Hope this isn't coming across as some sort of "Oooh, I think this is brilliant!" teeny fan bloggy-what-not!
Yet again harkening back to things from my past, and yet trying to shed light on things some people round the country, (world, HA! who am I kidding!), may have missed, may be missing out on.
Sunday mornings used to mean a walk to my Gran's, and on the way picking up her Sunday papers, one of which was The Sunday Post, a Scottish newspaper.
Its a bit like Peoples Friend magazine, no shock horror celeb stuff, just local quite quaint articles, used to love the letters page, where people would plea for a ball of 2-ply wool in duck egg blue to finish off wee Tam's cardigan as her supplier from Dundee had run out of it due to the demand!
In the middle of the paper was "The Fun Section", including jokes, puzzles, fun facts and 2 brilliant cartoon strips; "Oor Wullie" & "The Broons".
Oor Wullie, was a spikey haired , dungaree, tackety boot (hob nail boot) wearing youth with a penchant for relaxing by sitting on a metal bucket, knocking coppers helmets off with a catapult and getting into various naughty scrapes. If he was up to these sort of capers now, he's be ASBO'd, but having it's origins in the early 20th century, a clip round the lug and going without supper was punishment enough! (Call Social Services!!!).
The Broons were a MASSIVE family, 3 generations living under 1 roof, 10 people in total, and the premise of most of the stories was the Chinese Whisper, the family being so bloody huge that by the time the message had been passed to the person intended, its had been corrupted so much it was utter jibberish! But they could all sit round the table with a meal and laugh at it.
The social background to these strips is pure nostalgia and utter nirvana for grumps of a certain age, but I still marvel at the artwork, Its classic British comic art at it's peek, done by a gentlemen called Dudley D Watkins (GOOGLE him), this guy must have been on the equivilant of 40 litres of Red Bull a day, as not only did he do the artwork for these strips he was a major contributor to The Beano & The Dandy. If you get the chance the Oor Wullie & Broons annuals are available and they do a load of reprints from the "Golden Years", usually found in discount bookstores.
