. good indeed'. He remembers always wanting to draw as a child and recalls finding drawing and painting much easier than other subjects - 'with drawing, the answer was always there in front of you - you only had to look'. His love of the countryside was fostered by childhood visits to a North Wales farm and was strengthened throughout his life. // He joined the Army in 1941 and, through the years of war which followed, both in Britain and in India, he always travelled with his sketchbooks. The first cartoon he ever had reproduced was an Indian subject for the London Opinion. // He took some evening classes in art at Nottingham Art School in 1944, where he met a fellow art student, Rhona, whom he married in 1949 (their two children are also both artists). After the war, he took a degree course at Liverpool College of Art and in 1950 he started teaching design and illustration at Wolverhampton College of Art. His first cartoon for Punch was published in 1952 and led to a relationship which lasted for 25 years and over 1,500 cartoons, including 60 front covers. His first pony cartoon was published in 1953 and, by accident, led to a lifetime of association with the image of the little girl and the fat hairy pony. As he says: 'I was a sort of unofficial country cartoonist, doing funny drawings that involved birds, cattle, pigs and poultry. One day I did a pony drawing and it was like striking a sensitive nerve. The response was instantaneous. People telephoned the editor and asked for more. Suddenly I had a fan mail. So the editor told me to do a two-page spread on ponies. I was appalled. I thought I'd already squeezed the subject dry. I looked at the white drawing block and wondered what on earth to do. In the end I dreamed up some more horsey ideas and people went into raptures.' The 'Thelwell pony' was born. // Thelwell left teaching to take up illustration full-time in 1956 and his first book, a collection of his cartoons, Angels on Horseback, was published in 1957. The first book produced from cover to cover rather than collected from drawings previously published was A Leg at Each Corner, published in 1961. This was serialised in the Sunday Express and led to the development of the strip cartoon characters Penelope and Kipper. // Thelwell's range as a cartoonist has gone far beyond ponies - fishing, gardening, house-hunting, motoring, sailing, dogs, cats, farming, stately homes, children and country pursuits have all been given the treatment. He was a master of sharp social comment and sheer zany humour, and the foibles of the British at work or at play were his favourite themes. He was also a serious landscape artist, painting in watercolour and oils. His 32 books have sold over 2 million copies in the UK and been translated into languages as diverse as Finnish and Japanese and his drawings have been used on many different kinds of merchandise including stationery, jigsaws, table mats, china, glass, door mats, socks and bedlinen. // A major retrospective exhibition of Thelwell's work, organised by Southampton City Art Gallery and the Cartoon Art Trust, toured various galleries and exhibition centres around the UK from 2003 to 2006.'
