Norman Thelwell

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.

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.

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.

Left: "Keep well clear of rock when leaving harbour"

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.

Right: "The milk's on the step"

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 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.

Contributed by Adam Parker

(Published 30th Oct 2013)