Nigel Molesworth, as any fule kno
My very first job was in the Petone Public Library (or Municipal Library, as it was known in those days), shelving books after school. And it was within those hallowed walls that I stumbled upon the immortal Nigel Molesworth books by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle. How I loved Nigel and his cohorts of St Custard's, more than Searle's earlier and better known wild and anarchic St Trinian's schoolgirls (though I liked them too.) From the moment I saw my first Searle drawing I became a fan of his spidery, spiky illustrations and cartoons. I ended up buying all the Molesworth books, though they have long since been a casualty of my many house moves. So it was with interest and sadness that I read of his death, a few days ago, at the age of 91 (though to be honest I though he had died some years ago.) His fans are legion. There is a huge amount of media coverage in the Internet - here is a link to the Guardian's obituary.
In aprox 1966, I managed a London Art Gallery. We sold early English watercolours and topographical engravings. We had also managed to sign-up most of the well know cartoonists of the day to sell their original work through us. Searle was living in Paris at the time, and we had spoken to him about joining in with a big selling exhibition we were planning. I was just about to fly to Paris to talk with him when he decided not to participate..... I felt really deprived. I was so looking forward to meeting him.
ReplyDeleteApparantly he kind of hated his fame for the St Trinian series.......I would have loved to see his work
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