A BELOVED cartoon created by a Dumfries-born artist celebrates its 60th birthday this week.
Fred Basset is a family friendly cartoon created by Alex Graham for the Daily Mail in 1963.
Alex was born in Dumfries in 1918 and educated at Dumfries Academy and the Glasgow School of Art.
However, it was to the world of cartoons that he directed his talents, as a regular contributor to Punch before his gentle humour found its way into other magazines and newspapers.
His daughter Arran said: “My father always wanted to be a cartoonist, not a teacher, not a painter but a cartoonist. He was told the streets of London were paved with gold, so he came down and he walked the streets knocking on the doors of magazines and newspapers, and he managed to get his first published cartoon in 1945, and it just got better from there on.”
In 1963, when Alex was at the top of his game, the Daily Mail invited him to create a family cartoon. The result was Fred Basset, who took his first tentative steps into the world in July that year.
Arran added: “I was 14 when Fred Basset first appeared and it completely changed my family’s life, because it was like dad had won the lottery. He was a well established cartoonist at that point and had cartoons in magazines like ‘Punch’ but the Daily Mail got in touch and asked him to produce a family friendly cartoon.
“He had no idea how to draw basset hounds or any other kind of dog, but he started with a six-month contract and here we are 60 years later. I’m very proud of that legacy.
“Fred Basset was and still is different than other cartoons, it isn’t laugh out loud funny but it’s not meant to be. It’s there to bring a little twinkle to the eyes of the reader. And that’s why dad was so brilliant because his gentle observational humour made the cartoon quaintly amusing. That was his type of humour, he never produced anything nasty or crude in his work and the readers loved it.”
After Alex’s death in 1991, 18 months of completed strips were found in his studio in East Sussex. Thereafter it continued as a family affair with Arran working with artist Michael Martin. The pair have now been working on it longer than Alex himself.
The strip is still created in East Sussex, and after 32-years of carrying on her father’s legacy, and with Fred’s big birthday fast approaching, the work continues to bring Arran joy, she said: “It was intimidating at first to pick up where dad left off, but Michael and I have been soldiering on ever since. Every day has been a joy and we wouldn’t have done it if it didn’t bring a smile to our faces.
“We’ve got lovely drawings going into the Mail on Sunday. Daily Mail readers will have their own strips to celebrate Fred’s birthday. It’s going to be a very sweet and charming affair.
“It’s amazing that it has carried on and that we’ve been wanted all these years and there’s never been a wavering from the readers or papers.
“It’s heart-warming, and we don’t intend to stop any time in the near future.”
