Description Book of Cartoons – Number Five in a series of five. 58 pages. Has a Wallsend Book Exchange stamp on front plate & original owners name written in biro on inside front cover. There’s a little tear to spine of cover. Pages have darkened with age. Measures 22cm x 18.5cm. Hunter Region based journalist, author & book publisher Greg Ray wrote a blog which has some amazing photos of Les & his WWII artworks, but you’ll have to visit www.phototimetunnel.com to see them. It’s worth taking the time. The following information has been taken from Greg’s blog and from Wikipedia. Photographic books and photos of Newcastle & the Hunter Region are also available for sale from www.phototimetunnel.com Greg Ray writes, ”During his long reign as The Newcastle Morning Herald’s resident cartoonist, Les Lumsdon became a household name. His daily drawings of blue-collar families grappling with the issues of the day captured the spirit of a city that liked to laugh – especially at itself. Born in Abermain in 1912, Les Lumsdon had an early ambition to be a newspaper cartoonist. His first jobs however, were in retail, at his parents’ corner store, then the advertising department at the Hustler’s store in Maitland. He married his lifelong wife Vera in 1939. During WWII Les signed up to fight, spending two years in New Guinea where he made pocket money drawing postcards that were highly prized by cashed up American troops. After the war Les trained at East Sydney Technical College and found work decorating the covers of girlie magazines of the 1940’s and 1950’s, such as Quiz Annual. When the Newcastle Herald advertised for a cartoonist, Lumsdon was among fifty applicants, ultimately landing the job that occupied him for the next thirty years and turned him into a household name in the Hunter Region. Les published five booklet volumes featuring his cartoons. The black cat, Caspar, ws as popular an identity as its creator. When Lumsdon punished the fictional cat for its failure to pick a winner in the Melbourne Cup one year by drawing it being drowned in Newcastle Harbour, the public outcry forced the artist to reincarnate his creation. It is said perhaps truthfully, that he once emptied 17 pens signing autographs at a Newcastle Show. Les Lumsdon retired in August 1977 & he died later that year. He & Vera had no children.”
