| Norman Thelwell | |
|---|---|
| Born | 23 May 1923 Birkenhead, England |
| Died | 7 February 2004 (aged 80) |
| Nationality | English |
| Other names | Thelwell |
| Occupation | Cartoonist |
Norman Thelwell (3 May 1923 - 7 February 2004) was an English cartoonist well-known for his humorous illustrations of ponies and horses. Born in Birkenhead, he spent World War II in the East Yorkshire Regiment,[1], having signed up in 1941,[2] and was art editor of an army magazine in New Delhi, India.[1]
His first published cartoon, in the London Opinion, was an Indian subject.[2]
In 1944, he took evening classes in art at Nottingham Art School.[2] A fellow art student, Rhona, became his wife in 1949.[2] They had one son and one daughter.[1][2]
After Nottingham, he took a degree at Liverpool College of Art,[2] then in 1950, he took up a post teaching design and illustration at Wolverhampton College of Art,[1] but gave this up to work freelance in 1956.[1][2]
He became a contributor to the satirical magazine Punch, who first published his work in 1952,[2] beginning a 25 year relationship which resulted in over 1,500 cartoons, of which 60 were used as front covers.[2]
His first collection of cartoons, Angels on Horseback, was published in 1957.[2]
Known to many only as Thelwell, he found his true comic niche with Pony Club girls and their comic ponies, a subject for which he became best-known, and which led to a cartoon strip about such a pair, Penelope and Kipper. He also illustrated Chicko in the British boys' comic Eagle.
For the last quarter of a century of his life he lived in the Test valley at Timsbury, near Romsey, gradually restoring a farm house and landscaping the grounds which gave rise to his first factual book, A Plank Bridge by a Pool, which detailed the first two lakes he dug there. A third lake was later featured on the BBC’s South Today programme. Written much earlier, but published three years later, A Millstone Round My Neck described his experiences in re-building a Cornish water mill (Addicroft Mill at Liskeard, which he called Penruin), that was sold before the book was published. He always loved old buildings, and in his auto-biography, Wrestling with a Pencil wrote about his joy in the beauty of old cottages.