Introduction by - Willie Rushton

I can remember the moment precisely when I decided to be a cartoonist. I think I recall Sir John Gielgud saying how as a lad he saw Dan Leno, or was it Danny La Rue, in ‘Puss in Boots’ at the Old Alhambra, Oldham and from then on it was to be the back legs of the Pantomime Cat forever. My own moment of truth was the cover of what must have been the first Giles Annual. (1946, I think. Correct me if I’m right.) A simple Tommy with a mug of tea and a wad standing amidst the ruins of Berlin was on the front. On the back, emerging from a cellar, with hands aloft and a white flag, a number of German Generals stood in immaculate uniforms and monocles and Heidelberg scars. From then on all I wanted to be was a Cartoonist. Tell the truth, I wanted to be Giles, but he was doing that already. I know I copied him like a fury - I’m certainly not alone in that. To this day, I still panic about plagiarism every time I draw a baby or a grand-mother. Funnily enough, it’s not the notorious Family that turns the eyeballs green with jealousy - it’s the backgrounds. I wish I could draw trees half as well. I wish I could use colour like he does. I wish. . . . (That’s enough wishes. Ed.)

The most important lesson I learned from a lifetime’s study of Giles, is that the drawing should make the reader smile, even before he laughs at the caption. That’s proper cartooning in my book. And in his book, of course, which this is. You are in the presence, gentle reader, of an Old Master. 

Enjoy.

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Notes

There are 30 Original Cartoons and then a series of previously published cartoons and a series of coloured cartoons and Christmas Cards.