I’m now going to look at the last of the BBC Children’s Annuals that hold my interest – the one which is labelled inside as 1960 – so I’m assuming published in 1959 if British labelling conventions apply here. It was edited by Ursula Eason (Assistant Head of Children’s Television) who also edited the previous annual. Published by Burke Publishing Company Ltd and the full title should be “BBC Children’s Annual Radio and Television” but that’s a bit cumbersome!
BBC Children’s Annual 1960 Cover, endpapers, title page
As we will see the artists in this annual are listed but I have had a hard time matching them up. But before we dive in here are the contents
CONTENTS
- Duel In The Sun by Ronnie Noble [photographic feature]
- Zodiac Quiz; Capricorn; Drawing by Leslie S. Haywood?
- The Wings Of The Morning by Rosemary Sutcliff; Drawings by ‘Sax’ i.e. Frederick Roberts Johnson
- Zodiac Quiz; Aquarius
- The Importance Of Parliament by Commander Sir Stephen King-Hall [photographic feature]
- Zodiac Quiz; Pisces
- The Grey Monarchs Mystery by Angus Macvicar; Drawings by Mike Noble
- Zodiac Quiz; Aries
- Spies Museum by Bernard Newman [photographic feature]
- Pan Beaters And Ping Pongs by Russ Henderson [photographic feature]
- Captain Pugwash by John Ryan (written and illustrated by John Ryan)
- Professor Foster Investigates Chinese Angels by John Foster [photographic feature]
- The Organ Grinder of St. Pauli by Margaret Potter; Drawings by Terence Freeman?
- Zodiac Quiz; Gemini
- Wells Fargo – End of the Trail; Drawings by unknown , one photograph
- Television: Before The Programme Begins [photographic feature]
- Flight To Freedom; Drawings by Edward Osmond?, 2 photographs, one map
- Filming Zoo Quest by Charles Lagus [photographic feature]
- Jack Ford Finds Gold by Constance Cox; Drawings by unknown, one photograph
- Zodiac Quiz; Cancer
- Football by Danny Blanchflower; Drawings by unknown
- Diving To Adventure by Hans Hass [photographic feature]
- Zodiac Quiz; Leo
- Courier by John Darran; Drawings by unknown
- Zodiac Quiz; Virgo
- Netball Notes by Rena B. Stratford; Drawings by unknown
- ‘Professor’ Stanley Unwin Explains Television by Stanley Unwin [photographic feature]
- Candy Bar by Joanne Symons; one drawing by unknown, [photographic feature]
- Up And Over by Rex Hays
- Zodiac Quiz; Libra
- Filming In Five Languages by Trevor Hill [photographic feature]
- Zodiac Quiz; Scorpio
- Man On The Move by Miles Tomalin; Drawings by Tony Hart?
- Zodiac Quiz; Sagittarius
- Answers To Quiz
“With Drawings by”:
- PETER CHADWICK,
- TERENCE FREEMAN,
- TONY HART,
- LESLIE S. HAYWOOD,
- NORMAN C[lifford] JAQUES,
- [Mike] NOBLE,
- EDWARD OSMOND,
- SHEILA ROSS,
- SAX,
- A[lfred]. BURGESS SHARROCKS,
- E[ric]. TANSLEY,
- GEOFFREY WHITTAM
- and STANLEY SMITH
The acknowledgements in this title reflect the fact that photographs were being used more and more, just like in magazines of the late 50s (see Lilliput and Boys’ Own Paper for example) but we do have a listing of the artists represented in this Annual (see above). However I wish they’d been in alphabetic order – or even better – in the order of stories they illustrated. If they are in order of appearance, then the one after Mike Noble – whose identity I’m sure of, would be Edward Osmond – and he did NOT illustrate Captain Pugwash; if this is an A-Z, why is Stanley Smith alone and added as an ‘and’?
I can’t even begin to guess who drew the endpapers or the figures on the title page. So I’ll start with “Sax” – thankfully he signed one illustration here and that led me to discover the nickname was due to his love of “the American Essex automobile” (Thanks to the Court Gallery). He drew for Punch, Everyman and Time and Tide amongst others and here drew “The wings of the morning” story by Rosemary Sutcliff here, the famed historic novelist for children.
However when I looked at his other images for this story I began to wonder if there are 2 artists at work here. What do you think? Page 11, the opening image, yes, looks like Sax. But page 13 looks cruder to me, but it’s unlikely two artists were given the same small story.
BBC Children’s Annual 1960, p.16 – art by “Sax”?
The next artist that’s easy for me to identify is Mike Noble, who I had the privilege to interview for a book. Here he is in full flow and must have created these images during his run on “The Lone Ranger and Tonto” in Express Weekly. Angus MacVicar was, among other things, the author of the “Lost Planet” series of boy’s sci-fi tales.
BBC Children’s Annual 1960, pp 24-32
Next, I think I can identify Edward Osmond as having drawn the two illos for “Flight to Freedom”. His washes are fairly typical of his work and I hope I don’t get caught out here with my identification, but having seen his work in many 50s magazines, I think I’ve got him.
Next I’ve scanned these Wild West illustrations, but who drew them? The figures are rather stiff.
BBC Children’s Annual 1960, pp 57, 59, 61
That leaves me with some other illustrations which are so hard to identify.
Tony Hart (1925-2009) was well known to children of my age in the late 50s and 60s -especially with his TV programme “Vision On”. I suspect his work here is the following four page article of which I’m showing two.
BBC Children’s Annual 1960, pp 121 and 124 – Art by Tony Hart?
Leslie S. Haywood (1902?-1977?) drew diagrams and maps for various publications including several for “The Sphere” magazine. Examples online show his linework to be confident without any distinguishing style that I can see, so which story did he illustrated here? The “Zodiac” quizzes mentioned in the Contents listing have illustrations accompanying some of them, and Haywood seems to use a linear stippling style on occasions and I can see this here. But…
Norman Clifford Jaques (1922-2014) has a John Piper look about him when I see his illustrations on the Internet. He was born, and lived in Manchester. He attended the College of Art and Technology from 1937-42, and was Senior Lecturer in Printmaking at Manchester Polytechnic from 1950-82. He won the Proctor Award and Giles Bequest Award for block printing in 1954 from the V&A. He was an illustrator and book designer and utilised woodcut, lithography, etching and linocut mediums in his expressive printmaking. (Thanks to PaperElephant for the details).
But I have no idea what he did in this title!
Sheila Ross, I am completely stuck with. I found that she illustrated The Children’s Pinocchio as retold by Roy Brown (published in 1960) but nothing helped identify her style
Alfred Burgess Sharrocks 1919 – 1988, was a painter, writer, ornithologist and teacher, born in Stockport, Cheshire. He attended Stockport College School of Art, 1933-7, the College of Technology in Manchester, 1937-9, then after World War II Naval service and a short period teaching at Stockport School of Art was at Royal Academy Schools, 1946-51. Held a number of teaching positions, including lecturing from 1967 at Llandrillo College of Technology. He was well known as a writer and artist concerned with birds and was in 1957 president of the Cambrian Ornithological Society, in 1962-7 being president of RCAmA. Mixed shows included RCAmA and NEAC and he had several solo exhibitions. National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, holds his work. Lived near Conway, Gwynedd (from David Buckman, Dictionary of artists in Britain since 1945). Of course one commission he is famous for in terms of children’s books is that between 1956-1963 where he drew illustrations for Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven adventures. But again I’d rather not hazard a guess as to which illustrations he drew in this book.
Eric Tansley (1916-1979) had work in lots of places where Raymond Sheppard’s work appeared. One example of which is in The Children’s Own Treasure Book (1947) where the ROUND THE YEAR articles (parts 1-4) are drawn by Eileen Mayo (In pond and marsh); Eric Tansley (In stream and river), Raymond Sheppard (In sea and on the seashore) and James Lucas (In field and hedgerow). Steve Holland has featured him on his blog – follow the link. If I’m pressed to state which artwork(s) he drew in the BBC Children’s Annual 1960, I’d say it was this one of a ‘candy-wallah’
Geoffrey Whittam (1916-1983) You can see from this first link that Whittam drew extensively and JaneBadgerBooks (specialising in pony books) state that his “horses and ponies are sometimes awkward, with oddly foreshortened necks and inaccurate legs. […] A Whittam pony will always have a thick thatch of mane […] be on the stocky side, and have an immensely wide forehead.” Does this help to identify which his work is in this book?
Stanley Smith (1893-1981) appears to have been a landscape painter from the results online – a few very much like Ronald Lampitt – in that they are almost orthographic in nature, and again I’m stumped.
Peter Chadwick’s work I found online shows a basic illustrator but competent at various subjects. Unfortunately that’s all I can say.
Terence Freeman has a style which matches a lot of this period’s artwork for children, using swirls for hairstyles and rather small eyes for characters. Could “The Organ Grinder of St. Pauli” be by him? All those curly figures and hairstyles, but the fourth illo here – the street scene – looks different in style once again. Can another artist have drawn this? It looks like Beryl Irving‘s work there, to me (she appeared in Swift Annual 1961, as did “Terry Freeman”) but she’s not listed here.
BBC Children’s Annual 1960, pp. 45-51
The next group of illos accompany “Jack Ford finds gold” and there’s a distinctive type of hair-do here plus heads seem to be drawn to minimise perspective difficulties. But who drew them? Is it Geoffrey Whittam?
BBC Children’s Annual 1960, pp. 82-85
Lastly for now a group of very stiff looking figures for the story “Courier”, but who is the artist from the names listed in the Annual?
That’s it for now – please let me know if I have missed someone obvious and I’ll correct this article
BBC Children’s Annual 1960, pp. 96-102
Visual Rants 