WHEN ME MAM SAW ME GUZZLING GUINNESS DRAWING CARICATURES SHE KNEW I WAS A PROFFESSIONAL CARTOONIST!

What did my ol' mam do to encourage my  slide from grace into the dark dingy world of the cartoonist?.....In the beginning ,quite frankly ,not a lot !

My dad was the fellah. He used to be a graphic artist in the days when adverts were ink drawings and he was superb with ink . As an artist he was great , a damn site better than i ever grew to be . In his days in some intelligence unit in the RAF after the war he travelled all around Western and Eastern Europe and had beautiful ink drawings of buildings and churches and cathedrals which he gave to a thouroughly unimpressed young son. 

I remember he arranged for comics to be delivered to the house in the days of paper boys in the 60's and on a Tuesday evenin ,i was breathless with excitment waiting for the VALIENT, the LION, and esspecially the TV21 to thud to the mat along with the good old LIVERPOOL ECHO. Then one day he came home with a big bundle ...Only 4 years supply of the VICTOR comic, spent the next couple of weeks lying on my belly on the floor transfixed with the 'TOUGH OF THE TRACK'; 'BRADDOCK OF THE BOMBERS'; KILLER KENNEDY'....And on it went, jeez!..I was a 'pig in shite!'...Some of his co-workers in FORDS heard about the comic mad son and gave me dad bundles of comics ,ah happy days. I think my mum liked it as i was the quietest she'd ever known me to be .

I discovered the cartoonist RIGBY  in the SUN newspaper with his hidden little boy and bird in every drawing , dad'd help me to find them ,he helped me put a RIGBY scrapbook together. BILL TIDY used to draw the weeks news on GRANADA REPORTS  on a Friday teatime, me n' dad loved it as he zoomed through his drawings as he talked through the events of the week in minutes flat . Thats when i went from drawing spitfires and Lancasters as well as spaceships to silly squiggly cartoon characters. Dad even brought a few MAD  magazines from the lads at the factory. And i discovered DON MARTIN, ARAGONES, DRUCKER, et al !

These were the glory days when every newspaper and magazine had cartoons. Dad encouraged me to draw 'gags' as i made him laugh and he used to have some good ideas and he encouraged me to send stuff off and when i got stuff published  he encouraged me to hawk my stuff around FLEET ST !...Not the most fun packed experiance if your not used to rejection, but that was one way of getting used to it.

The potential cartooning genius had become a compulsive doodler while still at school , people still remember pictures i did of teachers in between Thunderbirds and Interceptors from UFO And Eagles from SPACE 1999. This period of honing my skills unfortunatly coincided with an intensive supposed period of study ,so maybe not too suprisingly my reports and exam results left something to be desired ,culminating in me getting my arse kicked out of a bloody good school. I could've salvaged something and done art, but chose Biology instead , no i don't know why !

Not too suprisingly dad was dissapointed ,but mum was raging mad !....Did some 'normal ' jobs and got stuff published  so eased the parental disgust over the years, but my teens and the following years got me lots of trouble and sackings from jobs . MAGGIE THATCHER started the govt enterprise scheme and i became my own boss as i'd started the live caricature work and i was doing studio work before the computers screwed it all up. Mum had eased up on me and was quite proud when customers were telling her how good 'her Tim' was !

Her brothers in Ireland working on farms and building considered drawing and esspecially drawing cartoons as nothing like a job and i was dismissed as a lazy waste of time much to my mums pain. But i started doing well, i had a daily newspaper strip and started on a range of greetings cards and for a few years was raking it in. I was on more money than 'the workers' who were knocking me ,i even bought the family home off my mother much to her disbelieving joy.

I think the main moment for my mum when she was proudest and able to show me off was one day in the RATHDRUM CARTOON FESTIVAL during the late 90's, she'd fought in my corner when anybody put me down ,apparently, but she came into the village and i was sitting there with the other lads drinking and banging out the caricatures to a long queue of people and spreading joy and wonderment to the visitors as we do. My uncle the builder couldnt believe his eyes and his ears after mum put him right on a few things. After that mum didn't have to put up with her lad getting stick. Ever since that day ,i think she was shocked and suprised and realised that i wasn't quite the useless deadbeat she suspected i was and ever since shes backed and supported me through the ,has to be said 'drought -ridden years we all suffer through. 

She says she always had faith i would be ok and successful, but i remember it slightly different, when she saw i was giving it a go she thought 'just maybe!', but she wouldn't stand for anyone putting me down and when i was earning and she saw us hammering out work and even doing jobs abroad she was amazed and suddenly proud..I'd won her over, eventually !

ROGER DALTREY: HE CAN STILL SING A MEAN PIN BALL !

My run-down Guinness soaked body is only just recovering from a few days down in the capital. As regular readers, there must be one or three out there...It's nothing to be ashamed of.....Well maybe a little ,just keep it to yourself and carry on reading your laptop under the blankets......Well as i was going to say , i was down in London and you'll not be too stunned shocked and amazed if i say it was to go and watch ROGER DALTREY perform TOMMY at the ROYAL ALBERT HALL. There! i bet your shocked , stunned and amazed.

We hit the big city and hit a few boozers quite soon afterwards. Later in the afternoon we met up with two caricaturists of my ,but hopefully not your aqaintance, a certain SIMON ELLINAS and a certain PAUL BAKER who forced us to drink even more beer .We gave Simon a spare ticket for the show ,i tthink it was on the roof of the R.A.H. We agreed to meet later ,shockingly ,stunningly and amazingly ...In a pub!. Just around the corner from the hallowed hall. The problem was we couldnt find the pub, so while Simon tried to find a decent 'spec' we retired to the bar. Whilst i gagged on the tin of Guinness ,because of the price ,my friend ,also called Simon, incidentally. Obviously a common ,nasty name , not like TIM. Well Simon (2) gagged on some Taiwanese lager ,for a number of reasons ,two being :It tasted of donkey piss with bubbles and it cost a bomb. But these arent big enough reasons to put a galavanting pair of northern lads off their 'pop', so we carried on guzzling away 'till a certain Mr ROGER DALTREY hit the stage. It has to be said him n' his band did a blistering performance ,his voice sounded years younger and was more than up to booming over the band ,who were a rocking bunch of chaps. After, they did a pile of real WHO oldies ,even LIVE AT LEEDS stuff, and pulled it off superbly. The biggest cheers of the night tho' were for a certain Mr PETE TOWNSHEND, who couldnt resist it and came on for two tracks. Both Simons agreed it was a great night.

The following morning Simon (2) awoke ,mentioned in his Geordie accent "worra grayte show tha' was!", let a loud fart out and rolled over to go back to sleep. Simon left London that day and i met up with a couple of caricature deadbeats and wasters in the form of GUY CARTER and later on PAUL BAKER They took an innocent northern lad to evil nasty pubs and dens of iniquity in the back streets of Londons fair city. Guy and Paul arent the most handsome of faces, in fact i'd go ,at a push as far as to say they are ugly as sin, but it was good to see their grotty visages again, and ,of course Simon from the day before. But the sun shone the Guinness tasted well ,i laughed more than i have for a long time, as KEN DODD would say in his analysis of "What is a laugh?"...It starts in the 'CLACK' and moves on up to the 'CHUCKLE MUSCLES'...Well ,my chuckle muscles were strained and pulled that day.

IF YOU AVOID SHOPPING WITH THE MISSUS BY WAITING IN THE BOOZER,YOU MAY AVOID THE SHOPPING TRIP, BUT YOU MAY STILL END UP FLAT ON YOUR FACE!

The other day the LEATHERBARROW rabble went shopping in the fair city of LIVERPOOL. Normally ,i trail along behind the LOVELY LYNNE like a good husband, faithful n' true. Actually thats not totally true. If i walk in front, she gets sidetracked by everything in every window she saunters past. Leaving me to march manfully on, until i turn to say something witty and profound, only to discover she's not there. This is a pain in the arse ,as obviously, i love her dearly and worry whats happened to her n' the little 'un in the hard brutal times we live in. That ,and the fact , she's driving and i cant get home without her.

Lynne is murder to go shopping with and i couldnt stand it any more after a few hours with her, me mam n' the little 'un. So, THE LOVELY LYNNE, gawd bless her cotton tights suggested i go for a drink and she'd meet me. So, for you SCOUSE boozin' sorts. I went into the CARNARVON CASTLE, just off CHURCH STREET. Its a little boozer, but do a nice pint of GUINNESS and i partook....Then again.....And again......

Now waiting for the missus to return from shopping in a pub seems a good idea, but it can be dangerous. Your stood at the bar minding your own business, absolutly no idea if your going to be there for half n' hour, or 3 hours....And ,aside from a few brief asides to others about you, you've nothing to do ,but drink. Then eventually ,you notice somebody who arrived around the same time as you, getting a little rowdy, and it occurs to you that, "Shit!..I'm knockin' it back a bit"....But i'm not of strong enough character and resolve to order a soft drink. I'm in the boozer 'till my beloved throws me over her shoulder and carries me home to the dog house, so may as well make the most of it.........."CAN I HAVE ANUDDER PINT O' GINNISSS OVER 'ERE , LUV, PLEESE ...UUUUUURRRRPPPPP!!!!!!!".....Do you know i could get to like shopping.